Yes, as discussed in *The Jury and Consensus Government in Mid-Eighteenth-Century America* <http://www.constitution.org/jury/pj/nelson.htm>, William E. Nelson, communities in the 18th century were managed by juries and militia (and a jury was seen as a kind of specialized militia), with little government other than perhaps one part-time sheriff and judge. Militia was often called up not just for defense, law enforcement, or disaster response, but to perform community services such as repairing roads and bridges, erecting schools and town meeting halls, etc. These things were seen as defense activities. One was asked to care for those with smallpox because the disease was a defense threat. (And it is interesting that the understanding of disease as caused by an infectious agent was widespread long before Pasteur.) In an age when everyone was needed for defense, it made sense to make sure everyone could make a living and provide for his family. Care for the elderly was care for veterans who had done their part when they were younger.
Such a tradition survived in some places well into the 20th century. I remember part of that tradition still operating in the small town in Texas where I grew up in the 1950s, which goes a long way to explain why I founded the Constitution Society. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > -----Original Message----- > >> From: Jon Roland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> Sent: Jul 9, 2008 1:57 PM >> >> However, there is a social duty to respond to a not necessarily official >> call-up that is enforceable by exclusion from protection or ejection >> from the community. >> > > > Reminds me of something I found while researching a friend's genealogy. The > setting was a small Michigan farming community in the 1850s. The author's > recollections went like this: > > "The Dutcher family was stricken with smallpox. Freeborn Harry Banks was the > only one around who had already had smallpox, so the community forced him to > care for the Dutchers." > > The account gave no clue as to how he was forced, but I suspect it was just > the exclusion from the community. Do it -- or no one will speak to you, help > you with harvest or if your house burns down, or do business with you again. > My father grew up on a small AZ farming community in the 1920s, and mentioned > that if a house burned (a big risk when isolate ranches still cooked over an > open fire and were lit with kerosene lanterns), the entire community was > expected to turn out and help rebuild the house. > -- ------------------------------------------------------------------- Constitution Society 2900 W Anderson Ln C-200-322, Austin, TX 78757 512/299-5001 www.constitution.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ To post, send message to [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/firearmsregprof Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
