Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break,
with guest Greg Hamilton,
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we were going hammer
and tong on the argument.
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And now I'm going to
stir things a little more.
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Great things here
that you're saying,
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and I don't question them.
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You and I believe
there was an intention
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to provide religious liberty
and there were good antecedents
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back to the reformation
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and even
further for that matter.
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But we're filming
this not far removed
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from Black History Month.
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Yes.
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Give me a good explanation
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as how they could have
such high-flown statements
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about civil and
religious liberty
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when there was a
whole slave population,
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not only were not civilly free,
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not always free even
to practice religion.
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Well, I would
say that, in context,
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they were living in the
times they were living in,
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which means essentially
that their consciences
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hadn't fully
awakened to the problem.
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I mean they knew
it was a problem,
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but it was an
"accepted problem," okay?
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So much so that they compromised
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in terms of
writing the constitution
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as to what
would allow the south,
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'cause it had
very little population
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compared to the north,
to allow for apportionment.
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So they said
that African-Americans
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were counted as
three-fifths of a person,
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which going back to the
Dred Scott decision of 1858,
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clearly was a statement
that dehumanized black people
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as saying that they
were anything but persons.
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And so that was a problem.
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Obviously, there
was a practical reason
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for apportionment
reasons so that they could have
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equal
representation in Congress.
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Well, I have a radical solution.
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Let's test it. Yeah.
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I believe the US Constitution
is a property document.
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Well, sure it is.
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And the amendments that...
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We have evidence from
that in Revelation 13,
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where it calls the
beast of Revelation 13,
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the lamb-like beast, he
calls it the land beast,
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the beast that
comes up out of the earth.
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And the United
States would emerge in wide
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because citizenship
and even the right to vote
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was based on whether
you owned property or not.
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Right.
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But the whole logic of,
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you know, even Life, Liberty,
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and the Pursuit of Happiness,
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the original state was
of the Pursuit of Property.
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Yes. They all knew that.
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Oh, yes. It was very well known.
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So the constitution,
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it's a bit a more than property,
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it is premised on a
property concept of rights
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and everything, so it exists.
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And the Bill of Rights that
Madison had so much to do with,
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even though he didn't
want a Bill of Rights,
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is a moral
description of real rights.
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And in some ways,
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they are made to mesh together,
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but they come in
from two different points
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of the compass.
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Well. Property
and individual rights.
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And it pushed too far,
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which they were not
willing to do at the time,
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like you say,
because of the culture.
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They're contradictory.
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Even though it wasn't
the most ideal system,
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we still have to
look at the ideals.
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The ideals...
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That's what I tried to
say in an earlier program.
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The constitutional
ideals that the US adopted
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are a beacon to this
day, not just to the US itself
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but to the whole world.
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I guess, for me, even though
I have a sense of pragmatism,
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I still say we need to
keep getting back to the ideals
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because I think it
would help to heal our nation
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in many respects if we
got back to our ideals.
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And for me, I think of
James Madison who wrote that,
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"Experience will
be an admitted umpire.
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In the papal system,
government and religion
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are in a manner consolidated
or joined and that is found
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to be the worst of governments."
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So even in Madison's thinking,
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the reason why we
wrote this constitution
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was to get away
from the medieval era
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in which kings usurped
the authority of priests,
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and churches, and clergy,
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and in which the church
usurped the authority of kings
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and emperors and to get rid
of that old system altogether
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and to have a
representative system
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in which the people could
choose their representatives
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and in which the
separation of church and state
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was a reality.
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It's interesting
the way you express that
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because I'm sure you
know that in the reformation,
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and particularly in England,
the conflict that developed
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was between church
courts and state courts,
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and they were overlapping.
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So it was a justice
issue and a matter of
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who was in
authority as much as a belief
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or shaking free of the church.
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Well, it was an
issue of jurisdiction,
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and it had
everything to do with...
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Oh, I don't remember the term.
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The investiture.
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The power of investiture.
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Well, that's how it played out.
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Who had the right to ordain
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who and who had a right to
interpret law and so forth.
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And remember, that continued,
Napoleon crowns himself.
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It was known as the
investiture controversy.
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Yes. Yes. Yes.
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One of the things
that I want to point out
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in my book is the fact
that in the Constitution,
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at least the way it was written,
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Jefferson said, you know,
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the Constitution
should not be ratified
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until a Bill of
Rights is attached to it.
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In other words that
nine states should hold out
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and not allow for ratification
and to basically say,
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"We need a guarantee of a bill
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of the people's
rights to be enumerated."
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And a number of the
states held out enough that
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that forced the issue.
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And Alexander
Hamilton came along and said,
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"We don't need a bill of rights,
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they're already inherent
in the Constitution itself."
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The constitution was enough.
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I thought Madison
was pushing that line.
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Madison was too
along with Hamilton,
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but Madison, who was a
close friend of Jefferson,
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began to see Jefferson's point
in their fevered correspondence
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for a need for a bill
of the people's rights.
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And so basically,
what they were trying to do
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was to protect the
people from themselves.
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James Madison rose up in
the first Congress of 1789
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in New York City,
right across the street
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from modern day Wall
Street in Federal Hall.
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He says, "I confess
that any government modified
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like this of the United
States, the greater danger lies
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rather in the
abuse of the community
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than in the legislative body.
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The prescriptions
in favor of liberty
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ought therefore to be
leveled against that quarter
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where the greatest danger lies,
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namely, that which possesses
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the highest
prerogative of a power."
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But this is not found in either
the executive or legislative
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or judicial
departments of government
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but in the body of the
people operating by the majority
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against the minority.
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In other words, they
wanted to prevent mob rule.
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And so they felt that...
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It's almost the
secret principle that,
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at this day, most
people don't understand.
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Yes.
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These guys were
not pure Democrats
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or for pure democracy.
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They feared the majority.
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Most of the US
system was set up to blunt
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the autocratic
tendencies of the majority.
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Yes.
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And that's why it's a
representative democracy.
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But there's a
counterbalance to that.
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And that is, "We
the People," obviously,
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the preamble to the Constitution
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represents a statement
of that this is based...
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Our country is
based on majority rule.
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Well, I think...
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But with certain
rights for minorities.
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As I said
during the reformation,
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the issue that Luther
had was one of authority.
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And the US is premised on
the authority of the people
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as a body.
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They've vested that
authority in their offices,
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the president and so on.
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Yes.
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And that's been forgotten.
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It is.
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I mean, in the last
several administrations,
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the presidents
speak autocratically.
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They don't have authority,
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they are granted
oversight for a term,
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but on the
authority of the people.
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Yes, that's right.
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Thomas Jefferson wrote,
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"Bear in mind
this sacred principle
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that though the will of
the majority is in all cases
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to prevail, that will to be
rightful must be reasonable,
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that the minority
possess their equal rights,
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which equal laws must protect,
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and to violate
would be oppression."
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And so that's the reason
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why we had a bill
of the people's rights,
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otherwise known
as the amendments
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to the Constitution
of the United States.
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And so when we
look at this experiment
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in which the founders sought
to create a check and balance
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even on the people,
even on We the People,
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the fickle will of
the masses, so to speak,
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to make sure that the
masses didn't do things
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that would actually
wreck the Constitution.
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They actually wanted to
preserve the Constitution.
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And the Bill of Rights
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actually helps to
sustain the Constitution.
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Well, you've just
given a good rationale,
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which I know is the one
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for why the American
system seems very cumbersome.
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It was purposely made.
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Yes. Slow to respond.
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Well, but my argument
is that the Bill of Rights
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was intended to make sure
that the Constitution did last.
00:09:09.48\00:09:13.15
And I really believe that
without the Bill of Rights,
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our Constitution would not
have lasted as long as it has.
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That's my
fundamental belief. No.
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Because you
would have had tyranny.
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Think of the Civil War,
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think of what was
fought for there, all right?
00:09:23.86\00:09:26.19
And a lot of people dismiss,
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"Oh, that wasn't fought
over the freedom of the slaves."
00:09:27.60\00:09:31.17
Nonsense.
00:09:31.20\00:09:32.53
It was not only to say that
it was only fought over States'
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rights is nonsense,
States' rights, okay,
00:09:35.14\00:09:38.51
included the
whole issue of slavery.
00:09:38.54\00:09:40.38
And so slavery cannot be
divorced from that issue.
00:09:40.41\00:09:42.88
And so without
Black people, and women,
00:09:42.91\00:09:46.88
and minorities having
access to the Bill of Rights,
00:09:46.92\00:09:49.72
what did they have?
00:09:49.75\00:09:51.09
And so here we
have a system which...
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Well, what it meant
was the Constitution
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didn't self-destruct
when they moved away
00:09:54.76\00:09:57.03
from what it self-contained.
00:09:57.06\00:09:58.86
I mean, the
Constitution did contain
00:09:58.89\00:10:00.70
the
marginalization of the slaves.
00:10:00.73\00:10:02.40
But with the Bill of Rights,
00:10:02.43\00:10:03.80
it moved to the
aspirational side,
00:10:03.83\00:10:05.80
so you don't
need to get rid of it,
00:10:05.83\00:10:07.34
you put an amendment.
00:10:07.37\00:10:08.70
When States were forced to
abide by the Bill of Rights,
00:10:08.74\00:10:11.74
then you see a system in which
00:10:11.77\00:10:14.38
freedom was afforded to
all at the lowest level,
00:10:14.41\00:10:17.71
not just to a certain few.
00:10:17.75\00:10:20.32
And so I really
believe religious freedom,
00:10:20.35\00:10:22.75
our constitutional
system is vitally important
00:10:22.78\00:10:25.95
when understood rightly.
00:10:25.99\00:10:27.39
I pray that this book
will be a blessing to everyone
00:10:27.42\00:10:32.03
who buys it.
00:10:32.06\00:10:33.73
God bless. Thank you.
00:10:33.76\00:10:35.20
It's one of the
great mysteries of history,
00:10:38.27\00:10:39.83
at least to me,
how in the establishing
00:10:39.87\00:10:43.24
of the United
States and the adopting
00:10:43.27\00:10:46.17
and development of
a new constitution,
00:10:46.21\00:10:48.58
so many of the principles
could be barely religious.
00:10:48.61\00:10:53.05
Diaz is probably the
best you can give to them.
00:10:53.08\00:10:56.18
How many
irreligious or unreligious
00:10:56.22\00:10:59.19
or thoroughly
secular people could come up
00:10:59.22\00:11:01.99
with a document
that, at its heart,
00:11:02.02\00:11:04.89
defends freedom of religion,
00:11:04.93\00:11:07.13
not just as a line
item but as a concept?
00:11:07.16\00:11:12.10
I think that's
the divine element
00:11:12.13\00:11:14.07
in the history of
the United States,
00:11:14.10\00:11:15.60
how God could guide people
00:11:15.64\00:11:17.71
hardly knowing
what they were doing.
00:11:17.74\00:11:19.57
But out of it came a protection
00:11:19.61\00:11:23.28
that exists to this
day of the ultimate right
00:11:23.31\00:11:27.45
that we should all
have to recognize God,
00:11:27.48\00:11:31.12
to worship Him, to follow Him,
00:11:31.15\00:11:33.42
to proclaim Him in the way
that our conscience dictates.
00:11:33.46\00:11:37.59
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:11:37.63\00:11:40.66