Historic Quote: 0:12

Abraham Lincoln said, We The People are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

Rick Green: 0:25

This is the intersection of faith and the culture. Thanks for joining us today on WallBuilders Live. We're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. If you want to know the right position on any issue out there, that's how you do it. You say, hey, what does the Bible had to say about this? I got to be in God's word every day to know these things. But then what can history teach me about this as well, what works and doesn't work? History shows us that. And then, of course, our Constitution, if you're going to apply these things appropriately, under our system of government, we have to know the Constitution and get that constitutional perspective, as well. So that's why we always say WallBuilders Live looking at things from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. We're doing that with David Barton. This guy is America's premier historian. I am so honored to get to work with David for the last couple of decades, I've run into so many people that are serving in the legislatures of states all over the country in Congress in Washington, DC, school boards, City Council's you name it that say, I ran for office, because I saw this from David Barton or I read this from David Barton. David has been a catalyst for restoring biblical values and constitutional principles. And so thankful for that, and just thrilled to be here with WallBuilders. And of course, the name WallBuilders comes from that scripture and Nehemiah that says, arise and rebuild the walls that we may no longer be a reproach, we've got to rebuild the foundations, folks, right here in America. There's major cracks in the foundation, we've got real problems and rot in the culture. But the good news is, it's been revealed over the last couple of years. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. And now we know it's there. And we're learning what to do to restore the foundations in America. So we're here with David. We're also here with Tim Barton. He's a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders, you ought to book him into your community, to your church, to your business organization to speak, I'm telling you, he'll light people on fire, he'll get them excited, give them hope, and give them answers to how to turn this culture around. My name is Rick Green. I'm a former Texas legislator and America's constitution coach and its foundations of freedom Thursday. So let's get started today, you send in your questions to radio@WallBuilders.com . Send your questions to radio@WallBuilders.com . Alright David and Tim, we're going to dive into those questions folks that want to send more in can do that to radio@WallBuilders.com . That's radio@WallBuilders.com . First one's from Steven. He said, hey, WallBuilders, when it comes to education, what is the government's proper role? Should education be left to the states and cities to decide what should be taught? Or does it require legislation from the federal government? Does the Constitution allow the federal government to say what will be taught in schools? As for me, in my house, we are pro homeschool. Alright, Steven, thank you for sending that in. And of course this, like so many things we talk about guys, who decides right? Who gets the jurisdiction and David, you do a whole thing on jurisdiction in our constitution classes. and how you showed up at my house to paint my truck. You remember that? Your analogy about whose truck is it, and who has the authority? Same thing here who has authority on education?

David Barton: 3:20

You know, I would back up even a question earlier and say, why does any government entity care anything about education? Why is education important to the local or state or federal? Why do you need education? And the American philosophy... and by the way, you do not need education. If you have a very power centered centralized government. If you're the Soviet Union, it doesn't matter that you have educated citizens or not, because you're going to tell them what to do. If you're a king of Great Britain, or a queen of Great Britain, or if you're a king of Spain, you don't care whether your citizens are educated because you're going to tell them what to do. The only reason you care about having an educated people is to have a free people. And so if you want to free people that will follow the rule of law and not the rule of man. And that's what John Adams talked about is we're a government of laws, not of men, it doesn't matter who the king is, it matter what the laws are. If you want freedom, you have to have an educated people who can read for themselves, who can understand the Bible. As the Pilgrims pointed out, you can't have freedom without knowing the Bible principles. So it all starts with that as the basic premise is, why would you want education anyway?

Tim Barton: 4:30

Well and I would add a little context that as well, Dad, as you're saying that you need education to have freedom, obviously, the Founding Fathers said it's religion and morality, that allow freedom to work and function, and you can be highly educated and not be moral. So it's not just education that allows freedom to work, although, and this is where there's a great contrast between the American Revolution and the French Revolution. Because in the French Revolution, this was part of right, that's a secular enlightenment movement, where they said we don't need a ruler we don't need a king over us. They also thought they don't need God over them. And so if you haven't educated people, that's not a moral people, it leads to the chaos, the anarchy, which ultimately often leads into somebody seizing power and authority for the good of the people below them. And it leads, often anarchy leads to tyranny along the way... or ultimately ending in tyranny, where the Founding Fathers had a different view and America was different, is they didn't just believe in education. They believed in a certain kind of education, the education needed to be rooted and grounded in the principles of the Word of God and biblical moral foundations, which goes back to the reason that we started education in early America, the first education law, as you have taught about, for decades, at this point, the Old Deluder Satan act, all the way back, Connecticut, Massachusetts, those early laws, the idea of them, the opening statement that the chief project of that old deluder Satan is to keep men from the knowledge of scriptures as in former times, and the law goes on for a couple paragraphs explaining why they need the law. But the reason they had education was to make sure people would know what the Bible said, because with the knowledge of the Bible, that's what brought them freedom. And I'm saying this only to give clarity for those listening. It's not education that brings freedom, it's a proper education, which would be being educated in the morals and principles of the Word of God. Because if it was just education that brought freedom, we'd say, hey, everybody go to college and university, except we know that's not a good education. It's a bad education. It's an agenda oriented education. It's so much indoctrination. And we don't recommend college for most people these days, because of what it has produced and the kind of education they're giving. So it's not just education, it's the kind of education and it's being rooted and centered, in biblical principles. Again, I think the American Revolution and the French Revolution, or the really good contrast of both were educated and enlightened, informed citizenry on some level, more so in America than France. It's just what was the moral code they used in fighting for their freedom? And that's where you see the disparity of the outcome?

David Barton: 6:58

And that's exactly right. I mean, Tim, what you mentioned, even when you look at the first federal involvement with education, was the Northwest Ordinance, which required religion, morality and knowledge in that order. And that is the difference between the American Revolution and the French Revolution is religion and morality, and then comes knowledge. Whereas for the French, there was actually the knowledge was everything. And religion, morality was out the door. So this is why any government should be at, least any government in America that wants to protect freedom and uphold the Constitution, you got to have some form of education. And it's the interest of the federal government to have good education, it's the interests of the state governments, it's interests of the cities to have good education. Now, what the Founding Fathers believed was a really didn't matter where it came from. As you look back in the founders days, there was eight or nine different forms of education, there was a dame schools and the old fill schools, and the Latin schools and all the different schools you could have. And we didn't care where the education came from, as long as you reach the objectives of religion, morality and knowledge. And so that's what the federal government set forth as the standards, they didn't tell you how to get there. They didn't tell you like the Old Deluder Satan law that when you get 50 kids in a community, build them the school, and when you get 100 kids, you get them a teacher, it didn't have that kind of specificity, but it did require education, knowledge. So backing up from the founding, belief and the way the Constitution left it was, look, just get educated. We got to have educated citizens, and we don't care what form you you do that, whether it's homeschool, or whether it's some other form of school, get educated. That's what it takes for citizens. And so that's always been the emphasis. Now, if you go constitutionally, because education is not listed anywhere in the enumerated powers, it by the 9th and 10th amendment goes to parents and goes to the state, it would go to both of those areas. And so it is not a federal responsibility, although it needs to be a federal... it's federally understood that you have to have education, you just can't operate without it, and especially as they stipulated... and by the way, when I mentioned the federal law of religion, morality and knowledge, that's for federal territories, and since those territories weren't states themselves, it's not a bad thing for the federal government to get involved in federal territories. When they become states, they have their own state constitution, they'll specify what they're going to do. So for the founders to get involved in religion, morality, knowledge is not crossing that constitutional line, because that was federal territories. So that's where it would fall is into parents hands and in the state's hands. Now this is where states are oftentimes giving parents a hard time at education. And but because education is not listed in the Constitution, it belongs both to the 9th and the 10th amendments, the right of individuals and parents, etc. And also the right of states. And that's where if you get a liberal state, they're going to try to control education, regulate homeschooling, and try to say what you can and can't teach at homeschooling, as we've seen liberal states do, but that's where it would go back to. And so the Founding Fathers would support the fact that you know, as for me and my house, we choose homeschooling or whatever else it is, as long as it gets the objective of religion, morality and knowledge, which is what the state needs to be able to have freedom and liberty and preserve the Constitution.

Rick Green: 10:10

Yeah, and I mean, virtually every state constitution even talks about that, and when they get to their education statutes they talk about the reason for education in the state is to have an informed citizenry and to have, you know, citizens that understand the principles of liberty and understand what makes for a free society. And, of course, you know, they're failing at that right now in terms of the methods that they've taken, you know, to be able to do those things. And so great question we need to be asking.

David Barton: 10:37

I think they're failing in all three areas. I don't think you're getting religion, morality or knowledge. I think you're getting religion, morality and indoctrination. Because when you look at what's happening with literacy rates, or with testing rates on international testing, our knowledge is plummeting. I mean, the academic knowledge is going down. We've got lots of wokeness, and lots of indoctrination. So I don't think we're getting religion, morality or education out of the schools we're funding right now on a large scale. I think we're getting an inferior education. There is some literacy but it's way too high on illiteracy.

Tim Barton: 11:10

Well and just to push back a little bit, I think we're getting religion, morality and knowledge just none of the right kind of religion, morality, or knowledge. Right is we're teaching children to how to be sexually active I mean that's somebody's religion.

Rick Green: 11:25

And climate religion, right? You could worship creation. Amen. Amen. All right, guys, quick break. We've

Tim Barton: 11:27

That is knowledge, and I mean, you know, religion, morality, knowledge, it's... that's somebody that thought it was morally acceptable. It's just, none of it would be things we want for America. And it certainly was not the original intent of education or the founding fathers, and it's not what's going to help America be strong. got more questions coming from the audience when we come back, stay with us, folks, you're listening to WallBuilders. Hi friends! This is Tim Barton of WallBuilders.This is a time when most Americans don’t know much about American history or even heroes of the faith. I know, oftentimes as parents, we”€™re trying to find good content for our kids to read. If you remember back in the Bible, the Book of Hebrews it has the Faith Hall of Fame, where they outlined the leaders of faith that had gone before them. Well, this is something that as Americans we really want to go back and outline some of these heroes not just of American history, but heroes of Christianity and our faith as well. I wanted to let you know about some biographical sketches we have available on our website. One is called, “€œThe Courageous Leaders Collection“€and this collection includes people like Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Francis Scott Key, George Washington Carver, Susanna Wesley, even the Wright brothers. There’s a second collection called, “€œHeroes of History“€ in this collection you read about people like Benjamin Franklin, Christopher Columbus, Daniel Boone, George Washington, Harriet Tubman, the list goes on and on. This is a great collection for your young person to have and read. And, it’s a providential view of American and Christian history. This is available at WallBuilders.com .

Historic Quote: 12:58

President Thomas Jefferson said, I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society, but the people themselves. And if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.

Rick Green: 13:21

Welcome back to Foundations of Freedom Thursday here on WallBuilders, you can send your questions into radio@wallbuilders.com . Next one comes from Hawaii, I'm assuming it's coming from Hawaii. Joel, if I'm wrong on that, you started off Aloha. So I'm assuming... Anyway, he says, can you give a better clarification of the general welfare clause, and how it was meant at the time of the founding? Now, he also talks about school choice and freedom of association, we'll come back to that question. Let's start with just general welfare clause itself, guys. It's in the preamble, of course. And then and we see the phrase, general welfare in article one, section eight in that first paragraph, but it's part of a much bigger sentence with regard to honestly defensive of the country as well, but initial thoughts on general welfare and how we might could get people to understand it's not this Mack truck, you know, drive through the loophole here anything is general welfare.

David Barton: 14:15

So Rick, I think the founding fathers did a good job of defining general welfare by telling you what it is, if you do all of the enumerated powers, if you do the 17 things we told you, that's for the general welfare of the United States. And so general welfare to them was the overall result of what was going to happen from the Constitution they had written. And it didn't involve a lot of the extras the federal government now does. And again, if you go back to those 17 things that the Constitution says that the federal government can do, the jurisdiction, responsibilities. That's what produces the general welfare of the country. And it becomes clear when you read the Federalist Papers, that if the states do their role and the feds do theirs, that's going to be... make the country healthy and strong. So That's the starting part. Now, the founding fathers have a lot more quotes on that. I got a great quote on that from James Madison, but that's a general overview.

Tim Barton: 15:07

Well, and Dad too, I think, to understand some of the perspective of that, when you look back at people like Sam Adams, who talked about our inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, property. And then he says, along with the right to defend them, and we look at the Second Amendment, as you know, really a place people talk about the right to keep and bear arms, that's guns, but it was the right to be able to defend what God had given you. That was part of the context and background behind the Second Amendment. That was part of... and I'm saying this in the context to make the connection, when you're talking on the general welfare clause, that's part of the connection. Part of the connection of the general welfare clause is kind of like the idea when the Founding Fathers says that you have the right to life, liberty property, along with your right to defend those, those are all things that God has given those rights, including the right of self preservation, including the right of defending your family, your kids, your property, those are all rights God gave. The general welfare was kind of like the Founding Fathers saying, you have the right to enact all the things you're supposed to do. And I'm trying to repeat what you're saying, but just connecting and in some of those similar dots, when you talk about the general welfare clause, Rick, even you alluded earlier to this notion of it also included defense, on some level, it absolutely we have talked about, and this was, man, it could have been a year or two, three years ago before now, you know, before COVID. In the second BC, in a Christians life. There was the before Christ and now before COVID. So I don't know when we talked about it. But along the lines of the notion, the general welfare clause, it absolutely included the defense of the nation and the defense of the... some of those God given rights, and the enacting the ability to carry through with some of those constitutional powers and constitutional rights.

David Barton: 16:49

There's an interesting debate that happened in 1790, on liberals at that time trying to read it in an expansive manner. And they were saying, general welfare is anything we do that would help the nation. So we can do anything that will help the country if we think it helps the country, that's where the general welfare. And so that notion came up in what happened in 1790. And kind of set the background on it. The way the country was with the 13 States back then, most of the population was in the north and northeast, actually. And so as you get to Boston, and you get from Virginia, and go north, the population is really high. So you get to New York, you get to Pennsylvania, you get the Massachusetts, that's your high population. And that's also where the high industry is. That's where so much of the productivity and the business is coming from there, as opposed to the wilderness areas of Virginia and Georgia, North Carolina, and yes, there're cities there and there's plenty of people there. But that's not where the money's being made. And so what happened was in 1790, as I read it, there's not a great description for what this plague was, but I would kind of say, it's like a red tide. A red tide that came in and killed all the fish. And up in the the northeastern area, fishing was a big part of their industry. And so what happened up there and by the way, if you go to the Massachusetts State House, and that was one of the most populous states, if you look at the State House, to this day, over the head of the Speaker of the House is a big cod fish, and cod fish, that was the the economic basis of that state. And so in 1790, when this red tide, whatever it was came in, it wiped out the cod fish. And so suddenly they don't have the economy they had, they don't have the resources, and families are failing, and businesses are failing, and the state doesn't have the taxes and everything's going down. And so it was such a big deal, that man, if Massachusetts goes under, it's going to hurt the whole United States. So in 1790, they introduced a bailout bill, and it was, hey, we need to put some federal funds into bailing out Massachusetts, bail out the codfish industry, because we need to subsidize that, kind of like what what Bush 43 did back when he bailed out the big insurance industries and the banking industries and the auto industries, because they were all failing and the too big to fail kind of philosophy. That was happening in 1790. And on the floor of Congress, James Madison, who is certainly one of the active guys at the Constitutional Convention, he did the most active note taking for sure of anybody and had a lot of input on what went on. He talked about this, and this... and he absolutely rejected the notion that the general welfare clause could be expanded beyond those 17 things. This is what he said. He said if Congress can apply money indefinitely to the general welfare, and if Congress is a sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they might take the care of religion into their own hands. They might establish teachers in every state, county and parish and pay them out of public funds. They might take into their own hands the education of children, established in like manner schools throughout the United States. They might assume provision for the poor, they might undertake the regulation of all roads other than just the postal roads. In short, everything from the highest object of state legislation, all the way down to the most minut object of police enforcement would be thrown under the power of Congress. And so he says, this would be a nightmare. If you ever interpreted the general welfare clause to be broader than it is, man, government would get involved in education, they would get involved in welfare, they would get involved in criminal enforcement, they would... and it sounds exactly like what we're doing today. And so at that point in time, that was inconceivable that the government would get outside those 17 boundaries that have been placed around in the constitution. So the general welfare clause was really, really very limited at the federal level. Now, general welfare clause when it comes to the states, that's a whole different thing. And each state constitution has its own way of expressing that. But that's why states do the education. That's why states do the law enforcement or they used. At the time of the founding fathers, there were only three felonies, three federal felonies at the federal level, because law enforcement went to the States. Today, there's 4,500 Federal felonies. It's the law enforcement at the federal level that drives so much of what goes on even at the local level, that was never to be. So that's kind of the founders view of what the general welfare clause is. And it's been really progressive presidents that have expanded that and reinterpreted it and thought the Constitution was the thing of wax as Jefferson said that they view it as a thing of wax when they can shape and mold it into anything they please. And that's just not the way it was intended to be.

Rick Green: 21:38

Yeah, and it even just a simple way to summarize it is, you know, general welfare, like you said, at the very beginning, it was the general welfare of the states, not the specific welfare of an individual. I mean, that's really the difference. They've tried to make it where they can take money from you and give to another individual, instead of actually protecting the states themselves and the system itself.

David Barton: 22:00

Now Rick, if you will just kind of take a little... and rearrange the words there. The general welfare clause can be read to mean, generally providing welfare, right? It's the same three words. So it's...

Rick Green: 22:14

Right, yeah, if we just interpret the words by today's standards, right? And, you know, and let me just read, we almost did this earlier, the phrase out of the Constitution itself... because it's all combined, right? ...to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States, right? It's like they were literally combining this is all about what makes for good nation, and the common defense of the nation and the general welfare. And boy, man, Madison really saw the future because everything you described, David, we're doing all of those things now, right? I mean, we've literally allowed them to get involved in education, religion, all of that stuff... Madison, I bet he was chuckling when he was saying that stuff. He's like, ha-ha, that would be crazy. We would never allow all that to happen. And here we are.

David Barton: 22:59

You know, good and well, that those were the most absurd examples he could think of in that day. I mean, that's the way we would argue it, we would use the absurd... If we did that, we might actually get into whatever, and we would get absurd... And those were his absurd examples. We'll never get to this point. But if you follow the path you're going, we could. Well, his never has become the standard. And it's just, yeah, as you point out, when you read the general welfare clause, it's pretty clear what they intended with that.

Rick Green: 23:27

And had we kept teaching, you know what he said, right? Had we kept teaching the Catechism on the Constitution had we kept teaching those things, then people would have laughed at a congressman that would propose such things. But because of civic ignorance, because we didn't teach those things, we allowed ourselves to get to this place where we buy the lie. And that's why learning this stuff is so important. And David teaches is really well right there in the library, folks. If you want to go back and take Biblical Citizenship in Modern America, or Constitution Alive, David walks through each of those things, and gives you that history. So it's a great way to share that with folks. Hey, let's try a fast one here, guys. Joel had also asked by not giving students and parent school choice, are they abusing the freedom of association? And I'll be honest, I've never thought about school choice in the light of freedom of association, as much as parental rights. So it's an interesting way to ask that question. Thoughts?

David Barton: 24:17

Yeah, I go back to original intent. The original intent was the citizen needs educated students, students educated on religion, morality, knowledge to make good citizens, self controlled citizens that will restrain themselves that will stay within the rules of law. And as long as the state gets that, it doesn't matter, the means through which they get them, whether it's home schools, or homeschool associations, or public schools, or whatever it is, they're looking for the result, not the means and they didn't micromanage the means not think that's what's happened is we've micromanaged the means and not just the result. They're looking for a result, they want a certain type of citizen, because as long as you have that kind of citizen, we don't care... It's like, you know, it used to be 20 years ago, if you had a college degree, it didn't care whether it came from Texas A&M or the University of Oklahoma or University of Nebraska. If you have an engineering degree, you got an engineering degree, and we just don't really care what college it comes from. And so getting a job with the federal government didn't require you to have a certain college's degree. But now we're at the point of, well, it's got to be a public school, it can't be a Christian school or whatever. And, you know, I'll argue all day long with statistics, that there's more academic knowledge coming out of Christian schools, when you look at academic achievement than there is out of public schools, you need that religion and morality to get the right kind of knowledge as Tim talked about, earlier. Without that, you're just not going to get the results you want for a free nation.

Rick Green: 25:40

All right, folks, we're out of questions for today. Well, we're out of time to answer questions. There's more questions being asked, of course, Foundations ofFreedom Thursday, your chance to drive the conversation and pick a topic about the founding fathers or the Constitution or a hot topic today that you would like to see the Constitution applied to, you can send those into radio@WallBuilders.com . That's radio@WallBuilders.com . We appreciate everybody participating in that way. And thank you for sharing this program, too. We really encourage you, take this link, send it out to your friends and family. A lot of people are curious about this, even just think about this general welfare issue. If everybody understood that original intent of what that clause means, our government would not have grown so out of control. So share this with as many people as you can, be a force multiplier, and then go get that class become a constitution coach, and teach this class in your home or at your church or at your local library, even. Lots of places that you can go do this. Check it out today at WallBuilders.com . Thanks so much for listening. You've been listening to WallBuilders.