From the works of Fisher Ames

Madison's colleagues clearly understood the proposal to be protective of individual rights. Representative Fisher Ames of Massachusetts wrote: "Mr. Madison has introduced his long expected amendments....It contains a bill of rights... the right of the people to bear arms."146 Ames wrote to another correspondent, as follows: "The rights of conscience, of bearing arms, of changing the governmenbt, are declared to be inherent in the people."147

Jack Rakove addresses Ames' comment on Madison's bill of rights in footnote 12 of "The Highest Stage of Originalism" in the Chicago-Kent symposium.

The fuller text of the quote is from a letter to Thomas Dwight, June 11, 1789:

I write in a violent hurry. Company interrupting my writing, and the post office is near closing.
The Senate has finished the impost bill. It is not sent down yet. Molasses at two and half cents, and no drawback on exportation. I hope the House, proud and stubborn as they are, will comply with the amendments, and pass the bill as speedily as possible.
The bill for the collection of the duties produces much debate, as indeed every thing does. Our House is a kind of Robin Hood society, where every thing is debated. The judicial business is maturing fast in the committee of the Senate.
Mr. Madison has introduced his long expected amendments. They are the fruit of much labor and research. He has hunted up all the grievances and complaints of newspapers, all the articles of conventions, and the small talk of their debates. It contains a bill of rights, the right of enjoying property, of changing the government at pleasure, freedom of the press, of conscience, of juries, exemption from general warrants, gradual increase of representatives, till the whole number, at the rate of one to every thirty thousand, shall amount to ____, and allowing two to every State, at least. This is the substance. There is too much of it. Oh! I had forgot, the right of the people to bear arms.

Risum teneatic amici? [Hold your laughter, friends. The question mark should be an exclamation point.]

Upon the whole, it may do some good towards quieting men, who attend to sounds only, and may get the mover [Madison] some popularity, which he wishes.

From Works of Fisher Ames as published by Seth Ames, W. B. Allen edition (1983), p. 641-2.

The right "of changing the government at pleasure" is interesting. The words are not in the Bill of Rights. The issue was addressed as a constitutional issue in the Dorr Rebellion in the 1840s

Fisher Ames' thoughts on the matter were previously expressed in his reaction to and comments on Shays' Rebellion in seven essays published between October, 1786 and March, 1787. The repudiation of Halbrook's anarchic purposes is quite severe. The Constitution and legislative bodies referred to in these essays were of the State of Massachusetts. The US Constitution had not yet been written and ratified. The 1780 Massachusetts Constition, largely written by John Adams, interestingly is only one of the original thirteen still in force.

October 12, 1786

Others in preparation:
October 19, 1786: "To the Respectable Members of the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives:"

October 26, 1786: "To the Respectable Members of the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives:"

February 15, 1787: "Mess'rs Printers:"

February 22, 1787: "Mess'rs, Adams & Nourse:"

March 1, 1787

March 15, 1787

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