Constitution Alive Section 1, Part 3: Patriot Sacrifices, and Legislative Efforts to Preserve Freedom

How well do you understand America’s foundational principles? In our latest episode of Constitution Alive, we take you on an enlightening journey. You’ll explore original historical documents from the WallBuilders Library and step into the historic rooms of Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed. Rejecting the idea of the Constitution as a "living, breathing" document, we emphasize its timeless truths, reminding you why this vital framework is as relevant today as it was centuries ago.

Discover the inspiring story of Captain Nathan Hale, a young patriot whose heroic actions during the American Revolution highlighted his unwavering commitment to liberty. Despite the dangers and warnings, Hale ventured behind enemy lines to gather crucial intelligence. His poignant final words, "I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country," echo through history, serving as a powerful reminder of the sacrifices made for freedom. Reflect on Hale’s enduring legacy and the broader impact of those who have given their lives for the cause of liberty.

Finally, we stress the importance of learning American history and understanding the crucial role every citizen plays in preserving freedom. Highlighting lesser-known presidents like James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson, we explore how their contributions shaped the nation. Join us in this crucial effort to champion liberty and keep our historical lessons alive.

Chapters

• 0:04 Constitution Alive
• 3:31 One Life to Give
• 14:14 Preserving American Freedom and History
• 26:07 Looking Forward

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 burn, 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. You can find us online at our websites. There's wallbuilders.com. That's our main website. You can go there. If you're a pastor, you can find out about our pastor's briefings throughout the year. If you're interested in having a Wall Builders speaker, you can click on the link there for booking a speaker and having a Wall Builders presentation. Come to your community. If you'd just like some great information, there are a wealth of articles right there on the website that you can download. There's great news on the homepage of the website and then, if you'd like to get some of the great materials that Wall Builders has put out over the years educating folks about the Founding Fathers, it's all available there at wallbuilders.com. If you're not listening to one of our 200 stations around the country, perhaps you're listening through our website, and if you've never been to the website, then we encourage you to check it out because you can find out what other stations are carrying the program in your area and you can also get more information about our archives and past programs. And speaking of those past programs, if you're tuning in today for the first time this week you're actually tuning into part three of a four-part series, and if you want to listen to part one and part two, you can easily go to wallbuilderslive.com, click on the archives and get the last couple of days. But here's what the series is about. It's called Constitution Alive with David Barton and Rick Green, and this is actually a program that we recorded part of it in the WallBuilders Library, where all the original documents are. I'm able to pull those things off the shelf and actually show them to you and talk about them and walk through them, and David shares so much information there about the foundations of America. And then the other part of the program is recorded in Philadelphia at Independence Hall, in the very room where the Constitution was framed, in the very room where the Declaration was signed. And the reason we did that we wanted to take you back to the original history. And so Constitution Alive is about bringing back the foundation. It's about restoring those original principles upon which our nation was built. When we say Constitution Alive, we're not talking about that living, breathing document some of the justices like to use in order to morph the Constitution to what they want it to be. It's not something that should be, as Jefferson said, wax in their hands. The Constitution is alive today because it's not a dead document. The things that they said and that they put into our Constitution, the principles that they founded the country upon, are just as applicable today. They're just as strong today, they're just as true today, and that's what we bring you in Constitution Alive. We bring that truth back, we show where we really came from as a nation and we give you specific tools on how to be a part of saving our nation and restoring our constitutional republic. So, without any further ado, let's pick up where we left off yesterday with Constitution Alive, with David Barton, and Rick Green.

Hull is trying to talk Captain Hale out of this. He's saying you're never going to succeed at this. There's no way you'll accomplish the mission, he said. First of all, he said, hale, you're too honest. There's no way you're going to be a good spy. You can't lie. You're going to fail on the mission. Secondly, this is an impossible mission. You're talking there's no way you're going to achieve. And even he said, even if you succeed, your reputation is going to be ruined, your legacy is ruined. Don't do it, there's no honor in it, he said. Well, captain Hale said there is honor in any mission necessary for the cause of freedom. I will do my duty.

Takes off dresses once again as a teacher, gets across enemy lines and acts like he's a teacher looking for work. So he goes around New York, there, and for about a week he's mapping out the locations of the British troops and he gets all of their fortifications, their movements. He gets it all down on paper, stuffs it in his shoe. Then he's sneaking back across enemy lines and he's captured. Well, evidence is right there on his person. There's no denying what he's there for.

So, literally that night, they sentenced him to hang the next morning and so that night he's kind of, he's contemplating his fate. He's saying look, I failed. I failed the mission, I failed the general, I failed the cause for which I, the cause I love, the general. I failed the cause for which I, the cause I love so much. What can I possibly do? Well, he asked for, remember the clergy is denied. He asked for a Bible. He's denied. He finally gets a couple of pieces of paper, he's able to write a couple of letters, and as he's writing these letters he purposes within his heart to do the only thing left that he can do to help the cause. And so the next morning they're marching him out and the crowd has begun to gather to witness the hanging and they give him a chance to say a few last words, and a lot of different people wrote different things about what he said.

Apparently, he gave a pretty long speech. I mean, this 21-year-old actually gave an impassioned speech about freedom, about what the American cause of liberty was all about, and he's reaching back into kind of the days of college where he was actually a great orator. He's reaching back into the rhetoric and some of the things that he had read then, including right here Joseph Addison's. Cato had been a big influence on Washington and the others, and Hale had read that in college. And so here he is, he's giving the speech and these British soldiers are heckling him, they're mocking him. They're saying you're wasting your life. They're saying you're throwing your life away on a worthless cause. You cannot succeed. You're wasting your life. And then, of course, nathan Hill said those words that we've heard over and over and over again. He said I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.

Break

If you get online, you can go to places like Library of Congress and you can look under their Century of Lawmaking or Historical Documents. You can go to the Avalon Project, to the Founders Constitution, to Google Books or even the Internet Archives, or you can just go to WallBuilder's website. We have a section for our library and under that section we have different subgroups for historical documents, historical writings, even a place where you can get helpful links to find out more information about other websites, where you can do research for yourself and find the truth for yourself. Friends, this is a time that we need to know who we are and where we came from. Wallbuilders.com is a great place to go. 

Rick Green

One life to give. He accomplished more in that moment than he ever could have with all that intelligence he was bringing back. Because those words would be repeated over and over again among the American ranks. They would encourage those that were thinking about not re-upping to re-up and stay in. They encouraged others to get in and fight. And for generations we've used those words to inspire generations to be willing to give of themselves for others, sometimes to pay the ultimate price in sacrifice. One life to give. We all have but one life to give, don't we? That's all we get. The question is, for what will we give our one life?

We're blessed in America that every generation it seems there's enough that are willing to be involved, to participate, to sacrifice, not just give their life on the battlefield, which is huge, of course, but also to live their life and live out the freedom that the others paid for them. And as I think back to these guys in this room, to Nathan Hale and those throughout the revolutionary period, fast forward to even now, guys like Michael Murphy, the Navy SEAL that received the Medal of Honor after giving his life, and so many of these guys, and really when you look back over America's history, you think about all of those that sacrificed, the millions that served 1.2 million that gave it all, that gave their one life for you, for me, for us to be able to enjoy this room tonight. You know the good book says that there's no greater love that any man has than that he lay down his life for his friends, for, in this case, for his country, and those that serve in our military and in our first responders and on the front lines here in America as well. They are willing to give their one life for us. And I think about that book that James Bradley wrote about his dad the flags of our fathers from Iwo Jima. My wife, her grandfather, got a purple heart at Iwo Jima and it really struck me when he talked about that makeshift monument there at Iwo Jima. It said when you go home, tell them for us and say when you go home, tell them for us and say for your tomorrow, we gave our today, we gave our one life so you could be free.

I don't know about you, but I've always struggled with how to honor those that came before me. I've always struggled with how to obey the biblical command that says render honor unto whom honor is due. I think those that sacrifice and that give of themselves for us. They deserve our honor. But I've always wondered how, how do you? I mean, you know, when I meet a veteran I always say thank you for your service, but it seems so empty, it seems like I'm not. I mean, how do I honor that? They were willing to give their life for me? And I had kind of an epiphany moment, if you will, when I was sitting in a movie theater several years ago.

You might have saw the movie. You remember the movie Saving Private Ryan? How many of y'all saw that movie? Saving Private Ryan? You remember the storyline, right? This kid has lost all his brothers. He's 19 years old. His brothers have all been killed in action. The army figures this out. They want to get him out of the theater and get him home. This was the policy after the Sullivan brothers, the actual true story. And so they're trying to get him home to his family as the last surviving son. But they can't find him.

And so Tom Hanks' character is a guy named Captain Miller and his job is to get in there with his team, find Private Ryan, 19-year-old Ryan, and get him home to his family. And so the movie, throughout the movie, these guys on Captain Miller's team keep getting knocked off. They're giving their lives, they're sacrificing their lives for this one kid, private Ryan. And so throughout the movie you keep seeing all these guys sacrifice their lives. And then at the end of the movie, captain Miller finds Private Ryan. They're just about to get him out and Captain Miller gets shot. He dies. But just before he dies he grabs this kid, this 19-year-old that they had all given their lives for. He pulls him in real close and he said two words, not just to Private Ryan, I think, to every one of us in this room, all of you at home watching. He said earn this, earn this. They had given their lives for him and they're saying to him earn the freedom that we've sacrificed for. And only as Hollywood can do it, they morphed from that young 19-year-old Private Ryan to 50 or 60 years later, an elderly Private Ryan has come back and he's visiting the grave of Captain Miller and I remember him kneeling down and he said to Captain Miller he said tell me I've lived a good life, tell me I've lived a life worthy of the sacrifice that you made for me. Earn this. I think it's time for us to earn the freedom. Some of you that have joined me tonight. You put your lives on the line. You sacrificed for my freedom. You were willing to give your life. Many that are at home watching willing to do that. We want to earn the freedom that we've been given. How do we do that?

I think Abraham Lincoln probably said it better than anybody.

He said it is from these honored dead that we take increased devotion to the cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and the government of the people by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

He's saying the way we honor those that came before us is we take increased devotion to the cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, the cause that started right here in this room, the cause of liberty, the cause of freedom. We increase our devotion to that cause. That's how we honor what they did for us and that's why we're here tonight. We're here to honor them and to say look, they gave their one life for us. What can we do? What can we as citizens do? How do we give our lives, live our lives, if you will, in a way that honors the sacrifice that came before us. Well, we start right here by saying what was it that these guys put together? What was this secret sauce, this formula that made our nation so free and so successful? And then what's our job?

Break

Rick Green

What can we do to help preserve it for future generations? I don't want you to leave this class saying, oh, that was kind of neat, you know, we got to come in and see where it all began. Or we learned some stories about the founders we didn't know, and then go home and forget about it. I don't want anybody watching these DVDs and just saying, okay, that was kind of neat, we did that in our living room, our Sunday school class or wherever we watched it, and then go home. No, no, I want. My prayer is that you guys and ladies leave tonight, that those watching at home and those on the webinar tonight, that when this is over, you have a burden. I want you to have a sense of responsibility, that it is up to you to preserve this freedom for the next generation. In fact, I'm going to make a statement to you that you may think is a little bit overblown. My wife would probably say it's cheesy. She calls me the king of Elvita sometimes. She just thinks I'm cheesy sometimes, but I think it's absolutely true. It's this the fate of the free world depends on you. The fate of the free world depends on you. Now you might say, all right, you're exaggerating, that's overblown. How many of you would agree the fate of the free world depends on America? Would you agree with me on that? How many of you understand that the fate of America depends upon her constitutional principles being upheld and preserved and protected? And how many would agree that the fate of her constitutional principles being upheld and preserved and protected depends upon the first three words of the Constitution, which is what we, the people? So if the fate of the free world depends on America, if America depends upon our constitutional principles, if our constitutional principles depend upon we, the people, then, for instance, the fate of the free world depends on you. And so we're here to challenge ourselves, to dig deep into these documents, to say, okay, what's my job? What do I go do as a citizen to preserve freedom? And I tell you, I'm seeing more of this than I've ever seen in my life. I mean, I've been doing this for 15 years, but I've never seen the level of activity in our nation. I've never seen so many people coming out to say, hey, I want to learn about the founding fathers, I want to know what freedom's all about. I want to know what the Constitution says. How many of you have seen all these bumper stickers. How many of you have driven by a car and seen a bumper sticker that said read the Constitution? Anybody seen one of those? Okay, a guy bumper sticker, I'm honking. Okay, I'm sorry, I just I get excited when I see that. But we've all said that for years Read the Constitution.

Everybody needs to read the Constitution, but we don't usually do it. Most people never actually pick it up. I didn't. I went through law school and was a legislator. I didn't read through the Constitution back then. In fact, I'll tell you what really got me fired up about actually studying the founding documents.

I was sitting in my capital office back in Austin, texas, back when I was a legislator. And I'm sitting in my office and I'm reading this poll and the poll says it was a Texas poll. So if you're not from Texas, you don't have to feel bad about this poll, but I'm betting your numbers in your state weren't even better. Here's what the poll said.

Poll said that half of Texans half could not name one freedom out of the First Amendment. Not even one. There's five there that we love, we hold dear, we cherish, we'd fight for, we'd die for. Half of Texans couldn't even name one of them. 95% could not name two of the five. I was appalled. Then I tried to name them. Then it was me. I couldn't name them and I thought, wow, I'm a legislator, I'm a lawyer, I'm a political junkie man. I live, breathe and eat this stuff. I'm doing it all and I couldn't name them. I thought what a shame If I don't know what my freedoms are, if I don't know where they are, how am I going to defend it? How am I going to teach my kids these things if I don't know myself?

So that actually spurred a piece of legislation I did back then called the Celebrate Freedom Week, and what it did. We actually numbered it to House Bill 1776. I just love saying that in this room. I don't know why I had to stand in line to be able to get that number for the bill. So House Bill 1776. And what it did was it said, every kid in Texas has to spend time studying these guys, studying the Declaration and the Constitution, studying the men that gave them, studying the ideas that went behind them and studying our military and studying the sacrifices made. And we're not going to just gloss over it once in fifth or eleventh grade and forget about it. We're going to teach it every single year so that we can pound it into the minds of our young people, so we can put it in their hearts and their souls, so that they'll appreciate the freedom they've been given and they'll be able to defend and protect it for future generations. So we passed that bill and now we've got several other states that have passed it. We've got an effort happening all across the nation.

If you're at home tonight watching on the webinar, you're watching this DVD. Go to my website at rickgreen.com and click on Celebrate Freedom Week and pull up the page there and it'll tell you what's happening in your state. You can click on your state and it'll tell you the action steps you can take to help make this happen in your home state. It's a great way to make sure every kid's studying these wonderful documents that came out of this room right here. Can you imagine how much better our country would be if every kid in America was studying the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution? I mean, just imagine every single year. I hope you'll help us make it happen. Be sure, and take that down as one of your action steps, hopefully after this class is over. So let me kind of just give you a quick overview of our purpose here and kind of the approach that we're going to take, because this is going to be a little bit different than maybe some courses that you have taken or that you're considering taking in the future.

I love reading John Jay. I love this quote that he gave us. Jay's, of course, our first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, but he's also one of the three guys that did the Federalist paper, so he did sort of the instruction manual for us to kind of understand what these guys were doing. He and two other guys, madison and Hamilton. But Jay gave us a little bit of a warning and if you would this quote here, follow me on this quote, because this is going to sort of guide everything we do throughout this class.

This is our goal to accomplish what John Jay told us. He said that every member of the state and let me just stop right there, because that means I can't get off the hook by saying I'm not a teacher or a preacher or whoever else might be it means all of us, right, every single citizen. That means young and old, that means all of us, every member of the state ought diligently to read and to study. So not just read the Constitution, but to study the Constitution, why, he tells us, so that we can teach the rising generation to be free, so we can pass the torch intact to the next generation. And then he tells us so that we'll know our rights and we'll sooner perceive when they've been violated and we'll be the better prepared to defend and assert them. That's our goal.

Have you ever wanted to learn more about the United States Constitution but just felt like man, the classes are boring, or it's just that old language from 200 years ago, or I don't know where to start.

People want to know, but it gets frustrating because you don't know where to look for truth about the Constitution either. Well, we've got a special program for you available now, called Constitution Alive, with David Barton and Rick Green, and it's actually a teaching done on the Constitution at Independence Hall, in the very room where the Constitution was framed. We take you both to Philadelphia, the Cradle of Liberty in Independence Hall, and to the WallBuilders Library, where David Barton brings the history to life to teach the original intent of our founding fathers. We call it the Quick Start Guide to the Constitution because in just a few hours, through these videos, you will learn the Citizen's Guide to America's Constitution. You'll learn what you need to do to help save our constitutional republic. It's fun, it it's entertaining and it's going to inspire you to do your part to preserve freedom for future generations. It's called constitutional live with David barton and rick green. You can find out more information on our website now at wallbuilders.com let the torch of freedom burn.

To know our rights, perceive when they've been violated and be the better prepared to defend and assert them in a constitutional, peaceable way. That's one of the most important things of what we want to do in this class is say, okay, if we see something going wrong in our government or in our Constitution, we don't want anarchy, we don't want violence, we don't want any of those things. The document actually gives us the tools, it gives us the means to peaceably participate in our government so that we can save that government and save that freedom for future generations. So that's what we're going to do throughout the whole class and our approach. Let me just give you three or four kind of set up things about the way we're going to do this. Let approach. Let me just give you three or four kind of set up things about the way we're going to do this. Let me just first say, folks, I'm no guru. Okay, I'm so blessed to get to work with some guys I think are gurus, guys like Ed Meese and David Barton and other guys like that, matt Staver. I get to learn at their feet and all I'm doing is I'm here with you as a fellow citizen. We're going to sharpen each other's countenance. Tonight we're going to help each other open these documents and study them. So we'll have questions all night. Feel free to ask questions. We'll probably do them at the end of each section. You're going to stump me before the night's over and it'll be fun. All right, let's just have a good time together, learning to be better citizens and the other thing about the class we're not an exhaustive study.

This is not a year-long program. In fact, the best analogy I know to think of how many of you ever bought a computer or a monitor or a big TV or something and it came with a quick start guide? You know the nice glossy thing you can flip out just because you know something like this works. Hey, I just want to know where to plug everything in. Right, I just want to get this thing working. I don't want to read the big thick manual that came with it. I'm never going to read it. I want the quick start guide so I can make this thing work. That's what we're doing tonight. We're going to do the quick start guide to the Constitution. Why? So that we as citizens can get plugged in, so we can make sure the pieces of our government are properly plugged in and working correctly and so that we can make corrections on it if we need it, kind of the. If you look at my books back here, these are all the things that I'm I'm trying to study to be able to do the Quick Start Guide. So these are the big manuals and everything I'm trying. You guys can help me distill this thing down to where citizens all over the country and you guys have you've traveled here from all over the nation, so you love this, right? I mean, you're willing to read the big, big manuals, and many of you probably already have, but most people back home aren't going to do it, are they?

Well, we're out of time for today. Folks, you've been listening to Wall Builders Live and what we're airing this week is a four-day series called Constitution Alive with David Barton and Rick Green, and it's an opportunity to walk through the entire Constitution and learn a lot of great things about our foundation and how to restore our constitutional republic. More information can be found about the entire program. It's a little over 12 hours of information available to you on DVD and the workbook. You can find out more about that at our website, wallbuilders.com, but if you'd like to listen to the rest of the series.

Tomorrow will be the conclusion. So if, for some reason, you tuned in in the middle of the program today, you missed the first two parts to this four-part series, you can go to our website at wallboulderslive.com, click on the archives and listen to those first two programs anytime that you like. You can also share them with your friends and family, and we encourage you to do so so that they can get educated about our Constitution as well. And then tomorrow we'll have the conclusion. So it's a four-part series. It's called Constitution Alive, with David Barton and Rick Green, and what we're airing in this four-part series is it's only segment one out of the entire Constitution Alive program, but at least gives you a taste and gives you a chance to start getting educated on these things and to share them with your friends and family. We appreciate you listening today. Join us tomorrow for the conclusion of Constitutional Live with David Barton and Rick Green. You've been listening to WallBuilders Live Fighting hand in hand for the liberty.