Send a Quote Enter a brief message. SendOk2 “Who are the militia, if they be not the people of this country...? I ask, who are the militia? They consist of now of the whole people, except a few public officers.” ~ George Mason (1725-1792), drafted the Virgina Declaration of Rights, ally of James Madison and George WashingtonSource: in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution, June 16, 1788,in_Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution,_Jonathan Elliot, ed., v.3 p.425 (Philadelphia, 1836)