Militia Act of 1903 (32 Stat. 775) - AKA the Dick Act

[East_TN_Patriot]

I've seen this floating around on Facebook and thought it best to nip it in the bud from the get-go:
 

 

The Dick Act of 1902 also known as the Efficiency of Militia Bill H.R. 11654, of June 28, 1902 invalidates all so-called gun-control laws. It also divides the militia into three distinct and separate entities.

 

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The three classes H.R. 11654 provides for are the organized militia, henceforth known as the National Guard of the State, Territory and District of Columbia, the unorganized militia and the regular army.

The militia encompasses every able-bodied male between the ages of 18 and 45. All members of the unorganized militia have the absolute personal right and 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms of any type, and as many as they can afford to buy.

The Dick Act of 1902 cannot be repealed; to do so would violate bills of attainder and ex post facto laws which would be yet another gross violation of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

The President of the United States has zero authority without violating the Constitution to call the National Guard to serve outside of their State borders.

The National Guard Militia can only be required by the National Government for limited purposes specified in the Constitution (to uphold the laws of the Union; to suppress insurrection and repel invasion).

These are the only purposes for which the General Government can call upon the National Guard.

Attorney General Wickersham advised President Taft, "the Organized Militia (the National Guard) can not be employed for offensive warfare outside the limits of the United States."

The Honorable William Gordon, in a speech to the House on Thursday, October 4, 1917, proved that the action of President Wilson in ordering the Organized Militia (the National Guard) to fight a war in Europe was so blatantly unconstitutional that he felt Wilson ought to have been impeached.

During the war with England an attempt was made by Congress to pass a bill authorizing the president to draft 100,000 men between the ages of 18 and 45 to invade enemy territory, Canada.

The bill was defeated in the House by Daniel Webster on the precise point that Congress had no such power over the militia as to authorize it to empower the President to draft them into the regular army and send them out of the country.

The fact is that the President has no constitutional right, under any circumstances, to draft men from the militia to fight outside the borders of the USA, and not even beyond the borders of their respective states.

This is total and absolute B.S.  Your first clue is the claim that repeal of this law would violate bills of attainder and ex post facto laws.  Presuming you understand what these legal concepts mean (and if you don't you should, so go look it up because they are important), it's clear that this claim simply makes no sense.  Your second clue is that the claim that it specifically invalidates all gun-control laws.  Again, this simply makes no sense because there were no gun-control laws in 1902.  Third clue is that this blog entry is the exact same text as found on numerous other blogs, and none provide any quotes or sources to back their claims up. 

Using one of the databases I have access to, I was able to locate the original text of the Militia Act of 1903.  It wasn't easy to find.  However, I can confidently say that virtually none of the claims in the blog post are true.  Here is a link to the PDF document I have saved in my public folder in Dropbox.  If it works correctly, you can read this law yourself.  If I have missed something, please feel free to point it out.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/44465921/32Stat775.pdf

 

 

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Glad we cleared that up because I didn't think those things could stop a future congress from acting, either. I just couldn't find

anything out about it. Thanks.

[TGO David]

Good post.  Pinning it to the top so that it can be referenced easily.

[East_TN_Patriot]

One other point. The post then compiles a variety of historical "facts" to "prove" that the National Guard can't be used in a foreign war. These comments are nothing more than randomly selected comments lacking context and the full background history. Just because people have onpinons about policy, that doesn't mean that's what the law said then or how it has changed since. It seems that the point of this post is to say that the Dick Act guarantees the right to keep and bear arms by clearing defining all men age 18-45 as part of the unorganized militia, and even though we are the militia, the government can't force us to fight outside of the US (perhaps a political commentary on our current use of the National Guard in the Middle East), but none of this is correct.

[JohnC]

This is floating around Facebook now. I googled it and found a blog that has a little more of the court rulings detailed:

 

 

 

To all: Here’s more proof that there is no power for the federal government to disarm Americans. The Dick Act of 1902 is one of our safeguards!

 

Diane Feinstein is leading a group of errant public officials, who are willing to operate against our most essential laws of the United States. The Dick Act protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

 

To participate in “The Global Plan” to gradually and completely disarm American citizens, bit-by-bit (which is what IS really going on), and deny the American citizens their rightful militia duties which the Constitution orders of them, should be grounds for a dismissal charge against Senator Feinstein!

 

It is, indeed, a grievous offense against the United States Constitution to attempt to slowly and completely disarm the American people! Feinstein isn’t just seeking to ban our guns — it is our authority she intends to ban! This gall is by far a much greater tragedy than that which happened in Connecticut. The General and Complete Disarmament Law (Pub. Law 87-297) is the basis upon which Senator Diane Feinstein makes her decisions. Here is a solution: the “Dick Act” — a very important law for our protection .. Circulate to your lists.

 

ARE THEY TRYING TO HIDE THIS?

BECAUSE IT’S UN-REPEALABLE?

“Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American. 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.”

 

–Tenche Coxe

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG RECORD:

LINK: Library of Congress LCCN Permalink 96190993

DICK ACT of 1902… CAN’T BE REPEALED (GUN CONTROL FORBIDDEN) – Protection Against Tyrannical Government

 

DICK ACT of 1902 . . .

CAN’T BE REPEALED (GUN CONTROL FORBIDDEN) The Trump Card Enacted by the Congress Further Asserting the Second Amendment as Untouchable

 

The Dick Act of 1902 also known as the Efficiency of Militia Bill H.R. 11654, of June 28, 1902 invalidates all so-called gun-control laws. It also divides the militia into three distinct and separate entities.

 

The three classes H.R. 11654 provides for are the organized militia, henceforth known as the National Guard of the State, Territory and District of Columbia, the unorganized militia and the regular army. The militia encompasses every able-bodied male between the ages of 18 and 45. All members of the unorganized militia have the absolute personal right and 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms of any type, and as many as they can afford to buy.

 

The Dick Act of 1902 cannot be repealed; to do so would violate bills of attainder and ex post facto laws which would be yet another gross violation of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The President of the United States has zero authority without violating the Constitution to call the National Guard to serve outside of their State borders.

 

The National Guard Militia can only be required by the National Government for limited purposes specified in the Constitution (to uphold the laws of the Union; to suppress insurrection and repel invasion). These are the only purposes for which the General Government can call upon the National Guard.

 

Attorney General Wickersham advised President Taft, “the Organized Militia (the National Guard) can not be employed for offensive warfare outside the limits of the United States.”

 

The Honorable William Gordon, in a speech to the House on Thursday, October 4, 1917, proved that the action of President Wilson inl that he felt Wilson ought to have been impeached.

 

During the war with England an attempt was made by Congress to pass a bill authorizing the president to draft 100,000 men between the ages of 18 and 45 to invade enemy territory, Canada. The bill was defeated in the House by Daniel Webster on the precise point that Congress had no such power over the militia as to authorize it to empower the President to draft them into the regular army and send them out of the country.

 

The fact is that the President has no constitutional right, under any circumstances, to draft men from the militia to fight outside the borders of the USA, and not even beyond the borders of their respective states. Today, we have a constitutional LAW which still stands in waiting for the legislators to obey the Constitution which they swore an oath to uphold.

 

Charles Hughes of the American Bar Association (ABA) made a speech which is contained in the Appendix to Congressional Record, House, September 10, 1917, pages 6836-6840 which states: “The militia, within the meaning of these provisions of the Constitution is distinct from the Army of the United States.” In these pages we also find a statement made by Daniel Webster, “that the great principle of the Constitution on that subject is that the militia is the militia of the States and of the General Government; and thus being the militia of the States, there is no part of the Constitution worded with greater care and with more scrupulous jealousy than that which grants and limits the power of Congress over it.”

 

“This limitation upon the power to raise and support armies clearly establishes the intent and purpose of the framers of the Constitution to limit the power to raise and maintain a standing army to voluntary enlistment, because if the unlimited power to draft and conscript was intended to be conferred, it would have been a useless and puerile thing to limit the use of money for that purpose. Conscripted armies can be paid, but they are not required to be, and if it had been intended to confer the extraordinary power to draft the bodies of citizens and send them out of the country in direct conflict with the limitation upon the use of the militia imposed by the same section and article, certainly some restriction or limitation would have been imposed to restrain the unlimited use of such power.”

The Honorable William Gordon

 

More Info

With over 300 Million guns in the United States, the federal CORPORATE government (federal gov’t defined as corporation under 28 U.S.C. Section 3002 (15) and the states are subdivisions of the corporation, 28 U.S.C. Section 3002 (10), cannot ban arms or stop people from defending themselves against a tyrannical government. I read somewhere that just the State of North Carolina can call up 20-30 divisions of unorganized militia (would be about 200,000-300,000 armed North Carolinians) on a moment’s notice. Imagine the State of Texas or Oklahoma if that’s the case?

 

Amazingly, even if the US tries to ban all arms through backdoor measures like domestic violence laws (Violence Against Women Act, 18 U.S.C. Section 922 (g)) or through an unconstitutional U.N. declaration adopted by our current Marxist unconstitutional Congress, no treaty can supercede the Constitution:

“This [Supreme] Court has regularly and uniformly recognized the supremacy of the Constitution over a treaty.” – Reid v. Covert, October 1956, 354 U.S. 1, at pg 17. This case involved the question: Does the NATO Status of Forces Agreement (treaty) supersede the U.S. Constitution? Keep reading. The Reid Court (U.S. Supreme Court) held in their Opinion that, “… No agreement with a foreign nation can confer power on the Congress, or any other branch of government, which is free from the restraints of the Constitution. Article VI, the Supremacy clause of the Constitution declares, “This Constitution and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all the Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land…”

 

“There is nothing in this language which intimates that treaties and laws enacted pursuant to them do not have to comply with the provisions of the Constitution nor is there anything in the debates which accompanied the drafting and ratification which even suggest such a result…”

 

“It would be manifestly contrary to the objectives of those who created the Constitution, as well as those who were responsible for the Bill of Rights – let alone alien to our entire constitutional history and tradition – to construe Article VI as permitting the United States to exercise power UNDER an international agreement, without observing constitutional prohibitions.” (See: Elliot’s Debates 1836 ed. – pgs 500-519).

 

“In effect, such construction would permit amendment of that document in a manner not sanctioned by Article V. The prohibitions of the Constitution were designed to apply to all branches of the National Government and they cannot be nullified by the Executive or by the Executive and Senate combined.”

Did you understand what the Supreme Court said here? No Executive Order, Presidential Directive, Executive Agreement, no NAFTA, GATT/WTO agreement/treaty, passed by ANYONE, can supersede the Constitution. FACT. No question!

 

At this point the Court paused to quote from another of their Opinions; Geofroy v. Riggs, 133 U.S. 258 at pg. 267 where the Court held at that time that,

“The treaty power as expressed in the Constitution, is in terms unlimited except by those restraints which are found in that instrument against the action of the government or of its departments and those arising from the nature of the government itself and of that of the States. It would not be contended that it extends so far as to authorize what the Constitution forbids, or a change in the character of the government, or a change in the character of the States, or a cession of any portion of the territory of the latter without its consent.”

 

Assessing the GATT/WTO parasitic organism in light of this part of the Opinion, we see that it cannot attach itself to its host (our Republic or States) in the fashion the traitors in our government wish, without our acquiescing to it.

 

The Reid Court continues with its Opinion:

“This Court has also repeatedly taken the position that an Act of Congress, which MUST comply with the Constitution, is on full parity with a treaty, the statute to the extent of conflict, renders the treaty null. It would be completely anomalous to say that a treaty need not comply with the Constitution when such an agreement can be overridden by a statute that must conform to that instrument.”

 

The U.S. Supreme court could not have made it more clear : TREATIES DO NOT OVERRIDE THE CONSTITUTION, AND CANNOT, IN ANY FASHION, AMEND IT !!! CASE CLOSED.

 

Dick Act of 1902 Is One of Our Safeguards | Peace . Gold . Liberty

 

 

 

Some info here: http://archive.org/stream/cu31924030724896#page/n13/mode/2up

Edited January 25, 2013 by JohnC

[East_TN_Patriot]

Yes, that's the long version that's going around.  The overall point of the last section is correct.  The federal government cannot legally pass a law or sign onto a treaty that violates the Constitution.  

Of course, the part about the DIck Act is basically identical to what I posted and is incorrect.