Tench Coxe was arguably one of the more obscure American Founding Fathers. Unlike Thomas Jefferson or Alexander Hamilton, he did not establish his own political philosophy and a political party to champion it. Although he served in the Federal Government during George Washington’s Presidency, Coxe served under Hamilton in the Department of the Treasury. His loyalties were open to question by Americans from the American Revolution to the Washington’s Presidency. The man was claimed to be a lot of things and perhaps a discussion on what I had found on Coxe would shed light on what he might have been.

There are several recurring ideas that were strictly those of Coxe. On the one hand, he advocated for the necessity of the Federal and State Governments’ involvements in the US economy, specifically banking and land ownership. While banks should be brought under Federal oversight, the Federal Government should also be able to acquire land from the States and even be the final authority on the Value of the land and whatever buildings were constructed on the premises. Yet on the other hand, he also promoted the idea of Economic Planning as a joint endeavor between the State and Federal Government. This proposal for Economic Planning was justified for the purposes of establishing new towns and cities dedicated to manufacturing and allowing Americans to reside further from the coastal States. These locations would later become known to contemporary Americans as the Rust Belt and Midwest States.         

What is notable is what Coxe suggested on how to finance those endeavors as they would be the Domains of the State Governments. Instead of imposing taxation, State Governments would establish special Economic Organizations whose purposes were to oversee the industrial development of these new towns and cities. These Economic Organizations would raise funding from State residents, with undeveloped land appropriated either from the Federal Government or from existing State residents under Imminent Domain. In the case of the former, the Federal Government must be capable of exercising National Sovereignty over any unowned lands that compromise the United States of America.

It is also significant that Coxe anticipated the rise of American Capitalism and all the problems that would arise from its existence in the centuries after the Revolutionary War. There would be a domestic and foreign component. The former would come from the commoditization of lands not owned by the American people, the States, or the Federal Government but by the “Real Estate Market.” Additionally, the rise of a Fractional-Reserve Banking System would also be part and parcel to the rise of the Financial Markets, which was what happened in New York City when it established Wall Street as America’s premier financial hub. Regarding the foreign component, dependency on foreign Kapital and Schuld has the potential to undermine American economic independence and by extension political independence. It then follows that a more Autarkic, not Protectionist, approach to international trade should be upheld by the Federal Government. This would tie in with concurring Federalist arguments from Hamilton and others for the US to consolidate itself east of the Mississippi River. Hamilton was fixated on bringing Florida into the US to allow access to the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.

One needs to wonder why Coxe was in favor of these borderline Socialistic ideas. American Capitalism did not develop in a vacuum nor was America somehow predestined to become the vehicle to realizing an Empire of Liberty for Neoliberalism. Even so, is it possible that these proposals are congruent with Coxe’s concurring proposals for Amendment II? The historical evidence, given their revisitation since the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of the 1990s, appears to suggest as much.

Coxe believed that the Federal Government should give special attention to America’s Armaments Industry. Not just the Military-Industrial Complex or the manufacturers responsible for arming and supplying the US armed forces, but also the manufacturers that produce firearms for civilian ownership. Policies should be in place to ensure that those manufacturers would be able to continue operating during peacetime. In the case of civilian arms manufacturing, Coxe’s advocacy of Amendment II is predicated on the following:   

• The “Militia” was defined as the America people tasked with holding the Military-Industrial Complex accountable for what they do with the funds allocated to them by the Federal Government. It entails being concerned over how much is being spent on the development and manufacture of the US arsenal and their intended applications. Not to mention exercising vigilance over any rogue miliary activities that will threaten the values and principles on which this Union was founded.
• Under wartime conditions, the “Militia” must serve as an auxiliary force independent of the US armed forces (i.e. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Space Force) and its State Reserves (i.e. National Guard and Air National Guard) components. Its mobilization comes after the mobilization of the State Reserves.  
• Insofar as “security” is intertwined with the readiness for national defense and therefore political-economic independence, this Militia must be “well-regulated” by being beholden to Congress in peacetime and answerable to the Presidency in wartime. While the Federalists and Coxe were both in agreement here, there seems to be a divergence on how to implement this.  
• Although related to the preceding points, the “Right to Keep and Bear Arms” also pertains to the usual reasons for the American people to own firearms. People should be allowed to hunt and participate in competitive sports. They should even be able to defend themselves against wild animals, criminals, and the possibility that the Military-Industrial Complex might go rogue.

In contemporary America, especially since the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of the 1990s, American legal scholars (to the chagrin of historians specializing in US History) have been coopting Coxe’s positions on Amendment II. It is an important development because so much of the discussion has been predicated on defining the “Militia” and where the lines between “civilian” and “military” begin and in. It takes its most obvious form as the question over how to address gun violence, up and to including proposals to restrict which firearms should be owned and maintained.

When one observes the recent development of civilian firearms since the 1980s, one will discover that efforts have been made to allow for the manufacture, possession, sale, transportation, and importation of military-like firearms. More Americans are living in cities rather than small towns and they are spending more time performing mental tasks (working in an office and playing video games) as opposed to performing physical tasks (working in a factory and competing in sports). Less young people are going outside to enjoy camping, hunting, fishing, boating, and so forth. Even fewer are finding the time and money to participate in competitive shooting or getting involved in historical reenactments (such as World War II or Civil War reenactments), the latter of which should never be conflated with cosplaying at an anime convention. Let us not forget that there is a certain Artform to be found in professional gunsmithing, which has proven itself to be a successor of sorts to the professional blacksmithing of prior centuries.

The trend accounts for why civilian firearms manufacturers are catering to a shrinking and aging demographic that has a harder time justifying why they should purchase another non-military firearm that they hope will never be needed someday. It even explains why the justifications for owning a firearm are constantly being predicated on self-defense as opposed to the variety of other reasons that I just outlined. When civilian firearms manufacturers try to justify purchasing their purchases, it oftentimes involves invoking fear of the unknown, the unpredictable, the unexpected. The rationale tends to follow a recurring script:

A given firearm is claimed to invoke a spirit of freedom from external or internal enemies, with special emphasis on the internal enemies. It defers to the authority of certain Founding Fathers, specifically Tench Coxe, without providing the original historical context and economic policies. It extols the Legal Rights of the military or paramilitary esprit de corps without paying much attention to their Legal Duties and Constitutional Obligations. By purchasing that firearm, one gains the power to free themselves from what they perceive as Meaningless Work in this Late-Modernity that Neoliberalism maintains for itself. The power itself stems from the pleasure, the experience, of handling it, even while shooting at a target downrange inside a firing range. In essence, a form of escapism.    

The logic repeats itself among American gun enthusiasts at gun shows, where I find comparable parallels to American Anime Otakus at anime conventions. Whether we are talking about a particular firearm or a particular anime, we are dealing with people engaged in a subculture. A gunowner whose cosplay includes a firearm will be prevented from entering the anime convention, not for the safety of others but because they are out of uniform. Conversely, an Anime Otaku selling weapons inspired by a particular Manga or Light Novel at a gun show will also be out of place at a gun show because they too are out of uniform. Never shall the two meet at the same place and at the same time because any synthesis actually undermines whatever fantasies are being concocted. Again, people are seeking the means to escape, even if it is only temporary, from whatever boring, soulless existence they may have on their weekdays.

Here, credible arguments deserve to be made about being too enthusiastic about Anime and militarized firearms. Both try to resort to impression management techniques to deter other people from making preconceived misjudgments about their preferences. This gun owner may insist that even though drunk driving has been known to kill people, it does not mean that we should ban alcohol again. Meanwhile, this Anime Otaku may insist that while whatever they enjoy is not necessarily made for children, that does not mean we should ban it outright. The former keeps their firearms secured in a case or safe, the latter has their stuff placed on a shelf or inside a box. Even though neither are aware of each other’s existences, the gun and Anime enthusiasts would provide justifications for why we, the people outside of their subcultures, should not take their stuff away. At the same time, we need to be able to understand why these people act and why they found coping mechanisms to deal with difficult situations.

Therefore, in retrospect, I remain adamant any hypothetical solution to addressing gun violence in America is not going to be as simple or as straightforward as ratifying a law restricting the size and composition of the Militia. Any American should be worried that the overall physical and mental health of the America has been in decline for decades. Healthy minds do in fact dwell in healthy bodies, to paraphrase Richard Nixon. In addition to an overburdened mental health system, there are fewer avenues for young people to realize that violence should never be used as a means of settling disagreements. Even Tench Coxe realized this during the Whiskey Rebellion when he argued that Amendment II does not warrant an armed insurrection over any lawful acts taken by the Federal Government. Contemporary America is a nation where people generally do not know or trust others within their communities, let alone interact with them daily. These issues are related to gun violence, but they will take decades before any real results can be discerned.

Categories: Philosophy

Tags: Alexander Hamilton, Economics, Finance, Hamiltonianism, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Second Amendment, Socialist Finance, Third Place, United States, Work-Standard