Child

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

Welcome to Intersection of Faith and Culture. Thanks for joining me today on Wall Builders. I'm Rick Green, here with David and Tim Barton. We appreciate you being a part of the program and encourage you to visit our website at wallbuilders.com. That's wallbuilders.com. That's our main website where you can get all kinds of great information. And then wallbuilders.show if you want to just catch up on radio programs. So real, easy to use wallbuilders.show. Easy place to share the program with others.

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All right, guys, diving into those questions, we actually are going to take several from our recent teachers conference. And, by the way, if you missed that, if questions, we actually are going to take several from our recent teachers conference. And, by the way, if you missed that, if you're a teacher out there and you'd like to go to the conference, visit wallbuilder.scom today. Start making plans for next summer Something that I hear from teachers all the time and students that go to these just a phenomenal, phenomenal way to spend a week of your summer, all right.

Some of these teachers, though, gave some questions afterwards that we thought would be great for the audience, not just for the teachers, so we're going to hit a few of these. The first one is about the 14th Amendment and the First Amendment, and so it says is it constitutional to prohibit swearing in schools since they are under the state government? Public schools, since they are under the state government, would cursing be considered protected speech or can it be banned? Since districts oversee the schools, the First Amendment might not apply at the local level, or does it, based on the 14th Amendment, applying the Bill of Rights to the states? Basically is the essence of the question, so I never thought about this. Is it constitutional to prohibit swearing in public school?

David Barton

Yeah, I think the answer to that has to go back to George Washington's farewell address. You have to take the farewell address and the Declaration of Independence as the foundation of the Constitution. They're the ones that set the tone, set the moral parameters. The US Supreme Court pointed out that you cannot understand the Constitution apart from the Declaration. John Quincy Adams said it is the foundation of which the Constitution was erected. The Declaration was you have other founding fathers like Sam Adams who said look, we ratified the Constitution but that did not mean we disannulled the Declaration.

So when you look at the Declaration as the foundation value system in which you have to interpret the Constitution, you look at George Washington's farewell address. What does Washington say? He said the only way you're going to have political prosperity, the only way this Republican form of constitutional government work, is if you have the foundations of religion and morality. So within those foundations, what would religion and morality say about profanity? And just go to George Washington when he was in the military as commander-in-chief. He forbid any type of profanity in the military and he pointed out basically, on the 10 commandments, he said look, we're not going to win without God's help and we're not going to get God's help if you violate his commands about swearing. And so Washington prohibited.

Tim Barton

Then, and the fact— and Dad, let me point out with that, if people want to go back and read that order, it's worth going and looking at because for the first time there was a financial penalty. You were fined. Second time it was a greater degree fine. Third time, I think there were even lashes involved and if you swore a fourth time you were kicked out of the military. That's my recollection. Don't take my word on this. Go look it up to verify that. But that's what I remember that order being.

And again, the reason this is significant is the fact that you could actually get kicked out of the military for profanity. They were so convinced that we don't want to be immoral and give God a reason to oppose our cause or what we are doing. We want to make sure that we're aligning up our values, our morals, with God so God can bless our endeavors was their idea behind this. And I'm chuckling thinking about the military today. I mean if you got kicked out of the military for profanity, we'd have no military left, just about. I mean it would be crazy because of how far we've come in that direction, but partly it's because we don't have the same views of morality, certainly as they did in early America as it was built so much from the Bible where, even now, if you ask most Christians what does the Bible say about profanity, most Christians would not be able to come up with an answer, even though there are verses like let no unwholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only that which is necessary for the building up of the brothers, building up of those around you. So this idea of unwholesome talk was that profanity, is that curse words? Again, we can dive into this in the Bible, because there's many verses from the Bible that pertain to this kind of thing. And yet today most people don't know what the Bible says, and certainly even the historic examples we have, like Washington forbidding it in the military.

And I would go even further and point out that if you look in virtually every one of the early colonies, the founding fathers identified themselves in their writings. Was it Noah Webster who talked about the laws against profanity? I think it's in the Founder's Bible. We have an article that actually goes into this. I think Noah Webster is one of the ones that wrote about it but how they would have laws against profanity in the early colonies. And so if it's a law of the colony, if it's a law of your town, then that would certainly be a law that would be enforced in the school. If it's a law in the military right, if it's a certain standard of morality that you are upholding and we can see it's upheld everywhere else it is absolutely logical to believe and assume that that standard was upheld in schools and classrooms as well.

David Barton

Yeah, there's no question. In our collection we have the early law books from virtually every one of the original 13 colonies, before and after they were added to the United States, and even after their law books still maintain prohibitions on profanity, on cursing. And we have a number of court cases, a number of significant court cases, where that it went to court challenging whether it was OK to swear or not okay to use profanity, and the court said, no, it is not so. What happens today is number one we don't know our history. Number two we've divorced the Constitution from any religious foundation. We've made it a valueless document reflecting no values. And you can't do that. You go back to the original founding. George Washington made it really clear the Constitution only works if you have it on the foundation of religion and morality. Other founding fathers repeated that. So yes, absolutely, you could prohibit profanity back there.

It was not protected by the First Amendment. First Amendment protected your free speech, your opinions, etc. But you had to be able and that used to be the thing. You used to be smart enough to not have to reduce yourself to 30, 35 words that pretty much triggered everybody and set everybody off. You used to be smart enough to not have to reduce yourself to 30, 35 words. That pretty much triggered everybody and set everybody off. You could actually communicate an entire discourse and go for two hours without having to cuss. It was a matter of self-discipline. It was also a matter of taste and decency as well. It was also a matter, as they pointed out, they pointed the Ten Commandments. You don't take the Lord's name in vain. They said that means cursing and profanity. So they had a lot of basis for that, and nothing in the Constitution was to overthrow the Ten Commandments. Nothing in the Constitution was designed to set God's word aside. So their viewpoint is absolutely you can have prohibitions on profanity and even to this day you can still have that to some degree. Even in this modern era. You can't use language that's provocative and triggers and sits somebody off, even if it's offensive to them. You can't do things that would incite or rage or violence, and that's what profanity used to do for sure. But back to the question. The original intent of the Constitution did not protect language such as profanity and cursing and bad language. That was not covered by the First Amendment.

Tim Barton

Meaning that wasn't part of a free speech thought saying, hey, you have free speech, you can say whatever you want. No, because they still had standards of morals and decency and that was part of their law and there were fines, there were imprisonments and, in some cases, being kicked out of the military for violating those. We've changed our standards of morality and decency, but the idea of having restrictions according to the First Amendment, that is historically a correct interpretation and certainly something that they would not have allowed profanity and early education under the Constitution. So is it constitutional to prohibit that In the founding era? It sure was.

Rick Green

Well, sticking with the constitutional questions. Another one that came from the teachers there at the training is about the drug war. Is the drug war constitutional at the federal level? I think people have used the Commerce Clause to justify prohibiting and legalizing drugs at the federal level. However, if regulate quote, unquote regulate means to make common, would it be a state issue? And of course they're referring to the Commerce Clause to make regular or to regulate. And you know the big debate here years ago. There hasn't been a lot of talk about this recently on whether or not a lot of the drug laws are actually constitutional. And of course we have the 18th and the 21st Amendments to give us a little bit of an idea of this on in terms of regulating or banning alcohol, but we've never had an amendment dealing specifically with drugs.

David Barton

Yeah, and when you get to this at this level, dealing with drugs at the federal level this is something that I guess the best way to explain it is I think there's a role for the federal and the states. And I would say that, in the terms of right now, the biggest drug problem we've got is fentanyl coming across the borders. And since the federal government is in charge of the borders, yeah, they can regulate that. They can say this is wrong and it's not allowed to come in, etc. They can regulate what comes into the country, what goes on inside the country. There's a role for the states to be able to handle that and the states can. And you know, unfortunately we're seeing states do that on things like marijuana as well. But back to the first question. You're supposed to have a moral and a religious foundation that tells you what's right and wrong so you don't have to regulate.

This kind of illegal drug use is what we would call it, or drug use that is harmful to the body. But I think this is one that would be a shared jurisdiction, just like immigration itself was to be a shared jurisdiction. Under the founding fathers, the feds were responsible for part of what went on at the borders, but the states were responsible for part as well, and we're seeing some of that start to happen again now. We're seeing states win some of their federal court decisions on hey, we're not going to allow illegal immigrants in our state, even if the federal government says it's okay to come in, we're not doing that here and the courts are holding that up. So I think this really falls more of a shared jurisdiction. As long as you've got an influx of drugs coming across the international borders, yeah, the federal government can get involved in that and should get involved in that.

Rick Green

Yeah, and so many things are shared right, shared responsibilities, and one of the things you said that really want to drive a stake in is the border issue and the fact that that is absolutely a initially federal government responsibility there to make sure that those illegal drugs are not coming in, and then states have to step up if they're, if the feds aren't going to do their job, and so that give and take definitely plays out in that issue. All right, let's try to get one more in before the break. This one is on the Pledge of Allegiance. How about this one, guys? Is the Pledge of Allegiance? How about this one, guys? Is the Pledge of Allegiance constitutional or federal holidays? This person said I look through the powers given to the federal government. I think it's authority over the military that might give it a right to create a national flag or a pledge. I'm just unsure about federal holidays. Interesting question. I don't know that we've ever been asked that one.

Tim Barton

Well, the Constitution does identify the role of the president and the president's jurisdiction. So when it comes to things like executive orders, an executive order is constitutional if it applies specifically to the executive branch. So who's taking a holiday If it applies, if the president says, hey, we're doing, this applies to the executive branch, or if Congress passes a law saying this is now a federal holiday, that can apply to the nation. So I think it does make a difference. Who is determining if it's a federal holiday and who that federal holiday is applied to certainly does make a difference. Now, before we go to the Pledge of Allegiance, dad, do you want to speak to that one at all?

David Barton

Well, I was going to say it may not be unconstitutional, which doesn't mean it is or isn't. I mean it's one of the things the Constitution didn't address and if I were to look for precedent, I would say that George Washington declaring a national day of prayer and fasting or national day of Thanksgiving goes beyond what the Constitution specifically specifies. But that was accepted that day and they did it and they celebrated, and George Washington didn't think it was unconstitutional to do that.

Tim Barton

Now there were some that opposed him for doing that there were. And we could say we would disagree with them because there were some that were so strict constitutionalists. They said you can only do what the Constitution says you can do. Its Constitution didn't say you could do that. Therefore you're wrong for doing this, but certainly the precedent that every colony had done that, every early governor, specifically of the prayer proclamations, whether it be prayer and thanksgiving, prayer and fasting. So this was a accepted tradition in America at that time. However, it would be different if you're talking about creating agencies and institutions and departments and things outside some of the purview. You can create, if you're the executive, different agencies and departments to operate inside of your executive branch, but you cannot do things that within and fringe on the rights of the people without there being some kind of legislation approving that action and behavior. And so this is where I think federal holidays again going back to the idea, can the president determine things that apply to the executive branch and the federal government? Sure, he can, but does that apply to everybody else? Not necessarily, unless Congress gets involved and does legislation with it. But to your point, is this a moral, immoral thing? Probably not right. This probably isn't something that's not like a murder or stealing theft kind of issue, but that would be on the holiday issue.

Now, when it comes to the pledge, this is also an interesting one because this was part of where, if you go back to the progressive era and move, and progressives were trying to have a level of uniformity when they're changing education and indoctrination and we want every student to look the same and this is part of even some of the inspiration that led to things like having a pledge, like having a national anthem so that everybody could become one, and even though we believed in the melting pot of America, it was from many that we had one, but even in that one there was so much diversity in that idea that it is.

It's an interesting question about how much of this can we track back to the influence of the progressives. And if it's the progressives, do we look and go? You know what? Really, this might not have been the best thing, because what we are unifying around and behind, we don't unify around a flag, or what does a flag represent? What are the values it represents? And because for progressives, they wanted there to be cohesion independent of values. So we're uniting not around principles but around maybe something representative principles. There's a lot that we could unpack with this and maybe a lot to investigate with it.

David Barton

And yet there could also be another perspective on this, because there's no question that progressives wanted uniformity, wanted conformity, wanted everything the same. And that's you know. We talked about it before. That's where you get away from teaching students how to think and making them all learn so they all know the same thing and all think the same way. But at the same time, having uniformity was not a bad deal. Founding fathers were in to uniformity in the sense of loving the nation.

Washington in the Farewell Address he talks about having a love for your country and don't tolerate those who don't have a love for their country.

So it's possible that you could take, and certainly Francis Scott Key when he did the National Anthem he was not a progressive Progressive movement, wasn't going then.

So it's possible to take something very good and if the wrong people take it and use it can become wrong.

But I think the Founding Fathers would not have had any trouble with something that promoted patriotism, something that was learned by students to promote that. I think something like the Star-Spangled Banner that came out in the War of 1812, we know it became a very popular thing, particularly in the military, because it was patriotic and we know the founding fathers were very much into promoting patriotism and love for your country. You know, make sure you fix the problems that are there, but also make sure you love and are willing to sacrifice for your country. So, while it could be progressive stuff, at the same time I think there's a place for it with the right intent to have been part of the founders' acceptability. I don't think they would have had trouble with it if you were using it for the sense of building up a love for your nation and a respect for your nation, being willing to sacrifice and commit yourself to the nation. I think they would have liked that.

Rick Green

All right, guys, we do have a couple more questions from the teachers at the training, and so we'll try to get at least one more of those in before we finish out today. But we got to take a quick break, we'll be right back. You're listening to the Wall Builder Show on Foundations of Freedom, Thursday.

Break.

Child

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

Welcome back. Thanks for staying with us here on Foundations of Freedom Thursday. On the Wall Builders program, we're actually doing a lot of questions from our teachers that come in for the summer and Tim, I can't remember how long Is that a week? I said earlier, come for a week in the summer 

Tim Barton

It's actually only three days.

Well, really it's two and a half days, but we do one that's Monday through Wednesday and then one that's Thursday through Saturday.

So for us it's a week in this teachers conference for these two back-to-back, but really it's two and a half days. We hosted the American Journey Experience and we actually limit the amount of teachers that come because we want it to be as hands-on as possible and the larger the crowd, the harder it is to hand around the artifacts or be able to go into the vault as it is. So we limit the amount of teachers that come, but for two and a half days we will teach American history from the original documents, giving teachers the opportunity to actually be able to read, peruse through, hold things from American history, unlike anything you could do anywhere else. So it is incredibly a unique opportunity. They can find out more about it at wallbuilders.com and also we'd encourage them to check out the American Journey Experience, where they can go, have tours of the American Journey Experience, see the artifacts over there and, of course, they can always come to WallBuilders and have a tour of some of our collection here at WallBuilders as well.

Rick Green

I think it's great for the nation if more teachers can go through that training with you, because they're, of course, raising up that next generation, teaching that next generation, and if these kind of questions that we're covering today come out of that training, then you guys are covering some great topics. Teachers are asking about the constitutionality of these things because they're paying attention to jurisdiction, proper role of government, all those things. So let's try to get at least one more. We might get a couple more. But the next one was about the Defense of Marriage Act.

As a constitutional Quote, marriage isn't one of the powers given to the federal government in Article 1, section 8. I like the act. I just don't know how to support it using the Constitution. So this person is actually asking about the original Defense of Marriage Act, not the way they've now overturned and redefined marriage through Supreme Court decisions, and I don't think they ever passed some of the crazy legislation they had on this one in the last year or so when they could have. But anyway, specifically, just basically, the question is God's marriage as a federal issue in the Constitution?

David Barton

Yeah, this goes back to again the fact that the founding fathers did not believe you could apply the Constitution without the value system of the Declaration. And the Declaration talks about the laws of nature and nature's God. That is natural law Under natural law. The laws of nature and nature's God, the laws of nature and nature's god that is natural law under natural law. The laws of nature and nature's god, the laws of nature's god are very, very clear you have a male and a female united for life in a relationship, and that that's just what the scriptures teach. And so there was nothing in the constitution that was to be interpreted as overturning anything in the scriptures. That was just not their intent. They're not stepping in like France and saying, hey, even though the scripture says you should have a Sabbath every seven days, we're going to make it every 10 days and we're going to eliminate the Sabbath. We don't even want you thinking there's a Sabbath. That's not America. We did not write a constitution to overturn that religious and moral foundation. Overturn that religious and moral foundation. And so you have to interpret the Constitution in the sense of the value system at that time and the value system as explicitly protected in the Declaration of Independence, and in that value system marriage was key. They considered that the first and the fundamental of all institutions. If you go through John Locke's Two Treatises of Government, he spends so much time on the government that exists within a marriage that that is the first manifestation of God's government. And to understand government you have to understand marriage. And so from there then you get into civil government. But you first start with family government, you start with individual government, then you move to family government, then you move to civil government, and so those books the founding fathers relied on in creating the documents, like the two treatises of government, spend so much time on the institution of marriage and the government of the family, and that's the basis of civil government. No way that the founding fathers would ever have tolerated anything like that, which, by the way, is one of the reasons that they fought polygamy for so many years in the federal courts and elsewhere, as that became an issue with so many nations, and that's also an issue that they fought with immigrants coming in.

Hey, your value system may say marriage is not important. Or you may be like France, where there is no marriage, it's just open marriage. Marriage is not important. Or you may be like France, where there is no marriage, it's just open marriage. We don't do that in America, and so constitutionally you take the interpretation from the declaration. But if you look at the court cases that came afterwards, it's real clear that they never saw the Constitution as a value-free document that did not define things like marriage. They went to natural law on that. They went to the laws of nature, nature's God, and so it's real clear for them. There's no way they would have done anything to undermine the institution of marriage or to allow the Constitution to reverse anything in that institution of marriage. Traditional marriage and not marriage as today. This is marriage between one man and one woman, united for life in that relationship 

Rick Green

All right guys, just a few minutes left, but we got one more from the teachers.

Does the federal government have the power to create roads and national parks? Does it have the power to regulate crime? I guess roads could be considered an implied power, since they can do post offices I think they've referred to that clause in Article 1, Section 8, post offices and post roads. I don't see how national parks are constitutional. All I know is only three federal crimes are listed in the Constitution, but can the federal government charge people with anything now because of the 14th? So that's a lot, guys. But you know, start with just roads and the highway system and does that, you know, tie back to post offices and post roads and the national parks? I don't think we've covered that one either.

Tim Barton

Well, and I would point out, looking back historically, that this was never viewed as the federal government's job until the more modern era. Dad, I think we've talked about it before I think it was Dwight Eisenhower who was the one that started doing a lot more roads.

David Barton

The interstate system it was for military purposes, because they recognized if we ever have opposing nations, enemy nations that attack us on one coast or the other, we need to have the ability to move military response right. Whether it be vehicles, gear, ammunition, whatever it is, we need to be able to move that to the places where it is needed. And so Dwight Eisenhower said we need interstates for this. This is really where the federal government got involved, to my understanding, on a much more larger extent, with even the idea of having roads, because there is even some debate in the Constitution about whether the role of the government for postal roads was just to upkeep the roads that were there or create new roads in general.

David Barton

But I will say you also had what was called the National Highway. It was started under John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe. They all built these national highways trying to connect the states with each other, provide Monroe. They all built these national highways trying to connect the states with each other, provide transportation, and so they had national highways back then. So there was some understanding of the federal government getting involved in helping connect transportation across the various states.

Tim Barton

 Just maybe not to the extent of what it's become today, and maybe more.The modern thought of this was from the Dwight Eisenhower move. So I mean, guys, I see we're out of time, we need to stop now, but certainly more we can talk about this. Nonetheless, I would say this is one of many areas we've seen the growth of government go beyond probably what the original intent was.

Rick Green

Well, they say, leave them wanting more, right guys? So there is a lot more to cover on these topics. Make sure you pay attention on the Foundations of Freedom Thursdays every week, and we have questions like this to cover. And then, of course, dive in to the Constitution classes. You can get those at wallbuilders.com and maybe even host one. Become a coach and host a biblical citizenship in Modern America class right there in your home, and you can dive into all of these questions. Thanks so much for listening today, Thanks to the teachers who got the training and sent in the questions. You've been listening to the WallBuilder Show.