America Is Not a Democracy: The Mixed Government the Founders Built | Bill Norton

[00:00:14] Welcome to The Jenny Beth Show. Welcome to The Jenny Beth Show. I'm Jenny Beth Martin and we are doing another Constitution and First Principles training with constitutional scholar Bill Norton. If you missed the first two episodes, be sure to go and check out the first two. They were on the Declaration of Independence. Today we are covering the Constitution and the next episode will be on the Bill of Rights. Bill Norton, thank you so much for joining me. It's good to be here with you again.

[00:00:43] So it's time to get into the Constitution. Yeah, time to finally get into the big document. Yes. So the Declaration, what's great about what we've already done there is we just laid all the groundwork for these fundamental principles. And now we get to see how those principles are applied and what the founders did to try to apply them to government and to actually how to take these great principles.

[00:01:12] principles and how to turn them into government so that our rights are protected, which is exactly what the Declaration said government's purpose is. And so let's see if the founders can do it, right? Yes. They attempted it a number of times. They weren't always successful, but they got it pretty close with the Constitution. But they knew that they weren't going to get it right on. And so they also provided some provisions for us to be able to make some alterations as well.

[00:01:41] So we're going to approach this differently than we have in school and the way that you've learned the Constitution in the past. The way that you've learned the Constitution in the past is basically learning separation of powers and checks and balances. And I'm sure everybody on here remembers in their civics classes learning about checks and balances and separation of powers.

[00:02:10] So, but we're going to approach it differently this time. Instead of focusing on the way that you've been taught in school, we're going to tackle it different because when we look at the Constitution from the way that the founders built it, then it helps us understand the document so much better.

[00:02:29] If we just look at separation of powers and checks and balances just by themselves, we can see that they had some good ideas on how these two branches can check each other or whatever, but we don't really know why. And so we're going to get into the why. All right. And how it all works. Well, I think that it's important to understand why they did it.

[00:02:49] If we want constitutionally limited government, we have to understand the purpose of the Constitution and how they wound up settling on this particular document so that we are able to protect it and advocate for it. That's right. And we have to understand that it's the government, especially the Constitution, it's a mechanism. It's a machine. And so if we... Boy, is it a machine. It is. Washington, certainly.

[00:03:20] So if something goes wrong, it's just like when the check engine light comes on in your car, if you have no clue how an engine works, then you don't even know where to start to troubleshoot on why the engine light has gone on. And so that's why you take it to a mechanic. But when it comes to our government, the people need to be the mechanics and we need to understand what happens and where to go.

[00:03:45] If one of those warning lights come on and what we can do to identify the problem and then to fix the problem. And so when we really understand how the machine is built, then it gives us the ability to do that. So we kind of are in mechanic school. That's right. All right. That's exactly right. Okay. So the form of government that everybody always refers to us as is a democracy, right?

[00:04:14] And that's not completely wrong. We certainly have tenets of democracy. But we are not a democracy. And the founders, not only did they not design us as a democracy, but they flat out rejected democracy because democracies are not a pleasant form of government. It's basically mob rule, right? In fact, this is what James Madison said.

[00:04:38] He said, democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention, have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property, and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. So that's the view of the founders on democracy. Certainly pure democracies are exactly this way.

[00:05:04] And the moment people realize that in a democracy you can vote yourself money out of the other person's pocket, then that's really when the democracies start failing. And it's mob rule. And so if you are not part of the majority, then you're toast. And so that's a problem. And Rush Limbaugh used to say – I didn't go check Rush Limbaugh before we recorded this, so I'm saying this off of my memory.

[00:05:32] But I remember he used to say that when it comes to a democracy, some people would love it if the people voted on every single issue, which would be a pure democracy. But we aren't going to be informed on every single issue. And only the people who show up actually wind up having a voice, which is true even in our election system. But if they care passionately about the issue, they're going to be there for that issue and maybe not for other issues.

[00:05:59] And just it isn't – the decisions aren't as informed as they could be otherwise. That's right. And any nation that's tried a pure democracy, that's where a lot of the failures happen. It's not always because they're immoral and they want to vote themselves things that you have or whatever. It's also because they don't have the time or the energy to really look at the situation, understand the situation, and then go vote on every single time.

[00:06:26] I mean it's already enough work for our legislators to do that. Can you imagine trying to do that in addition to our work? And it's hard enough also running elections and securing the elections and for people to vote two or three, four times a year. That's right. So imagine if every day people had to vote every single day multiple times a day. It would be impossible.

[00:06:49] And so those who really promote democracy and think we are democracy and want to have democracy through and through, they're not really thinking through how much time and energy it takes to actually run a pure democracy. So that's – but so we are not a democracy. We are – what the founders referred to us as – they referred to us as a few different things.

[00:07:13] But republic is the number one term that was used and continues to be used to define what our country is. But republic is a very – has a very broad definition. In fact, think about these five countries. You have Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Now, some people might recognize those countries as the BRICS nations.

[00:07:41] The BRICS nations are these nations that have gathered together and are trying to – they're kind of trying to become economic powers of the world. They're kind of trying to be the antithesis to the West. But nonetheless, these five countries, every single one of them refers to themselves as a republic. So that includes China. It includes Russia. Right? I'm pretty sure communism is not what we think of when we think of a republic.

[00:08:10] Certainly not what I think of. Exactly. But they call themselves a republic. And they all look very different from each other and very different from us. So clearly, republic has a pretty broad definition. And it does. It basically just – it's from the Latin res publica, which just means of the people or from the people. And so you can say communism is of the people and from the people. You can say that.

[00:08:33] You can say that Russia with its totalitarianism is of the people because they're doing it for the people and the people – they always claim that the people are supporting them. Doing it for the power, but okay. Yeah. And so now we need to figure out, okay, what are we really? Okay. And what's interesting is we can go through all these different forms of government and people know the definitions. But when I ask them, what is a republic, they don't know the definition of a republic.

[00:09:03] They don't know who we really are. And so it's important that we understand that. So that's what we're going to do is we're going to go through these different types of government. So I know we're saying that this is about the Constitution and we're going to get there, but we're laying this groundwork. We're going to talk about different types of government to try to really identify what type of government we have and to really understand what it means to call us a republic.

[00:09:32] So we're going to start with five basic types. You can take all forms of government and you can boil it down to these five. John Adams wrote a great book called In Defense of the Constitutions of the United States of America. And he wrote this in 1787 right before the Constitutional Convention. So when he's talking about In Defense of the Constitutions of the United States, he's not talking about the United States Constitution because it didn't exist when he wrote this book.

[00:10:01] When he wrote it, he was defending the state constitutions. And to a large degree, he had influenced most of those state constitutions. And so he really had an understanding of them. And what he did, excuse me, in these volumes is he goes through dozens and dozens of different nations and identifies what form of government they had and what failed and what succeeded in those types.

[00:10:28] And he has names of governments that you've never heard of. Like he talks about an oklocracy. And an oklocracy is between anarchy and democracy. So it literally is mob rule. Democracy is a little bit better than mob rule, but not much. And so oklocracy. So he's got all these interesting names. But we can boil it down to five. So the first one is anarchy. Now what does anarchy mean to you?

[00:10:57] It means there's no one in charge at all. That's right. Which makes me think of murder and rape and violence. Exactly. It's like you have to constantly be looking over your shoulder. None of your stuff is safe. And so what happens is people don't accumulate stuff because that makes them a target. And so you don't prosper. You don't grow. You don't cultivate the earth.

[00:11:24] You don't do any of those things because you literally just live day by day. Because if you don't, then you're a target. And so anarchy is the state in which we find ourselves in in its rawest form. So if all of us were dumped on this earth the exact same time, we would begin instantaneously in an anarchy state. So we define the simplest definition of anarchy is rule by none.

[00:11:54] Right. And so moving forward, we will sometimes refer back to anarchy but not much because even though we're calling it a form of government, it really is no form of government. Okay. And so the only part that we still retain when it comes to anarchy is just our rugged individualism. Right. Sometimes we do like to be anarchists. We just want to be left alone. Just don't bug me. And I just want to live my own life. And sometimes we even say that to our own loved ones.

[00:12:24] Just I'm just going to sit in this room and I'm going to veg out in this movie. Leave me alone. Don't touch me. Exactly. And so in that state, anarchy is still there when it comes to just our individualism. The next form of government is monarchy. Now, monarchy is the most common type of government in claim, I should say, because it never really ever exists. Monarchy in its simplest definition is rule by one. But that never really happens.

[00:12:54] Even a king has a council or has, you know, even friends behind the scenes that are helping to kind of, you know, orchestrate things. There are only so many people you can influence individually. Yes. So you've got to have a other set of people helping. For sure. Okay. But basically monarchy literally means mono is one. So it's rule by one. And history has mostly had monarchs.

[00:13:23] The next form of government is an oligarchy. Now, an oligarchy doesn't seem like it's much different than a monarchy because a lot of monarchies really are oligarchies. But oligarchy is simply rule by few. So rule by none, rule by one, and now rule by few. So it's just a handful of people that govern.

[00:13:43] And sometimes those are divine right of kings types where they feel like they're divinely, this family line, for example, is divinely appointed to govern others. And sometimes it's just the aristocracy. It's the rich. It's the business owners. It's the, you know, whatever. But it's rule by few. And then we have democracy, which we already kind of talked a little bit about. James Madison talking about how it's violent in the deaths.

[00:14:11] But here's what John Adams said about democracy. He said, remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avariceness than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history.

[00:14:41] So he's saying democracy is just as selfish as any monarchy or aristocracy that you've ever seen, which I find interesting because those who really push and promote democracy, they think that it's somehow selfless. You know, like socialism is selfless and communism is selfless. But it's no less selfish than monarchy is what Adams is saying here.

[00:15:09] What you said a few minutes ago about how the democracies will wind up failing when people realize they can vote themselves money out of other people's pockets. That's when it fails. Well, that is taking from other people. It is a very selfish act. That's right. And we see that even in our society today.

[00:15:31] Right now there's a movement, you know, cancel culture and a movement of intolerance in order to, because they're not wanting to tolerate who they think are intolerant. And you see this contradiction where you are actually becoming what you hate. And that's what happens in democracy is you think that you're so selfless. And so you have to destroy who you think are selfish. And in that process, you are being selfish. Okay.

[00:15:58] And so that's democracy is just a really lot of turmoil. So the simplest definition for democracy is rule by majority. But what's different here, though, what makes it more than just rule by majority is what you brought up earlier.

[00:16:21] If we have a pure democracy and we're all having to vote on every single thing, then it ends up getting to the point to where only people who are interested in that particular thing go and vote. So it ends up not being a majority. In fact, we have this exercise that we'll do sometimes where I'll go through and I'll ask people, like if I'm in a particular state, I'll ask them what the population of their state is and how many people came out and voted and all this stuff.

[00:16:49] And we'll actually boil it down to show them that those who actually won an election, it usually boils down anywhere between like six and about 15 percent of the people are actually making the decision in an election. And so what we see is a democracy.

[00:17:35] Off the calendar of normal elections. Right. And it made it so hardly anybody turned out. Yeah. The number in municipal elections, especially in those off year elections, is so, so small. That's right. And then they've gone in so many places around the country and made municipal elections nonpartisan. I think somehow to I'm sure there were nefarious reasons. So one party would control more.

[00:18:01] But probably it was done under the guise of getting more people to participate in the election. But they just there are a lot of people in this country who vote one time every four years. I've looked at the numbers. I know the numbers. I don't know the numbers off the top of my head, but I know how to get the numbers. And it is a lot of people every four years. But in between there, not as many, not as many in the primary, not as many in the off year, not as many in runoffs where you have runoffs.

[00:18:29] So it just it's a very small percentage. It is. I mean, in my own municipality, I ran for town council a number of years ago. And it's when we had an off year election. And there was only about 9000 people that voted in that particular election. And one of the things we wanted to do is change it and align it with normal elections. And now on a regular basis, we have 30,000 plus that come and vote.

[00:18:58] So literally more than three times more. A third of the people were deciding the roads, the taxes, the sewage system, the water, police, fire, because that's what's being decided at those local. Exactly. In those local levels. A lot of times it's things that are a lot closer to home. Yes. And actually impact your life even more than federal elections. So so, yeah. So democracy is ruled by majority of those who participate. And that's pretty significant to recognize of those that participate.

[00:19:28] Right. And so so those are the the the five basic forms of government. Well, we've covered four so far. The fifth one is a republic. OK. But we're not going to define that one just yet. We're going to explore it a little bit first before we define it, because like I mentioned, most people can't define it. They don't know how to define it. And if we try to boil it down to a simple definition like rule by one, rule by few, rule by many.

[00:19:56] Nobody can define a republic that simply. Everybody talks about how it's, you know, comes from the people or it's a constitutional republic or a representative republic or whatever. There's all these different definitions. But none can really pinpoint exactly what it is. So let's look at what the founders did. And and let's let's explore. Basically, what they did is they took all these different forms of government and combine them together.

[00:20:25] But before we get too deep into that, let's look at a couple of interesting things about these different forms of government. If you look at anarchy and monarchy, for example, those seem like two different things. Right. Two very different things. But the mentality of the people is actually very similar under anarchy and monarchy.

[00:20:50] And it all goes back to remember when we were talking about the declaration and we talked about assuming from the powers of the earth are separate and equal station. And we talked about how in all forms of government, everybody thinks that power originates in people. And so in this case, in anarchy, they think that the power originates in people as individuals. In monarchy, they think that it originates in a person, a single king.

[00:21:18] Again, as an individual. And so you can start seeing the similarity in thinking here where power originates in individuals. And what's fascinating is that when anarchy is failing, what does it always devolve to? It almost always devolves to some sort of dictatorship. That's right. It goes to a monarchy. Yeah.

[00:21:42] That's exactly what happens. And the reason why is because, first of all, things are chaotic and we want some strong person just to come in and take charge. But our mentality is that power originates in individuals. So now we're going to appoint an individual. Right. To be the ultimate power. We never think, oh, we should appoint a committee to be in charge or rarely. That's right. Usually committees don't work very well. But anyway, that's another story for another day.

[00:22:06] So isn't that interesting, though, how anarchy and monarchy are actually very similar when it comes to the mentality of the people? Yes. Likewise, democracy and oligarchy have the same thing. So the worldview in a democracy is that power originates in people collectively. And so when things aren't working with all of us collectively, what do we do?

[00:22:31] We put a collective group of people together, a small few, the committee, and they're the ones with the power. And so if you look at democracies throughout the world, democracies almost always devolve into oligarchies. Which, interestingly enough, if you really watch what happens to countries and you see an elect group of elitists or the aristocracy,

[00:23:01] they often will promote democracy because those elitists know that democracies always devolve into oligarchies. And if you're an elitist, you like oligarchy, right? Well, I'm not an elitist. Yes, I know. But if you are an elitist, I should say. Yes. Or if you want to be one. Yes. Then you want an oligarchy because the elitists are in charge. Right.

[00:23:27] And if you know that the way we're going to devolve into an oligarchy is by first having a democracy, then you're going to promote democracy. If you want to be a monarch, you're going to promote anarchy. So watch the people who promote anarchy and you'll see they're the ones, which is super ironic because they're the ones that are out there claiming no kings, right? Right. But watch them.

[00:23:53] And there's like Antifa and others are promoting anarchy. They are. And in return, what they're really shooting for is a totalitarianism or a monarchy. And those that are promoting democracy are really wanting an oligarchy. So I find all that so fascinating. Well, and then the ones who are promoting democracy on the left right now in today's America are the ones who are saying, oh, we don't like the rich.

[00:24:23] We need Washington Post. Democracy dies in darkness. The Democratic Party. We're protecting our democracy. You know, whatever their mantra is. It's all about democracy. Yep. And they want to have power in the hands of a few and they're okay with that. That's right. So they become the very thing they claim that they hate. Exactly. It's bizarre.

[00:24:53] And that's the irony of it. Yeah. And it seems bizarre on the surface, but when you start looking at it from these terms that we're talking about, suddenly you realize, oh, that makes sense. Right. Because they believe power originates with the collective people. And so therefore, when they want to put power in the hands of a few, it's in the hands of a collective group and not in that monarchy. And so it's the same way of thinking. And that's why it devolves that way.

[00:25:20] And that's why on the surface, it might look like it's a contradiction, but it's actually not. It's the same worldview, which I just, it's just super fascinating. It is very fascinating, Bill. And so, and the founders recognize this. And again, John Adams, primarily with all his research that he did, he's like recognizing what happens to these governments when they start failing, where they go and why they fail and why all that happens.

[00:25:49] So we have all these different forms of government. So now the founders, they go back to Polybius. Now, Polybius was a Greek philosopher who was carried off to Rome and became a Roman philosopher, which was, he was fine either way. Right. He liked both civilizations. And as long as he got to just do his philosophy, he was fine.

[00:26:10] But basically what he did was he looked at Greek, Greece and Rome, and he realized that there were some, a lot of positive aspects about them because he recognized that they have had different aspects of different forms of government in them.

[00:26:28] And so he started writing about a mixed form of government, how it would be good if we put a system of government together that captured the best of these different forms of government and figured out how to get rid of the worst of those forms of government.

[00:26:46] And then Montesquieu, who was a French philosopher, ended up kind of picking up where Polybius left off and started exploring even more. In fact, Montesquieu wrote a book called The Spirit of the Laws. And it was a book that actually praised the English system of government. And he was a French philosopher.

[00:27:11] And so the people in France didn't really like him much because he was praising England. And during these times, this is when England and France were bitter enemies. But nonetheless, he thought England had a pretty good system because it was starting to kind of separate these forms of government as well. So Montesquieu said this. When was that? So he would have been like 1600s. Okay. So the precursor to 1776. That's right. Yeah.

[00:27:41] So this is well before the founders. But the founders loved Montesquieu. They quoted him a lot. Okay. In fact, Jefferson even had a bust of Montesquieu in his home along with some other great philosophers. But here's what Montesquieu said. He said, when the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty.

[00:28:06] Again, there is no liberty, he said, if the judiciary power be not separated from the legislative and executive. Were it joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control. For the judge would then be the legislator. Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with violence and oppression. So he's wanting to pull this apart. So Polybius kind of divided the legislative from the executive.

[00:28:36] But it's Montesquieu that also then said, well, the judiciary needs to be divided out as well. And so you have these three branches that should be divided. But it wasn't just about the legislative, executive and judicial. It was also about these forms of government. Okay. So which form of government handles those branches the best? Which form does monarchy handle executive or legislative better or judicial?

[00:29:03] And so James Madison said this. He said, the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands, whether of one, a few or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed or elective may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

[00:29:23] So notice here that Madison is not pointing out that having the three branches of government, executive, legislative and judicial, having them in the hands of a monarchy. He's not saying produces tyranny. He's saying either a monarchy or an oligarchy or a democracy or any form of government. If you combine these three things, they will all become tyrants. And so that's important to keep in mind.

[00:29:52] And so not one form of government is safe. So what we really need to do is we've got to divide these things out into different forms of government. And so that's what the founders elected to do. And let me just go back to the James Madison quote for just a minute, because it is. I think I want to reiterate what you said, the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands.

[00:30:19] So that's really what ultimately becomes our three branches of government. It's the legislative, the executive and the judiciary, whether hereditary, self-appointed or elected. So that goes back to the forms of government. Monarchy for hereditary, because usually that's what happens in a monarchy that I'm aware of. Self-appointed, which is an oligarchy. Yes. And then at least that's how I'm interpreting it based on what you just said.

[00:30:49] And then elective would be the democracy. So he's kind of that is really insightful in the forms of government and the three branches that ultimately we wind up with. That's right. So if you don't have separation of powers, it doesn't matter what form of government you place it in, whether it's a monarchy, democracy, oligarchy. It's going to be abused. Yes. And we're going to have problems. They will turn into tyrants. And so this is where the founders are taking various ideas now. Okay.

[00:31:17] Polybius and Monascure are saying, okay, divide out these three forms of government. And then the founders are saying, okay, well, let's look at these different types of government as well. Let's start blending things up and mixing it all together. And so the founders referred, and mostly Adams, referred to our system of government as a mixed form of government. And they only referred to it that way a few times. So that's why I don't think it stuck. But that explains who we are more than saying we're a republic. We're a mixed form of government.

[00:31:49] And so let's talk very briefly. We'll go into more detail about this as we go. So, for example, the democratic element we see in the House of Representatives, right? The aristocracy or the oligarchy element we see in the original form of the Senate. The monarchy we see in the executive branch, right? And we'll clarify some of that.

[00:32:17] But the judiciary, the courts, we see that they are more like an oligarchy as well. So the question, a quick kind of side note that I want to point out here is when we look at the Supreme Court, for example, how long is the term of office?

[00:32:38] If I was to ask that question to all Americans, a large percentage, if I said, how long is the term of office for a Supreme Court justice? What do you think their answer would be? Well, I suspect they don't know the answer. They don't. But most say for life. For life. Right. And because that's what it feels like, right? Because they're appointed and then they're in there until they die. But the Constitution actually doesn't say that.

[00:33:08] The Constitution actually says that they shall serve for good behavior. And so what's interesting there about that is that that changes our relationship with the courts, right? So picture this. If a Supreme Court justice comes and asks you if they can, if they're a little child, for example, and they ask if they can go play in the courtroom, and you say, sure, you can go play in the courtroom as long as you have good behavior, and then you send them off to go and play.

[00:33:40] That makes it very clear that the people and our elected officials are over those courts. When we think that they're in there for life, that starts getting us into a mindset of divine right of kings. Because who's the only person that's going to take them out of that office? God, right? And so if God is the only one that can remove them from office, then therefore it's a divine right of kings mentality.

[00:34:07] And so when we think that they hold their term for life, it changes the way that we look at them. We think that we don't have much control over them, whereas we have a tremendous amount of control over them. They are only in there for good behavior. And when we get into the details of the Constitution, we'll talk about how we define that, who defines that, who determines that, all that stuff. Because it's all there. Okay. It's great stuff.

[00:34:33] So now we're back to trying to define who we are as a republic. What in the world is this definition? So let's explore what these different forms of government look like in reality. So to the best of your knowledge, in a monarchy, how many days out of the year does the monarch exercise control over that system?

[00:35:00] I think he would do it every day, right? Yeah, 365 days out of the year. And by the way, this exercise here was developed by, again, my friend and co-author of Speaking the Language of Liberty, Mark Herr, who's just a brilliant mind. And he just helps us really understand these forms of government with this illustration. So I love it. So yes, a monarch, 365 days out of the year.

[00:35:25] How many days out of the year do the people or do the governed exercise control of the system in a monarchy? They don't really exercise control. That's right. They're controlled by the monarch. It's zero. So 365 over zero. Right. And so that's what a monarchy looks like. Okay. An oligarchy, if I asked the exact same questions of the oligarchy, you'd have the exact same answer. Um, the oligarchs control at 365 days. The people control at zero days.

[00:35:55] Um, so they look pretty similar in that sense. Um, now what about anarchy? How many days out of the year do the governors control anarchy? They don't control it at all. That's right. That's a trick question. There are no governors. There is no system. So therefore it's zero. Right. But because there are no governors and there is no system, how many days out of the year do the people control it? Zero. Yeah. So zero over zero is anarchy.

[00:36:23] Um, so now let's go to democracy. So how many days out of the year, uh, do the governors exercise control of democracy? Well, it seems like they exercise control most of the time. Yeah. It's again, 365 days out of the year. Okay. Um, and so how many days out of the year do the people exercise control in democracy? Uh, the day they do. They have elections. That's right.

[00:36:50] So let's just, for argument's sake, let's just say that's once a year. Okay. I mean, maybe a particular democracy might do it once a month. Maybe it's once every five years, whatever. But let's just say it's once a year. Okay. Because that's pretty typical of, of how we operate. We typically have an election about once a year between municipalities and state and federal elections and stuff. Um, so they exercise control over the system one day out of the year. So that's 365 over one.

[00:37:18] That's not very different than monarchy and oligarchy. No. 365 over zero. But I want to point out how significant that difference is because let's, let's look at North Korea. North Korea is 365 over zero. And if we're operating like a democracy, where's 365 over one? Look at the significance of what that one day makes. It's huge. Yeah. So I don't want to, I don't want to, you know, gloss over that and make it seem like

[00:37:47] democracies are terrible and horrible. They, they are a step forward in the people being able to be involved and they're a step forward in, uh, trying to, you know, do away with really harsh totalitarian types of government. Now you might say, well, but Bill, I do a lot more than just one day a year, right? When you're out there promoting, activating all that.

[00:38:16] Um, but when you have a political organization, um, even like Tea Party Patriots or the Democrat, the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, whatever, most of their activity is designed to get as many people together on their side for that one day a year. So even though you might be, uh, like the, the Republican Party might be doing a lot of

[00:38:41] activity, um, 365 days out of the year, it's still all activity to make it so that one day a year is more impactful. So we work on legislative issues, but even on that, we're calling our congressmen or calling our Senator and the ultimate control lies with, with the elected official. We have influence, but the, the biggest place we can pull that in influences on election day. That's right. And, and to be involved with some of that legislation and all that is, is a step up and

[00:39:10] doing a little bit more than that one day a year, but you're right. You're still calling your congressmen who, uh, if, if they're not responding to you very well, well, then your goal is then on election day, you might want to change them out. Uh, or you might want to keep them if they are responding to you well. Um, and so, so yeah, we do, because we claim that we're a democracy, we put an awful lot of focus on that one day a year.

[00:39:34] Um, and so, so, so you see the, uh, these different forms of government and how they're exercised. So now let's talk about a republic. So in a republic, how many days out of the year do the governors exercise control over the system? In a republic, the governors, don't they still exercise control every day? Yeah. 365. Good thing or bad thing?

[00:40:02] Um, well, there has to be order somewhere. So somebody has to be taking action. So it, it, I think it depends on the other side of the equation as to whether it's good or bad. And that's right. And, and, and, and sometimes we feel like it's a bad thing because sometimes that government becomes abusive, but let's remember what governments are for. When we covered the declaration in the declaration, it says governments are instituted to protect rights. To protect her rights. That's right.

[00:40:30] And anarchy with no government whatsoever is going to lead to, all we have to do is go look at those places where Antifa popped up, um, the, the zones, the Chad zones in Seattle and in Portland. And we see that violence broke out. So that, that is not something that I, that is not where I want to live.

[00:40:55] And like I said in another episode about the declaration of independence, I don't want to be a pack of wild dogs. Exactly. Precisely. So, so if government is instituted to protect our rights, what day out of the year do you not want your rights protected? I want my rights protected every day. That's right. So 365 days out of the year is, is a good thing. Right. And so if, if there's a problem, then maybe it's a problem on the other side of the equation.

[00:41:25] Maybe it's the fact that anarchy has zero with the people involved or democracy has one or a monarchy has zero with the people involved. Maybe that's the side of the equation that's wrong and not the 365 because the governors are just doing what we've asked them to do. They may not always do a good job at it. Theoretically. They may do more of it than what, than what we want them to. Right. But, but that's also our human nature. Like, like I own a concrete business in Arizona and if I could pave the world in concrete,

[00:41:54] I would, right. We always want to do more of what we do and governors are no different. If you're in the business of being a governor, you want to govern and you want to govern more and more and more. And so just like, just like landscapers who want to plant grass, um, are, you know, they hold me in check to make sure I'm not paving the world in concrete. We have governors that need to have something that holds them in check. So they're not constantly governing more and more and more and more and too much. Right.

[00:42:25] Jefferson said that the natural course of things is for government to gain ground and for liberty to yield. And, and so he's just making us aware that we just need to be aware of that. Government's always going to gain ground. So stop complaining about it and let's just, uh, prevent them from gaining ground in areas that we need to prevent, but we also need to recognize that just like you said, they have to be the 365 days a year. So let's talk about the other side.

[00:42:53] How many days out of the year should we exercise control over the system in our Republic? So to illustrate this, I want to share a story about a woman by the name of Elizabeth Powell. Elizabeth Powell was awesome. Um, she was the wife of the mayor of Philadelphia and his name was Samuel Powell and Samuel was

[00:43:15] the last mayor appointed by the crown and the first mayor elected by the people. So it's so interesting because he was the mayor war breaks out. Philadelphia's government is pretty much dissolved. And so for two years, Philadelphia does not have a mayor. And then when Philadelphia gets back in into play, uh, and, and get their government back

[00:43:41] in order, the people elect the very mayor that, that, that was the mayor under the crown, but they liked him. Samuel Powell was a great guy. Um, but Elizabeth was not well known because of her husband. Um, she had her own reputation. In fact, uh, she, and she came from a great family. Her, um, her, her fourth great grandfather was a signer of the Magna Carta, um, and ended up being killed because of it.

[00:44:10] And, and so she was just a great patriot and, and that's, they called her husband, even the patriot mayor, um, because he was, he was for the cause of liberty. But during the second continental Congress, Elizabeth Powell opened her home to the founders and she would often have dinners and, uh, ballroom dancing parties and things like that in her home there in Philadelphia. And she did the same thing during the constitutional convention in 1787.

[00:44:38] In fact, we know, uh, there's written evidence that George Washington ate dinner at the Powell house 17 times in that four months during the constitution convention. And that's just the written evidence. We're assuming that he probably ate there more than that. Um, and so Elizabeth created this really close relationship with the founders.

[00:45:03] In fact, if you heard the story, I'm sure you have of the woman who'd stopped Dr. Franklin, uh, after the convention on the streets of Philadelphia and says, what have you given us? What have you given us? Yep. She said, a monarchy or, or a Republic. And he said, a Republic, madam, if you can keep it. So that's Elizabeth, Elizabeth Powell. Now, what's funny about that story is it was recorded as an anxious woman approached Dr.

[00:45:31] Franklin on the streets of Philadelphia and asked, what have you given us? And so later in life, Elizabeth Powell was asked about that. And she said, well, first of all, I have never in my life been anxious. And then she said, you know, I wouldn't have stopped him on the streets of Philadelphia because we were having these conversations in my own home. And so basically saying, I, I was, I was building relationships with them early on. Um, and that's exactly what, what they did.

[00:45:59] They had open conversations with her. A lot of the founders, uh, confided in her and, and George Washington became very close friends, um, with the pals and especially with Elizabeth Powell. When George Washington was president, he was often seen walking up and down the streets with Elizabeth Powell. And they didn't have, uh, you know, there wasn't some kind of scandalous relationship happening there. In fact, that's why they were seen walking up and down the streets is because when they were meeting, um, they would meet in public.

[00:46:29] Uh, and he would often, uh, consult with her and she would give her advice. And in one particular, uh, of these occasions when they were meeting George Washington, let her know that he was not planning on accepting the nomination, uh, for a second term as president. And, um, and he had only told a handful of people that he had told that to, we're assuming his wife. We know he told James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, because there's some notes of that in some meetings.

[00:47:00] And Elizabeth Powell thought about that for a day or two. And then she wrote him a letter and she said, Hey, you know, that conversation we had last Thursday, she said, I think you're dead wrong. You need to accept the nomination to run for, to, to be the president again. And she outlined the reasons why she said, our Republic is fragile. Um, if you leave after one term, people are going to assume that it's failing and you're just abandoning a sinking ship.

[00:47:31] She said that, uh, England is just ready to pounce on us. The moment they see the smallest crack, um, we have, you know, other enemies throughout the world that are, that are trying to take advantage of any failures that we have. And so she basically said that in order to continue to stabilize and secure our Republic, you should stay in office. So George Washington ended up accepting that nomination, um, and was elected president for a second term.

[00:48:01] And shortly after that, Thomas Jefferson, who knew that he was not going to accept the nomination was in a meeting and wrote these notes down. He said, uh, why did you, why did you change your mind? And George Washington simply said, strong solicitations from Philadelphia. Now we've had, uh, the library at Mount Vernon, uh, look into this. Um, some of the foremost experts on even Elizabeth Powell have looked into this to look in to see,

[00:48:31] were there any other letters or documentation from anybody from Philadelphia that was, uh, strongly encouraging him to accept that nomination? And to our knowledge, there's none. So we assume, of course, this is just an assumption that when he said strong solicitations from Philadelphia, uh, at the very least that included Elizabeth Powell's, uh, advice that she was giving him.

[00:48:57] So Elizabeth Powell, here she was, she was a woman. She couldn't vote. She couldn't hold public office. So that one day a year, she didn't have much influence over. And so she did something much more than just election day. Um, she built relationships. She also understood our system. She consulted with our representatives about the system.

[00:49:27] Benjamin Franklin knew that there was something more to, to our Republic than just simply voting because when she asked him that question, what have you given us a monarchy or Republic? His reply was a Republic madam who can't vote and hold public office. If you, who's a woman who can't vote and hold public office can keep it. So clearly there must be other ways of keeping our Republic than just voting and holding public office. And that's precisely what Elizabeth Powell did.

[00:49:56] She opened her home. She built relationships. She consulted. She understood our system of government and she, um, applied influence where she could. And so I would say, if we're asking the question, how many days out of the year do the people exercise control over the system in our system, in our Republic? Um, the answer should be 365 days a year.

[00:50:20] Um, because our system is built for that and, and not just for elections, but for us to be involved in the system, um, throughout the whole process. Which we can get into more in the bill of rights, but that's why the part of why the bill of the first amendment is so important because it is protecting speech and assembly and petitioning the government for redress of grievances.

[00:50:48] All of those are how we can exercise control every single day. That's exactly right. Because if you're not allowed to complain, you're not allowed to petition. You're not allowed, which she was talking to George Washington. I said lobbying, but she was petitioning him. Yeah. She was urging him not to, to make the decision he was making. Yep. And she was exercising her, her voice and pulling people together as she was building those relationships in her home. That's right.

[00:51:15] And she clearly knew about the system and how systems work because she asked Franklin, what did you give us a monarchy or Republic? She's talking about specific forms of government and, and she knew about asking him that way because those conversations had already been happening. She was already part of that. Um, and so, yeah, that's, it's, it's so significant what, what she did in the example that she gives us and what you just brought up about the first amendment. And again, we'll go into more detail of this in the, in the next lesson, but the first amendment

[00:51:45] isn't just this list of these independent separate rights that we have. Um, we have the right, first of all, to think for ourselves with religious beliefs and others. And then we have the right to speak it. And then we have the right to write it and, and, and to multiply it with the press. And then we have the right to, uh, to assemble together and then to petition government.

[00:52:09] So these are all rights that build on each other and they're all part of engaging in the system. Uh, and, and it starts with our first, our right to think, and then it ends up with our right to, for a redress of grievances. Um, and so, yeah, that's all connected with this. So now instead of, um, zero over zero or three 65 over zero or three 65 over one, we are now three 65 over three 65.

[00:52:38] And so as we'll see, as we continue to go through the constitution, um, the way that, that we would define this. And again, Mark Kerr is the one that, that kind of coined this definition, um, is instead of rule by one or rule by few or whatever, it's rule by balance. And that's, that's the key is this balance between that three 65 and three 65. And we'll see as we now go through it, we're going to look for all the balances.

[00:53:05] When we have checks and balances, it's what we're going to try to identify where things are balanced out. Um, because that's really the key. Um, and that's just a beautiful definition, I think of our Republic, our mixed form of government. So let's talk about this now, um, in, in terms of separation of powers, right? Um, so Montesquieu said when the legislative and executive powers are united in the same

[00:53:34] person or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty, right? We'd already quoted that. Um, but I wanted to point that out again, because, uh, that is precisely, um, what Montesquieu was, was really trying to drive home is if you bring those things together, then there's not going to be liberty. And that's when Madison, um, then talked about it as well. And then George Washington said this in his farewell address.

[00:54:05] He said, and this is about checks and balances. He said, is it, it is important. Likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. So he's, he's trying to encourage these departments of government to stay within their own boundaries, right?

[00:54:35] Yes. Only do what you're supposed to do. Don't try to encroach on the others. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one and thus to create whatever the form of government, a real despotism. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power by dividing and distributing it into different depositories and constituting each the guardian of the public wheel against

[00:55:04] invasions by others has been evinced by experiments, ancient and modern to preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. And I love this, which is, this goes back to what we were talking about, like who's anti-government and who's not and all that. The preservation of this idea of the separation of powers and checks and balances is just as important as the institution of them in the first place.

[00:55:31] And so we might be grateful that the founders instituted these ideas, but it's now our responsibility to preserve these ideas. And that's, that's critical. And so in order to preserve them, we really have to understand them. We really have to understand what the boundaries are between these different branches of government. And the best way to understand that is to understand the form of government that the founders were

[00:55:58] trying to place into each branch or each department of government. So let's explore that now. So let's look at this, these different types of governments and how the founders put that into our system. We briefly kind of listed it, but now let's go into detail about it. So the House of Representatives, it's, it's democracy through and through. If you look at how it's built, it's really clear that the founders wanted it to be very, very democratic.

[00:56:29] So for example, the representatives represent a much smaller number of people than the senators, for example. So they're closer to home. We can communicate with, with our congressmen a lot easier than our senators. They're elected every two years. So they have to come back and answer to the people very, very often. And that's quick. Two years is a, is fast in politics, right? Right.

[00:56:58] So when you were just saying that about the two years, and it made me think about how in the Declaration of Independence, we have that whenever from our previous episode, which was, we covered this in episode two of the constitution training. So be sure if you haven't watched it to go back and watch that episode and episode one, but that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is a right of the people to alter or to abolish or to institute a new government.

[00:57:28] And the fact that we make the House of Representatives, the election happened every two years, we are giving the way to alter or abolish that. We can abolish that. We can vote out every single one if the people decided we're sick of all of you and we're going to get a whole new set of people. We do have the ability to do that. That's right. Which is a form of abolishing and or altering. Without needing to go to war. That's right.

[00:57:55] They found a way for us to be able to do what they had to do through fighting so we don't have to fight. That's right. And we can keep our system intact and together and we don't have to create all that turmoil. We can alter it. And if you replace everybody, you're probably going to establish some new governments or new ways of doing things in there. Like if you got rid of every single person, but it's all right there through that democratic process in the House of Representatives. Exactly.

[00:58:20] So the House of Representatives was clearly designed to be much more of a democracy, not a pure democracy, because for reasons we've already talked about, that's just is very hard to do, even if the people were all great and wonderful. And so that's the democratic element. The Senate was originally designed as the oligarchy. It's a select few, mostly made up of the aristocracy.

[00:58:50] So a lot of times senators are going to be wealthy, business owners, maybe family dynasties, things like that. And so that was the oligarchy. Now, we need to make a little side note that that has changed. The 17th Amendment in 1913 changed the method of electing senators to where they're now elected by the people. So they're elected more as a democracy.

[00:59:17] The problem is, is that they're still structured to be like an oligarchy. So for example, the six years, that is not good for a House that's designed as a democracy. It's way too long. Yeah. The fact that we can only remove a third of them at a time because those elections are staggered every two years, that again, is to your point of being able to remove the entire House. Well, we can't do that with the Senate by design. Right. But that's a design for an oligarchy.

[00:59:46] That's not a design for a democracy. So it's unfortunate that we have popular elections of senators because we changed this very important system that the founders put in place when we did that. But nonetheless, it was originally designed as oligarchy. Still kind of acts as an oligarchy because of its structure, even though they're voted by the people.

[01:00:11] And I don't think I mentioned that they originally were elected or appointed by their state legislature, not by the people. I don't think you mentioned that. And one thing that there have been warnings of with some of the people on our side of the aisle, but it'll happen on the other side of the aisle if they control all branches of government. So they want changes to the way that the Senate operates. They want a lot of changes.

[01:00:39] And I think that there actually should be some changes to the way the Senate operates. Some of those changes are going, if they go into effect, would make it even more democratic. It would make it the rapidness of change that happens on the House side would also happen on the Senate side. And the Senate at the moment slows everything down.

[01:01:06] And it is deliberately, from what I can tell from 250 years of looking at it, it has been designed to kind of just slow everything down just a little bit. Exactly. Because rapid change can lead to chaos. That's right. In fact, when Jefferson came back to America after the Constitution was written, he asked George Washington, he said, why is the Senate made up the way that it's made up? And Washington said, well, why do you pour your tea into a saucer? And Jefferson said, to cool it.

[01:01:34] And so Washington said, well, that's what the Senate's for, is to cool it. So you're absolutely right. It's designed to slow things down. What's interesting, though, is some of the practices that the Senate has to slow things down even more, those are things that came to be after the 17th Amendment. And so it basically is trying to solve the problems that the 17th Amendment created. So like, for example, the filibuster.

[01:02:02] The filibuster slows things down. But it's a really bad way to slow things down. Because whenever you require a supermajority for every vote, then it ends up, everything ends up being controlled by the minority. And it's contrary to the Constitution, because the Senate is supposed to be decided by a majority vote, not by a supermajority vote. That's right.

[01:02:28] And right now what's happening, because they're using the vote to begin or end cloture to bring bills to the floor for a vote, they're requiring the supermajority. You can never get to the simple vote for a majority without going through the supermajority. That's right. It seems like some of the changes people want, I look at it and I think, well, what is happening right now doesn't quite seem constitutional to me,

[01:02:56] especially in regards to the 60 vote with the filibuster. Correct. Which we're going completely on the side here and we'll wind up dating this by talking about it a little bit, because if somebody comes back in two years, some of what we're talking about may not be relevant. But part of what Senator Mike Lee has been advocating for is a talking filibuster again, because at least at that point, you're not hitting that everyone gets to talk in the Senate for as long as they can.

[01:03:25] They get two opportunities to for as long as they can without leaning, sitting or leaving the chamber. And then once they finally exhaust that time, it eventually goes to a vote. Yeah. That seems more in line with the Constitution to me. It does, because what they've done is they've made it so the filibuster isn't as challenging in that sense.

[01:03:53] And so now everything has to just simply be with that supermajority to overcome a filibuster that isn't really a filibuster anymore. And one more thing. I mean, I apologize because I'm interjecting and you're the trainer here. I read a book about James Madison and the Bill of Rights a few months ago.

[01:04:16] And one of the things that he really was he and the people in in Virginia who almost prevented the Constitution from from being ratified in our country from happening. They were very concerned about being able to protect minority rights. So when we have the filibuster and people go, why do we have that? Well, we actually have it to make sure there isn't tyranny of the majority, which is what we talked about earlier with the democracy. So it is there to try to help protect it.

[01:04:46] But you also can't have tyranny of the minority. So there there has to be a balance between those those two. Which is exactly what the Senate was originally designed for, is to protect the minority and slow things down. But when we changed that with the 13th with the 17th Amendment in 1913 and made it so that it's more of a democracy, then we needed other tools like the filibuster and stuff to try to to offset that. And the filibuster is just not that great of a tool. Yes.

[01:05:15] But but we understand why it exists, because it was trying to protect the minority, which the Senate was already designed to do. But we broke it. And and it was designed to do it because we think about this. The House has representatives based on the number of people. So it's equal about of the number of people. The Senate was designed to have two per state. So it it equalized like it. It wasn't the. The democracy.

[01:05:45] But let me rephrase that. What I mean to say is that. It has two two senators per state. So even if you're in a big state, when the country was formed, Virginia was the biggest state. So it has a lot of people, but it's only got it only had two senators. And then you have a tiny state elsewhere. It also had two. So that helped protect the minority from from the states.

[01:06:11] And the states were individually electing their own senators to go or appointing their own senators to be part of the Senate. The states were doing that. So it equalized and it protected every single state, regardless of the size. That's right. So that was protecting the minority. I just wanted to elaborate a little bit on on that. And that's such a good point, because Delaware, that was a small state, had just as much weight or just as much vote as Virginia as a large state.

[01:06:40] And what people fail to understand, which will tie to the Electoral College as well, because the Electoral College is made up of the number of representatives and the number of senators. So every every state has an equal number. And then the population's size equals equals. Yeah, adds more weight to any given state. But had that not happened, had they not found some sort of compromise for that?

[01:07:09] If they had elected this a secondary chamber and made it all based on population, those small states had no incentive to join. They had to find a compromise that would deal with the fact that some states were bigger and some states were smaller. In addition to making it equal, having the equal representation of the House of Representatives. That's right. And what also ends up happening with all that.

[01:07:35] So the other goal was to get to get as many people represented from as many different angles as possible. So so, for example, you know, Delaware and Virginia were both equally represented in the House by population. But now let's represent the people of those states as a whole as a state, because because you approach things differently.

[01:07:58] When when you are just a group of people as a democracy, you kind of tackle things differently than when you're a group of people as a state and your state government now being involved. And so you kind of wanted to get as many different angles of representation, even though we're representing the same people, different angles of that representation as possible. And that's also what that all did. And we should talk about the Senate and the 17th Amendment more.

[01:08:28] I know there are some people who think think about it and they think, oh, the way they did it a long time ago doesn't doesn't work. We don't need that anymore. It's way too old fashioned. But actually, it might solve some of the problems that we've got right now. By changing the original intent of how it was designed without changing all the other mechanisms that that work for the checks and balances, it got things off kilter. It did.

[01:08:54] And when you look at things the way that we're looking at it from this mixed form of government view, we now see why the 17th Amendment broke the Senate, because the Senate was not designed to be a democracy. It was designed to be an oligarchy. And it was designed to protect the states because the states still had their own rights and they still were their own form of government. And that was part of the problem with Virginia. They didn't want to be controlled by the federal government. They wanted their own.

[01:09:24] They had enough with some national form of control and they were tired of it. They went to war over it. So as a state, they were pushing back on that saying, no, the federal government is going to have too much power. And they wanted to protect the power of the individual states. And it's so important with our system that we recognize that vertical separation, not just the horizontal separation between the branches, but the vertical separation between federal, state, local, county and local.

[01:09:53] Well, federal, state, county, local and the people as well, because I think the people are in that vertical and then they are in the horizontal because they elect. That's right. So in both axes, the people are in there in both places. Yeah, exactly.

[01:10:17] And in fact, what Jefferson said is he said, let the objects of government be put in place where the superintending eye makes the most sense. So if we're building roads and schools and things like that, that makes the most sense to be right down here where the people have an eye on it.

[01:10:42] If we're talking about foreign relations and things like that, that makes more sense that the federal government, because their eye is more intent on those things. And so that's why that's also so critical. And it's so critical that the states still had their sovereignty because they had a lot of responsibility that they needed to be the ones to focus on. And they're the best ones to focus on them.

[01:11:04] And by changing that Senate, we made it so that the states no longer have as much representation in the federal government as they had originally. So now all they do is just beg that the federal government treat them nicely, whereas before they actually used to have a voice.

[01:11:19] You know, as we're talking about this bill, we've seen it as we're recording this, we we know that there has been a lot of fraud that has been exposed in the year 2026 with the spending of federal governments, the federal government money. So our tax money, there's been fraud that we've seen exposed in Minnesota and in California. And I think the fraud is going on everywhere. Absolutely.

[01:11:46] As the people trying to fight back individually to the federal governments, then you have to get that under control. There are a lot of us, but it's hard to get the attention of the federal government that way. But right now, the states, they can't fight back because they don't they aren't represented in the federal government. If they were, there might be a way for the states to go, oh, no, you don't.

[01:12:13] You're not taking the money out of our state if you're going to go misuse it in other states in such a manner. They they have a little bit more authority against the federal government because they are a state. That's right. And if they had that voice in the Senate, then they could fight back on that. However, now they have to go to the courts to fight back. That's right. And but because it's the way that it is now, it actually is encouraging the states to want that fraud because it's the only way they get their money back.

[01:12:41] Yeah. They send all this money to Washington. Washington is eating out of their substance in this. And those are the crumbs that they get back. Yeah. Is is some of this, you know, Medicaid support and all that stuff. Right. And I've done a bunch of podcasts on that so people can go back and shows and they can look at those other episodes. But I just was thinking that that would be another way to fight the fraud.

[01:13:05] And right now the states are still they can do it and they can fight it even through the the court system. But there would have been a different voice in there in the Senate. That's right. As it originally was. Was laid out.

[01:13:20] And that's what's cool about about looking at the Constitution from this perspective is because because instead of, you know, knowing the exact little provision in the Constitution that violates it so that we can look at it with the as the grand scheme of things and can recognize, oh, this is where it's broken. This is the check engine light that's come on. And we can say, oh, well, the reason why this check engine light has come on is because we tweaked the Senate and we kind of messed up the system here. So so maybe we should consider tweaking it back.

[01:13:49] So now let's get to the presidency. The presidency is the monarchy element. Now, I agree with the term no kings, even though I don't necessarily agree with some of the other. I don't want a king any more than anyone in America wants a king. We we we're pretty good. We've been taught from a very young age. We don't like kings in America. That's right. So we can agree on that. For sure.

[01:14:17] But the founders did build in different monarchy components into the executive. So just like all different forms of government, they all have good things and they all have bad things. A monarchy is excellent at executing the law. The monarchy is also excellent at executing, which is why we don't give the president or governors that power.

[01:14:45] Now, we do give them, interestingly enough, the power to stop the executions, which is an amazing power. It's the power of mercy to satisfy the demands of justice, which is a pretty significant power, especially like religiously in Christianity. That's really what Christianity is all about is an individual who satisfies the demands of justice through mercy.

[01:15:07] And so it's a really interesting power that we give governors and the president, this power of being able to stay executions or to even be able to pardon people and stuff. But nonetheless, the president is the one who executes the law because it's best if it's just through a single entity because it's – The back has to start somewhere. That's right.

[01:15:32] When you're – like someone has to – at some point, you can't have 500 people, heads of a single house or a single government. So you've got to have one person who is the leader. Exactly. And one person to even blame if we need to, right? Because if the buck stops here, we've got to be able to – The president always – ultimately gets a lot of blame for problems. That's right. Yes.

[01:15:59] And the problem that we've done in our country today, if you look at the office of presidency, we think that we've given the president way too much control over way too many things. And we kind of have, but we also have tied the president's hands in so many ways. So some of the recent Supreme Court cases about whether or not the president can fire or get rid of certain department heads and stuff, it's been a great correction.

[01:16:29] Because there were departments that once people were appointed, they could not be removed. The president could not remove them. So the president didn't really have authority over the executive branch, whereas the president needs to have authority over the executive branch. The Constitution says that the executive branch shall be vested in a president of the United States. The executive branch is made up of a single individual, and that's by design.

[01:16:56] And so when we have all these executive departments that somehow don't have to go back and answer to that single individual, that means they also don't ever have to go back and answer to you and I. Right. There's no way to check and balance them. There's no way to vote to – there's no way to hold them accountable. That's right. So if you don't want – if you have the power and you don't want to be held accountable for it, it's a great way to put it over there and blame them, but nobody can touch them.

[01:17:25] So they can still do what you want, but nobody can really touch – the people can't touch them. Which brings up a good point. What you just said also makes it so that our president can actually be more corrupt as well. Because our president can lay the blame on somebody. They can control some things behind the scenes, then lay the blame on that person, and nobody has to be accountable.

[01:17:49] Because now the president doesn't have to be accountable, and that person is never held accountable because they can't be removed from their office. Yes. And so it hurts everybody. And then we also have the office of the presidency, which many people don't realize in many ways is independent of the president.

[01:18:09] The office of the presidency is a number of sub-bureaucratic departments that exercise control over the executive branch and many times are doing it where they're not doing it under the direction of the president.

[01:18:27] And so that office of the presidency needs to be either changed or eliminated or something because that has changed the executive branch to where it's more like a behind-the-scenes oligarchy that is not held accountable to anybody, including the president, can't hold them to account either. Yeah. The title of the office is the office of the presidency.

[01:18:54] And it makes it sound like, oh, it's fine because it's just the president. No, it's not the president. It's the office of the presidency. And so it's different. So there's some changes that would definitely need to happen. But nonetheless, the founders established the monarchy in that executive branch. But they eliminated most of the monarchy authority. They got rid of lawmaking authority.

[01:19:23] So the monarch, and I know I'm referring to the president as the monarch. I'm just doing that on purpose to illustrate that this is set up as a monarchy. Monarchial element. That's right. But we got rid of the thing that kings are terrible at doing.

[01:19:43] And that is we don't ever want them writing the law because they show favoritism or in the other way they'll punish their enemies and all that. So they don't get to administer justice. That's right. So that then also leads to judiciary as well. They can't adjudicate. So when we see that, and we do see that to a large degree where presidents are doing this through executive orders.

[01:20:10] And this is not a good practice no matter which party it's coming from. Just like we mentioned before, it makes it so that the country is unstable. We don't know if we're going to go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I mean, that's kind of the practice now, right? The moment the president gets in office, the first thing to do is eliminate the hundreds of executive orders put in place by the previous office. And that's... It's untenable. It is. It can't continue. I don't know when it's going to stop, but it's not the way it should be done.

[01:20:39] And when our guy's in office, we think it's great. And when their guy's in office, we think it's terrible. It's terrible no matter what. And they think the same thing. They think the exact... They think the things that we... When the other side, when the shoe is on the other foot, they feel the same way we do. Exactly. Exactly. That's why we're supposed to have the three branches and legislation is supposed to go through the legislative branch.

[01:21:05] And it's kind of a never-ending predicament that we found ourselves in. Well, especially when the Senate can't get anything done without 60 votes. That's right. Because nothing is moving or very few things are moving. Yep, for sure. So that's the monarchy element. So then we get to the courts. The courts, again, are very clearly oligarchy because it's clearly ruled by few. And that's...

[01:21:33] I mean, sometimes courts are even ruled by one, right? Because it's just a single judge. But most of the courts, when it talks about... When we're talking about really making significant policy decisions and law decisions, it's usually made up of a group of judges, whether it's appellate courts or the Supreme Court or whatever. And so it's ruled by few.

[01:21:55] And then, just like we mentioned earlier, though, it's important to recognize that judges are not appointed for life. They're just appointed for good behavior. And they... And so the question is now is who determines that? Who determines good behavior? So if we go to really the only provision that there is, the main check against the courts is impeachment.

[01:22:24] So where does impeachment start? In the House. That's right. So the House, they are the ones that determine good behavior. And they are the people's representatives. So in essence, the people are the ones that determine good or bad behavior of judges. And so if we really are upset with a judge and we really want to see a change happen with a particular ruling or whatever,

[01:22:50] we should not be doing anything other than petitioning our congressman. We should go to those congressmen and say, hey, that judge is way, way out of line. And all that congressman needs to do is just draft articles of impeachment. Just that act alone will often change the judge's behavior. Because just the threat of it.

[01:23:17] And it will change the behavior of other judges as well because other judges will look at it and say, oh, wow, these guys are serious. I might lose my job. I'm going to pay a little bit more attention to staying within my boundaries. And so that good behavior is determined by the House of Representatives. And then, of course, the Senate is the one that then tries that impeachment to determine whether or not that bad behavior actually occurred or not.

[01:23:47] But here's one of the bad things that happened. And this happened very, very early on. Marbury versus Madison. It was a court case in which John Adams had appointed a judge, a federal judge, and Jefferson then took office and refused to allow that judge to take his seat. And so that judge sued.

[01:24:16] And Madison, James Madison was Secretary of State at the time, and so that's why his name is on that. And here's what the court did. If I remember correctly, I don't think the court even allowed the judge to take his seat. I don't remember. But nonetheless, the court took this opportunity to usurp some control that the Constitution never gave the courts.

[01:24:42] And that is what we call judicial review, where the court now becomes the final arbiter of whether or not a law is constitutional. And so that gave the court a tremendous amount of power because that gives them the last word. Whoever gets the last word tends to have the most power.

[01:25:06] And some legislatures, some Congress, they've ignored it. Some presidents have. I remember Andrew Jackson, when he had the Supreme Court ruled against him, he simply said, well, the chief justice has made his ruling, but I'd like to see him enforce it. And so he just simply ignored the ruling because the court has no enforcement mechanism.

[01:25:34] They have to rely on the executive branch in order to enforce anything. And so here's what Jefferson said about this, because, of course, Jefferson was the president when this court case happened and when the court usurped this authority of judicial review. He said, to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed,

[01:26:01] and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Isn't it interesting how he's calling the courts an oligarchy, which is what we've established, right? So this is clear that they're designed as an oligarchy, but this will make it so that there's despotism of the oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. I just love that.

[01:26:26] It's like, I'm not saying that they're a bunch of dishonest men, but they're no less honest or no more honest than the rest of us. That's right. So we need to anticipate dishonesty and honesty, both. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privileges of their core.

[01:26:46] And so they totally usurped this, and Jefferson says this is a bad idea. So this is what he then says, the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal judiciary. So he's like, if there's a germ that's going to make it so the constitution dissolves, it's the federal judiciary.

[01:27:10] An irresponsible body, working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the states and the government be consolidated into one. So he's warning us here that, hey, if we give them this final judicial review,

[01:27:36] we're essentially giving them judicial and legislative and executive authority, because now they have the right to say when the legislature and when the executive are and are not doing their job, which means they basically are the judge and jury over those other two branches. And so that's definitely a problem. So Jefferson was asked by people, well, then who?

[01:28:05] Who is the final voice? And he said, everybody. We all are. And he believed that truth would always rise to the surface eventually. It might be rough. We might go through some hard times, but eventually we'll work it out. But it's everybody. Everybody is the final arbiter of the constitution.

[01:28:32] If you're the president, you can tell a judge, yeah, just like Jackson did, yeah, I'm not going to listen to you because I think you're wrong. And then the people can then help decide whether or not we think that president is right or wrong by who we elect as our electors to elect them. Our representatives. I mean, all this change that you've talked about, being able to change our system of government. I mean, every six years we can change everybody out. Yes. If we want to.

[01:28:59] And so if we think that they've all gone astray, then we can correct it in those ways instead of having all this authority end up in this oligarchy, which is what Jefferson warned us of. And so then Jefferson, when he talked about, well, checks and balances, he felt like there needed to be additional checks on the judiciary to prevent this.

[01:29:27] Like one idea that he had was once they're appointed, then they do have to come back for a vote, whether by the people or states or whoever, based on merit. And some states have that system already. I know in Arizona we have that system where judges are appointed, but then we see judges on our ballot as to whether we should keep them or not keep them. Yeah. And so we just say yes or no, keep or not keep.

[01:29:57] And I think most people, when it comes to those judicial elections, they don't even know who to vote for. Yeah. They just oftentimes fly under the radar. That's right. And that's fine. If a judge is doing a good job and isn't riling people up, then maybe it's fine to keep them in office. Yeah. But it's good that they show up on the ballot periodically because that helps them realize that they do need to keep in check.

[01:30:25] And sometimes people, I know people in Arizona, sometimes they just go through and say yes on everybody and others go through and just say no on everybody. And so, you know, there's some flaws there with that system. But nonetheless, this merit system is one thing that Jefferson said because he said about impeachment. He said, having found from experience that impeachment is an impractical thing, a mere scarecrow, the judiciary consider themselves secure for life. It's true. Yeah.

[01:30:55] Certainly the federal judiciary. Yeah, absolutely. Now, there are some instances in the past where we have seen some judges be corrected when there's enough people that rise up. There's even a case a number of years ago in which I know that Jeff Sessions, when he was the head of Department of Justice,

[01:31:22] ended up having to make some calls to a federal judge. And interestingly enough, things changed in the case pretty quickly. And so there clearly was some kind of activity there. And so, but as people, we should recognize that. We should recognize that we can contact our congressman. We can even contact, you know, the Department of Justice. We can make our voices be heard if we think a judge is out of line.

[01:31:50] Because just because they think they're appointed for life doesn't mean they are appointed for life. They can be removed. And so the people just need to recognize that. Absolutely. So that kind of gets us through a good part of basically the three articles. Without ever even diving into three articles, I hope the listeners now understand the three articles better,

[01:32:19] the legislative, executive, and judiciary, because they now know what each is designed to be like. So in the legislative or the branch is supposed to be both a democracy and an oligarchy balancing each other out. That's why we have two houses. So we have those two forms of government balancing each other out. The executive is the monarchy and the judicial is oligarchy.

[01:32:45] And so we are spreading out these forms of government and we're putting in place these checks and balances and stuff. And when you delve in to the articles and into the Constitution, you, of course, have the preamble, which says that we, the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice and ensure domestic tranquility,

[01:33:14] provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America. So they are doing it to have a more perfect union, better government, form of government, to establish justice, to ensure that they are protected in a national level,

[01:33:39] that there is tranquility and peace rather than being a war like a bunch of rabid, wild, free dogs. Exactly. And to secure the blessings of liberty, which are the natural rights that we are endowed with, that we talked about in the, in the decoration courses. Exactly. And then you get to article one. What's great about the preamble is, is it's an interesting story behind it.

[01:34:07] So the reason why they wrote the preamble, so Gouverneur Morris, not Governor Morris, Gouverneur Morris. Gouverneur. Who was a representative at the Constitutional Convention. He, he was the author of that preamble. And he, and many people believe that he's the actual author of the Constitution. He's the one that literally came up with the language. Okay. Um, because he was the chairman of the Committee on Style.

[01:34:34] So you had a committee that put together the structure of the Constitution. And then you had a committee on style that figured out, okay, what's the best way to say this? Um, and most people believe that he did most of that work. But anyway, he wrote the preamble because he didn't think that the people were going to read this whole document. And so he's like, let's just sum it up for him. Right. So they can just read that and say, okay, that's cool. Well, he was wrong. They read it. The people read it and read it and read it. When it came to ratification, they knew it. They understood it.

[01:35:03] In fact, when Alexis de Tocqueville came in the mid-1800s to travel America to discover what our secrets were, why we were, he was really trying to discover why we have no jails and prisons and why the jails that we do have, they're almost always empty. And he, um, coming from France, had, they had full prisons. And he's like, what are they doing? What's different? So he traveled America.

[01:35:30] And one thing that he found interesting, even young children, eight, nine years old, knew and understood the constitution. So Gouverneur Morris was, was wrong for back then, but he is right for tonight, for today. Right. Because, because, uh, we don't read the constitution anymore. Um, but Gubinor Morris, uh, was an interesting individual. He actually gave more speeches on the floor of the convention than any other delegate. Um, and he, he had a wooden, uh, leg at a peg leg.

[01:35:58] And when he would applaud, you know, most people would clap or they would hit their hand on the table. He would hit his peg leg on the floor on that hard wooden floor. And, uh, so it was very, very loud. But anyway, so that's why he wrote that preamble was because he didn't think people would, would read the document. So he wanted to just kind of specify it. But yeah, then we get into article one. I love the, uh, the, the logic here. It's like, if people get together to form a society, the first thing we need to do is make rules.

[01:36:27] So article one is legislative rulemaking. And we get to article two, which is now we execute the rules. Um, and then article three, we're going to have some disagreements. And so we're going to adjudicate those rules. Um, and so it's just, it's very logical. Right. Um, and, and, you know, our viewers can, can go through and read all the details about how all this stuff happens. But, but I'm interrupting quickly.

[01:36:53] And article one, it's telling the two chambers who is qualified for each chamber. Yeah. And then what they, how many are going to be in each chamber, how they're going to be created. And then, um, then the times, a manner, places, a manner of elections for the senators and representatives shall be prescribed by each, each state by the legislature thereof.

[01:37:18] But the Congress at any time may make a law or alter such regulations except the places of choosing senators. Yeah. Um, they go through the, each house will be the judge of the elections, the returns, the qualifications. And then they tell what they're going to do, the kind of bills they're going to have and what they are allowed to regulate. They can borrow money. They can regulate commerce.

[01:37:43] They can establish uniform rule of naturalization, coin money, provide punishment of counterfeiting, um, establishing post offices and post roads. Yeah. Promoting progress of science, useful arts, securing limited times of authors, which is very important in a novel idea. The authors and inventors to exclusive right of their respective writing, writings and discoveries.

[01:38:08] When we're talking about the property and the, the, um, the pursuit of happiness, I was talking about how we've done two documentaries on intellectual property. That was novel, allowing someone to hold on to their own thoughts and their ideas. And the King didn't own it, but you owned it individually was a novel concept. Um, but what's, what's also interesting is there's a novel concept to let people lock that up, but, but not lock it up forever.

[01:38:37] Right. Because the founders also figured, well, if this person can come up with this idea, certainly somebody else would be able to as well. So you can't, so you can't like rock it up forever. It's a limited time. That's right. So it's a limited time.

[01:38:50] Um, tribunals, punishing pirates, pirates and felonies, declaring war, granting letters of marquee and reprisal, um, supporting armies, uh, maintaining and providing for Navy rules and regulations, uh, um, of the land and naval forces, providing and calling forth the militia. It goes on. So I don't have to read every single thing that it says, but that's what article one is.

[01:39:17] And if you're watching and you haven't read it recently, go read it. If you think, oh my goodness, it's too much to read in a single day, read article one today and article two tomorrow and article three the next day. And the constitution overall is, is pretty short considering what power it has as far as governing our entire government.

[01:39:39] Um, and what you just read from that list in section eight, um, depending upon how you count them, there's basically 20 powers that is given to Congress. That's it. 20, not 20,000, 20. They sure do you figure out a way to pack it all into those 20 powers. They absolutely do.

[01:39:58] Um, and then, and so some of the abuses, um, is first of all, in the preamble where it talks about general welfare, um, Congress says, well, we can do anything as long as it's for the welfare of the country. Right. Um, but the other big one is, uh, at the very end of section eight, um, it says it, after it gives this whole list, it then says that Congress, uh, can make all laws, which shall be necessary and proper.

[01:40:25] And so this is the other area where Congress says, well, we can do whatever we want, as long as we think it's necessary and proper. And, but that's not accurate because they're not reading the rest of it. It says to make all laws, which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution, the foregoing powers. So only the 20 powers that we've just listed. Right. Can you do things necessary and proper? So for example, it says that they can build, uh, toll roads, uh, or post roads, right?

[01:40:55] Well, it doesn't say they have the authority to enter into a contract with a paving company to pave that road. Right. Well, obviously that's necessary and proper for them to fulfill the role of building the post road is to, is to be able to enter into a contract. So that's what it's talking about when it comes to necessary and proper to carry out the foregoing powers. And so, but yet Congress and others have taken that and misconstrued it and said, well, we can do whatever we want.

[01:41:24] Um, so that's why it's also good to go back and read this from time to time. So you catch things like that. Um, and as you're reading it, keep in mind of what forms of government, um, this is, cause it'll help you understand it a little bit better. And, and with the executive branch, of course, it tells how they're going to be elected and who can be.

[01:41:45] And then it, it goes in and it's, um, in section two, the president shall be the commander in chief of the army and the Navy and the militia of the several states. And, um, um, when called into actual service of the United States, he may require the opinion and writing of the principal officer of the executive department. It, it, it goes on.

[01:42:09] He's got the power to grant reprieves and pardons, um, with the advice and consent of the, the Senate treaties. Um, it's, but overall it's three sections. It's not very long. He, the buck stops there and he has to be the executive. There has to be a chief executive and he is a chief executive.

[01:42:35] Um, but even with that, it doesn't say, and he can do everything. It's very limited. It's written down. It is. That's what we mean when we see limited government, the power, the power is limited to what is in here. That's right. Exactly right. Yeah. When we say limited government, it doesn't mean that we're, we're trying to. We're not calling for anarchy. That's right. We're saying, we're just saying you're limited to what's in here. What's in here.

[01:42:59] And, and if, again, depending upon how you count them, um, but there's approximately six powers that are granted to the president. So 20 to the legislative branch, six to the executive branch. That's it. Not a whole lot. Yeah. And then you get to article three. Yep. The judiciary. And, and here, if you, if you look at the types of cases, it lists about 11 types of cases.

[01:43:23] And here's the most interesting, um, is the judiciary, the legislative branch has a lot more authority over the judiciary than we ever remember or recognize. Number one, it says, uh, the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court. It never says how many members are in the Supreme Court. Nothing. It just says, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.

[01:43:52] So if Congress has the ability to ordain and establish these federal courts, the Congress also has the ability to eliminate them. Right. The only court that, that it actually says that has to exist is one Supreme Court. The others, it's, it's completely up to Congress. So Congress has a lot of authority there, first of all. Um, then again, judges, both of Supreme Court and inferior courts shall hold their offices during good behavior. So again, it's not for life. It's for during just good behavior.

[01:44:22] Um, and then in section two, the judicial, judicial power shall extend to all cases in law and equity. And then it lists a bunch of cases. Um, and then it says in all cases affecting ambassadors or other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. That means that if there's cases, any of those cases that just listed, those go directly to the Supreme Court.

[01:44:52] Now, I don't know why the states don't enforce this as much because states often when they go to courts, they go to these appellate courts. They'll go to the district courts. They'll go to, but this, but the constitution specifically states if a, if a state is a party, the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction. And, and maybe they agree to that because the Supreme Court can't handle all the cases. And so maybe if you want your case to be heard, then you have to concede to go to a lower court.

[01:45:21] And maybe that's why the states do that. But nonetheless, um, they could demand to go directly to the Supreme Court. But in 2020 in Texas, when they were suing about the election, they went straight to the Supreme Court. So I, I, there may be other modern cases where that happened, but it's one that comes, comes to mind. Ultimately, the Supreme Court didn't do what Texas was asking for, but Texas did go straight. I'm pretty sure went straight to the Supreme Court on that.

[01:45:48] And that's, and every state has, has, because the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction over anything where a state is a party. Um, but this is the interesting part in all other cases before mentioned. So all the, the whole big list in section two, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as the law and fact, with such exceptions and under such regulations as the Congress shall make. So that's interesting. Congress can regulate.

[01:46:18] You can go to these cases. Yeah. And Congress can even regulate. Yeah, no, that's, that's not an issue that, that we're, that you can even adjudicate. Um, so when it comes to things like, I mean, like a number of years ago, uh, there was, you know, all the debates and stuff about like, uh, same sex marriage amendments and things like that. When, when, and, and, and, and congressmen would say, well, it's the law of the land.

[01:46:46] The Supreme Court, uh, ruled on this, whatever. Well, the congressman could simply come in and say, you have no jurisdiction over that particular case. And, and so that is not the law of the land. Uh, Congress can, can regulate that. So very fascinating how, how weak the, the courts actually are when you read article three. Um, they were never designed to be three equal branches, by the way.

[01:47:13] Um, the legislative branch by far is the most powerful because it is the lawmaking and the taxing authority. That's why the founders separated it into two branches or two, two segments, two houses. Um, executive branch is a distant second as far as equal equality. And article three, the judicial branch is a distant, distant, uh, third place when it comes to how much authority was granted to them.

[01:47:41] Although they ended up moving themselves in the first place with judicial review, because now they think they get to be the final arbiters of, of everything. Um, so that's it. Articles one through three, it's a lot simpler than most people think. And four through eight are a page and two and a half pages. Yeah. So article four, uh, is it's for the states. So it's okay. Here's the relationship between the states. This is, um, you know, how, how the states are going to get along,

[01:48:11] how new states are going to become states and, and, and dividing existing states and all that business. And then article five, we, we call that the fix it article. All right. That's the amending article. Yes. And so there's a few ways to amend the constitution. Um, Congress can either, uh, propose an amendment. It has to be two thirds of the house and Senate, and then they send it to the states, uh, in order to be ratified. Um, and three quarters of the states have to ratify it, which is a great protection, right?

[01:48:40] That it takes three quarters of the states. That's when super majorities are excellent is when you use super majorities in rare special occasions, like amending the constitution. You don't use it for everyday things like they're trying to, like they use it for in the Senate. Yeah. Um, so that's the one way, uh, the second way to amend is the two thirds of the states can call a convention.

[01:49:05] They can propose amendments, and then it has to go to three quarters, to the states for three quarters of them to ratify it. Now that method has never been used. All 27 amendments, um, have originated in Congress. None of them have ever originated. Now, what's interesting is the, is that there's two methods in which it can be ratified. And, and Congress determines which method, but it is either ratified by the legislatures of the states,

[01:49:33] or it's ratified by conventions of the states. And they've only used the convention method once with, uh, when they repealed prohibition. And that was primarily because all the politicians were trying to protect each other. Nobody wanted to vote for or against it. And so they're like, all right, we'll send it to conventions of the states so we can protect our politician friends. Um, so that's article five.

[01:49:59] Article five also talks about two methods that, that, that can't be changed in the constitution. Two things that can't be changed. One is that no state shall lose its representation in the Senate. And the other is that without its consent rather. Um, and the other is that, um, the year 1,808 is the earliest that we could regulate the importation of slaves.

[01:50:27] Um, and what's interesting about that is, is we, the moment that year happened, like we already mentioned with Jefferson, um, Jefferson was president and the authority was simply to regulate the importation of slaves. So they could have kept the importation. They could have just regulated it and said, well, there's only a limited number, or they can only come from certain provinces in Africa or whatever, but they didn't.

[01:50:52] They took the opportunity to eliminate the importation altogether, which shows you what, what their goals really were. They were trying to get rid of it. That's right. Moving towards getting rid of it. Exactly. Um, so then, then we have, so that date couldn't be changed. The South didn't want it changed because they wanted, they wanted at least 20 years to be able to work it out of their system. And the North didn't want it changed because they didn't want the South to be able to extend the date to make it longer.

[01:51:20] And so that was their compromise was we're going to agree to 20 years and we're going to fix it. Nobody can ever change that 20 years. And so that's why that's right in article five. Um, and then we get to article six, which is the supremacy article.

[01:51:38] So this is where it says this constitution and the laws of the United States, which shall be made in pursuance thereof and all treaties made or what shall be made under the authority of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land. Um, now that's pretty tricky because oftentimes anything that comes from the federal government, people say, well, it's the law of the land. It's the supreme law of the land. You can't question it now. Um, but that's not what that just said.

[01:52:06] What it just said is that it's supreme law of the land if it meets certain criteria. So for example, a law that's made in pursuance thereof. So a law that's constitutional is supreme law. So if we pass laws that are not constitutional, not done this through the constitution, it is not the supreme law of the land. Treaties have to be, uh, negotiated by the president and then, and then ratified by the Senate.

[01:52:33] So there are treaties out there that we have that have never been ratified by the Senate. And so therefore they're not supreme law of the land because they are not done by the authority of, of, uh, the United States properly. Um, and so anyway, so there's, there's criteria for it to become the supreme law of the land. Uh, and so it's important again, to know the mechanisms and know some of these details so that we can catch that. So we can say when somebody says, you know, supreme court ruled on this, so it's supreme law of the land.

[01:53:02] Well, we'll know that's, that's not the proper procedure. Um, and then we get into article seven, which is radical ratification. So this is, um, that once nine states ratify it, then the constitution is officially established. Now, what's interesting about that is the articles of confederation, which existed prior to the constitution, they required 100% ratification of any amendments.

[01:53:30] And so some people have argued that the constitution violates that because it changed it to nine states and it changed that 100% need. Well, the problem with the 100% ratification is that then one state could hold the other states hostage. And the founders had too much experience of that with primarily with Rhode Island. Rhode Island was always just disagreeing.

[01:53:57] And so the founders didn't want Rhode Island to be able to do that. And so they said nine states, but here's where they're still meeting the 100% criteria is only the nine states that ratify are the only ones that are part of the union. They didn't force anybody in. Right. In fact, there's proof of that. We often talk about 13 original colonies, 13 original states.

[01:54:22] Well, there were 13 original colonies, but there were only 11 original states because when the constitution was passed and ratified and took effect, North Carolina and Rhode Island did not ratify. And so we put our government in place. We elected our congressmen. We elected our senators. We elected a president.

[01:54:46] And that government was intact and was exercising its authority based on the constitution. And North Carolina came into the union about eight or 10 months later. And then Rhode Island didn't come into the union until about a year and a half later until George Washington started getting a little upset because they were treating us. Well, they were a foreign country and we were a foreign country to them.

[01:55:15] And so they're treating us like a foreign country. So we started treating them like a foreign country. And we kind of had this little trade war happening where they were encouraging people to come to their ports for free and then ship stuff without collecting duties and all that. And our federal government at the time had no income tax or anything, which was great. All of the federal government's money was made off of tariffs. Yes. Every bit of it.

[01:55:44] And so when Rhode Island is taking our tariffs and we're having a hard time funding the government, George Washington sent some ships up to Rhode Island to blockade their harbors. And if you're going to treat us poorly, then we're going to treat you poorly. And Rhode Island decided to come into the union after that. So that's what's interesting is that it was still 100% of those that ratified.

[01:56:11] We still held true to the fact that everybody has the right to establish, alter, and abolish their own form of government. And we did not force North Carolina and Rhode Island into the union if they did not want to come into the union. And so we recognized their right to establish their own form of government as they saw fit. Even though the rest of us, the rest of the states were like, we're good. Let's do this thing. They weren't going to force the others.

[01:56:39] Just gave them a little bit of pressure to see that maybe they want to be along with everyone else who is their neighbor. That's right. That's right. And Rhode Island has been a great friend to the rest of us since then. So here's why the founders created the Constitution and why it's so important that we recognize the structure, that we understand the structure, and that we operate it based on the structure.

[01:57:06] Because the default thing that we always go to when we're having problems is if we could just elect somebody better. And that'll solve all of our problems. And that is not the way that the founders wrote the Constitution. In fact, James Madison said, if men were angels, no government would be necessary. And that's often what we're looking for in that elected officials. We want to elect the angel. Well, men are not angels. And if they were, no government would be necessary.

[01:57:36] If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. So we wouldn't even need all this if we were to actually elect those angels. He said, in framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this. You must first enable the government to control the governed and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.

[01:58:05] So that's the challenge. That's the rule by balance. So everything that we've talked about here is balancing between oligarchy and monarchy and democracy and balancing between the House and the Senate and states and the president and the courts and balancing between the people and the elected officials and the oligarchies and balancing between, in this case, balancing between the government and the governed. Right?

[01:58:33] Making it so the government can control the governed, but that they also need to be controlled themselves. And so it's rule by balance. That's why I love that definition. It's all about balancing this.

[01:58:45] And so if we are to keep our republic and maintain it and make sure that it continues to protect these unalienable rights that the Declaration laid out, remember, that's the purpose of the Constitution is simply to protect rights. And so if we are to keep our republicans, then we need to protect the structure, understand it, and know it good enough that we can actually maintain it.

[01:59:15] So when that check engine light comes on, we know what the problem is. We know that we need to check the oil and we need to check the battery and we need to do all these things. And if we know the system, then we'll know how to troubleshoot it and how to fix it.

[01:59:31] And coming at it from the angle that we've just come at it, where it's this mixed form of government, I believe it helps us understand the system so much better so that we also can then recognize when the system is failing and where we've broken it. Because every place that we've broken that mixed form of government, it's caused problems. And then we try to put a bunch of Band-Aids on it to try to fix it. And it causes more problems. Yeah. It just doesn't fix it.

[01:59:58] And so if we would go back to the original structure of this mixed form of government and follow it a little bit more closely, then I think that we'd have a lot more success. But nonetheless, the document, even though we've broken some parts of the document, it still has done an amazing job at governing a free people for almost 250 years now.

[02:00:26] And it's the longest free government that has ever existed. And I believe that it'll keep us moving for many centuries from now, especially if we return to fundamental principles like we're doing here in these lessons and always return back to them enough that we can keep and maintain the system that we have. So we have a republic if we can keep it. Exactly. And it's our job to work to keep it. That's right.

[02:00:55] Franklin was not just talking to Elizabeth Powell. He was talking to all of us. Very good. Yeah. Bill, thank you for doing this. Now, you've got a book coming out about the Constitution in September of 2026. That's right. So it'll be called Behind the Constitution, and it's a companion to behind the Bill of Rights and behind the Declaration of Independence. And really, it's all about—it's mostly—you know, there's tons of books out there that just walk you through the Constitution, kind of like we did just the last few minutes.

[02:01:24] But there's very few books out there that really go into those fundamental principles behind it in this mixed form of government idea and all that. And so that's really what—the book will go into a lot more detail than what we were able to do here today. Very good. So make sure you check out his book and join us for the next episode, our final episode in this series, where we're going to be talking about the Bill of Rights. I'm Jenny Beth Martin. This is The Jenny Beth Show, and we'll see you next time.

[02:01:53] If you enjoyed today's conversation, go ahead and hit like and subscribe. It really helps us reach more people who care about liberty and the Constitution. You can find this and other episodes at JennyBethShow.com, as well as Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Instagram, X, and your favorite podcast platform. The Jenny Beth Show is hosted by Jenny Beth Martin. The Jenny Beth Show is a production of Tea Party Patriots Action.

[02:02:18] For more information, visit TeaPartyPatriots.org.