The Gentlemens' Gunfight

"In Philadelphia, class warfare nearly broke out as genteel men exchanged gunfire with crowds of the "lower sort." The most alarming incident was a 1779 showdown between the Philadelphia militia and a lawyer named James Wilson, who was suspected of wartime profiteering and aiding the British. Upon hearing a rumor that a scheduled march by the Philadelphia militia was actually a plot to arrest Wilson for treason, the lawyer assembled a group of armed gentlemen at his home. When the militia paraded by, someone inside fired a shot into the crowd. A gunfight ensued, and by the time the shooting had ended, several militiamen and a few gentlemen lay dead. (Wilson would survive to become one of the primary architects of the new federal Constitution designed to remove power from the hands of ordinary people such as these.)" --Terry Bouton, TAMING DEMOCRACY: "THE PEOPLE," THE FOUNDERS, AND THE TROUBLED ENDING OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

In addition to his activity at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Wilson also later became a Supreme Court justice. Wilson was one of our Founding Fathers!