Constitution Alive Section 1, Part 1: Teaching Principles, Dispelling Myths, and Inspiring Patriotism

What if understanding the true intent of the U.S. Constitution could revolutionize your perspective on liberty and justice? Join us for an enlightening episode of "Constitution Alive" with David Barton and Rick Green, where we uncover the foundational principles of America's most cherished document. Filmed in the historic Independence Hall and David Barton's expansive library, this segment goes beyond mere historical facts, offering deep insights from influential figures to help you appreciate the enduring significance of the Constitution.

Public education is failing our understanding of constitutional principles, but it doesn’t have to be this way. We confront the alarming lack of knowledge among students and even elected officials about basic government structures. By emphasizing the necessity of teaching and defending our constitutional rights, we explore how historical misunderstandings can erode the bedrock of American law.

We reveal how early leaders laid the groundwork for national stability and prosperity. Dispelling common myths about the homogeneity of the Founding Fathers, we highlight their diverse and often-overlooked contributions. Closing on a note of patriotism, we discuss the moral duty to educate others about our constitutional heritage, urging you to join us in restoring and upholding our constitutional republic. Tune in tomorrow as we continue "Constitution Alive" with David Barton and Rick Green.

Chapters

• 0:04 Constitution Alive
• 8:49 Teaching and Defending Constitutional Principles
• 15:03 Building the Foundation of America
• 24:52 Importance of Patriotism in Society

Transcript

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. In war, there is no substitute for victory. Let us never negotiate out of fear.

We stand undivided forever united, fighting hand in hand for the liberty we've earned, for glory and honor for our sons and daughters, ever mindful of the lessons we've learned, let the torch of freedom burn.

Rick Green

 Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Politics. This is Wall Builders Live, with David Barton and Rick Green. We appreciate you joining us today. Be sure and visit online at wallbuilders.com and also wallbuilderslive.com.

We're going to do a four-part series this week on Constitution Alive. You've probably seen this on our website or on Glenn Beck's program and other media around the country seen this on our website or on Glenn Beck's program and other media around the country but it's an opportunity to really dive into the Constitution and walk through clause by clause, article by article, section by section, and look for those areas in the Constitution that are our responsibility to do something, and we thought we'd do this in a fun way. We actually, when we created this program part of the program is done in the room in Independence Hall where the Constitution was actually framed, where the Declaration was put together, and it's where they debated these things and so we actually went to that room. We do most of the teaching from there, but then we did a really cool thing and right from the library at Wall Builders the WallBuilders library you've heard so much about, you've read about, you've seen in our different videos and publications, all these original documents that David Barton has just phenomenal information. So we decided if we were going to study the Constitution, we wanted to study the original intent of the Constitution, and to do that we had to go to the original source of the Founding Fathers. And so we do that in David Barton's library and it was so exciting to get to sit there with David and ask him questions and pull out documents off the shelves and go through these great questions about the foundations of America.

And we put that into Constitution Alive and we want to share that with you, our listeners. Obviously it's a long one. Obviously, if you've seen it, it's an extensive series. It's about 12 hours of material. We can't do the whole thing on radio here, but we want to give you a taste of it.

So this week we're going to give you the first section of Constitution Alive, segment one where we essentially introduce the program wealth of information that David shares in this introduction that we wanted to bring to you, our listeners. So over the next four days you're going to get to hear that and get a great taste of what this program is all about. It will educate you, it will inspire you. It'll give you the information and ammunition you need to help restore America's Constitution. So we're going to go to Constitution Alive with David Barton and Rick Green. Welcome to Constitution Alive, the Citizen's Guide to America's Founding Documents. We are here in one of the most amazing libraries on the planet with one of the foremost experts on the founding fathers and our founding documents, david Barton. David, thank you so much for having us here.

David Barton

Hey, good to be here, Rick. Thanks for having me, bro.

Rick Green

So why do you dive into so much history? Why spend so much time in the past?

David Barton

You know the reason we do that is because we have been the most successful nation in the history of the world to this point, and there's a reason for that. You can't change the formula and expect to get the same results, whether it's Coke or Pepsi or anything else, and so it's important to know the formula, and that's what the history does. There's actually a great quote from a guy named George Mason. There's 55 guys who actually helped write the Constitution. 39 of them signed that document. Mason did not sign the document. He was there, he was very active, very strong part. He actually went home after the Constitution dissatisfied with some things, and he stirred up some things across America that really produced the Bill of Rights, and so that's why we call him the father of Bill of Rights. He thought the Constitution did not go far enough in protecting individual liberties.

But he influenced both, so he was real involved in the Constitution and then, later in getting the Bill of Rights.

He's very involved in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and, significantly, he owns another notable title in that. If you go back to when we signed the Declaration of Independence, we think of that's when we separated from Great Britain, not so Virginia actually separated from Great Britain before they signed the Declaration. And so George Mason is the guy who is a chief author of the 1776 Virginia Constitution where they separated. Now that Virginia Constitution and 1776 doc. Really cool document here.

Jefferson used a lot of the language that Mason had used in that 1776 Constitution and later used it in the Declaration of Independence. So Mason has a big influence. But he made a statement that is so profound. They included it in that Virginia Constitution and they've still preserved it to this day and it's a great statement. Here's what he said. He says no free government nor the blessings of liberty can be preserved to any people, but by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles, and the emphasis there is. You keep going back to fundamental principles. Now you're a baseball guy and that's why you do spring training every year, right, You're going back to those basic skills that you learned.

I was a basketball coach. We do basketball camps every year. I've had the kids for a number of years. You keep going back to the fundamentals, back.

Rick Green

So this is the training camp, this is the training camp this history that's in this room this is it? We're going back to those fundamental pros.

David Barton

And our objective with what we want to do. Our objective is really well stated by John Jay, and John Jay became the original Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, but at the time they wrote the Constitution, he and James Madison, alexander Hamilton, did the Federalist Papers and that was to explain to America what the Constitution is all about. So he's really one of the three guys most responsible for the adoption of the Constitution through his Federalist Papers. But as a Constitutional guy himself who helped write the best commentary on it there is the Federalist Papers he had a great statement on why we study this type of stuff and this is the statement he made. He said every member of the state ought diligently to read and to study the Constitution of his country and teach the rising generation to be free.

Now it's interesting. He relates being free to knowing the Constitution. You ought to know the Constitution and teach the next generation if you intend to be free. He says. By knowing their rights they will sooner perceive when they're violated and be the better prepared to defend and assert them. Now that's really the objective of what we're doing in all these next lessons that come along and there's six verbs that he has in there that will be really the guideline for what every citizen needs to shoot for. So the six verbs.

Rick Green

So this will really drive everything we do for the rest of this course then this is our outline. That's the outline.

David Barton

He says first you want to read the Constitution of the country, you want to read and study it. And it's one thing to read it, it's another thing to study it. So read is like a quick perusal, but study is get to know it. And then he says and then you want to be able to teach it, you want to be able to take the next generation and say hey guys, here's what you need to know, here's the document you need to know, here's the principles, this is what will keep you free and this is the formula that's produced American success. Then he says when you do that, then you'll know your rights. And when you know your rights you'll perceive. Defend is on defense. I'll defend my rights, assert them, as I'm going on offense to make sure I defend your rights. We need to do more and that's what we need. You know, too many people say it's not constitutional. You need to go assert what is constitutional. We have a good friend that's in the military. He's gone through the National War College there in Washington DC.

And that's a famous course they do the Nine Principles of War.

Break

Let the torch of freedom burn. 

David Barton

And in the Nine Principles of War he points out that defense is not one of the nine principles of war. Offense is, he says, defense is considered a temporary condition whereby you reorganize to go back on offense. You don't win wars being on defense, you're going to be on offense. And so in this culture war, this war for the future of our country, you've got to be on offense. You can't just defend your rights, you have to assert those rights.

Rick Green

If this is the formula, if that's what's going to keep us free, this part is where we're really losing out teaching the rising generation to be free. If we don't have a good education system, if we're not teaching what's in this room, we're losing the formula.

David Barton

Well, you hit the education system. Let's just be real blunt. We spend up to $120,000 over the educational course of a kid to go to school for 12 years. We're not getting our money's worth.

Rick Green

Yeah, that's in some of our less expensive districts.

David Barton

Well, that's right. That's the average nationally, so it's going to be up or down to some. Washington DC is way more than that, so it depends on the district you're in. But what we know is that every state constitution says that the purpose of public education is to prepare active and informed citizens.

So we started those education systems to do exactly what John Jay is saying here.

But what we know right now is, if you look at recent elections those who have gone through our public education system If you look at recent elections those who have gone through our public education system you're looking right now at 70 percent that do not know. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land.

Rick Green

Wow so we're definitely failing on teaching the rising generation. 

David Barton

You're looking at 65 percent. That cannot even tell you what the role of the judiciary is. That's one of the three branches. As a matter of fact, speaking of one of the three branches, 62 percent of those who have gone through public education cannot even name the three branches of government.

Rick Green

More than half. 

More than half. So you definitely don't know what those branches are supposed to do if you don't even know what they are.

David Barton

By the way, 48% of elected officials cannot name the three branches of government.

That's half of our actual public servants in office.

If you don't know the three branches, you don't know checks and balances, you don't know functions, you don't know what the Constitution is. And that's why you read and study the Constitution, you teach it the rising generation.

Well, maybe they devalue what is in here because they think, look, this is old stuff. I mean, I hear that all the time. It's 200 years old, it doesn't apply today.

Why should I pay attention to all this stuff that happened 200 years ago and let me just one more time hit this, because this is our objective and we're going to look at old stuff. So, number one read the constitution to study the constitution. Three teach the constitution, especially the rising generation, but maybe to the burger flippers beside you, maybe the mechanics in the shop where you work not only the next generation, your generation because we're at a point now where public education has not taught us, so we got to just teach the constitution.

But once we do that, we want to know our constitutional rights. We want to defend our constitutional rights and assert our constitutional rights. Now that's what we're after. But you've raised the issue up. You know it's a really old document. We hear that because you know the founding fathers. When they did this constitution they didn't have Internet. I mean fastest transport.

Rick Green

No airplanes, horses yeah.

David Barton

So what can we? I've been involved in a number of court cases state and federal courts on issues of history, original intent, and one of those issues is the issue of the Ten Commandments. Because for generations in America you're more likely to find a copy of the Ten Commandments hanging in a civic building than in a religious building, and that's just the way it was. I mean, the Ten Commandments are considered the foundation of law and so many of these places where the Ten Commandments has been hanging there's now a lawsuit saying oh, you can't do that, that's religious. You have to take that down.

So in going through and telling the judge, no, here's the first law book in America, it goes back to the Code of 1650, and it quotes the Ten Commandments all the way through. You go through and show how it influenced. Well, these judges wanting to be a lot more open-minded, if you will so. Well, these judges wanting to be a lot more open minded, if you will, so open minded, their brains fall out. But nonetheless, some of the comments they make as well. You know it would be constitutional if you were to include other legal documents that influenced America as well, not just 10 Commandments, and so many of them said, for example, include the Code of Hammurabi.

Because that influenced America. I mean, where do they even get that?

The Code of Hammurabi is 300 years older than the Ten Commandments Now, the Code of Hammurabi. According to these judges, that's a document that influenced American law, influenced the creation of our legal system. Therefore you ought to show it along with the Ten Commandments Code of Hammurabi. You know a real problem with these guys because they've just proven they don't have a clue. What they're talking about is it was not discovered until 1904.

I don't think that quite made the founding fathers,

Rick Green

 unless they had a time machine, came forward, checked it out, went back. That's kind of.

David Barton

And you're talking about the Constitution written 200 years ago and how old it is. The difference is the Code of Hamra. It's got 282 laws. That was what governed Babylonian civilization. This was 300 years before Moses got the 10 commandments from God on Mount Sinai. So let me just show you some of the laws out of that code and let's just see how they work today. Let me go to number two law in the code of Hammurabi. If anyone bring an accusation against a man and the accused go to the river and leap in the river, if he sink in the river, his accuser shall take possession of his house. Now I'm not quite sure the context of that. You can't go swimming to find out who's. If I charge you that you've done something, you have to go to the river and if it turns out you can't swim when you jump in and you sink, then I must have been right, because and it continues- and you get the house, I get the house.

But if the river proved that the accused is not guilty, that is, if you can swim and you escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death. So I'm the one.

You better hope I don't swim. Yeah, that's right.

You better not swim While he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser. Now, can we really fit that into our can we?

show that that includes. I don't think that's going to work today.

yet I don't recall with any American law where we had you go jump in the river. See, the problem with the Code of Hamarabi is. It is so specific you cannot apply today. Now you take the Ten Commandments and look at the Ten Commandments, you know, I think that thing about honoring father and mother still works. I think thou shall not kill still works.

There's not one of those that doesn't work today, every one of those still works today, and the reason is they're not drawn on specifics, they're drawn on principles. They take timeless principles because the nature of man doesn't change. We still kill people, we still steal, we still perjure, we still disrespect parents.

That's why it works. That's the way the Constitution is.

Break

Let the torch of freedom burn. 

David Barton

The Founding Fathers didn't give us all these specifics. They gave us these principles and jurisdiction principles of old, and that's why it still works more than two centuries later. That's why it'll still work two centuries from now, if we know it and save it in percentage.

Rick Green

So if they were thinking that way, though, I mean if they were thinking, ok, we're going to put something in place here that needs to be timeless, that's going to still work 100, 200, 500 years from now how did they get to that point? Who were these guys to have that kind of foresight?

David Barton

We've already talked about how poor American education is today, but we're going to pile on while we've got the chance, because the perception in so many colleges and so many textbooks is these were a bunch of elitist. These guys, you know, they were all landowners and they were all wealthy and they were, and somehow we think of the founding fathers as the demographic of being homogenous. They're all the same kind, they're all cut from the same cloth, they're all really, and they just didn't understand common people and what common people? That's absolute nonsense and one of the ways that that's easy for me to prove, because I speak to a lot of law schools and universities and I can put up pictures of the founding fathers here you've got in the top right corner these are the signers of the Constitution 39 guys. And in the bottom left corner you've got the 56 guys that signed the Declaration or actually it's got not quite the 56, because one of the things that happened with the declaration, some of the guys, like in Pennsylvania, their state said vote for the declaration, they voted against it. Their state legislature jerked them out of there and replaced them with other guys In the middle of what was going on.

So some of the guys that are there didn't vote for the declaration but they got to sign it because they were replacements that would support independence. And there's some other guys there who voted for the declaration. Like you get Robert Livingston. He voted for it. He's on the committee that helped write it. He never got to sign it because his state called him home to take the lead of the entire judiciary in the state. So he voted for it, he helped write it, he helped get us there. He just didn't get to sign it, so there's a mix. There's a mix, but those are 56, 56 guys signed the declaration. So let's just take the guys who signed the declaration. Now we're going to you're going to be doing this class in Independence Hall, and Independence Hall is where they signed the declaration and the Constitution, and six of these guys who signed the declaration made it over to the Constitution Convention. You get, for example, roger Sherman here and you got Robert Morris and you get James Wilson and George Clymer and you've got six guys. They did both Both, and more of these guys like Elbridge Jerry here. Elbridge Jerry right here. He didn't sign the Constitution but he's at the Constitutional Convention. He's one of the guys who didn't sign it because they didn't have a Bill of Rights. So you really have a bunch of these guys that were in this room for both documents but not all signed.

But the problem we have is when I throw this up at a major law school really sharp kids and I'll say who you recognize. Everybody can find Jefferson, everybody can find Franklin, and that's where it stops. I go wait a minute. 56 guys. Give me some more. They don't know them. Number one we've been taught to recognize our two least religious founding fathers, so we don't know anything about those.

Rick Green

Those are the only two they really talk about in schools.

David Barton

That's the only two they talk about in schools and we say well, how about let me just take you across the front row? How about Benjamin Harrison here, a great general in the revolution? Or let's go here to Richard Henry Lee, the guy who actually made the proposal that we separate from Great Britain. He goes on to be one of the framers of the Bill of Rights. Or beside him, you've got Charles Carroll of Carrollton. He's from Maryland. Beside him you've got Robert Morris of Pennsylvania. Beside that you've got Benjamin Rush of Pennsylvania. Above that you've got Stephen Hopkins. Stephen Hopkins from Rhode Island. Beside him you've got William Williams. He come down here to Elbridge Jerry, massachusetts. Beside him is Robert Treat Payne of Massachusetts. You keep going. There's James Wilson from Pennsylvania, and there's Francis Hopkins. And these guys we don't have a I was about to say.

Rick Green

I assume most of those names for folks that are watching this at home totally new names. They're not gonna recognize it.

David Barton

But let me show you how how these guys were really vicarious for all of us. You've got the wealthiest man in America right there, charles Carroll. You've also got one of the poorest guys in America right there with Sam, right next to Sam Adams is so poor that when they elected him to Congress he didn't even have a suit of clothes. His neighbors took up a collection for him to get a suit of clothes. He had to go borrow a horse to ride to Congress. So you've got a really poor guy and a really wealthy guy. And then you've got a guy who's a surveyor, Roger Sherman. And over here you've got Thomas Jefferson, who's a farmer, and over here to this guy, Stephen Hopkins, who is a governor, the only colonial governor appointed by the British that supported separation. So he's a political figure. You get back over here to Benjamin Harrison. He's a big-time farmer, and you just go through and you've got John Witherspoon here, who's the president of the university. You have John Hancock, who's one of the most famous businessmen in America. So you've got businessmen.

Rick Green

It's really a mix of everything Every career, every profession You've got rich, you've got poor.

David Barton

As a matter of fact, 29 of these guys out of the 56 had a college degree, so nearly half of them didn't have a college degree.

Rick Green

That was my next question was education? Education, Because they didn't all have the best education.

David Barton

One-fourth of these guys were home-educated. Several guys this guy right here, roger Sherman, the only guy to sign all four founding documents completely self-taught. He never had any formal education.

Rick Green

Wait, one-fourth homeschooled. So people that think homeschool, you know, think that's not the way. One-fourth of the guys that gave us our founding documents homeschooled.

David Barton

One-fourth of these guys were homeschooled. That's incredible. And about 25% of these guys are orphans. They grew up orphans or in single-parent homes. No kidding, yeah, when you have people that have challenges.

Today, these guys had challenges. They didn't have it easy.

Well, you want to talk about not having it easy. Let's talk about the lifespan back then. The average lifespan in American day is up in the 80s. Average lifespan back then was 33 years old. Wow.

Rick Green

And these guys. Some of these guys were young.

David Barton

Well, you take Sam Adams here. I mean, let's go back, take Sam Adams right here. Sam Adams had six kids, only two lived to adulthood. Charles Carroll, right here, had seven kids, only three made it to adulthood. I mean the medical stuff back there.

They dealt with tragedy the tragedy, the tough life that they had. It was hard stuff, but they understood the principles and they got those principles and they wrote a document that didn't reflect what was going on 200 years ago. It reflected human nature, and so it doesn't say if your horse is going too fast in the town of Boston, you're going to get it. It's none of that kind of stuff like you have in the Code of Hammurabi. This is loaded up with principles and one thing about these guys is they were patriots. They loved their country, no question about it.

Rick Green

What does that really mean? I mean when you say they're patriots. That's a negative to some of the day. It's a big positive to others. That's right.

David Barton

What does it mean? Benjamin Rush, I think, is the best guy to explain it.

Break

David Barton

Benjamin Rush. John Adams said he's one of the three most notable founding fathers.

John Adams said there's George Washington, Ben Franklin, Benjamin Rush we will never see him again, and they're again a name that most people are not going to know.

Benjamin Rush and they should, because he is the top doctor in American history. Three thousand students got their medical diplomas signed by him. He's also the father of public schools under the Constitution. He also started five universities. Three go today. He signed the Declaration. He ratified the Constitution. He served in three different presidential administrations. He's the director of the US Mint. He's a huge civil rights leader.

Rick Green

I know he's one of your favorites too. You have a book on Benjamin Rush.

David Barton

We have a lot of books by Benjamin Rush. This is one of the original books that we'll talk about in a minute. But what he does is he says let me tell you what patriotism is. And so this is what he's teaching the rising generation. Because the founding fathers understood, we got the principles, but if our next generation doesn't understand this, it's not going to work. So that's why we put so much time and education. You got to instill it in each generation. So here's his definition of patriotism.

He says patriotism is as much a virtue as is justice. Now, who would be opposed to justice? Right, you know nobody. He said that's just as much a virtue as justice and it's just as necessary for the support of societies as natural affection is for the support of families. Imagine trying to keep your family together if you didn't have love in the family. He says well, imagine trying to keep your country together if you don't have love for your country. You've got to have love for your family. You go to the deck for each other and family. You've got to be willing to do it.

And he says actually, if you're not patriotic, you're selfish. And this is the way he explains it. He says the amor patria, which is the love of country. The love of your country is both a moral and a religious duty. It comprehends not only the love of our neighbors but of millions of our fellow creatures, not only of the present but of future generations. In other words, if you love your country, you're saying I want what's best for all my neighbors and I'm going to work my tail off to have a good country, because I want my neighbors to be prosperous and safe. I don't want thugs and criminals overrunning them. I want to make sure we got good government. I want to make sure they can keep the money they earn. I want to make sure they got a good education.

And if I love my country, I'm going to fight for those things. You're not just thinking of yourself.

You're thinking about the other people. If just go off the grid somewhere, I'll get out and just live my life the way I want to. I'll go right off the grid.

Rick Green

Well, we're out of time for today, folks. That was the beginning of Constitution Alive with David Barton and Rick Green. It's actually available on DVD with a workbook and the whole set, so you can have the class in your home with your family in your Sunday school class. However you'd like to do it, just get it in the hands of as many people as you can so they can study the Constitution and help us restore our constitutional republic. We will pick up tomorrow right where we left off today with Constitution Alive with David Barton and Rick Green. Thank you for listening to Wall Builders Live. We stand undivided, forever united, fighting hand in hand For the liberty we burn, for the glory and love For our sons and daughters, ever mindful of the lessons we've learned.