Declaration of Independence: Why We Were Never the Rebels │ Bill Norton

[00:00:14] Welcome to The Jenny Beth Show. Welcome to a very special episode of The Jenny Beth Show. We are doing Constitution training, talking about our founding principles with constitutional scholar Bill Norton. And we've designed this so that people who want to be active and be engaged in the politics of the day understand our country's first principles. And we're doing these episodes and this training in conjunction with Tea Party Patriots Foundation. So welcome to the Jenny Beth Show.

[00:00:44] The Jenny Beth Show. Bill Norton, thank you so much for joining us. Bill Norton Thank you. It's great to be here. So in this, we're going to have four different episodes in this series and there'll be two on the Declaration of Independence. And what are the last two on? Bill Norton And then we'll have one on the Constitution. We'll really cover primarily the first three articles and then touch on a couple other things. And then the fourth one will be on the Bill of Rights. Bill Norton Very good. I'm excited to get into this. So why don't you just kick us off and get us started?

[00:01:13] Bill Norton Well, first I want to talk about Levi Preston. Bill Norton Who is Levi Preston? Bill Norton So nobody knows who Levi Preston was and that's the beauty of it, right? Bill Norton Levi Preston was a soldier that fought in the Revolutionary War. And he was one of the last living soldiers. So in the 1840s, there was a reporter by the name of Chamberlain. And he was interviewing Revolutionary War soldiers. And he found Levi Preston and began to interview him. And he asked him, he said,

[00:01:42] why did you go fight? And Chamberlain had kind of his own ideas. Like, was it because of the stamp act or was it because of the tea tax? And Levi said, no. He said, I never saw a stamp. I never paid for one of those. And he says, was it because of the tea? And he said, I never drank tea. He said, besides, the boys threw it all overboard.

[00:02:04] Bill Norton And so he keeps going on. Well, was it because you read Locke and Sidney and all these other philosophers? And he said, I never read any of those guys. He said, all I read was the Bible and the almanac. And so he says, well, why did you go and fight? And he says, well, young man, I'll tell you this. The reason why we went and fought those redcoats was because we had always governed ourselves and they never meant for us to.

[00:02:28] And so he was basically saying, we were already self-governing. We weren't going to fight for our freedom. We were fighting to maintain our freedom. It wasn't something that they needed to gain. It was something that they were trying to secure and maintain. And that kind of changes the narrative, right? The narrative is that we were an oppressed people and the king was terrible to us and parliament and all that, and that we fought to break free.

[00:02:57] And that's really not what the Revolutionary War is all about. It was, we were already free and we started to become oppressed more and more oppressed. And so we needed to break away from that. So Levi Preston just kind of, he kind of sums it up so quickly and easily by saying those redcoats never meant that we should govern ourselves.

[00:03:17] And we wanted to keep doing it because we'd already been doing it for a hundred plus years. But we get ahead of ourselves here. I want to start from the beginning. Let there be light. Bill, I thought we were talking about the Declaration of Independence. That is really the beginning.

[00:03:35] That's going way back, right? And here's how that relates. Okay. So if you look at every major religion in the world, Christianity, you know, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, they all believe that the universe was created with words, right? Let there be light. In the beginning, there was the word.

[00:03:58] And so this idea that words are extremely powerful, virtually three quarters of mankind believes that the whole universe was created with words. And the reason why I bring that up is because the Declaration of Independence consists of some of the most powerful words ever written. And the results have been amazing, to say the least.

[00:04:27] And the founders, they were so forward thinking when it came to the words that they were trying to use. So let's talk about a few phrases, not just from the Declaration, but a few phrases from our founding documents. So for example, all men are created equal, or we the people, or a person shall be president of the United States.

[00:04:50] So what's interesting about these phrases is that these words were not accurate to their time. They weren't explaining the condition as things were in 1776. All men weren't created equal. They were in reality based on the laws of nature, but we certainly weren't treating everybody like they were created equal. And then what about women? Could women vote?

[00:05:17] Well, you tell me, because I think that most people think women couldn't vote, and that's why we had the entire suffrage movement. Correct. And they couldn't vote at that time. Now, interestingly enough, if you go back in history, in the late 1600s, early 1700s, women could actually vote in a lot of elections. In America? In America. In America.

[00:05:39] But for various reasons, some of those rights started being taken away, not just from women, but people who didn't own property, slaves, indentured servants. All of them could actually vote at one time in Virginia. And slowly, we started losing that right to vote, and then we had to fight to get those rights back. But anyway, I digress. So you're correct. At the time, though, in 1776, women didn't hold public office and they didn't vote.

[00:06:09] And in 1787, when the Constitution was written, when those words, a person shall be president, were written, women couldn't vote. But the founders left the Constitution gender neutral. A person shall be president. It didn't matter. Man or woman could be president. So it wasn't the Constitution that limited women from voting and holding public office. It was simply individual state laws. But the founders left the Constitution gender neutral.

[00:06:38] So in the future, things could change. And so that's the thing with the power of words is that these words were not accurate to their time, but they've become accurate to our time. Women can now vote. All men are created equal. For the most part, we all are. We still might not all be treated equal in our everyday lives, but government certainly looks at all men as created equal.

[00:07:07] Everybody can vote. There's no slaves. There's no indentured servants. And so these things have come to pass. And that's really what's amazing about the power of words. Like one of the more famous stories, of course, is JFK with, you know, we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things. And then it happened. And so that's the amazing thing about words is they have this uncanny ability to make things happen.

[00:07:38] In the book that Mark, her, and myself wrote a handful of years ago called Speaking the Language of Liberty, we talk about the power of words and we talk about how if you speak the language of liberty today, you will have liberty tomorrow. If you speak the language of captivity today, you will have captivity tomorrow. So what you want to have in the future, you've got to speak it now.

[00:08:06] And the reason why that's real significant when it comes to the declaration is because that's exactly what we see that the declaration has done. The words that are in that document have freed more people than any sword, any military conquest, any rescue mission. And I mean, the declaration has brought people out from oppression more than anything else in the history of the world. Really significant. So the power of words. I love words.

[00:08:36] Great. Because of that power, because of their ability to do what they can do. The words are very powerful. I love what you just said about words have the uncanny ability to make things happen. Give us some more examples of what you mean by this. So another great example is, again, with the declaration itself. So there's a recent document that's been discovered, oh, I think a dozen years ago is all.

[00:09:02] And it's an essay that King George III wrote shortly after losing the Revolutionary War. We kind of know what his reaction was based on a speech that he gave to Parliament. And it was pretty typical. He was upset and thought it was terrible and thought we were all terrible because we were a bunch of rebels. And we were, you know, just like the Hamilton play portrays, you know, that. Pouting. Yeah, we're just pouting. And we're just a bunch of little rebellious two-year-olds. Right.

[00:09:31] But this particular essay tells a very different story. So this is an essay that he wrote, and it's written in his own hand. And there's even a letter that's been discovered where he is telling a friend about this essay and that he wrote it in his own hand and didn't use his counselors and stuff to write it because he wanted it to come from his own heart and mind. And in this essay, he starts out – in fact, I've got a quote here from him where he starts out,

[00:10:00] America is lost, he said. Must we fall beneath the blow or have we resources that may repair the mischiefs? So he's contemplating in this essay the results of the Revolutionary War and the results of Americans striving to be free and stay free and be self-governing.

[00:10:22] And he concedes that there's been a lot of benefit to Americans being free and self-governing. In fact, he says – later on, he said, there is reason to suppose we actually gained more by them while in actual rebellion and the common open connection cut off than when they were obedience to the crown.

[00:10:47] And then he starts talking about how maybe he needs to consider a new policy where instead of governing colonies throughout the world with a heavy fist, then instead maybe he should let them be more self-governing because he then talks about how because we were free, we were more industrious. And because we were more industrious, we became richer. So here he is.

[00:11:14] He's like totally agreeing that self-governance works and that America is proving it. And so it's a really remarkable document. And so the reason why they bring that up as an example of it is because Jefferson in 1774, he wrote, the God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time. The hand of force may destroy but cannot disjoin them.

[00:11:39] So even if you have a forceful hand like King George III, even King George could not disjoin us from this life and liberty that God had given us. And if we exercise this life and liberty, then we will have more liberty in the future, which is what the declaration is basically declaring. And King George is finally saying, yeah, I think America is on to something here.

[00:12:07] So to your question, as an example of the power of words, the power of the words in that document took a king who still remained a king and still governed like a king. Even after the Revolutionary War, he just didn't govern us anymore.

[00:12:26] It was even starting to change his heart and change his mind and started going a different direction as far as the way that he wanted to handle future policy and future ideas and felt like he could get more ideas from us. And England today is certainly much different with a monarchy than it was 250 years ago. For sure. So what happened did start to make changes, not just here in America, but eventually in England as well. That's right. And throughout the whole world.

[00:12:56] I mean, if we want to jump ahead to the Constitution, out of all countries, and there's approximately, you know, 195, 200 countries in the world. Out of all the countries in the world, only three do not have written constitutions today. So this is the power of words that happens. And interestingly enough, one of the three is England.

[00:13:18] England, they call some governing documents their constitution, but they don't have a fixed constitution like we do, which is just fascinating. They're one of the only countries that – one of only three countries that doesn't have a constitution. But they also still refer to the Magna Carta, so they go way back with these key documents. They've been around for quite a while. Most certainly. And there's another great example, the Magna Carta.

[00:13:42] I mean, those words, even though King John threw them out and ignored them, they have endured the test of time. I mean, you know, 1215 is when they were written. And they still influence – they influence our documents, and they continue to influence England and other countries too. And it's pretty amazing how powerful words can be.

[00:14:06] So what was happening – you said they were not so much rebelling but trying to prevent their freedom from being taken away. So they were saying no to oppressive forces that were beginning to bear down on them very hard because they had already experienced what life was like with much more freedom. Yeah. What was going on? What were they rebelling, and who were they?

[00:14:35] Well, and this is why I love Levi Preston is because Levi Preston just – he just sums it up. We were already governing ourselves. They didn't want us to, so that's why we went and fought. And it's more so than just, hey, we came to America because we wanted to be free, and now we're fighting to keep our freedom. We came to America, and we had to be free whether we liked it or not. We were on our own.

[00:15:02] It was a frontier, and for 150-plus years, we were carving an existence out of this frontier, and it was very challenging. And for the most part, our mother countries, and not just England but even those who were here, the French and the Spanish, to a large degree, their mother countries left them alone, kind of abandoned them in many aspects. And so we had to be self-governing.

[00:15:30] And then after many, many generations, we kind of liked it, especially when we start getting oppressed. So we weren't really the ones rebelling in my view. When we talk about the rebels and we talk about the Revolutionary War, I like to refer to it more so as the War of Independence or the War for Independence because it wasn't really a revolution. And this is what I mean by that.

[00:16:00] So John Locke, who was this great philosopher who really nailed down what natural law is and how natural law relates to government and societies and all that. This is what he said about governing officials. He said,

[00:16:32] So he's talking about the governing officials here. He's not talking about the people. He's talking about when they are breaking the social contract, they're the ones putting themselves at war with the people. Who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience and are left to the common refuge, which God has provided for all men against force and violence. And it devolves to the people who have a right to resume their original liberty. So we get into a society.

[00:17:01] We create some rules. We elect people to execute and govern and adjudicate those rules. And we're all living happily in peace. And then all of a sudden, the governing officials do what John Locke's saying. They decide to no longer protect our property or they decide to confiscate our property. They basically break the social contract. What John Locke is saying is they are the ones that are now breaking the social contract. They're the ones that are rebelling.

[00:17:31] And it's left to the people now. They automatically devolve back to their original state, which that original state is a state of individual self-governance, liberty. And so that's what I think. That's my contention is that the Americans were not the rebels. It was the king and parliament. We had been governing ourselves. Taxes were reasonably low.

[00:18:00] We weren't really all that oppressed. We were doing fine. And then all of a sudden, we have the intolerable acts and we have all these taxes trying to pay for King George's wars. And then the people decided to say, hey, if we're going to pay taxes, we're fine paying taxes, but we want a voice in parliament. And then, of course, king and parliament got upset and thought that that was pretty ridiculous for us to ask that. And they started calling us rebels.

[00:18:30] But really, we weren't. They were the ones that were changing things on us. And I think the reason why this matters today is how many people, Jenny Beth, over the years that you've been at this with politics before Tea Party Patriots and then Tea Party Patriots, how many times have you been accused of being anti-government? So many times.

[00:18:51] And the establishment, the people who are oftentimes in leadership in the House and the Senate, regardless of which party. And I do not include Speaker Mike Johnson in this because he is he reaches out and tries to talk to everyone. Everyone. But so oftentimes we see it right now today in the Senate. They treat us like we're children.

[00:19:19] Like, oh, you just don't understand. What you're asking for is way too much. You need to just go away and let us, the adults in the room, do what we need to do. Sort of like what you were saying about King George treating the colonists as if they were two-year-olds. That's right. And so you're touching on two things there. Number one, being accused of being anti-government and number two, accused of just being a toddler. Yes. And you don't understand. You don't understand. That's right.

[00:19:48] Patting us on the head or then we also had President Obama who called us terrorists. And the government was turned against so many people during the Biden administration. I think some of the most egregious during the Biden administration were the people who were praying in front of abortion clinics.

[00:20:14] Somehow they were the bad guys in breaking the law and against government and whatever else for praying, which we would normally acknowledge as one of the fundamental rights protected in the Bill of Rights, which we'll talk about in Lesson 4. Yeah. And you bring up Obama. So I'm from Arizona.

[00:20:35] My own governor, Janet Napolitano, who was then brought into the administration there in the Department of Homeland Security, she's the one that made the list of potential domestic terrorists. And on the list were those who teach and promote the Constitution. And so there were a number of categories that I could place myself under. I mean, during that time, I was teaching the Constitution. Two Tea Party groups.

[00:21:03] So you were in trouble everywhere you turned in, including with the IRS. That's exactly right. Yeah. And what I was preaching was not anti-government. No. What I was preaching was 100% pro-government, but pro-limited, written, spelled out constitutional government. Like, here's the rules. Now let's keep them. And that's all we're saying.

[00:21:26] And so what John Locke is saying is those who say, here's the rules, but let's bend and twist and break them, those are the real rebels. And so at this time, it was King George and Parliament, right? And in our day, many times it's elected officials or it's bureaucrats or it's those who try to stretch defining the Constitution or ignore the Constitution.

[00:21:55] I mean, during the pandemic, the Constitution was ignored left and right. And so in my view, those are the real rebels and anti-government, not us. And so I try to encourage people who are in the liberty movement to not accept that label. Because sometimes we accept the label because we're like, well, that's right, because this politician is trampling on our rights. But that politician is the one that's anti-government, not you.

[00:22:25] You're the one that's saying these are fixed rights. And it's very important to understand that we are for a constitutional government. We are not for, we're not anarchists. We're not saying we want no government. We understand there is a value in constitutionally limited government. So it's important to remind people, no, we're not anti, we're anti-big government.

[00:22:54] We're anti-unlimited control government. We are not anti-government. And we don't want chaos. We don't want to replace our system with something else because we think we've got the best system the world has ever known. Even when it doesn't work exactly how we want, we have a way to fix it. And we don't want no government, which would be just an absolute disaster.

[00:23:18] Correct. We want that nice balance between no government and too much government. We want this beautifully structured government that the founders put together. And we also recognize that there are times when things need to be changed and tweaked and all that. But we do what Washington said in his farewell address, that don't amend the constitution by usurpation. Amend it through the amending process, through the correct process.

[00:23:47] And so even if changes do need to be made, by all means, let's make them. But let's do it properly and correctly instead of just, here's an emergency. So now let's wipe everything out and make a change. So anyway, it's really important, I think, that we recognize that. And the founders were a great example of this. They didn't go beyond just securing the self-governance that they already had, right? They didn't take it any further than that.

[00:24:17] They didn't go into anarchy. They didn't do any of that. So anyway, it's really, really good. So I think it's important that we recognize that it was king and parliament, in my view, that were rebelling, not the founders and not Americans. Okay. And then who, so we're going to be delving even more now into the Declaration of Independence. But before we do that, who wrote it? Who were our founders?

[00:24:46] So Second Continental Congress is kind of the group that got together. And it was Richard Henry Lee that stood up and said that these states are and of right ought to be free and independent states. So that's the motion that got put out there. And once that motion was put out there, then the debate started.

[00:25:07] And as the debate progressed and we realized that, yeah, independence was really maybe the direction we were going, they realized they needed to draft a declaration and get that draft going. Even though they hadn't voted on independence yet, they at least wanted a draft ready to go as soon as that motion either. If that motion passed, we were ready with something. So they appointed a committee.

[00:25:34] Now, if you ask most Americans who wrote the declaration and even most historians, they'll tell you Thomas Jefferson. And that's not wrong. But it's not the whole story either. So you have this committee of five made up of primarily of Jefferson and John Adams and Benjamin Franklin and Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston. So those are the five.

[00:26:04] If Livingston and Sherman had other things that they were doing, they didn't get too engaged. Jefferson was appointed by the committee to be the one that actually wrote the draft. And once he was done writing the draft, he brought it to Franklin and Adams because he said those were the two with whose amendments I wished most to have the benefit. And so he so really is kind of this committee of three that the folks did not.

[00:26:31] But the reason why I think it's important that we pay attention to who really wrote the declaration is because Jefferson himself, though he did take a lot of credit. In fact, he put it on. He wanted it written on this tombstone author of the declaration and stuff. So he really took a lot of pride in it. But at the same time. As he should. Absolutely. Absolutely. For sure. But he himself kind of outlines where the ideas came from.

[00:26:59] So toward the end of his life, Henry Lee, a different Henry Lee, wrote him a letter and said, hey, where did these ideas come from? He said, because I have a signed copy of of George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights. And and he said the stuff that's in this document is really similar to the declaration. And then he mentioned a couple other documents.

[00:27:27] He's like, it's also, you know, real similar to all these others. Well, Jefferson, for his whole life, people had both his critics and and those who liked him had basically said, oh, yeah, he borrowed it from Mason or he borrowed it from from Thomas Paine or whatever. And so finally, toward the end of his life, Jefferson started answering some of these accusations. And and here's what he basically said.

[00:27:54] Well, first of all, John Adams in 1822 said this. He said there's not an idea in it talking about the declaration what had been hackneyed, but what had been hackneyed in Congress for two years before. So they were talking about it for the previous two years. That's right. And hackneyed is it doesn't just mean that it was. Just kind of talked about in passing, it meant it was just it was really talked through thoroughly and they really discussed it.

[00:28:24] So Adams is already saying, hey, these are all things we had been talking about. And so then here's what what Jefferson said to Henry Lee in 1825 in answer to to him kind of lightly accusing him of taking from George Mason. He said that his purpose was in expressing the principles of government nearly in the same form. I'm sorry. This is what Henry Lee wrote to him.

[00:28:51] He said it looks like you you're expressing the principles of government in nearly the same form as they are seen in the Declaration of Independence. And then he said they might have formed the materials out of which the fine proposals of the Declaration of Independence arose. And he's talking about the other documents that he found that was signed by George Mason. Yeah, he's saying. Yeah. And other documents. He's like, it just seems real similar. So this was Jefferson's reply.

[00:29:18] He said neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment nor yet copied from any particular or previous writing. It was intended to be an expression of the American mind. So I love that. He says, I wasn't trying to be original, but I also wasn't trying to copy anybody. Later, he told James Madison, he said, I turned to neither book or pamphlet. He said, I had no book or pamphlet laid out before me.

[00:29:46] And so he wasn't taking Mason's declaration and copying it over. He wasn't doing any of that. But he also wasn't trying not to do that. He was trying to capture the expression in the American mind. And then he goes on. And to give that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion.

[00:30:09] All its authority rests then on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, etc.

[00:30:25] So I just, I love that explanation from Jefferson because he's like, yeah, I wrote the words, but I was trying to capture the expression in the American mind and give that expression the proper sentiment and the sentiment that was being discussed everywhere on the streets, in letters, in restaurants, in whatever. In everyday conversation, this is what we were talking about. And I was just trying to capture the conversation. So no big deal. You want to say I copied? Okay.

[00:30:55] Maybe I did copy, but I wasn't trying to copy, but I wasn't trying not to copy. And also they were reading Aristotle and Cicero and Locke. That's right. They were reading the things that we call the great books. That's right. And these were all, so that's why you also hear the same voice. I mean, you totally hear Locke's voice in the Declaration of Independence as well as others. And so, so that's why.

[00:31:22] So then he goes on to say in some other letters, he said, I did not consider it as any part of my charge to invent new ideas altogether and to offer no sentiment, which had never been expressed, which had ever been expressed before. And then he said that the words alone were mine. He said the sentiments were of all America.

[00:31:50] So the reason why I think this is so important is because if Jefferson is the author, then we can pick him apart and be critical of him and talk about how he was a slave owner. And we can just tear the man apart and in doing so, tear the document apart. But when we say that the document was actually an expression of the American mind,

[00:32:16] it's much more difficult to tear the document apart because now it's all of America. This is what we were all thinking and talking about at the time. And so we were all the authors. Now, the other beautiful thing about this is I like to think of it also as even we today continue to be authors. If this is the sentiment of our mind and that we can continue to spread the message of liberty and independence and continue to be authors in that sense ourselves.

[00:32:44] So let's keep the declaration as the sentiment of the American mind in 1776 and in 2026. That is pretty important, keeping it as the sentiment of the American mind, not just 250 years ago, but making sure we do so today.

[00:33:12] Should we go into what's in the declaration right now? Or is there anything that you want to cover about Jefferson? I'm asking it like that. I kind of pause there because we're saying the sentiment of the American mind. So I'm like, okay, so what was the sentiment of the American mind? But before I ask you that question, I want to make sure that if there was anything else you wanted to say about the people who wrote it and the thinking of the time, make sure we cover that.

[00:33:42] Yeah, for sure. And one thing, so I have been a scholar of the founders for 35 years now. And I love them and they're brilliant. And they also are flawed and they're humans and they have made many mistakes and they would admit to that. The other thing is often we'll look at something Jefferson wrote when he was 22 years old versus what he wrote when he was 75 years old.

[00:34:10] And we think it's the same man and it's not. Just like the rest of us, he evolved. And at 22, we know we know everything. And by the time we're 32, we know we know nothing. But then I think by the time you're 72, you actually do know a whole lot. That's right.

[00:34:34] So the mind of someone, no matter who it is, the mind of someone at 22, if they've lived and experienced a full life and are honest with themselves, they're going to be able to say they've changed in many ways and grown and matured and hopefully become better people. And we hope that's the case. I hope that's the case with myself. We also will talk about the founders again, since we're talking a lot about Jefferson, how contradictory they are.

[00:35:04] Jefferson can write, all men are created equal. In Philadelphia, he does that while he's got slaves in Virginia. And people think that that's such a contradiction. And it truly is. But don't we all have contradictions in our lives? And I hope we all do. And the reason why is because if you don't have contradictions, then that means you're not striving to become better. But if you're striving to be here and you're here, well, then there's a contradiction.

[00:35:34] You're not who you hope you can be. But I hope you always are striving to be better. So there should always be a conflict if we're striving to be better. So the quote that I just wanted to bring up to kind of wrap all that up is, again, from Jefferson.

[00:35:56] Because this is—I've learned from Jefferson and from Madison, because Madison has a similar quote, that even though I think that they were great men and there were also great women in the times, Elizabeth Powell and Abigail Adams and others. But we shouldn't put them on such a pedestal that we ignore our own good sense. So here's what Jefferson said. He said,

[00:36:38] So how often do we do that, right? We give so much wisdom to the founders that we look at them almost as more than human. And suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. He said,

[00:37:07] So he was saying this after 40 years, after the declaration was written. We now have 250 years. And so he's saying we're smarter now than we were back then because of our experience. He then at another time said that we're just novices in this self-governance thing. We're going to leave it up to future generations to learn from our experiment and do things better.

[00:37:33] And so that's—I think it's real important that we recognize and that we give ourselves—that we have some confidence in ourselves to be amazing self-governing people as well and to stand on the shoulders of the founders and move beyond them if we can. And we already have in so many areas. And Jefferson's giving us permission to do that.

[00:37:59] Not that we need his permission, but he's basically saying, don't look at us as being beyond human. Use your own experience. And so then he goes on. He said, But I also know—he said, I know also that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances,

[00:38:27] institutions must advance also and keep pace with the times. He said, We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regime of their barbarous ancestors. And so I love that because he just—again, he's just saying, take your own experience and do something with it.

[00:38:52] So the reason why I explain that is because in order for us to grow and become better self-governing people, we have to, as Patrick Henry said, we have to return back to good principles. And so that's what we're doing with these trainings, right? We're going back to these principles.

[00:39:15] We're going back to what the founders discovered so that we can then stand on their shoulders and move forward and do better in our time. But in order to do better in our time, we have to have an understanding of the principles they discovered. We can't just ignore them and abandon them and expect to do good. We don't want to reinvent the wheel is my point, right? We want to understand what they did and then build on what they did.

[00:39:45] Right. To understand what they did and build on what they did and to build our lives on what they did. It doesn't—we don't want to evolve or progress so much and amend so much that we lose the protection of the fundamental rights. That's exactly right. In fact, I just recently—interestingly enough, not only do I do a lot of studying of the Constitution and I write civics curriculum and things like that,

[00:40:14] but I own a concrete company in Arizona. And the last couple of weeks, I was on a special project where I went out on a job site and helped pour concrete, which I hadn't done in a number of years, and was there with one of our crews pouring that concrete. And the very first day, I sat and watched some of the things that they were doing, and they had changed techniques, and they had changed the method of pouring the concrete.

[00:40:42] And in doing so, they had skipped fundamental steps that they didn't realize that they were skipping. And they were making their work along the way harder because they were missing—so they were missing the fundamentals of how to pour concrete. And as a result, it made their life harder. And so I kind of use that as an analogy that we're going to make our lives harder if we don't constantly go back to those fundamentals,

[00:41:11] remind ourselves of those, remind ourselves why the founders laid these things out, and then we can continue to move forward in our lives, and we'll find more happiness that way. That is really good. So are we ready to move to the next section? We are. All right. And the next section is getting into what is a decoration about, right? Yeah. We're finally going to get on to it. Let's just dive right into it. Yes. So— And let me just see for the audience.

[00:41:38] We're going to make sure that we include links to the Declaration of Independence and also to—I think we're going to have some training material. Yeah. And you've got a book that we'll be talking about at the end as well. But I—because we're—you and I are opening up our declaration, we'll make sure that the audience is able to click through to open it and read along too. Absolutely. And some of the quotes and stuff that we're giving, we can provide and stuff as well.

[00:42:08] So do you want to start? You go ahead. You take the lead. All right. So right at the very beginning, I mean, famous stuff here, right? When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another. And to assume among the powers of the earth—now don't worry, we'll go back and cover a couple of these things. But I want to get ahead to a really important part.

[00:42:30] To assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them. So the laws of nature and of nature's God. This is—this is a phrase that is debated and what it means and what's Jefferson talking about. And I don't think it should be debated as much as it is.

[00:42:56] Because what happens is you have the secular reader that reads it and says, see, he's talking about laws of nature. No God. We're only talking about reason. This is the age of reason. Jefferson's our guy. And then you have the religious people that look at it and say, of nature's God. It's all religion. Jefferson's 100% religion. He's our guy. And both sides argue back and forth on whose guy Jefferson is.

[00:43:24] And Jefferson is laying it out for both of them. He's saying the laws of nature and of nature's God. Either way, you can either just believe in the laws of nature and that's the way things are. Or you can believe that those laws of nature has an author and that author is God. Great. Either way. And so I wish the secularists and the religious folks wouldn't argue about this because it's there for both of them.

[00:43:53] I suspect that the sentiment of the American mind, as Jefferson said back when they were writing it, they did not expect that would be debated so much. Not so much. So many years later. Because they were, to a large degree, they were very religious people, most all of them. Yes. You did have Jefferson, who was very, very private in his religious views. And so a lot of times people did accuse him of being an atheist or a deist or whatever.

[00:44:22] And then Benjamin Franklin was another that, but for the most part, they were all very, very religious. But so let's talk about then, because we don't need to get into the secular religious argument too much, because that's exactly my contention is that we shouldn't get into that. But what exactly is the law of nature, right? What are natural laws?

[00:44:46] So one of the criticisms that liberty-minded folks get when we talk about natural law is that there's a relatively modern definition of natural law where it's a moral code, a set of moral laws. And sometimes those who are in the liberty movement who are religious, they embrace that and say, yeah, absolutely.

[00:45:13] But that's not really what the founders are talking about here. They're not talking about a set of moral codes. They're simply talking about the laws of nature, which are precisely the laws in nature in which things happen the way that they happen. You have scientific laws. What goes up must come down, equal and opposite reaction. Those are all very, they're observable and measurable.

[00:45:39] That's what I would say a law of nature is, is something that's observable and measurable. And, and sometimes it overlaps with moral code. And so, so sometimes that's why we get confused and think that, oh yeah, it's a moral code because thou shalt not kill. And, and natural law also says that we shouldn't kill each other if we want to have a good relationship, right? And so we think, well, it must be one in the same. And they're not just because they overlap doesn't necessarily mean the same.

[00:46:09] And so the law of nature is just simply the way things are. Um, in fact, Cicero put it this way. Um, he said, true law is right reason in agreement with nature. Now this Cicero of course is writing this many, many years ago. Cicero was a, uh, a Greek philosopher.

[00:46:34] And then, and then he was captured and carried off to Rome and then became a Roman philosopher. So he's like, wherever I live, I'm going to be a philosopher. Um, so this is written a long time ago. So we'll, we'll break this quote apart a little bit, but he says, true law is right reason in agreement with nature. It is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting. It summons to duty by its commands. I love how he says all that.

[00:47:03] It summons to duty by its commands. So when we're hungry, um, we get hunger pains. And so what do we do? We find food and we eat it. That's right. We go find food and we eat it. Right. And so it's, it's summoned us to our duty by its commands. The command was the hunger pains and our duty is to eat. And if we don't, then we will eventually perish and die. That's right. Which is also part of the law of nature. Exactly. And so, so that's what he says. It summons to duty by its commands.

[00:47:32] And then he does the opposite. He says it averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions. So we don't do certain things because we know that something bad is going to happen. Touching fire. That's right. Touching fire, run across a busy freeway, jump off a bridge because your friends are jumping off a bridge, all that stuff. Right. But then he says, it's a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to repeal any part of it. And it is impossible to abolish it entirely.

[00:48:03] And then I love this next part. We cannot be freed from its obligations by Senate or people. So he's totally ripping on government here, right? Right. Or at least government officials who try to legislate natural law out of existence. We cannot be freed from its obligations by Senator people.

[00:48:24] Even if, you know, if Congress decided to pass a law saying that gravity does not exist, you know, for America 250, let's just say for celebration purposes, gravity is not going to exist on July 4th of 2026. If we throw something up, it's still coming down no matter when. You can pass all the laws you want, but that's going to happen. Exactly. And don't test it. Don't go to the top of a tall building. Because we can't. We cannot repeal it by Senate or people.

[00:48:53] And we need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or interpreter of it. So we don't need a lawyer to interpret it for us. It's self-evident. And there will not be different laws at Rome and Athens or different laws now and in the future. But one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and all times. So this is natural law. This is what we're talking about are things that are consistent. They're eternal.

[00:49:23] They're unchanging. It doesn't matter if we try to get rid of it or not. It's always going to be there. And the founders realized that there are not only natural laws for science, but there's also natural laws for human happiness. And there's natural laws for good government.

[00:49:44] And so that's really what they sought to discover and to create was a government based on what works and what doesn't work. Natural law principles. And they did that, right? Exactly. That's precisely what they did. And Bill, let me, I want to interrupt you for just a second, if I may.

[00:50:10] So we're sitting here and we're talking about natural law and we're talking about what goes up and goes down in hunger. What are other natural laws? I always think of speech. And I think of it because a baby is born and immediately starts to cry. Yeah. And they're crying and the parent responds and feeds them normally or changes them. But the point is, naturally we make noise. That's right.

[00:50:37] And when we think of the First Amendment and we talk about natural law, unless you think about it, you don't think about, yes, we naturally speak. But we do naturally speak as a species. That's right. And just because a baby is just making noise doesn't mean that that child's not speaking. It's communicating. That's correct. There's a definition of speech. I'm trying to remember.

[00:51:04] I think it's in the 1828 dictionary, Webster's Dictionary, where it says that when two or more people annex the same sounds in agreement for communication. So it doesn't matter what that sound is. You know, I can make some squealing noise. And if you and I agree what that squealing noise means, then we've now created language, right?

[00:51:30] And a baby's cry is specifically designed by nature to irritate the mother so that the mother will respond to it, to the child and feed or comfort the child. And so, and that gives us back to the whole power of words and all that fun stuff. So as far as your question and some examples of natural law. So let me share with you a quick story about some challenges that I had in discovering natural law.

[00:52:00] Because I'm studying all this liberty stuff, studying the founders, studying their brilliance, laying out all this natural law stuff. So to me, natural law was always what brought liberty and what brought freedom because that's what I was always talking about. And so shortly after my wife and I got married, we were visiting with her family and I was pretty new, you know, just being introduced to her family and stuff. And we were there with her sisters and her brother.

[00:52:29] And I was talking about, they were asking, well, what do you do? And so I was talking about what I do with constitution freedom stuff. And I was, you know, pontificating about all this natural law liberty. And I was being super eloquent and just trying to be very impressive to these new family members. And so I had been talking about natural law. And all of a sudden, my wife's brother stood up. He hadn't said anything in this whole conversation.

[00:52:58] And he stood up and he said, well, I'm stronger than you. I can beat you up and take your stuff. How's that for natural law? And I had to contemplate that for a minute because it was true. Well, I don't know if it's true that he could beat me up, but we'll just say it was true. Um, and, uh, and so I had to concede that nature does, has designed the lion to kill the lamb. And that that's natural law.

[00:53:28] That's just as much natural law as, uh, as, you know, good government. So I realized, uh, when, when we were writing the book behind the bill of rights, I had to figure out what natural law really was. And when, and when, what he was talking about with beating you up and taking your stuff and I realized that is natural law, but is that the natural law that we want to live under?

[00:53:55] We don't want to live under this natural law where if I'm stronger than you, I get to take your stuff. I think naturally we don't want to live like that. That's correct. I think that that's also a natural instinct for, we don't want to be oppressed in that manner. Precisely. Now the oppressor might want that type of natural law, but most people don't want to live under those circumstances.

[00:54:18] So I, so we ended up coining a couple of phrases, uh, sophisticated natural law and primitive natural law. So primitive natural law is purely survival of the fittest. It's, it's cavemen. It's, you know, whatever you can do to go get your next meal, then, then that's valid and including taking it from somebody else.

[00:54:43] But in relationship building, there are other natural law principles that are higher. So if we want to get along as humans, either, either just as two or three people, or even as an entire society, um, the survival of the fittest is not going to work. That that's not going to elevate all of us. Um, and so we, we need to realize that there are more sophisticated natural law principles.

[00:55:11] So while I might be able to get my next meal by beating somebody up, um, if I want to have a relationship and work with that person in the future to, to plant a crop and to harvest the crop and all that, I probably shouldn't beat them up. Um, and so that's a good natural law principle. Don't beat them up if you want to be friends with them tomorrow. Right. Right. Um, and so, so that's, that's the other important thing that you've got to, that we need to realize, uh, about natural law.

[00:55:41] So to go back to your question, some examples. So yes, there is an example of if I'm stronger, I can take your food. Um, that's natural law. But if I want to be friends with you in the future, um, then I need to do something different. And that's really what the founders were trying to figure out is, okay. People have the tendency that if they're given some power, they will end up abusing that power to get more of their next meals and to give more next meals to their families and friends and all that.

[00:56:10] And so we need to, we need to reign that in so that the people who are governed, uh, aren't losing their stuff as well. And as we get more into the document, we'll get deeper into some really good natural law principles like life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Pursuit of happiness really focuses on some great natural law stuff. Okay. All right. So I won't jump, jump ahead then and get us off track. All right.

[00:56:36] So we understand more about natural law and then what, well, and we were reading the declaration. Do we want to pick up? Do you want to pick up from that? So let's go back. So I read quite a bit because I wanted to get to that natural law segment, but let's go back just a little bit. So in the course of human events, of course, uh, with this, the founders again, going back to Levi Preston, it, it, it finally taken its course. Right. Right.

[00:57:04] And, and, and it finally gotten to the point to where, okay, it's time to do something. And you usually know when it's time to do something like, like, like break free from England or amend the constitution or any of those types of things. Because when it happens, that's usually an indication that it was time for it to happen because it finally reached its, it's, it's, it's. You've exhausted all other options that, you know, how to exhaust. That's right. Right.

[00:57:28] And so, so, so we could go through all the history of how they got there, but in the course of human events, they, they're, they're at this point now. Um, and it's become necessary for them to dissolve these political bands, which have connected them, uh, to England. And so then, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station. So, so I want to talk a little bit about this, the powers of the earth.

[00:57:54] Some scholars believe that this is America taking its place among the other powerful countries of the earth, like taking its place among the powers of the earth as in, as in the powers of England and the powers of, of Spain and the powers of France. Um, but that's not what the founders are talking about here because they don't ever refer to these sovereign countries as, as powers.

[00:58:20] They're, they're talking about, um, the power of self-governance. And so to assume among the powers of the earth, I love this because it, it tells us where power originates. Now, some of what I'm going to talk about here comes from, um, some of the research and the thinking of Mark Herr, who's the president of the Center for Self-Governance.

[00:58:46] And he talks about how, um, in virtually every time in every form of government, we've always assumed that power originates in people. Whether an individual in the monarch or whether the collective in the, in a democracy or in an oligarchy, um, we assume that it originates in people. And people just have this power to govern, govern others.

[00:59:13] And he said, and he's realized in the declaration, we assume among the powers of the earth. So we don't get the power to self-govern. It's doesn't originate here. It originates in nature. And then we assume it from nature. And what that indicates is that it's a, it's a gift that we all get separately and equally. So when we get it, when we get this power from earth to self-govern, we think, Hey, this is awesome. I'm self-governing.

[00:59:43] I'm powerful. I can do whatever I want. And then you look around and realize, Oh, you have it too. We all have. And you have it and you have it and you have it. And it's equal. And you got it from the same place, which means I didn't get any more of it than you got. Right. We all get it separately and equally. Um, and, and now that, that changes things. So I really want to focus on this separate and equal thing. Okay. Because this, this changes, first of all, I love the balance of it.

[01:00:12] We are, um, we get this power from the earth to self-govern separately. So we each have it individually. So this is the rugged individualism. Um, but we also have it equally. So if we want to be able to get along, um, then we have to kind of collectively use this power together. So it's this nice balance between individual and collective and, and, and how society has to work together as individuals. But let's, let's talk a little bit about how the individual, the way that the individual

[01:00:40] is perceived in relation to self-governance with the founders versus historically. So like the Romans and the Greeks, for example, they believed that society was eternal because, because people are born and die and society lives on. And so they looked at as society's eternal and humans as temporary, which I find kind of

[01:01:05] funny because, I mean, they knew that the societies also rise and fall, but nonetheless, that's how they looked at it. Um, and so as a result, because they looked at it that way, because humans were temporary, then the individual was there, nature placed the individual there to serve society. And so that's where you get even, um, uh, you, you get into Plato and Plato talking about,

[01:01:34] uh, Plato's Republic, where you have people who are in certain classes and those classes have their jobs and responsibilities. And the, the philosopher Kings are the one who determines where everybody else is. And on all that, it, because it was designed on this idea that humans were there to serve society. Well, the Judeo-Christian belief totally turned that on its head because that belief is that no humans are eternal because not only this life, but there's a next life and there's a

[01:02:04] previous life. And so humans are eternal. Society is temporary. And so society is designed to serve the individual and to make it so that the individual can live in an environment in which they can self-government govern and flourish to their greatest ability. So Frederick Bastiat, he was a French politician and philosopher in the mid 1800s. So he's a little after the founders. In fact, have you ever read the book, The Law?

[01:02:34] Yes. It's not very long at all. It's not. In fact, you can, you can sit down and read it in just one sitting, just a few hours. You can get through it. Yeah, it doesn't take very long. I mean, it stays with you, so you have to pay attention to what you're reading, but it's not long. It doesn't take long. Yeah. But it is really good. I mean, if anybody out there wants to get a quick fundamental understanding of some of these principles of liberty, The Law is, is one of the first books to go to for sure.

[01:03:02] But Frederick Bastiat, he said this very plainly. He said, life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place. So the whole reason why we create society and we create government is so that we can flourish as individuals. That's, that's the purpose of it.

[01:03:31] And so that's, that's really where the founders put things on its head and said, okay, we are actually going to create a society that's designed to serve the individual, not the individual to serve society. And that changed everything. Right. Right. And even though the founders, you know, we had kind of started this out talking about Jefferson expressing the American mind and Jefferson didn't create anything new or whatever.

[01:03:56] They didn't create any new ideas, but they definitely implemented these ideas that had never really been fully implemented in history. And so this was one of them, this idea that, that society was there to, uh, to cultivate the individual and to bless the individual. Okay. Let me just, um, ask you a question because we're, you said society equal, separate individual,

[01:04:25] and then equal, equal and collective and society. But when you're seeing that, you mean we're working together with society, explain how that is not communism and working for the collective, just make a little bit of clarity there. So, um, where the difference is, is that, uh, there's a couple of differences. Number one, again, with communism, it's, it's the individuals designed to serve the society

[01:04:53] rather than society designed to serve the individual. So that's one thing that that's very significant difference. Um, the other difference is, um, that, that once we get together and we realize, well, we do need to contribute to society. Um, but that needs to be left up to the individual on how we contribute. Um, and, and that makes a huge difference. Like, like charitable contributions, for example, should be 100% voluntary.

[01:05:18] Um, the way that you contribute, uh, you know, everybody doesn't have to be a political activist. Everybody doesn't, everybody doesn't even have to vote, uh, to, to participate in their system. There's other ways that you can do it. And you don't even always have to participate in the government system. You know, just be a good teacher and a good fireman and a good police officer and be a good mechanic and, you know, and follow self-governing rules that way. There's, there's three types of self-governance.

[01:05:49] Um, one is individual self-governance. Two is relational self-governance. And three is societal self-governance. And the difference between those three. So individual self-governance and, and relational self-governance are similar in that they're very close to us and they're very intimate.

[01:06:13] Societal self-governance only exists for the purpose of cultivating individual and relational self-governance. Society is only because if society does not cultivate individual and relational self-governance, then it has no need. There's no purpose for it. Um, it, it ceases to exist because that's the whole reason why it exists.

[01:06:40] Um, whereas with communism, it's, it's, again, it's the other way around. It exists purely to, to be the entity, to be the, the, the governing entity, to be, to be the God, to be all powerful. And so, so that makes it, so the individual is, um, expendable. It's, it's designed to consume the individual. Yes. Uh, and, and that's why it always does consume the individual.

[01:07:10] And the individual winds up not having any rights. And so that is definitely not a good thing. I just wanted to make sure we, because you said equally collective and I didn't want anyone to come in and be confused by what you meant with that. And it's really good to, to clarify that because it's also good to recognize that, um, that we do need to think about the collective from time to time, but we need to recognize that there's, that there's a line that's drawn.

[01:07:37] Once the collective, um, ends up, uh, defeating its purpose, then we've crossed a line and we've, we've gone into socialism or communism or to a point to where we're going to exhaust the individual. And we created our government in the constitution. It says to protect our rights.

[01:08:00] The government exists in America fundamentally, foundationally to protect our rights, not to control, to control us, but to allow us to be able to protect our, our own rights, our individual rights. Correct. And there gets to a point where we can do things in the name of protection so much so that we end up taking away those rights. Yes.

[01:08:26] But you have the right to exercise your, your freedom and liberty. As long as you're not infringing on mine. Once you start doing that, then, then you're violating a law of nature. That's right. And so this is how I've illustrated it, uh, in the past. If, if you, if you're out in nature, if you want to be 100% free, then go out, live in nature. Right. Um, and you'll be out there for a little while until you realize that there's some scary things out there, that there's bears out there that can eat you.

[01:08:55] And you'll probably not get very much sleep because you're always looking for these bears. So you run across somebody and you say, Hey, why don't we get together and I'll sleep half the time while you're looking for bears. And, and then you sleep the other half the time and, and we'll just keep an eye out at each other. And we get more people together to where our shift only ends up being an hour a day, which is great that we only have to watch out for bears for one hour a day.

[01:09:19] And then all of a sudden, uh, in our society, somebody falls asleep during their hour and somebody gets eaten by a bear. Not good. Not good. So we decide that we don't ever want this to happen again. So we build a cage around us. So bears cannot get to us. And we do it all in, in the name of protecting our rights and protecting our lives. Right. But now we're in a cage and we're now captive.

[01:09:46] Uh, we have now become slaves to the very institution that was originally designed to, uh, to keep us free and to keep us protected. And so we always need to recognize that there's a line that can be drawn. And that's exactly what the, what I love about the founders is they realize that there's this balance that you have to, you have to find. And when we get into lesson three on the constitution, we're going to talk more about the significance of that balance. Okay.

[01:10:14] So we get through, um, the first paragraph of the declaration of independence. Yeah. Don't worry. We have two lessons, so we're not going to go forever in this lesson, but we've got a bit more, a bit more to cover. So, yeah. So let's cover just a couple more statements in here. Um, so the next one, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.

[01:10:41] Those are probably, probably the most famous words in my opinion, uh, in the document, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. Um, so let's talk about self-evident. So often when you ask somebody, what, what does that mean? Self-evident? Well, it's obvious something that's just obvious. Um, and that's, that's not really true because, uh, and I also love how he says, um, we hold these truths to be self-evident.

[01:11:11] He's not talking about things that might be obvious that are untrue. He's talking about, they have to be true and they have to be self-evident. They've got to be those two things. Um, but self-evident is something that, that has, um, the evidence built in. So just like what Cicero, when we were talking about natural law, where he was saying that

[01:11:34] you don't have to look to, uh, an outside interpreter or expounder of it, indicating that you don't need any other outside evidence. The evidence is built in, right? Um, so he kind of, you know, Jefferson will start listing some things like life, liberty and pursuit of happiness and stuff like that. Some of that stuff is built in. It's self-evident. Like it's obvious that we have the right to life because we are alive and there is a lot

[01:12:03] of things that we are built with, um, that give us the ability to protect that life and to maintain that life. Um, and so, so these are the things self-evident. Now what's interesting is Jefferson's original, um, phrase for that was not nearly as poetic. He's instead of self-evident, he said that, uh, that they should be sacred and undeniable truths. Okay.

[01:12:30] And there's a little debate about who made the change for a long time. Historians have believed that, that Franklin made that change because they thought that it was Franklin's handwriting on Jefferson's draft, but handwriting experts have gone back and looked at it and they've said, no, no, no, that's, that's clearly Jefferson. So, so some people still say, well, Franklin suggested it, but, but Jefferson actually wrote it in. Well, there's no evidence of that.

[01:12:59] So I'm just assuming that Jefferson made the change himself, but nonetheless, it was a good change because sacred and undeniable. It's not as poetic, first of all, but second of all, um, sacred, well, whose sacredness and, and undeniable it's, it's, it, it, it, both of those things need evidence, need outside evidence. And so self-evident truth, I think is just beautiful.

[01:13:22] Um, so Jefferson described the declaration's purpose when he said that he sought for the common sense of the subject before mankind in terms so plain and firm as to command their ascent. I love how he puts that. It's so obvious that the, that they command the ascent they're put up on a pedestal because they are self-evident. They put themselves up on a pedestal. And firm, plain and firm there.

[01:13:52] You can't really debate it. There's no debating it. That's right. Yeah. So self-evident. Awesome. Um, so now we can go through, so now he's given us this lens that everything we're going to read in the declaration at this point is based on natural law, laws of nature and nature's God. And these are self-evident. And now he's going to go into some of these laws of nature and self-evident truths.

[01:14:20] And the first one that he puts out is that all men are created equal. Should we cover the elephant in the room? Go for it. Yeah. It's, or, or rather not, it's not the elephant in the room, but it's the man and not the woman in the room. Or the Hamilton play, Mr. Jefferson. When I see him, I'm going to tell him to put women in it. Yeah, exactly. So let's, let's talk about this. Let's, let's cover this issue real fast.

[01:14:49] Um, about all men are created equal and why it doesn't say all people or all men and women are created equal. So we'll just do a quick English lesson. So the, the, the term man, um, in the old English, which is, uh, which was, you know, evolved from Anglo-Saxon and other languages and stuff that were coming together. Uh, so the word man was actually M-A-N-N and it literally meant mankind. That's, that was the definition of it.

[01:15:19] And then there were, um, some prefixes that were put in front of man to indicate whether it was a male man or a, uh, a female man. And those words were, uh, for female, it was wife. So W-I-F pronounced wife. And so it was a wifeman. And then for man, it was, oh, a wereman or a wereman. So W-E-R.

[01:15:49] And we have remnants of that today. Werewolf literally means a man wolf. Right. Um, because the were is the male, a male wolf. So, um, um, um, where is, is male and wife is female and man is, is human. Yes. And so a male human and a female human. Well, eventually, uh, wifeman was, was, uh, shortened to, to just woman.

[01:16:15] And then the were or where was dropped from man and, and a male man ended up just being man. And so now you had a dual meanings. Mankind was man and, and male was a male human or man was a male human. So around Jefferson's time, um, in legal documents and in official writings and things, when you saw man, it was most often still referring to mankind, even though during his time, man

[01:16:45] also meant male. Um, and so here he's, he's definitely talking about mankind. Um, and in, in another, uh, in a letter he wrote, Jefferson wrote, all eyes are opened or opening to the rights of man. The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs. So he uses man and mankind in the, in the exact same phrase, uh, interchangeably.

[01:17:13] So, so clearly he's talking about mankind. So when we, when we say all men are created equal, um, women are absolutely included in that. Now that didn't mean that, that they were treated equal in 1776, but neither were all men. Um, women were not treated equal cause they couldn't vote and hold public office, but not all men could also could hold a public office or vote either. Elaborate on that.

[01:17:40] So, so the, the, the, the real obvious ones were slaves. Yes. Indentured servitudes, indentured servants most of the time could not hold public office and vote in some, some jurisdictions they could. Um, in some jurisdictions, if you did not own property, you could not vote. Um, now that was not the case by the time the constitution got written. That's a mistake. Uh, people think that only property owners could vote, uh, during the constitutional times.

[01:18:10] And that's just, that's not accurate. Every, every male, um, of age could vote by the time the constitution was written, um, with the exception of slaves. And so, um, so basically you, even though all men are created equal again, just like we were talking about the power of words, um, it wasn't true in their day. They weren't treated equal, but Jefferson was declaring a self-evident truth.

[01:18:37] It was not declaring the way we're operating right now. This was the way that they were hoping things would become. This was a declaration of where things ought to be, not where things are. If they were declaring where things are, then they never would have even declared independence from England because, because the status of where they were was they were under the crown. They were declaring what's in the future. They weren't equal with the crown even. Correct.

[01:19:05] But all men are created equal is the important, created equal is as important as equal. That's right. It doesn't say all men are equal. That's absolutely. And that's a good point because, because if, and if they use the term created, what does that presuppose? Natural law again. That's right. It goes back to natural law, laws of nature, nature's God. And that we're born equal. That's right. And that, and that, and it also presupposes that there's a creator.

[01:19:35] Yes. And again, whether you believe that creator is nature or whether you believe that creator is God, there are certain governing principles for that creation. Right. And so, yeah, that's a great point to bring that up. And that's real critical that we recognize that. I love this from John Adams. He said that all men are born equal, are born to equal rights is true.

[01:20:03] So what he's talking about, what he's going to start talking about here is around this time, um, uh, the philosopher Rousseau was talking about how we're all created equal in every way. It's almost like what we're saying today with men and women and girls sports and all that kind of stuff. We're all created equal. Um, and so, so John Adams talks about this idea that we're all, that we're all equal in every way. He says that all men are born to equal rights is true.

[01:20:31] Every being has a right to his own as clear, as moral, as sacred, as any other being has. But to teach that all men are born with equal powers and faculties to equal influence in society, to equal property and advantages through life is a gross fraud. I mean, it's obvious we can get in a room of people and we all have different talents. We all have different interests. My son's six five.

[01:20:56] So we get in a room and we're going to see he is much taller than 99% of the population. So yeah. So it's clear we're not equal in every way. Right. So the question is, which ways are we equal? Right. We're equal in our rights and we're equal under the law. Okay. Now, if we try to make ourselves unequal in any other way, then what's interesting, see nature intended for us to be equal in our rights and under the law.

[01:21:25] But if we try to make ourselves equal in other ways, then we actually will violate those two natural law principles. So let me give you an example. If there's an individual who has $20 and another individual has 15 and we think, well, that's just unfair. They should be equal. So we're going to pass a law that says that you need to be equal in things. So you give, and so the law passes and these two individuals want to follow the law.

[01:21:54] So the one with $20 gives $5 to the one with $10. And they now have both have $15, right? So they're equal in things. But did they lose anything? Did they lose any rights? Well, the one who had 20 certainly did. That's right. He certainly feels it. What about the one who had 10? Did he lose anything? Well, he lost the dignity of earning it himself. That's for sure true. But he doesn't care about that because he gained things, right? At the moment, he probably doesn't. Yeah.

[01:22:24] So he feels like he didn't lose anything. He didn't lose any rights. And so now they are not equal in their rights under the law because the law protected the $10 individual more than the $20 individual. And they're not equal in their rights because the law abused that. But the individual originally with $10, he lost his rights as well. And this is illustrated by the moment we introduce an additional person.

[01:22:53] And we'll say that person has $0. So now to equalize it, they each have to give him $5. They now have $10. And so now they're all equal in things. Well, the original $10 individual now is pretty upset because he just lost things. He's like, this is totally unfair. Well, so when did he lose his rights? He lost his rights the moment he accepted the $5 from the other. He just didn't feel the loss of those rights yet, right?

[01:23:23] So when we try to make ourselves equal in ways that nature did not intend for us to be equal, then we will make ourselves unequal in ways that nature did intend for us to be equal. And so it's really important that we recognize that we're not equal in things. We're not equal in talents. We're not equal in all those things, but we're equal in our rights.

[01:23:46] We all should be afforded the same right to live, to exercise our liberty, and to pursue our happiness as we see fit. And we'll go into more detail on exactly what all that means in the next lesson. Okay. I think we're about to move to the next section, but I want to say one thing because we're talking about all men or men are created equal.

[01:24:14] So just for the record, I still use the title chairman, and I don't care. I know what it means. And it doesn't mean I think I'm a man or anything. And it doesn't mean I need to be chairwoman. It's just the same thing, mankind. It means human, right? So you're chair human. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm not going to do that because that sounds way too liberal to you. That's right. But it's funny.

[01:24:44] And it's veering away from the Declaration of Independence. But I think it's important because of that conversation we're just having, and I quoted the Hamilton musical. That line always bothers me in the Hamilton musical because I have never my entire life thought of it as anything other than mankind. And I will do interviews, and people will be like, you can't say chairman. They'll automatically correct it and say chairwoman. I don't care. Whatever.

[01:25:12] But to me, it doesn't matter. And I refer to members of Congress as congressmen, just generally speaking the way I refer to myself as the chairman. Yeah. So I sometimes think people get too wrapped up in that.

[01:25:30] And I understand women weren't able to vote in the beginning and of the—not in the beginning to Genesis, but in the constitutional times. We can't today. And so I just don't—I don't—it's just something I don't freak out about. But I do understand it's very important. And we were dealing—we are, as a country, we still deal with the fact that there was slavery.

[01:25:59] And so not even all men, the male were—where man was—were all equal. That's right. And being treated equally. And I love the fact that you highlight the quote from John Adams that you were just highlighting, that all men are born to equal rights is true.

[01:26:28] Every being has a right to his own, as clear, as moral, as sacred, as any other being has. And it keeps on going. But I like this so much because John Quincy Adams worked— Abigail Adams and John Adams were unquestionably against slavery.

[01:26:48] And John Quincy Adams was so against slavery that he was president, and then he went back to Congress to try to continue working to end slavery. And I would say that the son of one of the founders who wound up as a teenage, very young teenager,

[01:27:12] had to be an ambassador, basically, for our country at that very young age, going overseas and helping translate, that that would qualify as one of the founders. And he went all the way through his life, continuing what his mom and his dad taught him. And he served in Congress with Abraham Lincoln, and he made sure that we went on—who went on to help completely abolish slavery.

[01:27:42] And I learned about that connection, really thinking going on congressional tours with Congressman Louie Gohmert. He always talks about John Quincy Adams on those congressional tours. And I just was thinking, it actually is one founder touching Abraham Lincoln and helping influence Abraham Lincoln,

[01:28:07] who went on to actually achieve the goal of what John Adams and Abigail Adams and many others in the time our country was formed wanted to see happen. I love that tie that you make there because it's a really clear tie. But we can take that with the other things, even back with women and voting and all that. I mean, just the fact that the Constitution is gender neutral.

[01:28:34] We can look at the founders and say, well, they had slaves, women couldn't vote, all that stuff. I am a sinful person. And when people go and look back at my life, they will find all sorts of things that are contradictory. But hopefully they also find great things that you did that they can build on. Yes. And that's what we've done. If the founders didn't do what they did, then we would still have slaves and we would still have women not voting. We would still be oppressed by kings.

[01:29:03] We would still be all those things. They did an amazing job at building their stepping stone for us to then walk on, to then build our stepping stones and to advance society forward. Whenever people are criticizing the founders, I always will tell them, of course, it's presentism, right? We look back with our standards of today. And I always tell them, we're looking back 250 years to the founders.

[01:29:31] Well, go 250 years before them and then look forward at them and look at how advanced they took mankind. And it'll give you a much better view of the founders and what they accomplished because they advanced mankind so much further than it was 250 years prior to them.

[01:29:53] And so that's the credit that we need to give them and give them the credit that they helped us do what we're doing today for sure. And helped Abraham Lincoln do what he did. Yeah. I mean, they totally laid the groundwork. And even the famous Gettysburg Address talks about that. Four score and seven years ago. Here's the principles that were outlined. And all we're doing is just continuing to make that a reality. Yes. Yeah. Yes. So beautiful stuff.

[01:30:23] So, Bill, I think I took us a little bit off track because I started talking about chairman and all of that. And in the part about slavery, I wanted to I probably wouldn't have said it, but I was just thinking about that. John Adams, the John Adams quote and the impact that he and Abigail and John Quincy Adams made. But I think it took you a little off track. No, we're good. In fact, I'd love that connection.

[01:30:51] So back now to these natural law principles. Yes. And if we try to make ourselves equal in ways that nature didn't intend for us to be, it ends up violating the ways nature did intend for us to be equal. And it does exactly what Cicero was talking about when we read that quote about natural law. Um, he then says, Cicero, whosoever is disobedient is fleeing from himself and denying his human nature.

[01:31:20] I love that picture that that gives, right? When you're when you violate natural law, it's like fleeing from yourself, trying to run away from yourself. I picture a dog chasing its own tail. And by reason, uh, reason of this very fact, he will suffer the worst punishment. So we're not any better off when we try to violate natural law by passing laws. Um, we, in the end, we will actually suffer a worse punishment.

[01:31:44] Um, and, and even to your point with the guy who took the $5, you know, he, he missed out on the opportunity of earning that by the sweat of his own brow. And that in the end, he will suffer a worse punishment because he's now not as capable of earning that $5 on his own. Right. Um, and so that's, that's exactly the point here is we, we really want to stick with these natural law principles because violating them, um, ends up hurting worse in the long run.

[01:32:12] And, and sometimes it can be deadly, um, for society and even as individuals. Um, so right before Jefferson died, um, so 10 days before, so it's 50 years. He actually died on the 50th anniversary of the declaration of independence, which is amazing. And what's even more amazing is that, uh, John Adams died on the same day. Yes.

[01:32:38] And so Jefferson was invited to come to Washington DC, uh, for the 50th anniversary. And he wrote a letter, um, to basically say he couldn't just cause his health would not allow it. But in this final letter, this is what he said. He said, may it be to the world what I believe it to be the sink, the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves. I love that.

[01:33:07] Oh, he's talking about, you know, how superstition and ignorance and stuff convinces us to allow ourselves to, to be in captivity. He's like, but we're breaking free of that. He's, he's super excited about this. We're breaking free and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. All eyes are opened or opening to the rights of man. And so he's, he's just, he's just seeing, and what's cool is this, this isn't something he's saying on July 5th after they've passed the declaration and, oh, this is great things.

[01:33:37] This is 50 years later where he's still really optimistic, even though he's been through some rough and tumble times with his, uh, um, you know, this argument that he had for John, with John Adams for years where they became bitter political enemies. Um, and you know, the media, the, the newspapers would just were horrible to Jefferson. But even after all that, he's still like, this is awesome. We're doing great. And, and eyes are opening to the rights of man.

[01:34:07] Um, but there's a couple of, of things that he kind of left us with that I think that we need to, at least I always reflect upon. So, um, one thing that he said, he said, I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society, but the people themselves. He always had faith in the people.

[01:34:28] So much faith, even, even John Adams, when he got to be president and John Adams signs the alien and sedition act, John Adams was indicating he didn't have much faith in the people from time to time. But Jefferson was just stalwart in this, in his faith, uh, in the people. He said, he knows no safe depository, but the people themselves. And if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.

[01:35:00] So he's saying what all tyrants and oppressors have, have done. And that is, oh, you're not smart enough. I mean, you even illustrated this, that we have this in our own country often. You go talk to politicians and they'll say, they'll pat you on the head. Oh, you just don't understand. I remember, um, I was talking to, uh, the mayor of our community and she, uh, at one time we were talking about a particular political issue and we had been friends for a number of years.

[01:35:29] And she, you know, respected my studies of the constitution and all that. And she's like, Bill. And I said, you're, I said, mayor, you're just, you're not correct on this particular issue. Why are you reversing yourself? Cause she was reversing herself from the direction she had been going, which was, was correct. And she said, Bill, you, you don't, you just don't understand. I have more information about the circumstances than you do. And I told her, I said, mayor, I'm not basing my decision on circumstances.

[01:35:57] I'm basing my decision or my opinions on principles, these fundamental principles of good government. And, and so I don't have to make circumstantial decisions. I can, I can always plug in these, these challenges that government have into these principles and outcomes, the result that that's why I now, I know that you're going the wrong direction. Um, and so, so really that's what he's saying here is, um, don't take away their freedom to self-govern.

[01:36:26] If you don't think that they're capable of it, educate them, right? The remedy is not to take them from it, but to educate. He said, this is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power. So education is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power, education of both the people and of the elected officials as well. Yes.

[01:36:46] And then my very, very favorite quote, quote, not just from Jefferson, but from all the founders is enlighten the people generally and tyranny and oppression of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day. And that's really the power of these words is that when you shine the light on darkness, it scatters like cockroaches.

[01:37:12] And I just, I love how poetic he actually says it instead of the vision of cockroaches. Yes. He says they vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day. Here's this dawn of day. That's just this new day. It's, it's a soft light. It's reverent. Um, but it's hopeful. And there's, there's just so much, um, just vision and hope in the whole thing. And so I just love that quote.

[01:37:37] And that to me is what the declaration, uh, is, is it's that, it's that dawn of day that's, that's shedding the light. That's making it so that tyrants and oppressors vanish. And so as we get into the next lesson, um, we're going to talk more about some of these fundamental principles, um, that are shedding the light, uh, on, on darkness and making it so that the individual has a lot more hope for the future.

[01:38:05] And we're going to educate and enlighten so that people can take the circumstances of today and put it through the principles that you were just talking about. So we know how to know how to deal with the things that are coming at us. Exactly. I mean, why do we want to make the same mistakes over and over again? Well, because we will. Yes.

[01:38:25] I mean, I mean, there's been times when I have had an opinion on a particular, uh, political issue that, that I then go back to some of these fundamental principles and realize, you know, I I'm wrong on that. I need to, I need to change my, my view on it. And some of those quotes that I just read, the one about, uh, education being corrective of constitutional abuses is one of those quotes that helped me realize that I've been incorrect on some issues in the past.

[01:38:52] Well, and that's why we want to make sure that, that we're doing this series and that we're training the people who are listening in the audience and watching in the audience, because there's so much coming at us all the time. And especially when we flip open our phone and we look at our phone and we see everything going on in social media, we can just get enraged and there's just too much of that going on.

[01:39:18] And, and I think that we have to be able to take all of that passion and the emotion and the energy that we get because we're worried or concerned or the love that we have for the country or the anger and the rage and turn it into productive action. And the way to be able to turn it into that productive action is through education.

[01:39:38] And I think that we, um, especially with everything that's happening on social media right now, people aren't talking about the founding principles as much. It's just the news of the day and the click of the day. And, and we have to keep taking that click of the day and looking at it through the lens of our founding principles and continuing to go back on that. So we know how to protect our country for the next 250 years. That's right. And it makes it easier in the long run.

[01:40:06] I mean, if you took things issue by issue as they come, first of all, you're going to be reactionary. And we know that reactionary decision-making isn't always the best. Um, but you, you, it, it's too much. I mean, how many issues are there out there today? How many, how many bills are on the floor of the house and Senate right now that we can sit there and have to dive into and learn so much about. Um, but if you understand these basic fundamental principles that you can plug things in and outcomes, the result, then it makes your life easier.

[01:40:36] Um, when I notice, uh, activists, when they take this approach, I noticed they become calmer. Yes. They become more optimistic. Um, they, they, they have more hair cause they're not pulling their hair out as much. Um, and so it's just, it's just, it's a better life for you as an individual. And it's better for our society. When we go back to these funding fundamental principles. It is. And they sleep better because they don't have to worry quite so much.

[01:41:01] We still worry about our country, but you come back to it and you go, okay, this is the way forward. This is how we have to just keep working to get, to get the country on the path it needs to be on. Yep. Okay. So we've gone through the first lesson and before we end, you have a book. It's a book out about the Declaration of Independence. Not yet, but it will be soon.

[01:41:25] Um, and, and you'll be able to get, get it through your website with this training and then, um, and then Amazon and all that too. But it'll be behind the Declaration of Independence is the title. Um, it's, it's a companion book to behind the bill of rights. Um, and then there will also be one coming out in September that's behind the constitution. Um, and then the other book that I mentioned, uh, that Mark Kerr and I wrote was Speaking the Language of Liberty.

[01:41:53] Uh, and we can make that one available as well. Okay. And, um, I encourage people to get the books and to read more about it and go read the law. And, um, and if you haven't opened up the Declaration of Independence and read it, make sure that you're reading that. And we've got a link for you. So make sure that you read it, pay attention to what's going on. You can rewind the course and go back and take in some of the things that Bill said.

[01:42:20] Again, if it is helpful for you, because we covered a lot. And then we'll be back with the second part of the Declaration of Independence. And then we will cover the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. So thank you very much for joining me. I am Jenny Beth Martin, and this is a Jenny Beth show. And we'll be back with part two of the Declaration of Independence very soon. 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.

[01:42:49] 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. For more information, visit TeaPartyPatriots.org.