JOAN VAN DER CAPELLEN TOT DEN POL
(Joan Derk, Baron van der Capellen tot den Pol)
Note that this was 4 years before the American Constitutional Convention and even longer before the American debate over the Bill of Rights and the 2nd Amendment. But, the importance of the right to bear arms was not an American invention. Van der Capellen was talking about it and writing about it before the Americans considered it. It is not known whether or not any of the Americans knew about van der Capellen and his view on citizen armament.
This quotation many think is the greatest statement of political equality ever written. Interestingly is also lays an obligation on all people for all others. It was written by a privileged nobleman, a Baron, who was instrumental philosophically and politically in establishing the Batavia Republic in Holland.
Holland was then controlled by a monarch and an aristocracy. He and his nephew were major figures in a revolution several years later.
Joan Derk, Baron van der Capellen tot den Pol was a Dutch nobleman who played a prominent role in the revolutionary events that preceded the formation of the Batavian Republic. As a member of the Patriots and inspired by the American Revolution, he wrote the noted pamphlet Aan het Volk van Nederland ("To the People of the Netherlands"), pleading for a more liberal society and the end of the Stadtholder regime, which had been marked by corruption and nepotism. He was also an ardent supporter of the legal recognition of the recently created United States of America.
