Online Library of Liberty - 24: A Moderate Whig [Stephen Case?], DEFENSIVE ARM... - The Diigo Meta page

• 14 Jul 08
  

  David Voelker

  • DEFENSIVE ARMS VINDICATED

     

    A Moderate Whig

    [Stephen Case?]

    • [NEW-MARLBOROUGH]

    1783

    Stephen Case (1746–1794). Neither the author nor the place of publication of Defensive Arms Vindicated (1783) has been determined with certainty. It is signed “A Moderate Whig,” dated June 17, 1782 at New-Marlborough, and dedicated to George Washington. In the text the author indicates that the piece was actually written in 1779. Scholars believe that a Stephen Case was the author because his name is written in manuscript on some extant copies of the pamphlet. This may be the Captain Stephen Case born in Orange County, New York, in 1746, who served in Colonel Jonathan Hasbrouck’s regiment of the Ulster County militia during the Revolution, and who died in Marlborough, Ulster County, New York, in 1794. In the Preface to the Reader the author addresses “my dear brother soldiers,” which bears out the identification to some extent.
  • I acknowledge that there have already been many able pens employed in stating the justice of our cause, and none, in my opinion, merits more our thanks than the author of Common Sense; but none, that I have seen, has, to my satisfaction, cleared up the lawfulness of the use of defensive arms against tyrants and tyranny, whenever they shall endeavour to deprive a people of their liberty and property.

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