Rick Green [00:00:08] You found your way to the intersection of faith and culture. You found it on a Thursday. It's The WallBuilders Show, and we're doing Foundations of Freedom Thursday. I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution coach with David and Tim Barton. We're taking on those hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. And you can drive the conversation. Send that question to radio@wallbuilders.com that's radio@wallbuilders.com We'll get to as many as we can. And gentlemen, our first question of the day is a constitutional question comes from John. He said in Article one of the Constitution, it says Congress shall have the power to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal and make rules concerning captures on land and water. I'm curious if and for what Congress had granted or has granted letters of marque and reprisal. And that's from John. John, thanks for sending that in. Always good to see people diving into the details of the Constitution and some of the more random things that that we rarely talk about. I think we covered this one very quickly in Constitution alive. But I don't know that we've talked about it on air in a long, long time. So. Marque and reprisal, guys. 

David Barton [00:01:12] Well, this is a fun one. If you were to go through the man on the street interview and just stop people and say, hey, what does the Constitution mean by marque and reprisal, I wonder if one out of 100 would get that. I think people would even recognize what that is. 

Rick Green [00:01:27] No, not at all. They would wonder if that means reprisal. Is that like a tariff going back against another country that gave us a tariff. But this is a military mark and reprisal. This is this is essentially could be a hit even and know we have federal laws that say we can't do that. But the Constitution doesn't say you can't do that. 

David Barton [00:01:44] Yeah, it's it's really a pretty simple thing because this this all was really big and it goes back to the age of sale. I mean, the phrase marque and reprisal actually goes back to the year 1295. So this is a historical phrase that's been around for a long time. And if you if you consider the fact that back at the time this stuff was going on, you know, the great militaries were all navies there. Spain had a Navy, the Spanish Armada, and the English had a Navy and the French had a Navy and the Dutch had a Navy. And and so all these people have navies. And, you know, America doesn't really have a Navy. We've got a bunch of commercial ships but don't have navies. And so we get involved in all sorts of of naval battles as a young nation. When the American Revolution starts, we don't have a Navy and we of use some private ships and we get up to four ships, we actually get up to eight ships as the American Navy and the American Revolution. So there's not much there. And then we get into the quasi war with France where that France is attacking us and their navy is just all over America and blockade in our shores and going into our ports. And and so we don't have a way to fight back because we don't have a Navy, because the founding fathers don't believe in and the Constitution does not permit a standing military. We only have temporary militaries. And so this was a way that you could recruit the private sector to come in and help the government. And so a letter of marque and reprisal is the government simply saying, hey, we need you to take your ship and be part of our Navy and anything you capture or conquer, you get to get up. You get to keep a part of that. So if you go out and knock off a British warship, then you can take the the loot and the beauty of that and you can keep that. We just need some ships out fighting the French or the Dutch or whoever happened to be. And so the letter of marque reprisal is simply the government authorizing you to have government approval to be part of the military force. Now, the difference between being a pirate and going in and stealing stuff off ships and doing it legally is a letter of marque and reprisal. The government simply says, Hey, you can be a pirate, but you can be a pirate for us. So go take out their ships, get whatever you can find. You get to keep it. That's your incentive for doing this. Your ship may get damaged. You're going to need to rebuild if you do. So here's what you get. So this is just part of the citizen military, the citizen militia. And this is really kind of how we did it on the on the sea. And it's it's just a neat part of history. We don't think of it much anymore, but we could still do this today. But I don't know what private ship would compare with the American aircraft carrier or battleship or cruise or anything else. So this is kind of fallen into disuse, but it is a great indication of how the government did not have that that permanent standing military. And they relied on the citizens and citizen militia to come in and defend. And that explains a whole lot more to about the Second Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms, which include your ships and the government can authorize you to be part of their navy in that sense. And by the way, if I can point out, I've been kind of focused on something this last week. We're working with some legislators on a bill about teaching civics and government in schools again, that used to be the way we did stuff for decades and even centuries, and we got away from that under progress and with the social studies. And one of the things you find today is that most American. Is really don't know the Constitution. We don't study it in school. We don't spend much time on it. And it is such a unique and remarkable document. And so let me just kind of throw out some stats on how easy it is to know the Constitution And people I talk to people all the time said, I don't understand the Constitution. I don't know that stuff. I just I don't get it. Well, it starts with reading it. And so just by by way of perspective, the American Constitution can in all 27 amendments is about 7800 words long. Now, according to studies, the average American, if you're reading a nonfiction book, like if you're reading the Constitution, you read about 240 words a minute. So you can basically read the Constitution in 20 minutes. And if you want to read all the amendments, it takes another 11 or 12 minutes. So you're looking roughly at about 32 minutes to cover the entire Constitution from top to bottom. That's just not that hard to document. And to say that after 12 years of school, our kids don't understand a 32 minute document, that that's unacceptable to have that perspective. 

Tim Barton [00:06:17] Well dad, I would just I would counter that it probably would take far longer than just reading it, because there's a lot of language that people would not know. What it was is it's, for example, like the first time I read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. I had to read the same page 3 or 4 times as I'm processing. Like, what is he saying right now? And by the way, I love Mere Christianity. The book, it's one I try to go through every year or two, just as a reminder, as a refresher. And this was when I was in high school. Nonetheless, I think it's a similar thought when you go through the U.S. Constitution. It's not just reading it. There's language and terminology when you sort of process it. It really can take you several hours to go through it. But with that being said, that's a couple hours to go through the U.S. Constitution, and it only takes you a couple of hours the first couple of times, not dissimilar from when you read the Bible the first time and you're going through reading Genesis excess, Leviticus numbers, Deuteronomy wherever you are, you author Matthew Mark, Luke, John Romans. Wherever you start, you're reading through. The first time is going to take you a little bit longer if you're trying to understand what you're reading. But the more you read it, the more you process it, the more familiar you become with it, the easier it is to read and understand what you are reading. Dad, your point. It's not that complicated of a document. It's not that hard of a document, even though the language might be unfamiliar. There are so many great resources out there now that there's really not a great excuse for so many Americans to be ignorant of such a foundational, important document that if if you were to ask the average American, do you consider yourself an educated person, the average American would say, yes, I would consider myself an educated person. But most Americans are not familiar with the Bible or the Constitution. Two of the most foundational documents to America. And it really is a reflection of how poor our education system is, but also then maybe of of our lack of intentionality, our lack of motivation or lack of priorities that we as individuals haven't taken time to read more of the Bible, to study the constitutional a bit more, to understand that foundational thing that helps us as individuals be the best Americans we can be and understand the way our government is supposed to work. 

David Barton [00:08:47] And when you set out and read it and you know it's on paper, takes you 32 minutes, you are going to hit phrases like letters of marque and reprisal. And just as John did you say, hey, what in the world is that? And you look it up and that's where you get a level of knowledge. You start understanding some more intent and things that go with it. And what's really unique about it is for immigrants to come to America. They have to master the Constitution. And as fundamentals, they have to take a test on the Constitution. And right now, for immigrants that come to America, it takes them just a few months to go through that whole course. And so that's a part time for them because they got jobs or whatever else. It's after hours usually in the evenings. And so the average immigrant, 96% of average immigrants can pass our Constitution test. What we have right now is 17 states currently give the immigration test to their high school seniors, and only 3% of American seniors can pass the immigration test. So that document's easy enough that immigrants learned it a lot faster than Americans do, because we really, as you said, we don't put the time. It is like the Bible. We're surrounded with it. We talk about it. We know we're Bible Nation. We just don't read it or look into it. And so when you look at what a what that constitution is produced with phraseology like letters of marque and reprisal, just by way of comparison, let me let me point out a couple of other stats that go with this. Take, for example, other nations with their constitutions or by the way, there's considered 143 republics in the world. So there's a lot of constitutions. And if you take a nation like India. Our Constitution. 7800 words long. India's constitution is 146,000 words law. So imagine that's 19 times longer than our Constitution. Brazil, Their constitution is 64,000 words. Mexico, 57,000 words. South Africa's constitution, 43,000 words. We have one of the shortest constitutions in the world. America's Constitution, 7800 words, one of the shortest in the world. And look at what is produced. I mean, that is a document worth knowing and worth studying because we're not like other nations. And really, we don't want to become like other nations, at least, if you will, want stability and prosperity. So just a fun little thing on phrases like Mark and reprisal. Spend some time to get into the Constitution, take a few minutes to study, even five minutes a day, go through an amendment, go through an article, go through something and ask yourself a few questions out of it's a great way to self grow. And that's what we need as citizens is more more folks who understand the basics. 

Rick Green [00:11:33] Yeah, I think the only thing I would add, guys is not add. Just repeat. Both of you said it. You know, this is such an important document. It's one thing to to have a, you know, a document or a book or whatever that we think people should study and should, you know, enough time should be spent on it in schools that kids understand it and they don't do it. It's another thing for it to be the document for the country that that is I mean, it's the purpose of education is to teach them how to be good citizens and and so vitally important that we do a better job of this. For sure. For sure. For sure. Okay. Next question is is mostly unrelated to that one. But but it's still, you know, what does the law require in a country? And this guy actually, I never heard this before. He said he said hello still love lot your show. It seems to me that somewhere I heard that divorce had to be granted by Congress years ago. Is that true? Thanks, Scott. Interesting question, guys. I've never heard that before. 

David Barton [00:12:27] Yeah, it's an interesting question. And the answer is not Congress, but state legislatures. State legislatures. And by the way, if you want to go online today and ask, pull up an image of what's called a bill of divorce. But when the divorce occurs, they give you a bill, divorce. But why is they called a bill of divorce? But because up until about the middle 1900s, it took an act of the legislature to get a divorce. It literally took a bill going through the legislature. You had to get the state's permission to get a divorce. And why would that be? Well, one is because we were a very biblical nation. But another was from that perspective of of the institutions that God created, we know that God created the family. He created the government, He created the church. But the first institution he created was that a family was not government first. It was family first. And so the belief always was that if you have a strong family, you can have a strong nation. And the strength of the nation is based on how strong the family is. And so what they did legislatively was they made it very difficult to break up a family. You wanted to preserve a family. And sometimes you're going to hit tough, hard spots on a family and you need to try to work through them and not not just escape and run from them. And that's why you could get a divorce. But you really had to have pretty good reasons for doing so. And that's why in the Bible, there's only about half a dozen reasons that are given for divorce in the Bible and Jesus in Luke 19, when he was talking with the disciples, talked about how that, you know, Moses, because of the hardness of your heart, he allowed you to have no fault divorce, he said, But it was not that way from God. And he went through and he talked about how that God did not want divorce. The Bible Malachi actually says God hates divorce, and it's because of the damage it does to the individuals entered the children. And and God wanted that strong family unit because that's what makes a strong nation. So there were bills of divorcement, and that was up until the time really of no fault divorce, which came in 1968. There about first no fault divorce law in America. And that was part of the practice. It was not a bill endorsement. 

Rick Green [00:14:36] You know, and some people might say, well, I shouldn't need the government's permission, but you just gave the reason, David, And that is that, you know, strong families make strong cultures, weak families make weak cultures. There is a you know, there's a role for the state to play in defining what what marriage means. 

Tim Barton [00:14:51] Well, guys, I didn't want to distract from the important part of this conversation. But if someone goes to look up Bill of divorcement type in Bill of divorce documents, because as you were talking and I typed it in the number one hit for Bill of Divorcement, Mitt is a movie from 1932. 

David Barton [00:15:11] Wow. 

Tim Barton [00:15:12] Which is actually the debut film debut for Katharine Hepburn. And it actually, I don't need to get into the history of the movie in the show because then I was like rabid trailing as you were talking about, probably more profound things. And I'm like, There's a movie, 1932, Katharine Hepburn, and there's the remake in 1940. So I had to put in Bill of Divorce Document to actually go to the document to see what you were referencing, the fact that was a bill and what that meant. So for anybody who's doing the search, don't just put in Bill of divorce or you're going to find the movie and that's going to be confusing and not give you the image you're looking for. Bill of Divorce document. Just for those wondering, although if you want to see that the film debut of Katharine Hepburn 1932, a bill of divorce meant there it is. So just, you know, tidbits of information along the way. 

Rick Green [00:16:04] All right, guys, quick break. We've got more questions from the audience when we return. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:17:17] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. It's good news. No, it's not good news for I.T. guys. I'm already trying to have good news when we're still on Foundations of Freedom Thursday. So I'm jumping ahead to to the next day before we're even there. But you know the answers to the foundations of Freedom Thursday Questions are usually good news. So here we go. Next one is also about the Constitution. This one's from Sheila. She said David Barton's always referring to the 17 enumerated powers, the federal government. But when I look in my Constitution made easy Article one, Section eight mine shows 18 enumerated powers. So which one is David speaking of or which two is he combining into one? Just curious. Thanks, Sheila. Thanks for sending that in. I'm probably the culprit on this one, guys, because I do think Constitution Made Easy has 18 different paragraphs, but it really is 17 categorical, enumerated powers that we broke down years ago when we did the class. And and that breakdown is in our constitutional class. But David, you you know, you've said this many times different people number on a different way and sometimes they combine them and all of that. We've always said 17 because of the categories that we that we, you know, went through and and saw there. But you may have a different answer today about which one or how detailed you want to go on to go from. 

David Barton [00:18:27] Yeah, what we did was for our state legislators, we actually produced a paper going through the state powers because we're asking the state legislators to start pushing back against the federal government. And what the judges that that we got in about to was a 235 or 40 judges. We got in under President Trump. They have started giving the 10th Amendment back to the states, allowing the states to do more and more. For example, we've seen recently that as Biden refuses to do anything with immigration, states have stepped in. And ten years ago the federal government saying, hey, states, you can't do it. If the federal government won't do it, you can't do it. Well, now they're saying the states have happened authority to uphold federal law if the federal government refuses to uphold federal law. States can do that and the states can do immigration. The states can do all sorts of other stuff. Immigration measures. Now, they can't do immigration. They do immigration measures. And so within that framework and showing the legislators that, look, the only thing that the federal government has the constitutional authority to do is what are enumerated in in the Constitution. And outside of that, everything else belongs to the states. And that's what the ninth and the 10th Amendments to the Constitution say. If it's not enumerated, one of those specific powers, states get to do it. So in doing that, we went through Article one, which is where it tells you what Congress and the federal government can do. And Article one has actually 1616 powers listed or if you want to, 16 powers and 15 clauses. And so there's there's 15 clauses there. And Article two with Commander in chief doesn't give you any more powers. It just gives them the authority to execute those first 15 or 16 powers. And then when you get to the 13th and 14th Amendment, then you get two more two more enumerated powers for Congress, the authority to end slavery. That's a power given to Congress. So that would be one of the enumerated powers that comes with the 13th and 14th Amendment. But going back to it, as you go through the clauses in the Constitution, say things like this, that the Congress is to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states. So you say, okay, that's the numerator power Congress is to protect the free enterprise system that happens. The Constitution says Congress shall establish uniform rule of naturalization. Okay. That's a numerated power. That's where Congress can set up a national a federal standard for immigration, etc.. Well, the one that that actually results and whether there are 17 or 18 enumerated powers is actually the part of the Constitution. And here's why. But I put one power because it's one clause, but it has two things in that clause. The Constitution says the Congress has the power to coin money, regulate the value thereof and a foreign coin and fix the standard of weights and measures. So I say, okay, that's that's there. But the same clause says, and to provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States. So one says they can coin money and the other says they can punish counterfeiting. Well, I combine those into one because that's part of the same clause of the Constitution. So that's where I guess 17 that's where some people get 18. And it's just it's how you break it down. But it's all the wording of the Constitution. And I guess if you wanted to break it down and take all the sub clauses, you could probably come up with 30 or 35 clauses and sub clauses. But when you put it together by topics, that's where we get either 17 or 18 and that's why I have 17. When others have 18 is I just take the whole clause and not break it down into segments, if that makes sense. Right. That makes sense to you? 

Rick Green [00:22:03] Yeah, totally. And in fact, I think that's pretty real close to how we describe it in in in constitutional alive and in. It's you know, the important thing is, of course, that we get that habit, as you're saying, get get back to that place where people actually go to the list. They read through the list. State legislators need to start going through and saying, wait a minute, why are why is the federal government doing these things that aren't listed? And certainly congressmen, as we teach them at Patrick Academy, any time you're in office, the first question should be, do I have authority? And David, you explain that. Well, a constitutional line for people to get that mindset. And the good news is we've had members of Congress actually call and say, okay, I'm implementing exactly what you all taught me. And I'm trying to think through this, help me think through this process of whether or not I have authority and whether or not it fit. So really, really good stuff there. I love that question. My guys will get one more in before we close out the day. This one is from Kate. She said in Washington. Good morning, gentlemen, in Washington. We have had decades of increasingly liberal, socialist happy leaders who pass laws or regulations that are huge infringements on our rights and liberties. And then we have to vote to rescind those provisions. These are often passed with as little notice and information as possible, and they are often passed at midnight votes. When did this order of operations switch? Meaning instead of getting support and passing these, we the people have to work to rescind or prevent such orders. What did the founders think about or intend for these situations? I understand as a constitutionalist in the liberal lunacy that is Washington, I may be in a minority of those not liking or wanting some of these laws passed, but not always. And she talks about ban on gas stoves. And that's where stuff she said. Thank you. Love the podcast. And I guess I think really what she's saying is, you know, isn't the order supposed to be that the people say they want something and so the legislature goes and does it? And whereas in this case, you got out of control legislature passing things the people don't want, the people have to go redo it, though I would argue, sorry, Kate, the people of Washington put those people in office so they must want the loony stuff that you're getting. Unfortunately, too many of them want it. Go ahead, guys. 

David Barton [00:24:00] Kate asked, what would the founding fathers like? And the answer is the founding fathers did this very stuff when when John Adams lost the presidential election to Thomas Jefferson, right at the last they passed what was called the midnight judges bill. They said, you know, Jefferson's about to have judiciary. We need to stack it up with a bunch of federal judges, not let Anti-Federalist Jefferson have his way. And so there in a matter of hours, the House and the Senate passed a bill authorizing nearly three dozen new judges. Adams signed the bill. And as and that night, they appointed those judges and tried to get their commissions to them. That's what led to the Supreme Court case, Marbury versus Madison, challenging their authority to do that. Jefferson came back in and he and anti-federalist repeal that law. They refused to give a lot of those positions. Judges. They gave some of them to them. So this is something that just happens when you have differing worldviews and different viewpoints. And it's a human factor. It's not necessarily a factor based on progress versus not progressives. It's just it's like federalist versus anti-federalist. It is a worldview type of situation and it is what is going to go on. And by the way, Biden's doing it right now, if you haven't noticed, he he's got, what, four weeks left and he's trying to put he's trying to hire 1200 new federal employees and the high positions in the federal government to keep DEA alive, knowing that Trump's going to try to step on that. So he's trying to get 1200 folks in now and get them part of the bureaucracy. So it's hard for Trump to get rid of it, you know, And what what's he also doing? I'm going to sell off all the remaining part of the wall so the Trump can't use that. The parts of the wall to build the wall. This stuff goes on all the time. And it's really a matter of worldview, conflict and what had happened. You just got to get different leaders and they've got to go in and fight through this stuff. But this is just human nature. This is what has been since the time of the founding fathers. 

Rick Green [00:25:55] Yeah. You know, David, as we're closing out here, I'm thinking about the 20th Amendment was supposed to shrink that lame duck Congress, which it did, you know, kind of broke it, got it down from like six months down to a couple of months. I'm actually for shrinking that down to about two weeks or we passed because remember, that says Congress doesn't get to meet during the lame duck part. You know, after the election's over, they don't need to meet until January. The Texas legislature doesn't meet until the new legislature comes in. The president needs to do an executive order. They can still, you know, execute the law. So Biden would probably get away with some of those things that he's still doing, but the Congress would need to meet unless there was some kind of emergency anyways, just a random idea. I was thinking through another constitutional amendment I'd like to see. Okay. We had fun, guys. That was great. Thank you for all the good questions. Everybody send them in to radio@wallbuilders.com and we'll try to get to more of those next week. You've been listening to the WallBuilders Show