Welcome to "The
Liberty Insider".
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This is the program
that brings you news,
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views, discussion, opinion
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and up to date information
on religious liberty issue
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in the United States
and around the world.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
editor of Liberty Magazine,
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and my guest is Greg Hamilton,
a constitutional scholar,
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holder of an advanced
degree from Baylor University,
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J. M. Dawson Institute
of church-State Studies
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and also the
president of Northwest
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Religious Liberty Association.
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I'm glad to be with you.
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And, Hamilton, that goes
back to the beginning, right?
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Got the bloodline back to the--
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Let's talk a little bit
about the US constitution,
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which is a unique and
little known document.
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Lot of discussion about it
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but as you and I
were talking earlier,
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even the Congress,
when they recited it,
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it recently showed
not a great familiarity
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with some of it's
more archian areas
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but most Americans, I think,
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or many Americans in
their unguarded moments
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let loose comments about America
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being a Christian
republic or a Christian nation
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and that might be true
on a certain limited level
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but some of them write
it very large, don't they?
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Oh, yes.
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What's at play
when people are throwing
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around terms
like Christian nation?
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Ignorance is really--
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Is it from the constitution?
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No, not at all, in
fact I was testifying
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at the Montana Legislature,
in regard to a so called,
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State Religious
Freedom Restoration Act
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and one of the legislators
on House Judiciary Committee,
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a woman whose name I won't state
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but I will also speak
of the sponsor of the bill.
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She said in a question
to former Supreme Court,
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Montana Supreme Court
justice, James Nelson,
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she says,
"Wasn't our constitution
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and our laws
presupposed on the Bible,
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the word of God and
didn't the founders intend
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that only Christians be
elected to public offices
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especially the presidency?"
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And James Nelson,
who I regard very highly,
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I mean he's like a superstar in
Montana in terms of knowledge.
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He skipped past the question
and tried to deal with more
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of the importance of
the Religious Freedom Act
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and didn't actually
answer the question.
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I went up to her
afterwards and I said that,
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ma'am, article 6, section
3 of the constitution says,
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no religious test
shall be required for anybody
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for public
office either appointed
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or running for public office
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and I said the Founding Fathers,
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actually if you go
back to the original debates
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in the first Congress of 1789,
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made it very clear
that that an atheist
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and even a Muslim
could become president.
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So if somebody wants
to accuse President Obama,
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being a Muslim
of which he is not--
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It is not a
constitutional problem.
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It's not a
constitutional problem
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but people want to make it out
to be a constitutional problem
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when it isn't, even
though he's not a Muslim.
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He's made it very clear.
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He's a charismatic
Pentecostal Christian,
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raised in an
atheistic home with his mother,
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whose grandparents were
strong Lutherans, in Hawaii,
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and with two Muslim fathers.
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His real father and also his
stepfather, Mr. Lolo Soetoro--
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But you're right.
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His grandparents
are the most important--
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Yes, yeah, because
they virtually raised him
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after his mother's
early death in Hawaii
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and went to prominent
private religious schools,
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in fact, that's where he came up
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with his Just War Theory,
was at that level, that age.
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While in high school,
studying St. Thomas Aquinas
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and St.
Augustine's Just War Theories,
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which is very interesting.
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So what did she say with you--
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Well, she-- I said that
we're not a Christian nation.
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It's very evident from the
very First Amendment itself,
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when it says that
Congress shall make no law,
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no law respecting an
establishment of religion
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where the word "an" is
for any establishment--
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No, is a pretty inclusive--
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And no is very clear-- Nothing.
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And or prohibit the
free exercise of religion,
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which is a balancing thing.
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The Free Exercise
Clause basically prevents
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a slippery slope
towards godlessness,
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okay, that is the
government will remain neutral
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and always
allow religious people
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and institutions and
churches to be independent
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for the government to
not only remain neutral
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but have nothing to
do with their powers
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or their institutions and
their worship or whatever.
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So why did they want chaplains
to sit in the Congress?
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Let me just finish here.
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The Establishment Clause was
to prevent the slippery slope
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towards church
control of the state.
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In other words, church
meddling with the state,
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okay, and also for the
state meddling with the church.
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So the Establishment Clause,
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known as the Constitutional
Separation of church and state
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was to prevent
against that other slope
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which is equally dangerous,
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towards church's
dominance of the state,
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like in the
days of the Puritans,
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prior to the
constitution founding.
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So the Founding
Fathers figured this out,
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I mean the very
wording in the First Amendment
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shows the genius of
the constitution founders.
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The Free Exercise Clause
and the Establishment Clause
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serving as a check and
balance of each other--
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And we know a lot
of the debate they had.
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I mean, they didn't
just arrive out of thin air,
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they discussed
the role of religion
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and it even extended
to the simplest level.
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I remember there was a program
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recently on
religious freedom pointed out,
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when it was all
over, Benjamin Franklin,
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even wanted to
have prayer in honor,
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it wasn't appropriate
even to have prayer over it.
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So they were consciously secular
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even though many of them had
personal, religious viewpoints.
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One thing that's seldom said,
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I think you have opinions on it.
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It seems to me, part of
this also was a reaction
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against the role of
the Church of England,
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in the War of Independence
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and the activists' role
of many of those ministers
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who were seen as
agents of the government.
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Sure, absolutely.
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The sponsor of the
bill of the Montana's
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Religious
Freedom Restoration Act,
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in his closing
remarks when asked to make
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his closing remarks
in favor of his bill,
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brought up his Bible
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and pounded it on the desk twice
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that our nation was meant
to be a Christian nation by law
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and I thought to myself,
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oh, my, he just
shot himself in the foot.
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That sent the
moderate Republicans scurrying
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and that's why
his bill was defeated
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on the House floor
by a vote of 50 to 50.
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I'd like to think that my
testimony had something to do
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with that as well, even
though we were semi-supportive,
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they didn't adopt
our amendment language.
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So anyway, the
point is that if we're--
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if the Founding Fathers,
the constitution founders
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intended our nation
to be a Christian nation
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or a theocracy, how is
that any different than Muslims
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ruling their countries
in Middle Eastern countries
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through Sharia law?
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I just-- the irony is
just, I mean, is amazing.
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It occurs to me--
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I mean, what kind of
blinders do they have on?
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Do they think these
things through or not?
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No, they're blinded by
their passion and emotion.
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They're not grounded in reason.
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Let me share
something with you from--
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A little book, I
have the copy as the same.
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A little book
called, The Bill of Rights,
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with writings that
formed this foundation.
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It's basically,
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many of the
speeches of James Madison,
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in the first Congress, in 1789,
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in Federal Hall,
in New York city,
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people forget
that the first Congress
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was actually in New York city,
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in fact, the first
several until they finally
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built the US
Capitol in Washington, DC.
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And there was even a president
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before George
Washington, wasn't there?
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Yes, I forget his name
though. I forget it too.
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But he was
president of the Confederacy,
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the confederate
states before it became--
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Well, there was a legal shift
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but still, in a certain
sense there was a president.
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Right, there was.
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But anyway,
James Madison speaking
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for the reason
for Bill of Rights
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and there's interesting
history behind this because--
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And as you know, at one stage,
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he wasn't keen on it,
didn't think it was necessary.
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Exactly, that's--
Yeah, it's exactly right.
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Alexander Hamilton
said, well, I mean, the--
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our rights were already
enumerated in the constitution.
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So we don't need a
list of Bill of Rights
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but Thomas Jefferson who
is brilliant on this issue,
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unlike Hamilton.
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He was an ambassador
to France at that time,
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kept writing letters to Madison,
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no, you keep going
along with Jefferson,
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I mean, with
Hamilton's ideas and it's wrong.
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We need an established
Bill of Rights, in order that,
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you know, that
states can have some rights
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and also to make sure
that individuals, minorities,
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instead of just
an abusive majority
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which leads to big
government can have rights
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and so he finally convinced
Madison in his speech--
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As I remember, part
of Madison's objection
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was by spelling them
out it would perhaps limit
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because there might
be elements of rights
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that were not
covered by this bill.
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Correct, he thought
that it be an ever expanding
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list of rights which in fact,
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when it comes to the
amendments to the constitution,
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we only had what 27
or something like that--
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29.
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Yeah, so it's not that
many after over 200 years--
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Sorry, 28.
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And the basic Bill of
Rights worked an amendment.
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The first nine and
then the tenth came along.
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He says, he speaks
here in the first Congress,
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in 1789 in Federal
Hall, New York city,
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right, across street
from Wall Street, today.
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"In our
government, it is perhaps
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less necessary to
guard against the abuse
00:10:09.02\00:10:11.20
in the executive
department than any other."
00:10:11.23\00:10:13.27
Now some people might
laugh at that and say well,
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okay, the presidency has
become a virtual dictatorship--
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The imperial presidency--
00:10:18.71\00:10:20.04
Through executive orders
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and I always send this
email out from UCLA, law school
00:10:21.28\00:10:26.81
and they show all the different
executive orders from--
00:10:26.84\00:10:30.75
in history from
George Washington,
00:10:30.78\00:10:32.11
all down to Obama
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and President
Obama has something like
00:10:34.56\00:10:37.37
a little over 200 words,
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Bill Clinton had like over 1,000
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and Ronald Reagan,
had something like 1,500
00:10:40.86\00:10:44.72
and George Bush has
something like 490 or 500
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and, you know, so I always
remind people that, you know,
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if you're going to
do some comparison,
00:10:51.61\00:10:53.12
do your homework, you know--
00:10:53.15\00:10:54.70
I do personally think that's
a weak element of presidency.
00:10:54.73\00:10:59.35
It's a fairly
unregulated element.
00:10:59.38\00:11:02.24
Well, it shows the
failure both of Congress
00:11:02.27\00:11:04.42
and the presidency to get along.
00:11:04.45\00:11:06.37
Number one and
number two, and mind you,
00:11:06.40\00:11:09.22
a lot of the
executive orders by president
00:11:09.25\00:11:11.46
are signed the very
first day of his office
00:11:11.49\00:11:13.25
after he's been elected
and after his inauguration
00:11:13.28\00:11:18.30
and then just before
he sits down the lunch
00:11:18.33\00:11:20.56
at the inauguration ball,
00:11:20.59\00:11:22.12
he signs a number
of executive orders.
00:11:22.15\00:11:23.95
Basically,
carrying forward into law
00:11:23.98\00:11:27.07
what was already
there to carry forward
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and extend
previous executive orders.
00:11:29.67\00:11:32.78
Well, most of them,
00:11:32.81\00:11:33.84
but it can't be
really legislation
00:11:33.87\00:11:36.61
by the chief executive.
00:11:36.64\00:11:38.19
Exactly, like the
whole immigration issue--
00:11:38.22\00:11:39.89
And the way it stopped is
the Supreme Court consigned
00:11:39.92\00:11:45.07
that it is unconstitutional
but they don't meet so easily,
00:11:45.10\00:11:48.66
the legislature can
enact some counter law,
00:11:48.69\00:11:51.67
they don't meet the next day
00:11:51.70\00:11:54.28
and then the other
inhibition is impeachment.
00:11:54.31\00:11:56.95
But if he has the
support of his party or majority
00:11:56.98\00:12:00.19
then he can affect
the executive order--
00:12:00.22\00:12:04.04
have direct role.
00:12:04.07\00:12:05.18
But we had an
example, just recently,
00:12:05.21\00:12:08.46
with Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, of Israel
00:12:08.49\00:12:11.96
being invited by
John Boehner in Congress
00:12:11.99\00:12:13.93
to come over and
speak before Congress,
00:12:13.96\00:12:16.08
that undermined President
Obama's Foreign Policy.
00:12:16.11\00:12:18.86
Okay, that shows the
limit of the presidency
00:12:18.89\00:12:22.75
in terms of its power
00:12:22.78\00:12:23.99
and in this
statement by Madison goes on.
00:12:24.02\00:12:26.52
He says, "Because
it is no the stronger
00:12:26.55\00:12:28.21
branch of the
system but the weaker.
00:12:28.24\00:12:30.38
It therefore must be
leveled against the legislative
00:12:30.41\00:12:33.28
for it is the most powerful
and most likely to be abused
00:12:33.31\00:12:36.04
because it is
under the least control."
00:12:36.07\00:12:38.64
Very few check and
balances on Congress,
00:12:38.67\00:12:40.29
plus they have the
power of the purse,
00:12:40.32\00:12:41.50
if you think about it,
00:12:41.53\00:12:42.81
but nobody thinks
that through these days.
00:12:42.84\00:12:45.04
Hence so far as a
Declaration of Rights
00:12:45.07\00:12:46.96
can tend to prevent the
exercise of undue power,
00:12:46.99\00:12:49.18
it cannot be doubted but
such declaration is proper
00:12:49.21\00:12:52.03
but, he says, "I
confess that I do conceive
00:12:52.06\00:12:54.96
that any government modified
like this of the United States,
00:12:54.99\00:12:57.64
the great danger lies rather
in the abuse of the community
00:12:57.67\00:13:01.97
than in the legislative body."
00:13:02.00\00:13:03.06
That is we the people,
00:13:03.09\00:13:04.80
the very first
words of the preamble
00:13:04.83\00:13:06.80
to the constitution--
00:13:06.83\00:13:08.13
Which is fascinating.
00:13:08.16\00:13:09.19
We need to take a break,
00:13:09.22\00:13:10.58
we'll continue our
reading of James Madison
00:13:10.61\00:13:13.51
after a short
break, stay with us.
00:13:13.54\00:13:15.46
This is heavy stuff.
00:13:15.49\00:13:17.33