Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. Thanks for joining us on The WallBuilders Show today. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. Websites, wallbuilders.com, and also wallbuilders.show. And of course, always taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. Later in the program, our friend Professor Mark David Hall will be with us. We're gonna be talking about Abraham Lincoln. Got a great question from the audience, it’s going to feel a little bit like a of Freedom Thursday, but it's been a while, guys. It's been a while since we rank the presidents and compared our list. So if we're going to talk about Lincoln, we might as well just at least throw out our top five presidents because my list has changed in the last 15 months. 

Tim Barton [00:00:49] That's interesting. Does that mean president Trump is moved from two to one or one to two? What's changed for you there, Rick? 

Rick Green [00:00:57] He definitely didn't go down on the list. He just keeps going up on the list, keeps going up on a list. Even past Calvin Coolidge, you know, I mean, as much as I love Coolidge very constitutional and, did not centralize power and did not, you know, do things that were anti- constitutional and reverse so many of those horrible executive orders, from previous presidents. But Trump just seems to get the job done. And I don't know. All right. I'm going to propose the list, you guys. In a different way than I've ever done it before. I usually just say, what's your top five presidents? But what we do when we say that is we think only of, of the man and, and their whole life and what they did. So we always list Washington because you know, he's the indispensable man of the Revolution. All of the things he did even prior to being president. And it's not really just based on what he did as president. So I'm going to ask you guys for top five, as president. So in four years or eight years. I don't think FDR is going to be in the top five. So I don't even have to say whatever it was he ended up with 13 or 14 years. I can't remember when he died in his fourth term, but, but whatever their term was, ranked in what they did, what they had to face as president. And then what they did as president, maybe we should just go top three. I don't know up to you guys. If you're only thinking president, does that change your list? 

David Barton [00:02:15] I'm going to give you a thought, an analysis kind of thought. If I were to choose my five top presidents, it's probably not the five most important presidents, if that makes sense. I think there's a difference. Because I think you have to have Washington because we don't exist without Washington. But what I've noticed is about every 80 years, we go through a huge national crisis that determines whether we're going to continue to exist as a nation or not. So if you take Washington, all right, let's say that. You know, the 1780s, 1790s and go 80 years. Now we're at the 1860s, 1850s, 1860, I think Lincoln saved the nation. I think it easily could have gone in a bad direction. I think, Lincoln saved the nation if you go another 80 years, now we're looking at the 1940s. And I think FDR saved the nation, especially as a Democrat. The Republicans, Democrats, neither one were pro-military to any great degree at that point in time. And the fact that he was willing as a Democrat to mobilize the military; to turn out a tank every 55 minutes and a Liberty Ship every four days and to commit the resources he did. His social programs for me are way too big, but what he did to save the nation I think is big. 

Tim Barton [00:03:36] Hey Dad, hang on. Let me, let me ask a clarifying question on that. Was that something that FDR was advocating or, because I haven't looked into this enough. I, I don't know. Was there somebody on his staff that was saying, sir, we have to do this. Obviously if the president's the one making the decision, they're the one that takes the blame or they get the credit. But I'm just curious who would it have been around him? Right. Is it people that had been background military, you know, guys from the World War I, was it a Pershing, you, know, a Patton an Eisenhower? Who would have been the guys saying, we have to get on this? Let's go. Well, I just, I'm curious the voices around him, cause he doesn't strike me as being this really huge pro military guy or having a military background. Which is again, wide open question, makes me curious if there was somebody on his staff administration, military background, that had some foresight, understanding? I don't know how that unfolds. And I'm sure now there's gonna be a lot of listeners recommending books for me to go do the research and find. That's awesome. But yeah, do you know who was around him in that moment? 

David Barton [00:04:47] No, I can tell you that there was a bunch of staff around him that really got it. Because you have Hitler starting to do stuff back in the 30s in 1935 etc. And his staff started saying sir this could be a big issue this could reach all the way to America. And so as Hitler starts moving across Europe they start saying we've got to get a military going. And so they start mobilizing for the military in the late 1930s well before we get into the war. So It still took us a year after the after we got hit at Pearl Harbor before we could send troops. But we were so far down the road and I've been intrigued with how well he did on intelligence, how they were intercepting Japanese messages three or four years before we got hit at Pearl Harbor. It's just fascinating. So I look at him and say he did a lot of wise stuff. He was surrounded with wise people and I think he made wise decisions. He takes, really, Eisenhower, who's a colonel at the start of the war, and he's a five star general by the end of the war. He saw an Eisenhower and he kept promoting Eisenhower. So I really am impressed with what he did in that war situation. And then you go another 80 years or so and here we are today and Trump. And I think Trump is putting the nation back together. Had the progressives continued with another term, I don't think we would be looking at what we're looking at right now. If we were continuing from Biden over these last two years, I think we wouldn't hardly be here anymore. So those are the ones I think are the five most important people when you look at them. All right, that's four. Good point, Tim, that is four

Tim Barton [00:06:21] I mean, I'm not great at math, but I'm pretty good at counting to five, that was four. 

David Barton [00:06:26] The one that I didn't put in there that I should have put in there is is akin to FDR and that's Eisenhower. Because what Eisenhower did in that post-war time to get ready for the Cold War and communism that he saw coming. He prepared us for communism and the rise of communism when it was not yet a big force. And he saw it coming and so I think he's the fifth guy. I think those are the five most important presidents we've had. 

Tim Barton [00:06:51] Now I know we have to, Mark is waiting to talk to us. And I know, we have, to get to Mark. I just find it interesting. I just looked this up. I was trying to remember where Eisenhower was when World War II unfolds. And Dad, I don't know if you remember where he was. He was somebody's assistant advisor.... 

David Barton [00:07:09] Yeah. 

Tim Barton [00:07:10] In the Philippines, he was the advisor to General Douglas MacArthur. 

David Barton [00:07:15] Yeah. 

Tim Barton [00:07:16] And then he is elevated beyond, anyway, it's. 

Rick Green [00:07:19] Wow. 

David Barton [00:07:21] And the bill on that Tim, MacArthur had retired and it was it was FDR who brought him out of retirement said no, no you're not retiring. I'm calling you back to service, we need you in the Pacific. And that's the kind of decisions I see from Eisenhower that tells me you know social programs aside he was a great guy in helping save the nation. 

Tim Barton [00:07:40] Okay. Well, we're circling back because I, again, Mark's waiting to talk to us. One of the reasons that it's important, Rick, as you've set up this question, Lincoln is, is pretty much always going to be in our top five because of, of how he was able to hold the union together. Now, with that being said, depending on what state you go to in the current union, there's a lot of people that have a lot of feels about Abraham Lincoln. That maybe he was a tyrant dictator. Right? I mean, honestly, it's not all that different than if you go to a Democrat state and talk to a liberal today about President Trump, and they're like, he's a fascist, and you're like you're crazy. That's not what he's doing. There's still some divided thoughts and sentiments on Abraham Lincoln. And that I think is part of why we wanted to get Mark Hall on to get an update from him on lots of things. But also, let's let him have a jump. Into answering this question. And then let's just critique him. That's going to be way more fun. Let's let him give an answer

Rick Green [00:08:41] Well, I gave up my right to give a list because the one guy I said we wouldn't have on a list is the first guy David talks about, FDR. So I clearly bombed the question from the very beginning. No, this would be great. Let's get Mark David Hall and we'll talk about the linking question from the audience and then we'll comment on that one when we finish the interview. So stay with us, folks. Mark David Hall our special guests when we come back from the break, you're listening to The WallBuilders Show.

Rick Green [00:10:10] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Dr. Mark David Hall back with us, professor of politics at the Robertson School of Government, Regent University and great friend to the WallBuilders program. Hey, thanks for coming on brother. 

Dr. Mark David Hall [00:10:22] Thanks so much for having me. 

Rick Green [00:10:23] Hey, we got a great question on Abraham Lincoln, but first of all, congrats on the White House video that went viral. You did such a great job in that! What a great summation and so many people impacted by that. Enjoyed it. 

Dr. Mark David Hall [00:10:36] Thank you. Yeah, I was honored to do it. And of course, the topic was the Faith of the Founders. All the videos are good, but I'm glad the White House chose to emphasize that many of the Founders were good, godly, orthodox Christians who looked to the Bible and the Christian political tradition as they broke from Great Britain and created our constitutional order. So yeah, it was a real honor. Thank you. 

Rick Green [00:10:57] It was, it was good. Well done and, and, concise and, and just glad to see so many people watch that and get that, get that education. Well, let's, let' jump in. Here's, here's what the listener wrote in. I have a friend who believes a lot of conspiracy surrounding Abraham Lincoln, that he was a dictator and suppressed free speech, et cetera. I was curious if you know of any good material on Lincoln that I can read that would help me better defend him. I wanted to also hear what y'all had to say on the subject. And of course, you know, in the David Tim. David and Tim Barton and Rick Green conversation. It was, wow, we need Mark David Hall on this one. So, so what are your thoughts, man? 

Dr. Mark David Hall [00:11:31] Thank you. I would say pretty much anything written by Alan Guelzo, the great student of Abraham Lincoln in the Civil War, a fine historian now at the Hamilton Center down at the University of Florida. He has a great book, The Faith of Abraham Lincoln, that I think very accurately and fairly treats his faith and treat some of these claims that Lincoln was a dictator. Some of them have a kernel of truth. For instance, Abraham Lincoln basically abolished the writ of habeas corpus in Maryland. He's of course trying very, very difficult very hard to keep Maryland in the Union. Maryland and Virginia, of course surround Washington DC, Virginia has left the Union and if Maryland leaves the Union in Maryland of course was a slave state, we would be in a lot of trouble we being the North in this case being the free states and so he just simply abolished Writ of Habius Corpus so he could arrest troublemakers and keep the peace and keep Maryland and the Union. Now, that is constitutionally problematic because, of course, the U.S. Constitution says that Congress can abolish or pause the Writ Habeas Corpus, but not the Chief Executive. But there's sometimes in American history, I think, where political leaders or statesmen just need to act. A good example of this is Thomas Jefferson, when he had a chance to buy Louisiana from Brands. He was really worried that he did not have the constitutional authority to do so. He thought maybe we should amend the constitution so that we could buy Louisiana. But when push came to shove, it was such a good real estate bargain that he went ahead and did it. And thank goodness he did. 

Rick Green [00:13:04] Yeah, no kidding. So a lot of people thankful for that one today for sure. And just make sure I got the book, right? So this is Our Ancient Faith. That's the one by Alan?

Dr. Mark David Hall [00:13:15]  Well, so that may be a book by him. I'm thinking of the book called The Faith of Abraham Lincoln, unless I've mistaken the title. 

Rick Green [00:13:23] No, gotcha. Okay, good. And I was just looking up his website. Looks like all his books are there on AlanGuelzo.com. So check that out as well. Dr. Hall, there seems to be a turning point of interest in these subjects and I want to say it this way, the truth getting out. In other words, there's been so much revision over the last 50, 60 years and controlled so much by most educational institutions, the Smithsonian, we're even seeing exposés in the Smithsonian now. It just seems like there's a real turning point happening right now. I mean, you feel the same thing because you're out there on the front lines with so many of these debates. 

Dr. Mark David Hall [00:14:04] You know, sometimes there needs to be a revision, right? I think shortly after his presidency, Dwight D. Eisenhower was seen as a failed president, as someone who was used to being a good military general, but just couldn't handle being president, didn't know what he was up to. Historians have gone back and looked at that. Over the last 20, 30 years, they've revised the earlier take on Dwight Eisenhower and said, actually, he was an excellent president. He knew what he doing. He was... involved, and he was pursuing very important policies, such as checking the Soviets in very important ways. But the sort of revision you're talking about, I agree with. It's a problematic. When historians, especially progressive historians, 1619 types, which aren't even historians, right? They're journalists, want to tear down America's Founders, want a tear down a president like Abraham Lincoln. And I think some of that's just driven by progressive ideology, some of it's driven by Marxism, some of it is driven by an anti-American ideology. And yeah, it's very problematic. And so it's our job as writers of history to challenge this, to push back against it and say, no, wait a minute, let's be careful in these claims. So take the claim about Abraham Lincoln. I think it's fair to say that we don't want to hold Abraham Lincoln up as a saint. We can point to some of his actions. That are maybe problematic from a constitutional perspective, and we might be critical of those, but again, if we step back and look at an imbalance, a union is threatened, Washington DC is threatened. Something has to be done. I think, in my personal opinion, his actions are justifiable, even if constitutionally problematic. 

Rick Green [00:15:40] And even just taking the whole package. I mean, you know, he, he was faced with maybe the toughest presidency of all and in terms of what he had to deal with and, and to hold the union together, to get to the point that he did, to, you know, I I'm like you, I'm okay. Yeah, there's some areas that are, that are problematic, but I mean I'm me personally, I, I rank him number two and I'm all of my favorite, all my, not my favorite, my, all of the presidents in terms of their effectiveness and what they did to save the country and keep the country together in his case. So yeah, I mean, overall record, I don't know how we could say anything other than, wow, he accomplished a great presidency in my opinion. 

Dr. Mark David Hall [00:16:20] Periodically there are surveys taken of academic historians and political scientists and such, and we should take them with a grain of salt when it comes to recent presidents. So someone like Ronald Reagan, I think is one of the greatest presidents, but he's always ranked very, very low because I think many of the historians used to be anyway, grew up when he was president, they're progressives, they don't like him, and even more recent historians tend in that direction. So if you leave out the recent presidents from, let's say, Nixon on up. Historians always agree number one is either George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. Number two is the other. I mean, it's just consistent. Liberal historians, conservative historians, pretty much anyone except the Southern agrarians that are still kind of mad about the Civil War will rank Lincoln as either number one or number two. And I think that's a very fair ranking. 

Rick Green [00:17:10] Yeah, you know, it's funny you mentioned that though, because we, we get a lot of hate mail sometimes when we bring up this topic and we say positive things about Lincoln, because there are, there's definitely still people that hold on to, just, just the, the anger after reconstruction got passed down and they, and they still feel it very much. So, and in some ways I can understand, but you know if you step back and look at the whole thing, um I'm thankful, I'm grateful. And I think the faith part, um is an important part to remember about him as well. So good, so good. Catch us up on you. So you've been at Regent now for a few years. Tell us how things are going at Regent when Michelle Bachman, our friend, is there as well. And we always encourage people to keep Regent on their list of possible colleges to attend. We've had a lot of Patriot Academy kids go there and go through the law school there as well. But catch us on you and what's going on there at Regent. 

Dr. Mark David Hall [00:17:56] Thank you. Yeah, Regent is going a full bore. The law school is excellent. I'm not in the law school, but I know a lot of the law profs and they are great. And my opinion of Regent law was already high, but it's higher than it was. I'm in the Robertson School of Government of course. They brought me in because we started a new PhD program. I almost literally cannot think of a better place in the country you could go to study American history, especially the American Founding, religious liberty, church-state relations. And I'm just talking about myself. There are a number of good colleagues there that one could work with. As I said, we have a PhD program, we have an MA program, it's solid. The undergraduate college is growing; the honors program is remarkable. So yeah, highest, highest marks. I do have news for you. We just learned, I think it was just last week, that Dean Bachman is stepping away as Dean. She's going to focus on Israel in combating anti-Semitism in her public speaking, and she'll still be attempting to raise funds for Regent. So she'll be involved with Regent, I think she'll stay be a promoter of the Robertson School of Government, but she won't be my direct dean. And so essentially, we have basically an interim arrangement for this upcoming year and we'll see what they do with it in the future. If I can mention, Rick, one thing, I direct a study for First Liberty, the religious liberty advocacy group called Religious Liberty in the States. Just last week we released our 2026 findings and we have a new leader. Basically, we look at 50 distinct ways that states can choose to protect religious liberty or not. And Arkansas has shot to the top. Arkansas was about 25th in the nation three years ago and they've passed a series of laws that have now made them number one in the nation. They surpassed Florida, which was number one last year. 

Rick Green [00:19:40] Go Hogs Go. 

Dr. Mark David Hall [00:19:41] Yeah, no, it's great. It's fantastic. And Tennessee did wonderful as well. Florida's still up there, number three, I think. So, I would encourage your listeners to go to Religious Liberty in the States. The whole study is online, the study, all the data and whatnot, but in a very accessible form. So I would really encourage any of your listeners who are interested in Religious Liberty to go look at the study. 

Rick Green [00:20:03] I'm going to guess that for a state to move that much on the list in that short of a period of time, clearly the governor had to have a lot to do with that, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. We've got some great friends in the legislature there that were able to get some good things passed in the last couple of years. That's a lot of movement in three years, so there had to be good leadership to get them there. 

Dr. Mark David Hall [00:20:23] You know, that's exactly right. They passed a wonderful, back in 2015, a Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which is the most important thing a state could have. But then recently they passed a good medical conscience protection. And then they passed a wonderful bill that basically protects anyone who might be asked to participate in a wedding ceremony to which they have religious objections. So it protects clergy, it protects judges and other public officials, but very importantly, it protects individuals like bakers, and a florist, and musicians who might be asked to participate in a same-sex wedding ceremony and yet they have religious convictions, I'm thinking here of a Jack Phillips. So no longer now in the states of Mississippi and Arkansas can you have a situation where someone like a Jack Philips or an Aaron and Melissa Klein are basically persecuted out of business. I guess Jack Phillips is still in business, the Kleins aren't. So yeah, Arkansas is making some real important strides and you're exactly right, the government was at the center of this advancement. 

Rick Green [00:21:24] Well, Mark, I don't usually admit this to people, but I'm a Razorback myself. I was born in Little Rock. I got to Texas as quick as I could. I'm an American by birth and a Texan only by the grace of God. But anyway, that's great to hear about Arkansas. And Tennessee, just progress, right, in all of these states. Regent.edu, for those of you, as we were talking about the incredible university there. And also not only the right philosophy and foundations being taught there, an absolutely gorgeous campus and beautiful place to be there in Virginia as well. Dr. Mark David Hall, bless you brother, great having you on, let's get you back soon. 

Dr. Mark David Hall [00:21:56] Thank you very much, always a pleasure. 

Rick Green [00:21:58] Stay with us, folks. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barton. 

[00:23:07] Welcome back to The WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. Always great having Mark David Hall. Appreciate his time. Appreciate him coming on. And, of course, Tim, you said it right before the interview. I mean, Lincoln is, is, still controversial to this day. And of course, they, I mean we went to war with ourselves. I mean brother against brother. It was a, you know, horrific time. So whoever comes out on the winning side is going to be hated for generations, sometimes rightfully so sometimes not rightfully so. But to David's point earlier, you know, when you're holding the country together or you're foreseeing things that are gonna tear the country apart and finding ways to prevent that from happening, that's gotta get you on the list as we were talking about earlier. 

David Barton [00:23:45] Hey, you guys never did give your list, by the way. Who are your guys? 

Tim Barton [00:23:49] Well, hang on. 

Rick Green [00:23:50] Well, I said I lost my right to get my list because I gave one guy not to be on the list and he's the first guy you talked about. 

Tim Barton [00:23:57] Well, and I think we have to acknowledge guys, we only a couple minutes left. When, when people today, because I know there's some people listening going, how can somebody think Lincoln's a bad guy? And then there's other people listening, going, well, of course, Lincoln was a bad guy. One of the things that we acknowledge is as you study history, you realize there's a lot of moving parts in the midst of it. When people talk about the motivation behind a lot, what happened in the Civil War, and some people go, well it was clearly states rights and others go, it's clearly slavery. Well, there is a lot of clarity depending on who you talk to. Are you talking about the political leaders from the South? Because they were very clear it was the issue of slavery. But if you talk to some of the Confederate soldiers, they were literally just fighting because there were Union soldiers that were invading their states. And I'm saying this not as a criticism or defense by and large right now, but acknowledging when you have 3 million people involved in this thing, you're going to have 3,000,000 ideas and opinions. And a lot of times what you do as, as you study history, as you try to synthesize and at times you will be forced to generalize and say, here's what the majority of sentiment was, here is where it really was coming from. And again, we can look with clarity at some of the political leaders because many of them gave very noted, famous speeches. They had very clear writings. And when you read a lot of the writings of the Confederate leaders, they were incredibly clear, the number one reason they wanted to secede was the issue of slavery. So saying it's not that slavery wasn't part of this is totally wrong. But then arguing that Lincoln was totally justified and good in what he did. Well, well, we could acknowledge, right? Like we can look at president Trump and go, man, we love overall what he's doing, but we can acknowledge there's a couple of places where like, yeah, that probably wasn't the best thing, but we would not conclude that president Trump is therefore a bad leader. And I say all this acknowledging there's some nuance in this. And I appreciate that Mark David Hall had to answer most of that question and navigate. I'm grateful that we have friends like that. They can come on and they'll take some of those bullets for us. Not that we're scared to, we take bullets all the time. But dad, I do think we need to come back. Maybe, maybe later this week, let's come back and let's, let dive into maybe, some of our, our noted presidents and Rick, I appreciate what you said, for what they did while president, not for who they were as a person, because that might change the list just a little bit. 

Rick Green [00:26:25] Yeah, that'll be, well, the listeners will get to think about it. They'll get to, they'll get the way in maybe themselves. Maybe we'll get some questions for Foundations of Freedom Thursday of what do you think of this particular president and, and what they did? And who's done more than president Trump? I bet somebody sends that in that that one's going to happen for sure. So anyway, fun show today. Thank you for listening. You've been listening to the WallBuilders Show.