whenever the necessity of the case justifies it. And it is a sufficient
and legal defence for a person accused of using arms against the
government, if he can show, to the satisfaction of a jury, or even
any one of a jury, that the law he resisted was an unjust one.

In the American State constitutions also, this right of resistance to
the oppressions of the government is recognized, in various ways,
as a natural, legal, and constitutional right. In the first place, it is
so recognized by provisions establishing the trial by jury; thus
requiring that accused persons shall be tried by "the country,"
instead of the government. In the second place, it is recognized by
many of them, as, for example, those of Massachusetts, Maine,
Vermont, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan,
Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and
Florida, by provisions expressly declaring that the people shall
have the right to bear arms. In many of them also, as, for example,
those of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Florida,
Iowa, and Arkansas, by provisions, in their bills of rights, declaring
that men have a natural, inherent, and inalienable right of
"defending their lives and liberties." This, of course, means that
they have a right to defend them against any injustice on the part
of the government, and not merely on the part of private
individuals; because the object of all bills of rights is to assert the
rights of individuals and the people, as against the government,
and not as against private persons. It would be a matter of
ridiculous supererogation to assert, in a constitution of
government, the natural right of men to defend their lives and
liberties against private trespassers.