ABSTRACT
The legacy of the classical republicans is thus not only particularly relevant to Americans but also has important implications for the meaning of what is happening in our own society and what classical republicanism has to tell us about power and its strategies of social conquest is well worth examining. The first implication is that the Whig and classical republican debate over militia reform had a profound effect on American colonists in the 18th century, and it is largely from the works of such men as Trenchard and his colleagues that the Americans formed their own theoretical ideas about owning and bearing arms and maintaining a citizens' militia. The second implication is that the state's attack on the militia and the effort to disarm the English people was accompanied by the state's efforts to expand its military power and to use its military power for external interventionism and war.
