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Speaker 1: Longtime friend of the show.

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Speaker 2: Tim Sanderfer Tim the lawyer who is a big wheel

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Speaker 2: these days at the Goldwater Institute.

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Speaker 1: We'll talk about that in a minute.

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Speaker 2: Also an adjunct scholar with the Cato Institute, among other things,

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Speaker 2: in the author of a number of fine books which

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Speaker 2: I recommend heartily, one in all, including a brand new

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Speaker 2: book Proclaiming Liberty, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration

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Speaker 2: of Independence. Can't wait to read it, Tim sander Ford

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Speaker 2: joins us. Now, Tim, how are you.

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Speaker 3: I'm just great? Been too long?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it really has been.

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Speaker 2: I hope you and your beautiful, brilliant brider both doing well.

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Speaker 2: I'm looking at what you wrote about your new book,

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Speaker 2: Proclaiming Liberty, and you describe it as a biography of

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Speaker 2: the Declaration of Independence.

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Speaker 1: I love that.

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Speaker 3: What do you mean, well, I tried to tell the

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Speaker 3: story of the Declaration of Independence in order to cover

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Speaker 3: the legal and philosophical background of the Declaration, but to

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Speaker 3: tell it in sort of a story format about the

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Speaker 3: friendship between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and the issues

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Speaker 3: that they were facing in seventeen seventy six. So I

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Speaker 3: wanted to make it not just a boring recitation of

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Speaker 3: philosophical or legal issues, but to try and tell it

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Speaker 3: in the context of all the controversies that were going

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Speaker 3: on at the time, which I think a lot of

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Speaker 3: people don't know about. I mean, I think today people

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Speaker 3: read the Declaration of Independence and they get to that

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Speaker 3: long list of complaints about what Britain was doing, and

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Speaker 3: they don't really know what those things are all referring to.

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Speaker 3: And so I wanted to go clause by clause through

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Speaker 3: the Declaration and say exactly what it was that Parliament

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Speaker 3: was doing that bothered the Americans and how that connected

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Speaker 3: to the lives of the people who wrote the declaration.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, two points number one.

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Speaker 2: I have always been inspired by, for instance, Adams and Jefferson.

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Speaker 2: There are plenty of other examples of guys who disagreed

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Speaker 2: with each other vehemently, I mean, like red faced spit flying,

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Speaker 2: but they stuck together and they said, we will work

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Speaker 2: this out, we will figure out a compromise, which I

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Speaker 2: think is a lesson all of us. Follow And the

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Speaker 2: second thing is I love the idea of going through

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Speaker 2: the various clauses and helping people understand what they mean

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Speaker 2: and why they were so serious they merried in launching

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Speaker 2: a new country, because I'm certain people will say, wait

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Speaker 2: a minute, I can relate to that in my business,

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Speaker 2: my family, my town.

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Speaker 1: Oh definitely.

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Speaker 3: And you know, one of the reasons I wrote the

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Speaker 3: book is because it annoys me so much when you

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Speaker 3: hear people say, well, the American Revolution was just about

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Speaker 3: a little three penny tax on tea, and you know,

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Speaker 3: people were saying that back in seventeen seventy six two,

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Speaker 3: and it really annoyed people like Jefferson and Adams when

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Speaker 3: people would make that claim, because it just was not true.

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Speaker 3: The issue was how much power, if any, does Parliament

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Speaker 3: have over the colonies of North America, And the answer

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Speaker 3: was no, zero. It was the king who governed them,

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Speaker 3: but the laws were made by their own local legislatures

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Speaker 3: and Parliament would not accept that. So really the rebellion

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Speaker 3: was a rebellion against Parliament at first, not against the king.

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Speaker 3: It was only when King George made clear that he

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Speaker 3: was not going to do anything about it and that

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Speaker 3: he sided with Parliament that the Americans said, well, then

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Speaker 3: we can't even be loyal to the king either, And

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Speaker 3: that's why the declaration is aimed at the King and

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Speaker 3: doesn't even mention Parliament by name. They couldn't even bring

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Speaker 3: themselves to mention the name Parliament in the Declaration because

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Speaker 3: they were just that angry. Wow, but you're right about

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Speaker 3: You're right about compromise and negotiation with people who disagree

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Speaker 3: with each other, because you know, we have this idea

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Speaker 3: that all the Patriots were united, but they really weren't.

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Speaker 3: They had a lot of internal disagreements and it took

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Speaker 3: a lot of patient negotiation and argument, and sometimes they

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Speaker 3: got very angry at each other. My favorite example is

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Speaker 3: Thomas Jefferson. Later in life, Thomas Jefferson said about Patrick Henry,

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Speaker 3: we must devoutly pray for his death.

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Speaker 2: I've always wondered whether that was cool or not in

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Speaker 2: the eyes of whatever concept of the almighty. So why

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Speaker 2: did you go with Jefferson and Adams in particular, since

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Speaker 2: there are many fine founding papas that you could have

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Speaker 2: focused on.

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Speaker 3: Well, I've always been a big Jefferson fanatic ever since

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Speaker 3: I was a kid. But you can't really write about

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Speaker 3: the Declaration and just about Jefferson. He was very young.

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Speaker 3: He was one of the youngest members of the Continental Congress.

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Speaker 3: He's thirty three years old at the time that he

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Speaker 3: wrote the declaration, and he showed up at the Continental

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Speaker 3: Congress pretty late in the day. John Adams had been

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Speaker 3: there the entire time, and he was really the champion

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Speaker 3: of independence from an early day. And their friendship, you know,

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Speaker 3: everybody knows that they ended up having a lot of

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Speaker 3: very serious disagreements, but that wasn't until later on in

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Speaker 3: seventeen seventy six. They were both very radical and they

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Speaker 3: were really good friends at the time, and so it

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Speaker 3: became It started out as a book about Jefferson, and

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Speaker 3: then as I wrote it, it turned into a buddy picture,

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Speaker 3: you know, And from that point I had to tell

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Speaker 3: the story about what happened to the century before that,

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Speaker 3: because people don't know much about the English Civil Wars

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Speaker 3: of the seventeenth century, one hundred years before the Revolution,

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Speaker 3: that the Americans were already demanding a certain degree of

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Speaker 3: autumn me at that time, and it was those wars

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Speaker 3: that set the background for the American Revolution. This isn't

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Speaker 3: something that just you know, already woke up in seventeen

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Speaker 3: seventy five and were like, hey, we're tired of being British,

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Speaker 3: you know. This was something that had been simmering for

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Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty years before the declaration.

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Speaker 2: I was going to say steeping in honor of the

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Speaker 2: Tea Party, but yes, well that's and that's one thing

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Speaker 2: that I don't want to get off on the tangent

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Speaker 2: about Jeffersonian democracies in Middle Eastern countries. But we were

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Speaker 2: steeped in the principles that gave birth to this country.

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Speaker 1: For a hell of a long time. I mean, it

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Speaker 1: was truly in our DNA.

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Speaker 3: Yes, And that was a point that John Adams particularly

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Speaker 3: was very emphatic about. You know, when the French Revolution

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Speaker 3: broke out, you know, more than a decade after in

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Speaker 3: the American Independence Adams was very cynical about the possibilities

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Speaker 3: of the French Revolution because he said, you need this

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Speaker 3: long cultural development of the ideas of freedom before you

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Speaker 3: can have political freedom. And he thought the French were

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Speaker 3: acting too quickly because they didn't have that trade. And

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Speaker 3: there's a funny thing. He Adams is one of these

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Speaker 3: guys who like to write in the margins of his

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Speaker 3: books like I do, and so he has had a

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Speaker 3: copy of a book about the French Revolution, and he

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Speaker 3: wrote all these angry comments in the margins, and there's

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Speaker 3: one part where he says, how could anybody expect for

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Speaker 3: millions of Frenchmen who had known nothing but absolute tyranny

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Speaker 3: and absolute monarchy for centuries to go overnight into a

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Speaker 3: modern democracy is totally insane, And I mean it's amazing

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Speaker 3: how that lesson is something we could still learn a

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Speaker 3: lot about today.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's half a cliche, but man, I spend a

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Speaker 2: lot of time thinking about the fact that everything is

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Speaker 2: downstream of culture. Everything and people, whether they're attractive half

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Speaker 2: wits serving in Congress who declare there's no such thing

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Speaker 2: as Western culture, or just people who failed to even

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Speaker 2: notice that it exists. It makes me insane. But that's

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Speaker 2: part of the reason I get up and do this job.

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Speaker 2: So when you, I'm sure you occasionally run into somebody

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Speaker 2: who clearly has either no understanding of the Declaration of

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Speaker 2: Independence or tends to think it's like not one of

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Speaker 2: the important founding documents. It's the constitutions are a founding documents.

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Speaker 2: What do you lead with? What's the most what's your

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Speaker 2: lead pitch that who you need to wake up and

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Speaker 2: understand this?

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Speaker 1: You are absolutely right.

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Speaker 3: I have encountered this for decades, since I was a teenager.

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Speaker 3: This issue has bothered me, especially there's a lot of

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Speaker 3: conservatives who like to downplay the importance of the declarations.

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Speaker 3: Oh no, the war was really about the traditional rights

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Speaker 3: of Englishmen and all that stuff about equality and liberty

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Speaker 3: that was just put in there to interest the French. Really,

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Speaker 3: the Americans didn't really care about those abstract principles, and

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Speaker 3: that's total nonsense. The Declaration of Independence.

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Speaker 2: Is the.

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Speaker 3: Cement of our union. In fact, even Jefferson said when

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Speaker 3: he was an old man, he said that the Declaration

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Speaker 3: was the fundamental act of the union of these states.

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Speaker 3: And Jefferson was a states rights guy and he still

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Speaker 3: said that. So that the Declaration is part of our

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Speaker 3: constitution and that Actually, that's another reason I wrote the

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Speaker 3: book is I was really bothered. When Justice Barrett was

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Speaker 3: going through her confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court, one

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Speaker 3: of the senators asked her, is the Declaration part of

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Speaker 3: our law? And she said no, And that's completely wrong.

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Speaker 3: Of course, it's part of our law. It was passed

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Speaker 3: by what was the legislature of the country at the time.

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Speaker 3: It had legal consequences by separating us from Great Britain.

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Speaker 3: It still has legal consequences it's in the statute books.

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Speaker 3: If you pull down volume one, page one of the

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Speaker 3: Statutes at Large of the United States or the United

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Speaker 3: States Code. There it is what else is necessary to

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Speaker 3: make it a law. It is the basic law. It's

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Speaker 3: the frame in which the Constitution exists.

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Speaker 1: See.

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Speaker 2: I didn't even know that last part about it actually

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Speaker 2: being in the Code. It's bizarre and troubling to me

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Speaker 2: that she would say that, I don't think I fully

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Speaker 2: appreciated it the over the time.

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Speaker 3: She's not the only one to either. Justice Schoolia said

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Speaker 3: the same thing. In fact, when he was on the

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Speaker 3: Supreme Court, Scolia would frequently refuse to join opinions that

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Speaker 3: cited the Declaration of Independence because he says it wasn't law.

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Speaker 3: Of course, it's law. And the reason that it's important

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Speaker 3: that its law is because you know, it's like the

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Speaker 3: ninth and tenth Amendments. If those are law, then the

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Speaker 3: Declaration is law. And the role of the ninth and

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Speaker 3: tenth Amendments of the Constitution play is they teach us

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Speaker 3: how to read the Constitution, and that's what the Declaration does.

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Speaker 2: Also, we're talking to Tim Sanderfer of the Goldwater Institute.

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Speaker 2: His new book is Proclaiming Liberty, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson

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Speaker 2: and the Declaration of Independence. I meant to ask you

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Speaker 2: when we were talking about this, Jefferson Young showed up

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Speaker 2: late to the party.

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Speaker 1: How do you get the gig.

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Speaker 2: Of being the head of the writing the Declaration committee.

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Speaker 3: Well, he had written two documents that really impressed people

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Speaker 3: at the time. He wrote a response to Lord North's

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Speaker 3: Conciliatory Proposal. So what that was was Lord North was

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Speaker 3: the Prime Minister and he had sent what he claimed

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Speaker 3: was an offer of compromise to the American colonies, which

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Speaker 3: you actually read it, it turns out it was an illusion.

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Speaker 1: There was no.

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Speaker 3: Actual offer to compromise at all. And so Jefferson in

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Speaker 3: Virginia he was given the opportunity to write a response

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Speaker 3: to that, and did such a good job of it

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Speaker 3: that he later went to Philadelphia and they asked him

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Speaker 3: to write a second response to Lord North. And then

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Speaker 3: the second thing was he had written a pamphlet called

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Speaker 3: the Summary View of the Rights of British America, and

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Speaker 3: that also was so impressive to people, so well written.

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Speaker 3: Jefferson was a really gifted writer, and they liked it

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Speaker 3: so much that in fact Jefferson used whole phrases from

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Speaker 3: that pamphlet in the Declaration of Independence itself. So he

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Speaker 3: was a young, gifted scholar. And that was the other

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Speaker 3: thing was he was really knowledgeable about the history of law.

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Speaker 3: He was really good at looking up old law and

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Speaker 3: explaining what the old laws meant, because he was a

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Speaker 3: very scholarly guy. I mean, there are these legends about

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Speaker 3: him as a college student staying up late in the

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Speaker 3: night reading to the point where his friends got annoyed,

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Speaker 3: and at one point they wanted to go out and

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Speaker 3: have fun, and they came and they overturned the desk

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Speaker 3: he was trying he was working on in order to

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Speaker 3: get to go out and have a good time with them.

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Speaker 3: And you know, it's funny to read stories like that

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Speaker 3: and be like, Jefferson was a guy like everybody else.

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Speaker 3: He you know, he he flirted with the girls when

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Speaker 3: he was in college and he went out with his

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Speaker 3: friends and had a good time. But he also wrote

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Speaker 3: the Declaration of Independence. That's just incredible.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Tim sanderfer, Tim, can you hang around for

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Speaker 2: a little bit at short break and then continue the conversation.

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Speaker 1: Would absolutely love to do that.

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Speaker 2: I want to talk about Adams and how he was

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Speaker 2: such a wonderful balance to Jefferson. What a pleasure as

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Speaker 2: we near the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of our

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Speaker 2: founding to be talking about Tim Sander for his brand

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Speaker 2: new book Proclaiming Liberty, John Adams, Tom Jefferson in the

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Speaker 2: Declaration of Independence with the author Tim, thanks for hanging around.

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Speaker 1: Thank you.

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Speaker 2: So, I think a lot of people who are at

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Speaker 2: least history nuts, are familiar with John Adams is a

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Speaker 2: balancing guy against Thomas Pain's and Thomas jeffersons I believe

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Speaker 2: more in federal power as opposed to you know, pure

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Speaker 2: states rights blah blah blah. But what was Adam's effect

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Speaker 2: on the drafting the declar.

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Speaker 3: Well, So Adams tells this story when he's an old man,

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Speaker 3: he told this story about how he had chosen Jefferson

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Speaker 3: to write the declaration because he was so busy, and

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Speaker 3: because he says he says, I was very much disliked

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Speaker 3: at the time, and I was afraid that everybody would

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Speaker 3: pick on it if I tried to write it. So

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Speaker 3: I gave it to Jefferson to write and said, and

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Speaker 3: that probably is not true because at the time actually

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Speaker 3: Adams was not disliked. John Adams was very much admired

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Speaker 3: and respected at the time. It was only later that

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Speaker 3: he became unpopular, and so that's why he had that

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Speaker 3: misre misremembered what had happened. But he was the older

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Speaker 3: and much and more experienced guy, and he was really

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Speaker 3: a trial lawyer. I think, you know, for since I'm

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Speaker 3: a lawyer, this is how I think of it. John

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Speaker 3: Adams was a trial lawyer, and Jefferson was an appellate lawyer,

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Speaker 3: meaning that John Adams loved to get in there and

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Speaker 3: argue with people, and he gave the speeches and he

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Speaker 3: persuaded people. And Jefferson liked to get behind the books

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Speaker 3: and start looking into the history and writing stuff.

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Speaker 1: But he didn't like to talk, and he.

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Speaker 3: Hated public speaking. Jeffson, all his.

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Speaker 1: Life hated public speaking.

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Speaker 3: So he wrote and then let John Adams go and

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Speaker 3: defend the thing. And as for the contents, most of

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Speaker 3: it was stuff that Jefferson already knew or that had

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Speaker 3: already been circulating for many years. But there were some

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Speaker 3: things that Adams added to the declaration, and particularly there's

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Speaker 3: a complaint in there that says that the king has

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Speaker 3: moved our legislatures around and made it difficult for our

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Speaker 3: legislatures to meet. And that happens to Adams specifically. The

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Speaker 3: governor of Massachusetts had gotten annoyed at the Patriots, and

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Speaker 3: so he ordered the Massachusetts legislature to meet in Cambridge

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Speaker 3: instead of in Boston, which was a real hassle. But

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Speaker 3: most of all, it was upset the patriots because it

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Speaker 3: was like, well, the king can just ignore the legislature

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Speaker 3: and boss us around, tell us what to do. Violate

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Speaker 3: separation of powers, and that's not right. And so Adams

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Speaker 3: got Jefferson to include that in the Declaration of Independence.

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Speaker 3: And then once the thing was finished, Adams stood up

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Speaker 3: and defended it against its critics after line after line,

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Speaker 3: and it took two days for them to finally decide

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Speaker 3: on the final wording of the declaration, after Jefferson had

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Speaker 3: written the first round.

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Speaker 2: Were there any real sticking points, serious points of contention

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Speaker 2: between say, Adams and Jefferson or other folks, I mean,

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Speaker 2: real bare knuckle brawls over what the declaration should say.

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Speaker 3: Not between Adams and Jefferson, but definitely between them and

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Speaker 3: the other delegates. And the most obvious example is the

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Speaker 3: one about slavery. So Jefferson had included this long, impassioned

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Speaker 3: attack on slavery at the end of the declaration. It

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Speaker 3: was the longest passage in the Declaration, and it was

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Speaker 3: the most emphatic. Jefferson was using all caps and underlining

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Speaker 3: words and things because it was so angry about slavery.

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Speaker 1: I want to stop you. I want to stop you

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Speaker 1: right there.

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Speaker 2: Did you hear that, products of America's beleaguered, perverted public schools.

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Speaker 2: Jefferson hated the institution of slavery anyway, back to you, tim.

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Speaker 3: All his life he hated the institution of slavery. And

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Speaker 3: the idea that Jefferson somehow pro slavery or something like

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Speaker 3: that is just a ludicrous lie that has been foisted

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Speaker 3: on a lot of America's school kids. I'm afraid Jefferson

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Speaker 3: had written this long denunciation of the king so that

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Speaker 3: when you read his version of the Declaration, it sort

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Speaker 3: of like rose to this rhetorical climax where it starts

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Speaker 3: out with, well, he did this, and he did that,

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Speaker 3: and then he did these worse things, and then these

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Speaker 3: even worse things, and then these even worse things, and

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Speaker 3: then worst of all is he prohibited the colonies from

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Speaker 3: limiting the importation of slaves and slavery is this horrible thing,

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Speaker 3: And that's how it ended. And Adams loved it, and

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Speaker 3: years later he said, I loved every word, especially the

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Speaker 3: attack on slavery. But the other delegates at the Congress

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Speaker 3: would not allow that in there. And Jefferson later said

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Speaker 3: that it was South Carolina and Georgia in particular that

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Speaker 3: were such heavy employers of slaves, but also the Northern states,

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Speaker 3: which were heavy transporters of slaves, also had qualms with it,

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Speaker 3: and so they ended up taking that entire paragraph out.

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Speaker 3: And Jefferson was so upset about that that he went

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Speaker 3: back to his apartment and wrote out his version of

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Speaker 3: the declaration and sent it to a bunch of friends

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Speaker 3: and said, don't you think my version is better? And

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Speaker 3: then fifty years later in his memoirs, he did the

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Speaker 3: same thing, copied out his version of the declaration in

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Speaker 3: order to make sure that everybody knew that he had

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Speaker 3: tried to do this thing. Jefferson was very much against slavery.

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Speaker 3: The problem was later in life he just gave up

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Speaker 3: on the issue when he really shouldn't have. And I

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Speaker 3: think he does deserve blame for that, But in seventeen

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Speaker 3: seventy six he was an emphatic enemy of slavery.

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Speaker 2: You know, Tim, someday we'll have to impose on your

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Speaker 2: time a little more and bring you back and talk

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Speaker 2: about the founding fathers and slavery and the truth about that.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 2: I have, to my credit, I have not read the

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Speaker 2: whole thing, but I have a copy of the book

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Speaker 2: Arguing About Slavery, which is wonderful. But are there any

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Speaker 2: other books on the topic you'd recommend. We've barely got

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Speaker 2: a minute.

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Speaker 1: By the way.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I do love Arguing about Slavery by William

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Speaker 3: Lee Miller. Absolutely marvelous book. There are some really good

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Speaker 3: books by oh gosh, what's his name. I'm forgetting the name.

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Speaker 1: You know. Drop me a note.

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Speaker 2: We'll post it at the website at Armstrong Geddy dot com.

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Speaker 2: Tim Sanderfer the Goldwater Institute. The new book is Proclaiming

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Speaker 2: Liberty John Adams Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence. I

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Speaker 2: truly can't wait to read it. Tim, always enjoy it

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Speaker 2: so much. Great to talk to you.

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Speaker 3: Thanks, Joe.

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Speaker 1: All right, Thanks, We will talk again soon next hour.

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Speaker 2: If you are privileged, if you are if you have

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Speaker 2: fourth hour privilege. We've got a great conversation coming up

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Speaker 2: with Gordon Chang about China, not only in the way

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Speaker 2: of the conflict in the Gulf, but just what they

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Speaker 2: are up to, because everybody's kind of been looking a way,

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Speaker 2: including the shocking fact that the Trump administration seems to

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Speaker 2: have gone a little soft on China and why that

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Speaker 2: might be.

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Speaker 1: So that's our for.

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Speaker 2: If you don't get our for, you got to go somewhere,

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Speaker 2: that's fine. Just grab it via podcast Later, subscribe to

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Speaker 2: Armstrong and Getty on demand. It downloads automatically and you

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Speaker 2: get the One More Thing podcast as well. Thanks for

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Speaker 2: being here, more to come, Armstrong and Getty