Gun Control & RKBA
In reply to the discussion: Who are the Militia? [View all]jimmy the one
(2,708 posts)dwc: Coxe plainly and accurately states "The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." It just can not be any more clear and forthright than that.
In context, that particular quote, he was in militia mode; whether he believed in an individual rkba is unclear, despite your protestations. He might have been I guess in adjunct sense, since he was profitting from the sale of firearms postwar, his business & all, kinda like the wayne lapierre of the revolutionary era.
(edited): Tench Coxe (20yo) was the son of a merchant residing in Philadelphia in 1775. Coxe's company carried on a thriving business with Loyalists and the British army when the British occupied Phila ―a business which would have been impossible if the British military commanders had decided not to allow it. After radical Patriots took power, Coxe left Phil for a few months only to return when Brit General Howe occupied Sept 1777. Coxe remained Phil after British departed 1778, some Patriots credibly accused him of having Royalist sympathies and of having served briefly in the British army. Coxe's trading successes during British occupation lent considerable support to the charges, nothing came of the allegations, and the Revolution ended before Coxe became active in politics. Pennsy records 1780, 1787, 1788 listed Coxe as militia private.
When Revolution ended, Coxe formed the international merchant firm of Coxe & Frazier and began to take an interest in political reform. Firearms were among the many commodities dealt in for many years by the firm of Coxe & Frazier.. business records from 1786 illustrates the company's involvement in the firearms businesses.. Several New York militia ordered 200 stands.. Georgia militia ordered 500 stands .. Like most others in the arms business, Coxe made arms for private purchase (firearms sold in Mass), state militias (Ga), local militia groups (NY).In a circular to contracting gunsmiths, Coxe emphasized: "The importance of good arms is manifest.. The lives of our fellow citizens, to whom the use of them is committed, depend upon the excellence of their arms." Coxe demonstrated great technical expertise in the design and manufacture of muskets, rifles, pistols, and swords.. despite Coxe's expertise and dedication, the public arms program ran into trouble.
... articles published early 1811, Coxe's former political associate, Wm Duane, charged that Purveyor Coxe had accepted large quantities of inferior firearms. In his first article, Duane made the sweeping allegation "that arms we had seen, which had been manufactured for the MONEY (for we cannot say the use) of the United States, were better adapted to kill American soldiers into whose hands they should be put, than an enemy." Coxe rejoined in the same issue, flatly denying the charges and noting that all arms were inspected prior to payment.
Duane claimed that some rifle barrels lacked grooves (rifling), had grooves only 6" down the barrel, or had grooves too shallow. Some were made with unfit Dutch locks (firing systems), stocks filled with glue and sawdust. Hessian or Hanoverian arms needed inspecting. "There were 900 pairs of pistols, but not one pair fit for public service." Duane insinuated that in America there were those who placed "a military force before its enemy with saw dust cartridges or balls too large for the calibre, or with rifles without touchholes, and without spiral grooves, and of which 8 out of 18 burst on the proof with powder only of 135, whilst the true proof should be of the standard of 150."http://www.madisonbrigade.com/t_coxe.htm contends coxe supported individual rkba, if so it appears to have been moreso the profit motive, eh?