Speaker 1: Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George
Speaker 1: Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
Speaker 2: Armstrong and Jettie and He Armstrong and Yetty.
Speaker 3: Goodness sakes, what a day. The crew has taken the
Speaker 3: week off next week to enjoy Independence Day in a
Speaker 3: little summer fun, family time.
Speaker 1: Travel, etc.
Speaker 3: Today is the last show obviously, before that Jack is
Speaker 3: winging his way toward Florida with his boys, and I
Speaker 3: decided I would love to talk to Tim Sander for
Speaker 3: the Vice President for Legal Affairs at the Goldwater Institute
Speaker 3: about the Declaration of Independence. Independence Day and one of
Speaker 3: my favorite books. Tim wrote, The Conscience of the Constitution,
Speaker 3: the Declaration of Independent and it's in the right to
Speaker 3: liberty and by coincidence, today is also the day that
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court is handing out rulings right and left.
Speaker 1: Tim Sander for joys Is, Tim, how are you.
Speaker 2: I'm just great. Thanks for having me back.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's always a pleasure.
Speaker 3: Have you gotten a chance to take in some of
Speaker 3: the Scotis' recent issuances.
Speaker 2: I had to skim some of them, and.
Speaker 4: This universal injunction decision is really unfortunate. It's a bad ruling,
Speaker 4: and honestly, it's a really stupid ruling because here's the
Speaker 4: thing so universal injunctions. That's when a plaintiff goes to
Speaker 4: court and says the government is doing something unconstitutional, and
Speaker 4: the judge says, that's right, the government must stop doing
Speaker 4: this unconstitutional thing. That's a universal injunction. What the opponents
Speaker 4: of universal injunctions complain about is they say, well, why
Speaker 4: should a judge in California be able to bar the
Speaker 4: federal government from doing something in Florida. And the answer
Speaker 4: to that is because it's unconstitutional. What the ruling today
Speaker 4: says is now the California federal judge can only issue
Speaker 4: a ruling barring the unconstitutional thing from happening to the
Speaker 4: particular people in that particular lawsuit. Well, of course, that's
Speaker 4: how injunctions work anyway. So all that this ruling says
Speaker 4: today is that the judge has to write in his opinion,
Speaker 4: I'm only saying this applies to the plaintiffs in this lawsuit. Well,
Speaker 4: of course, everybody knows that's already the rule. It's just
Speaker 4: that the federal government has to follow the law. So
Speaker 4: if it's doing something in Florida, that's unconstitutional in California.
Speaker 4: It's still unconstitutional wherever it's happening, so it's illegal. So
Speaker 4: it's really just creating this weird new formality in how
Speaker 4: courts go about enforcing the Constitution and justice. Jackson, in
Speaker 4: her dissenting opinion, has it exactly right. She says, now
Speaker 4: a court's power to prevent constitutional violations comes with an asterisk.
Speaker 2: A court can make.
Speaker 4: The executive cease its unconstitutional conduct asterisk, but only with
Speaker 4: respect to the particular plaintiffs named in the lawsuit before them,
Speaker 4: being the government free to violate the constitutional rights of
Speaker 4: anyone and everyone else.
Speaker 2: It's a terrible thing, and it's just anyway. It's frustrating
Speaker 2: by it.
Speaker 4: No, because there's been a lot of talk among the
Speaker 4: conservative legal community about trying to stop nationwide injunctions because
Speaker 4: a lot of conservative lawyers and judges are scared of
Speaker 4: what they call activist judges. I am not scared of
Speaker 4: activist judges. I'm scared of judges getting things wrong, whether
Speaker 4: it be conservative or liberal judges getting things wrong. But activists,
Speaker 4: there's no It's much worse to have a passive judge
Speaker 4: who does nothing right. That's much worse when the government
Speaker 4: does something unconstitutional and you go to a judge that
Speaker 4: get them to stop, and the judge says, oh, I'm
Speaker 4: not I'm just gonna let them do whatever.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to be active. That's terrible.
Speaker 4: That's Kilo versus New London, right where the government comes
Speaker 4: along and steals your house to hand over to Kyo
Speaker 4: or something, and the court stands back and refuses to
Speaker 4: host the constitution.
Speaker 2: That's a passive judge. That's not what we want.
Speaker 4: We want judges to be active in enforcing the constitution.
Speaker 4: We don't want them to be wrong, of course, but
Speaker 4: we don't want the Congress or the president to.
Speaker 2: Be wrong either.
Speaker 4: So the idea that what we want is a passive,
Speaker 4: non activist judiciary is just crazy.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: So, people who object to the high number of these
Speaker 3: injunctions and how they've interfered with federal policy, that's in quotes.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can agree with that or not.
Speaker 3: The answer is that's why we have the appeals process,
Speaker 3: and it'll be fine, just give it a little time.
Speaker 2: Yep, exactly.
Speaker 4: And the reason why we have so many of these
Speaker 4: injunctions going on right now is because the president is
Speaker 4: doing so many unconstitutional things.
Speaker 3: That's why, Oh, look at you say. If you expected pandering,
Speaker 3: you're not going to get it here. So the specific
Speaker 3: reason I invited Tim to be on the show today
Speaker 3: is we're leading up to Independence Day July fourth, and
Speaker 3: I know how much you like to talk about the
Speaker 3: Declaration of Independence liberty in general, and one of my
Speaker 3: favorite books of years, as I mentioned, was The Conscience
Speaker 3: of the Constitution, which, to my horror, came out like
Speaker 3: eleven years ago. I know, why did you write the book?
Speaker 3: What argument are you making?
Speaker 4: Well, So for I'll preface this by saying, if you
Speaker 4: like this book, you'll be excited to know I've got
Speaker 4: a new book about the Declaration of Independence that's schedule
Speaker 4: to come out next year, in time for the universtieth anniversary.
Speaker 4: I just finished what I hope is the final draft
Speaker 4: of it, and I hope people will read and enjoy
Speaker 4: it about the history of the declaration and what exactly
Speaker 4: are all of the grievances talking about, and what exactly
Speaker 4: Britain was doing, because it really bothers me that people say, oh,
Speaker 4: it's just a fight over a text on tea, and
Speaker 4: they ignore that British colonial rule really was oppressive and tyrannical.
Speaker 2: But that aside.
Speaker 4: The reason I wrote Conscience of the Constitution is to
Speaker 4: argue that the Declaration of Independence isn't just a piece
Speaker 4: of political rhetoric. It's law. It's the law of the land.
Speaker 4: It is as much the law as the Federal Constitution
Speaker 4: itself is law. And we tend to kind of shrug
Speaker 4: that aside for a couple of reasons. In fact, worse
Speaker 4: than that, when Barrett was at her confirmation hearing, she
Speaker 4: was directly asked, is the Declaration of Independence law? And
Speaker 4: she answered no, Well, she would have flunked MI con
Speaker 4: law class for some of that. The Declaration of Independence
Speaker 4: is a statute. It was passed by the Continental Congress.
Speaker 4: It's in the Statute Books, Volume one, page one of
Speaker 4: the United States Code, Declaration of Independence.
Speaker 2: And for good reason.
Speaker 4: It sets forth the principles that make our government justify
Speaker 4: that make it a legitimate government instead of just an
Speaker 4: arbitrary rule. And those principles are equality of rights, individual liberty,
Speaker 4: limited government, the people rule, and so forth.
Speaker 3: How do you suppose somebody is learned and intelligent as
Speaker 3: justice Barrett would come to that conclusion.
Speaker 4: Well, so I mentioned earlier that a lot of our
Speaker 4: conservative friends are so scared about judicial activism, and so
Speaker 4: they think the way to fight back against judicial activism
Speaker 4: is to say that judges are never supposed to draw
Speaker 4: any kind.
Speaker 2: Of moral or normative distinctions.
Speaker 4: That judges are supposed to be just as Chief Tess
Speaker 4: Robert said, we're just umpires calling balls and strikes. And
Speaker 4: that theory is that the Constitution has no moral direction
Speaker 4: to it, that it's just sort of this value neutral
Speaker 4: framework for democracy, and that's not correct. The Declaration of
Speaker 4: Independence tells us that the Constitution has a moral direction
Speaker 4: to it, and that is that individual freedom is the
Speaker 4: primary political value, not democracy. And today we're so propagandized
Speaker 4: to to believe that democracy is the most important thing
Speaker 4: about our system that we forget that, in fact, the
Speaker 4: word democracy doesn't even appear in the Constitution of the
Speaker 4: United States. On the contrary, the reason we have a
Speaker 4: constitution is to limit democracy, to prioritize individual rights over
Speaker 4: majority rule.
Speaker 2: But because that seems to lead to judicial activism, a
Speaker 2: lot of our.
Speaker 4: Conservative lawyers and judges don't like the Declaration of Independence,
Speaker 4: particularly Justice Scalia. Justice Scalia had this sort of fight
Speaker 4: with Thomas over this issue.
Speaker 2: Thomas is a pro Declaration.
Speaker 4: Of Independence justice and Scalia was anti Declaration of Independence.
Speaker 4: And the reason why was because Scalia thought it led
Speaker 4: to judicial activism. And Justice Thomas believes, at least to
Speaker 4: some degree, in natural rights, that there really are individual
Speaker 4: rights and government must respect those in all cases. And
Speaker 4: so there's a very interesting opinion. They were called Troxel
Speaker 4: versus Granville, where Scalia agreed with Thomas except for two sentences,
Speaker 4: and he specifically said he did not agree with those
Speaker 4: two sentences, and those are the two sentences where Justice
Speaker 4: Thomas quotes the Declaration of Independence. So it's really this
Speaker 4: is not just a bunch of abstract theorizing. This relates
Speaker 4: to how the government actually operates in daily, day to
Speaker 4: day work. Whether you believe, really believe in the principles
Speaker 4: of the declaration, or whether you just recite them without
Speaker 4: thinking what they mean.
Speaker 3: Right, And I certainly count myself among those who believe
Speaker 3: in the principles fervently. I don't know exactly how to
Speaker 3: ask this question, but on a practical level, you said,
Speaker 3: you know, the Declaration is a law. The first Really,
Speaker 3: on a practical level, as I look at the truths
Speaker 3: that we hold to be self evident that all men
Speaker 3: are created equal, that they aren't doubted by their creator,
Speaker 3: with certain unalienable rights, among these life, liberty, and the
Speaker 3: pursuit of happiness. Do I then look at everything that
Speaker 3: happened after that through the lens of that declaration and
Speaker 3: assess whether it holds true.
Speaker 1: To those principles or not.
Speaker 3: I mean, on a practical level, how do I use
Speaker 3: the declaration as law?
Speaker 4: Well, the declasion is a very broad law. A lot
Speaker 4: of One of the things that this brings up an
Speaker 4: interesting point. So a lot of the reason whylawyers or
Speaker 4: judges say the decoration is not laws because they say, well,
Speaker 4: it doesn't have any kind of.
Speaker 2: An enforcement mechanism.
Speaker 4: And usually laws say, you know, if you run the
Speaker 4: stop sign, you'll get a ticket, you know, and there's
Speaker 4: there's some sort of punishment involved.
Speaker 2: But that not all laws do that.
Speaker 4: Laws that say how you write a will or how
Speaker 4: you get married, those the laws don't contain any kind
Speaker 4: of punishment to them. And yet there's still laws, right
Speaker 4: And in a lot of the time what law does
Speaker 4: is it announces broad, abstract principles that the government should
Speaker 4: aim at. For example, here's an example I use in
Speaker 4: my in the book that's coming up soon, there's a
Speaker 4: law that declares how the International Space Station program should operate,
Speaker 4: and it says in there, in all cases, the government
Speaker 4: shall prioritize the following considerations.
Speaker 2: Well, there's that's still a law, right.
Speaker 4: The generation of Independance is kind of like that. The
Speaker 4: Declaration says everything the government does is legitimate only if
Speaker 4: it respects the principles of almon are created, equal with
Speaker 4: fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit.
Speaker 2: Of happiness and so forth. And that's obviously.
Speaker 4: The most important time that that was ever applied is
Speaker 4: in the controversy over the Civil War, right in talking
Speaker 4: about whether or not the Constitution guarantees slavery or not.
Speaker 4: That turns on whether you think black people qualified as
Speaker 4: part of the people of the United States as part
Speaker 4: of the one people referred to in.
Speaker 2: The Declaration of Independence.
Speaker 4: And when you read Lincoln and Douglas and their debates
Speaker 4: over the meaning of the Constitution and slavery, they're constantly
Speaker 4: referring to the Declaration. The dread Scott opinion itself talks
Speaker 4: about whether the Declaration of Independence means what it says,
Speaker 4: So of course, this is a crucial element in analyzing
Speaker 4: whether government is doing something justly, and that's why you
Speaker 4: find the Declaration quoted in cases involving affirmative action programs
Speaker 4: like the recent Harvard case. Just as Thomas says, the
Speaker 4: Declaration of Independence is part of our law.
Speaker 2: It says all men are created equal.
Speaker 4: These kinds of racist government policies violate that principle.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Interesting, So I don't want to get hung up on
Speaker 3: the point, and we need to take a break. But
Speaker 3: so what would you say to somebody who's defending a
Speaker 3: policy that you found to be antithetical to the themes
Speaker 3: of the declaration? Would you declare it undeclarational or what
Speaker 3: would do your objection sound like?
Speaker 4: Maybe the Declaration informs how we interpret the Constitution, which
Speaker 4: informs how we understand the law, and so it's kind of,
Speaker 4: you know, it's like multiple layers here. So if a
Speaker 4: question comes up about whether something violates the equal protection
Speaker 4: of the laws, which the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution protects,
Speaker 4: then we look back at what do we mean by
Speaker 4: equal protection? Do we is it okay for government to
Speaker 4: give some people an advantage over others based on the
Speaker 4: color of their skin. Well, that turns on whether what
Speaker 4: we what do we mean by the people of the United.
Speaker 2: States who are citizens?
Speaker 4: What is the substantive values that the law is protecting
Speaker 4: and enforcing here and understand that we have to read
Speaker 4: the declaration and understand also the context of declaration was
Speaker 4: written in, which is the principles of classical liberal political
Speaker 4: philosophy that underlie the American Revolution.
Speaker 3: I wanted to get into that very thing, the origin
Speaker 3: of the declaration, why was written? And why was written
Speaker 3: the way it was in a moment or two. Tim Sandifer,
Speaker 3: the Goldwater Institute. Much more to come an extended conversation
Speaker 3: this hour with Tim Sanderfer, vice president for Legal Affairs
Speaker 3: with the Goldwater Institute, about the Declaration of Independence. As
Speaker 3: Independence Day approaches rapidly, Tim, this is a short segment,
Speaker 3: and I hesitate to ask one of the big questions
Speaker 3: in a short segment, but what the heck? Will get
Speaker 3: started and see how it goes. Why was the Declaration
Speaker 3: of Independence written? Why not just say I'm out listing
Speaker 3: all those grievances. Did they just not want to make
Speaker 3: King George mad?
Speaker 1: Or what? What was the purpose?
Speaker 4: So between the people, forget that the American Revolution was
Speaker 4: a very long process. It actually began in seventeen sixty
Speaker 4: four when Parliament passed law called the Sugar Act, which
Speaker 4: was the first attempt by Parliament to impose taxes on
Speaker 4: the colonies. And for over a decade there were these
Speaker 4: angry disputes over Parliament's authority over the American colonies, and
Speaker 4: Americans insisted that they were loyal to the King, but
Speaker 4: not to Parliament. And they were very consistent about this,
Speaker 4: that Parliament had no authority to.
Speaker 2: Pass laws over them.
Speaker 4: That's why Parliament isn't even mentioned in the declaration. Instead,
Speaker 4: they used the phrase a jurisdiction. A power foreign to
Speaker 4: our jurisdiction is the phrase they use. They don't even
Speaker 4: want it to use Parliament's name in the Declaration of
Speaker 4: Independence because they say it has never had any authority
Speaker 4: over America. But the King started saying no, no, Parliament
Speaker 4: is what governs the colonies. And so after years and
Speaker 4: years of begging the king to change his mind, and
Speaker 4: he kept ignoring them, finally he made He sent armies
Speaker 4: to the United States started making war on Americans.
Speaker 2: And so they said, all right, we're.
Speaker 4: Done having any kind of loyalty to the king also,
Speaker 4: and they had to issue a declar that explained why
Speaker 4: and what they were fighting for. And so that's why
Speaker 4: they wrote the declaration. But it was the last of
Speaker 4: a long series of documents that explained the causes of
Speaker 4: a dispute between America and Britain, you know. And so
Speaker 4: you have to understand that history to get what they're
Speaker 4: referring to when they list all their grievances against Parliament
Speaker 4: and the King.
Speaker 3: But it seems to me it was a message to
Speaker 3: the Crown in Parliament. It was a message to other
Speaker 3: countries who may or may not be helpful, and a
Speaker 3: message to the American people as well.
Speaker 2: Yes, and that last part is really important.
Speaker 4: A lot of people overlook the fact that the Continental
Speaker 4: Congress was speaking to Americans also. They weren't just speaking
Speaker 4: to Britain, and they weren't just speaking to France and
Speaker 4: other countries. They were explaining to Americans themselves what it
Speaker 4: is we're fighting over. And that's why Jefferson tried to
Speaker 4: put in a provision damning slavery as evil, because he thought,
Speaker 4: maybe if I can sneak this provision in here, it
Speaker 4: will sort of force Americans to view slavery as un
Speaker 4: American and that would allow enable us to later abolish slavery,
Speaker 4: and unfortunately that tactic didn't work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to get into that in particular next segment,
Speaker 3: when we'll have a lot of time to stretch out.
Speaker 3: But I think it's one of the more insidious lies
Speaker 3: of for instance, the sixteen nineteen project that claims that
Speaker 3: the country was founded on slavery and the founding fathers
Speaker 3: were big fans of it. A lot of them spoke
Speaker 3: openly of its evil and how they had to get
Speaker 3: rid of it somehow.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right.
Speaker 3: Tim Sanver of the Goldwater Institute on the line. We
Speaker 3: are going to come back after a brief break full
Speaker 3: of fascinating and helpful commercial messages and continue on our
Speaker 3: discussion of the declaration of Independence. I want to get
Speaker 3: into Thomas Jefferson's role, what got left out, who fought
Speaker 3: for what, because like every process that's ever happened in
Speaker 3: this country, it was full of bloody knuckles and differing
Speaker 3: opinions and that sort of thing, which is why I
Speaker 3: love this place so much. And Tim also mentioned that
Speaker 3: he's working on a book soon to come out about
Speaker 3: the Declaration of Independence. I'm for the anniversary thereof, so
Speaker 3: we will discuss that and much more. Also get back
Speaker 3: to some of the Supreme Court decisions and check in
Speaker 3: with Jack from Sonny Humid, Florida. I think before long
Speaker 3: stay with us.
Speaker 1: Glad you're here. Thanks, Armstrong and Getty. Welcome.
Speaker 3: Tim Sanderfers the vice president for Legal Affairs with the
Speaker 3: Goldwater Institute, longtime friend of the Armstrong and Getty show.
Speaker 3: And we're doing a slightly premature independence stage show just
Speaker 3: because we are off next week and I really really
Speaker 3: wanted to, so here we are. I was centering the
Speaker 3: discussion i'd planned to around Tim's twenty fourteen book, The
Speaker 3: Conscience of the Constitution, The Declaration of Independence, and the
Speaker 3: Right to Liberty, But he unleashed on us the news
Speaker 3: that you're working on a new book on a somewhat
Speaker 3: similar topic.
Speaker 4: Yes, I'm doing a book called Proclaiming Liberty, which is
Speaker 4: about the writing of the Declaration, what it means, and
Speaker 4: then you know, going clause by clause to the Declaration,
Speaker 4: explaining what each of the references are, and then concludes
Speaker 4: with sort of a my slap at the sixteen nineteen
Speaker 4: project should be out in April of twenty twenty six
Speaker 4: in Times for the bisis Sessquit Tenniel whatever they call.
Speaker 3: Them, right right, Yeah, give the sixteen nineteen project a
Speaker 3: good solid slap if you can. We mentioned just before
Speaker 3: the break, Tim mentioned that Thomas Jefferson, who allegedly wrote
Speaker 3: the Declaration of Independence, wanted a clause in there about
Speaker 3: the need to eliminate slavery, which it runs so counter
Speaker 3: to some of the woke narratives these days. First of all,
Speaker 3: to what extent was this a solo writing project by
Speaker 3: Thomas Jefferson?
Speaker 1: And what else was fought over? What to leave in,
Speaker 1: what to leave out? What should we know?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So it's a wonderful and complicated story, which I'll
Speaker 4: get into in my book. But yes, Jefferson was the
Speaker 4: primary draftsman on a committee of five, and really it
Speaker 4: was primarily him. John Adams and Benjamin Franklin were primarily
Speaker 4: responsible for Franklin was six, so he was working from
Speaker 4: home and so they didn't really consult him very often,
Speaker 4: and so it was primarily Jefferson and Adams, and Jefferson did.
Speaker 2: The first draft.
Speaker 4: He wrote it in about two weeks and you know,
Speaker 4: got or two days, I'm sorry, and had it all
Speaker 4: ready to present to them, and then they added and
Speaker 4: took some things out, and then presented it to the
Speaker 4: Congress as a whole, which then went over it all
Speaker 4: over again, editing it, taking things out and putting things
Speaker 4: and all that sort of stuff. And he had wanted
Speaker 4: to include an attack on the slave trade. Jefferson when
Speaker 4: he was he was already young. He was one of
Speaker 4: the youngest members of the Continental Congress in seventy six.
Speaker 4: But even before that he had been in his colonial legislature,
Speaker 4: and he had tried to get laws passed restricting the
Speaker 4: trade in slaves as a first step to attacking slavery itself.
Speaker 4: And because you know, you got to get your camel's
Speaker 4: nose under the tent, right, And that was the plan.
Speaker 4: And that failed because the King issued in order saying
Speaker 4: colonies made not pass any kinds of restrictions on the
Speaker 4: importation of slaves, because he said, because that harmed the
Speaker 4: profits of the Royal Africa Company, which was the Imperial
Speaker 4: Slave Trade Corporation. And so when he got a chance
Speaker 4: to write the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson says, well, I'm
Speaker 4: going to include an attack on the King for blocking
Speaker 4: our efforts to limit the slave trade. And what he
Speaker 4: wrote was the single longest passage in the Declaration of
Speaker 4: really passionate paragraphs. I mean, he's using all capital letters
Speaker 4: and underlining things because he was really into this, and
Speaker 4: he was partly hoping to persuade his fellow Americans to
Speaker 4: see slavery as an evil thing that could be blamed
Speaker 4: on Britain. Now today we say, oh, how silly for
Speaker 4: him to blame Britain for providing Americans with slaves when
Speaker 4: Americans bought slaves perfectly, happily.
Speaker 2: Well, that's kind of true. But look at our own day.
Speaker 2: Look what we do.
Speaker 4: Today Nowadays, we blame oil companies for global warming. We
Speaker 4: blame fast food companies for making us fat. We blame
Speaker 4: tobacco companies for selling us cigarettes.
Speaker 2: It's basically the same thing.
Speaker 4: It's blaming the company for providing you with the evil thing.
Speaker 4: As a matter of political rhetoric, it was just a
Speaker 4: handy technique that Jefferson was trying to get away with,
Speaker 4: and Adams and Franklin liked it, but unfortunately the rest
Speaker 4: of the Congress did and they took it out. And
Speaker 4: Jefferson was so upset about this that for years afterwards
Speaker 4: he could. He sent copies of his original draft with
Speaker 4: a bunch of friends and he said, didn't you think.
Speaker 4: I think it's better the way I wrote it, And
Speaker 4: even in his memoirs when he was retired, he did
Speaker 4: the same thing. He put his original version in there
Speaker 4: as a way of saying, look what I tried to
Speaker 4: do and what they wouldn't let me do.
Speaker 3: You know, obviously getting the southern colonies to go around
Speaker 3: and go along and satified was it was an ever
Speaker 3: present concern too, I would guess, yeah.
Speaker 4: Because the most important thing, above all else was to
Speaker 4: keep all of the colonies united. If one colony peeled
Speaker 4: away and said well we're going to make a separate
Speaker 4: priest with Britain, that would have been a disaster, because
Speaker 4: then another colony, another colonue pretty soon there would be
Speaker 4: no way of fighting back.
Speaker 2: He gets written.
Speaker 4: So no, South Carolina and Georgia, according to Jefferson, were
Speaker 4: really anti really opposed to his anti slavery passage, and
Speaker 4: a few of the northern states he said too. Oh,
Speaker 4: he didn't say which ones, and so it was taken
Speaker 4: out because he had to have unanimity. That was the
Speaker 4: most important thing.
Speaker 3: I'm so intrigued by your mention of Ben Franklin's role
Speaker 3: in the process, though he was sick and it was
Speaker 3: somewhat limited. I think most Americans have a view of
Speaker 3: Ben as sort of a learned godfather of witty sayings
Speaker 3: and occasional scientific discoveries. And then he went to France
Speaker 3: and had a big party and represented us. But how
Speaker 3: would you describe Franklin's role there in the very early
Speaker 3: days pre declaration and post.
Speaker 4: And Franklin started out as a really as loving the
Speaker 4: connection between England and America.
Speaker 2: He thought that was really valuable and wonderful and important.
Speaker 4: And he gradually came to see that Britain viewed the
Speaker 4: colonies as subordinate and the colony and that Britain thought
Speaker 4: of the colonists as their job was to work, pay
Speaker 4: taxes and shut up. And that started to really great
Speaker 4: on Franklin over the years, and eventually he became one
Speaker 4: of the most intense throw independence guys. He was, you know,
Speaker 4: famously disowned his own son, who was the royal governor
Speaker 4: of the Colony of New Jersey, and disowned him for
Speaker 4: siding with the king over America.
Speaker 2: So this was not this is not just a lovely
Speaker 2: grandfather figure. He was very passionate revolutionary.
Speaker 3: Right, And I remember, I can't remember where it was
Speaker 3: that I read about it, but I was somewhat surprised
Speaker 3: to read of the overt, shameless bigotry of a lot
Speaker 3: of Brits, and specifically British troops who came to pacify
Speaker 3: the colonies. They actually looked at us quote unquote as
Speaker 3: a bunch of loud, idiotic roubs.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of the officers especially, and you know,
Speaker 4: with some there is some legitimacy to that. I mean,
Speaker 4: the Americans work country pumpkins. But on the other hand,
Speaker 4: we were the ones doing the working and the fighting
Speaker 4: and having to pay the taxes. And then have a
Speaker 4: bunch of aristocrats who were sent over here a lot
Speaker 4: of time, these, especially the royal governors who were sent
Speaker 4: over to govern, A lot of them were just, you know,
Speaker 4: some kind of aristocrat who had gone bankrupt and needed
Speaker 4: to get away from his creditors and would come over
Speaker 4: to America to rule for his own wealth.
Speaker 2: I mean, the governor of Virginia was quite open.
Speaker 4: Governor Dunmore was quite open about the fact that he
Speaker 4: had come to America to make a fortune because he
Speaker 4: needed money from the old country, you know. So, and
Speaker 4: then a lot of time these governors wouldn't even come
Speaker 4: to America. Virginia, for example, was governed by for almost
Speaker 4: a decade by a governor who never even bothered to
Speaker 4: visit Virginia. The British colonial policy was crazy and it
Speaker 4: was very oppressive. You know, there was no freedom of speech.
Speaker 4: You could be executed for expressing your political views in
Speaker 4: a newspaper. Your property basically existed at the wheel of parliament.
Speaker 4: If Parliament decided to take your stuff way, they claimed
Speaker 4: literally absolute power. And in fact, that's the most important
Speaker 4: thing that led to the revolution. Parliament passed a law
Speaker 4: in seventeen sixty six called the Declaratory Act that said
Speaker 4: that Parliament had the authority to legislate for the colonies
Speaker 4: quote in all cases whatsoever end quote Wow, And that
Speaker 4: ends up yeah, right, that line ends up in the
Speaker 4: Declaration of Independence, because that's really the source of all
Speaker 4: the other problems. Right, if they can legislate for us
Speaker 4: in all cases whatsoever, then your property rights and your
Speaker 4: free speech rights and your freedom of religion counting, and
Speaker 4: you really are a save.
Speaker 3: If that's the case, what do you think is most
Speaker 3: underappreciated about the Declaration of Independence.
Speaker 4: Oh, that's a great question. I think it's probably people
Speaker 4: don't know what the grievances referred to they read. If
Speaker 4: you read the declaration, it says, you know, it has
Speaker 4: those beautiful opening paragraphs about Amini created equal to these things,
Speaker 4: and then it lists the things that Britain has done,
Speaker 4: and they're written in kind of general terms, like the
Speaker 4: first one, you know, the king has he has refused
Speaker 4: his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for
Speaker 4: the public good.
Speaker 2: And people don't know.
Speaker 4: What they're talking about that day is and what it
Speaker 4: is is actually Britain claim the King's deputy claimed the
Speaker 4: authority to veto any colonial legislation. And they did this
Speaker 4: a lot. I mean, for example, it was illegal to
Speaker 4: get a divorce in the colonies. The colonies weren't allowed
Speaker 4: to pass laws for divorce. You had to get the
Speaker 4: king's own permission to get a divorce in colonial America.
Speaker 4: But of course the most important one is laws banning
Speaker 4: the slave trade.
Speaker 2: The King said no to any of those.
Speaker 4: People don't know this history, and it's starting to fade,
Speaker 4: and that leads to this general impression of well, the
Speaker 4: British rule over America wasn't really so bad? Well, were
Speaker 4: the patriots were just a bunch of whiners? And this
Speaker 4: which really ticks me.
Speaker 3: Off right and also in the particulars I think, and
Speaker 3: this gets back to the theme that we began with
Speaker 3: that it's Tim's fervent belief that the Declaration of Independence
Speaker 3: is indeed law in an important United States law founding
Speaker 3: document in the truest sense as you get into the
Speaker 3: particulars and work through them, and maybe Jefferson should have
Speaker 3: had footnotes, but it further illustrates what sort of country
Speaker 3: we did not want to be and what we wanted
Speaker 3: to be in a fair amount of detail. Because it's
Speaker 3: easy enough and sometimes funny to portray it as the
Speaker 3: king's jerk and we don't want to be under him anymore.
Speaker 1: We're going to start a new country.
Speaker 3: But the thought of what sort of country was thought
Speaker 3: out very very carefully.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, there's a lot of political philosophy that's distilled
Speaker 4: into the Declaration of Independence. And I mentioned that there
Speaker 4: was well over a decade of political arguments that had
Speaker 4: gone on before independence. There had been a First Continental Congress,
Speaker 4: and they had also issued a declaration, and if you
Speaker 4: read their declaration, they actually list by number the particular
Speaker 4: parliamentary laws that they're objecting to, so they get into
Speaker 4: a great deal of details. And there were pamphlets and
Speaker 4: speeches that talked about to go philosophy, and Jefferson's distilling
Speaker 4: this all down into a single page because he wants
Speaker 4: it to be easy to read and understand. But we're
Speaker 4: talking about ideas that go back to ancient Greece and
Speaker 4: ancient Rome in the declaration, so to really get a
Speaker 4: grasp of that, it requires a good deal of depth,
Speaker 4: which you know, of course, our educational institutions don't give
Speaker 4: students nowadays because we're all supposed to believe that the
Speaker 4: Founders are just these evil white guys who wanted to
Speaker 4: wanted independence because they wanted to perpetuate slavery, which is
Speaker 4: a complete lie.
Speaker 3: Of course, right forgive me if this is inaccurate, but
Speaker 3: I think Jack mentioned that one of his sons knew
Speaker 3: all about Sesar Chefz, who was an admirable fellow in
Speaker 3: a lot of ways, but knew nothing about Thomas Jefferson,
Speaker 3: which is, yeah, the.
Speaker 2: Only thing people know about Jefferson is Sally Hemmings Noday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's your favorite Jefferson biography?
Speaker 4: By the way, Alf Mapp m App he wrote two volumes.
Speaker 4: The first one is called Thomas Jefferson A Strange Case
Speaker 4: of Mistaken Identity, and the second volume is called Thomas
Speaker 4: Jefferson Passionate Pilgrim. And that's my favorite biography if you
Speaker 4: only want to one volume biography. I really like the
Speaker 4: John Meachim biography that came out a few years ago.
Speaker 2: The only thing wrong with it is the title.
Speaker 4: It's called The Pursuit of Power, which is a crazy
Speaker 4: title because Jefferson did not pursue power, and the book
Speaker 4: makes clear that Jefferson did not pursue power. I don't
Speaker 4: know why they called it that. Incidentally, talking about books,
Speaker 4: I want to mention you. You know you mentioned about
Speaker 4: the Declaration setting forth the ideas of the New Country.
Speaker 4: So clearly there was a great book that came out
Speaker 4: what thirty years ago now called The Radicalism of the
Speaker 4: American Revolution by a historian named Gordon Wood. And it
Speaker 4: is a hugely important book, very famous in history circles
Speaker 4: because it shows just how rapidly and extensively the idea
Speaker 4: of equality transformed American culture that within a single lifetime,
Speaker 4: people went from a sleepy colonial society where you know,
Speaker 4: you had to take your hat off to somebody who
Speaker 4: was higher than you on the socials ladder to a
Speaker 4: bustling industrial country with railroads and democracy and all these
Speaker 4: sort of thing. And it's a very It really tells
Speaker 4: the story beautifully, and I would really strongly recommend it
Speaker 4: because a lot of people think, oh, well it was
Speaker 4: you know, it was a very conservative revolution.
Speaker 2: It wasn't. It was a radical revolution in many ways.
Speaker 1: Great.
Speaker 3: I hear the audience shouting, wait, wait, I'm trying to
Speaker 3: write this down. So Tim, if you could text that
Speaker 3: to me, your executive producer Hanson, we will post it
Speaker 3: at Armstrong and getdy dot com so you can find
Speaker 3: it easily. One more segment with Tim Sandafer the Goldwater
Speaker 3: Institute coming up.
Speaker 1: Stay with us.
Speaker 3: The final segment with Tim Sandifer of the Goldwater Institute.
Speaker 3: It's our Independence Day show a little bit early and Tim,
Speaker 3: one of the main reasons I wanted to do this
Speaker 3: is I've come to believe that the idea of liberty
Speaker 3: has become like the furniture the background of our national discussions.
Speaker 3: We've got the people and the food, and there's a
Speaker 3: TV going in the corner, and sometimes somebody mentions liberty.
Speaker 1: But we don't teach it.
Speaker 3: We don't teach enthusiasm for it, reverence for it. I
Speaker 3: think maybe it's my generation that's at fault. We just
Speaker 3: assumed that everybody would always love liberty and want to
Speaker 3: defend it, and I've become convinced that's not the case.
Speaker 3: And so I've become a bit of a zelot for
Speaker 3: trying to do that. So thanks for helping. We're talking
Speaker 3: about you.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, goodness. I try to stop me. But we've
Speaker 3: been talking about the Declaration of Independence. Excited to hear
Speaker 3: that Tim has a book on that topic coming out
Speaker 3: before too terribly long. My daughter went to undergrad at
Speaker 3: George Mason University, and I knew the name, and I thought, oh,
Speaker 3: George Mason, and I'd started doing some reading and realized
Speaker 3: that he, in my mind, is one of your great
Speaker 3: underrated founding fathers. Who are your favorite underrated founding fathers?
Speaker 4: Well, I would agree with you about not enough people
Speaker 4: knowing about George Mason. He was the author of the
Speaker 4: very first Declaration of Rights or the very first Bill
Speaker 4: of Rights in America, the Virginia of Rights, and he
Speaker 4: was the mentor of George Washington and an elder statesman
Speaker 4: that Jefferson and all the others looked up to a
Speaker 4: really great years ago, I was at a conference in Washington, DC.
Speaker 2: This is when I was in college.
Speaker 4: As a conference, it was a week long conference, but
Speaker 4: we had one day off to go explore a town.
Speaker 4: And so I came down that morning and I'm sitting
Speaker 4: at the breakfast table and a bunch of these other
Speaker 4: college students sitting around, and Uh, I was planning on
Speaker 4: going to George Mason's house, which is just a little
Speaker 4: south of Washington, d C. And I hear them talking
Speaker 4: about what they're going to do, and I'm just sitting
Speaker 4: there quietly. I hear one of them say, where are
Speaker 4: you gonna Where are you gonna go? And the other
Speaker 4: one said, I'm going to Uh, I'm going to go
Speaker 4: to Jamestown. And I thought, wow, that's that's kind of far.
Speaker 4: And then the first one says, well, what's that and
Speaker 4: the other one says, that's where the Pilgrims landed. So
Speaker 4: I had to I said I'm sorry. I said, I'm sorry,
Speaker 4: But the pilgrims landed in Massachusetts. You're thinking of Jamestown
Speaker 4: is is is quite a distance from here, and I
Speaker 4: don't think you could really get there in time. And
Speaker 4: they go, wow, you really know this stuff. Where are
Speaker 4: you going to go? And I said, well, I'm going
Speaker 4: to Gunston Hall blank blank stairs. I said that that
Speaker 4: was George Mason's house, blank stairs. And one of them,
Speaker 4: one of them turns to the other says, I'm really embarrassed.
Speaker 4: I don't know who George Mason was. I go to
Speaker 4: George Mason University. So I made them go with me.
Speaker 4: I ordered them to come with me, and we all
Speaker 4: three went down to see Gunston Hall.
Speaker 1: Oh that's great, all right? Who else?
Speaker 4: My other favorite totally unknown founding Father's got named Heim
Speaker 4: Solomon H.
Speaker 2: J Y M. Solomon.
Speaker 4: He was a Polish Jew who came to America and
Speaker 4: became a financier and was a spy for the for
Speaker 4: the Patriots. Was captured twice by the British for spying
Speaker 4: and managed to escape, and later on became a prominent
Speaker 4: banker and lender who helped to finance the Revolution, in
Speaker 4: part by by directly paying people like James Madison when
Speaker 4: they weren't getting their paychecks from from home, you know,
Speaker 4: mail was slow, so he would just give them money
Speaker 4: to pay their rent. He died bankrupt because he gave
Speaker 4: away all of his money to the American cause. There's
Speaker 4: a statue of him in Chicago, and he you know,
Speaker 4: and he was very much of the view that America,
Speaker 4: because of religious freedom, was the promised land for Jews.
Speaker 4: And I'm getting moved even talking about.
Speaker 2: It because he was. He was a great hero we
Speaker 2: all should remember.
Speaker 3: Yeah, wow, that is fantastic in moving. This stuff is
Speaker 3: not over studied. It's understudied and underappreciated, especially now. Tim,
Speaker 3: Thanks so much for the time, and back to work
Speaker 3: on that dang book. Years. I know you have so
Speaker 3: little ready to do what for advocating for liberty with
Speaker 3: the Goldwater Institute. Tim, great to talk to you. Best
Speaker 3: to the missus and we will talk again soon.
Speaker 2: Thank you, see you later.
Speaker 1: All right. Yep.
Speaker 3: Jack is going to join us in the next hour
Speaker 3: from Florida. I think I think they're already there on vacation,
Speaker 3: but he is. He already has stories to tell, probably
Speaker 3: alligator related. I'm looking forward to that. If you happen
Speaker 3: to not get our four of the show, or you
Speaker 3: got to go do something.
Speaker 1: That's fine. Just subscribe to our podcast, Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 3: On demand and the radio show is available to you
Speaker 3: whenever you want it. We'll also hit some of the
Speaker 3: news of the day because there's a good bit of it.
Speaker 1: And goodness knows, whatever comes. Oh, Clips of the Week.
Speaker 3: We have a super bonus Clips of the Week for
Speaker 3: you to kick off next hour. Stay tuned if you can.
Speaker 3: Tom McClintock, Congressman, will join us as well. Armstrong and
Speaker 3: Getty