Early in the Revolutionary War, Washington called for the removal of any firearms from soldiers who were discharged—even those firearms that were privately owned—as troops were often taking public arms with them when leaving the army. He ordered in November 1775: “No Soldier whenever dismissed, is to carry away any Arms with him, that are good, and fit for service; if the Arms are his own private property, they will be appraised, and he will receive the full Value thereof: Proper persons when necessary, will be appointed to inspect, and value, the Arms, so detained.”⁵

Washington, however, soon changed that policy. In January 1776, he instructed: “All Recruits who shall furnish their own Arms, (provided they are good) shall be paid one Dollar, for the Use of them, shall have the Privilege of carrying them away, when their time is out, and in case they are lost (through no default of their own) shall be paid for them, at the end of the campaign.”⁶

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President Washington, nonetheless, did not hesitate to forcibly disarm citizens whom he regarded as brigands, doing so by means of leading state militias during the so-called Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania.

Summarizing instructions from Washington, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton thus wrote Virginia governor Henry Lee, Jr., on Oct. 20, 1794: “Of those persons in arms, if any, whom you may make prisoners; leaders, including all persons in command, are to be delivered up to the civil magistrate: the rest to be disarmed, admonished and sent home.”¹³

That same day, Washington himself wrote Lee: “Convey to my fellow Citizens in arms, my warm acknowledgments for the readiness with which they have hitherto seconded me [i]n the most delicate, and momentous duty the chief Magistrate of a free people can have to perform.”¹⁴

Washington had ordered reputed traitors to be stripped of their arms with far less delicacy during the Revolutionary War: “The Tories should be disarmed Immediately, tho’ it is probable, that they may have secured their Arms on board the Kings Ships, untill called upon to use ’em against us.”¹⁵

Washington even considered disarming militia whom he suspected were verging on criminality and treason. In December 1776, he wrote the Pennsylvania Council of Safety from headquarters in Bucks County, Pa.:

Instead of giving any Assistance in repelling the Enemy, the Militia have not only refused to obey your general Summons and that of their commanding Officers, but I am told exult at the Approach of the Enemy and our late Misfortunes. I beg leave to submit to your Consideration whether such people are to be intrusted with Arms in their Hands? If they will not use them for us, there is the greatest Reason to apprehend they will against us, if Oppertunity offers. But even supposing they claimed the Right of remaining Neuter, in my Opinion we ought not to hesitate a Moment in taking their Arms, which will be so much wanted in furnishing the new Levies.

If such a Step meets your Approbation, I leave it to you to determine upon the Mode. If you think fit to empower me, I will undertake to have it done as speedily and effectually as possible. You must be sensible that the utmost Secrecy is necessary, both in your Deliberation on, and in the Execution of a Matter of this kind, for if the thing should take Wind, the Arms would presently be conveyed beyond our Reach or rendered useless.¹⁶

For Washington, then, no individual citizen—let alone non-citizen—possessed a natural right to own arms that was inherently inviolable. He certainly ordered citizens whom he deemed criminals or traitors to be disarmed with scant scruples.

Yet he made sure only to offer to buy firearms from Patriot civilian citizens when in need of their weaponry, abstaining from taking their arms with or without compensation. When such citizens served in the army or militia, moreover, Washington came to prefer that they receive public arms, and those men were never to surrender any of their weapons under any circumstance. He thus directed in his will:

To each of my Nephews […] I give one of the Swords or Cutteaux of which I may die possessed. […] These Swords are accompanied with an injunction not to unsheath them for the purpose of shedding blood, except it be for self defence, or in defence of their Country and its rights; and in the latter case, to keep them unsheathed, and prefer falling with them in their hands, to the relinquishment thereof.¹⁷