California, Can They Secede From The United States: It’s Foundations of Freedom Thursday, a special day of the week where we get to answer questions from you, the listeners! Always answering your questions from constitutional principles! Tune in today as we answer your questions such as can California secede from the United States, was President Lincoln a homosexual, how to ask good questions, and so much more, right here on WallBuilders Live! Â
Air Date:Â 09/14/2017
Guests: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton
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Transcription note: Â As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Â However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.
Faith And The Culture
Intro:
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:
You found your way to the intersection of faith and the culture, this is WallBuilders Live, thanks for joining us today! We”re talking about today”s hottest topics on policy, faith, and the culture, all of it from a Biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective.
We’re here with David Barton, America’s premier historian and the founder of WallBuilders. Also, Tim Barton, national speaker, pastor, and president of WallBuilders. And my name is Rick Green, I’m a former Texas state rep, national speaker, and author.
Today is Foundations of Freedom Thursday, it’s the one day a week where we really focusing on your questions and diving into some of these issues regarding the Constitution or policy issues and looking at it from that perspective of the Constitution and the Founding Fathers.
You can actually send in your questions to [email protected], that’s  [email protected]. Hopefully, we can get to them on one of our Thursday programs. We have quite a few questions today, we’re going to try to get to as many as we possibly can.
You can find out more at our websites today at WallBuilders.com and also WallBuildersLive.com. And by the way, at WallBuildersLive.com we have an archives section. If you hit that button on the archive you can go back and pick up some of these other Thursday programs where we’re answering questions and diving into these issues. So, David, Tim, you guys ready? I”ll tee up our first question if you’re ready?
David:
You bet, go for it.
Was President Lincoln A Homosexual
Rick:
Alright, this one comes from Tom in Washington, “I keep hearing that President Lincoln was homosexual. I’m sure you have heard this often also. Is any of this true, or is this just history revisionism, and where do they get this information? Thanks for all you guys do.”
We do get a lot of questions about either the Founding Fathers and their era or other great Americans throughout our history where this, David, you call it deconstruction, where we try to tear down our heroes or change who they were in order to fit someone’s political agenda today. So this is a common question, this whole Lincoln “was he a homosexual” question, what have you guys found in your research?
David:
Let me just take you through some logic for a little bit. Is homosexuality a widely accepted today in America?
Tim:
Yes.
Rick:
Yeah, I would say it”s actually popular.
David:
Was homosexuality widely accepted in the days of Abraham Lincoln?
Rick:
No.
Tim:
Exactly the opposite, right?
David:
So, if he was known to be a homosexual is that something we’ve just discovered in this generation where it’s acceptable or would it not have been brought out in his own generation as a debilitating thing against him?
Tim:
“Well, no, he couldn’t bring it up at that time because it wasn’t accepted. That’s why he had to stay in the closet. But now we’re finding evidence that reveals what he always was that he never could say because people couldn”t know or they wouldn’t accept him. And the only reason he was accepted because nobody knew. But now we know and that’s how we know.”
David:
Since Lincoln has absolutely not written anything new since 1865-
Tim:
That you know of.
David:
Yeah, that’s true, nothing that I know of. Â I’m wondering where they’re getting their new facts, because all they have to go on is historical evidence from back at that point in time.
Rick:
So, where’s the secret letter that is supposedly used as evidence that he was? I’ve never seen one.
Tim:
Here’s the problem, you both use the word “evidence.” And here’s the underlying problem, so often we have to combat claims from people that don’t have the evidence, or sometimes it’s taken out of context, sometimes it’s misused. But in this case, there literally is no evidence.
I’ve seen people make this argument with the “evidence” they want to present, is that there’s evidence that Lincoln had slept in a bed with other men in a hotel room. Well, if that’s your evidence-
David:
Let’s talk about that for a minute. So in the 1840s through 60s when Lincoln was alive and professional. Would that have been an uncommon thing for men to sleep with men in a bed in a hotel room?
David:
This is the point, what’s the context? Because you’re right, at that time this was not an unusual thing because you could rent the entire room. But if there’s a big event going on and there are lots of people in town you didn’t rent the entire room, you rented space in the room and you would take a portion of the bed-
David:
A portion of that- you didn’t rent the bed, you didn’t rent the room, you rented a portion of the bed.
Tim:
And they would tell you at checking, “Hey, you’re going to have to share this bed with two or three other people.” Or whatever it was, and if you agreed to it then ok, you throw your money on the counter and they say, “Well, you’re in this room and you go try to find room in the bed where you don’t get shoved off.”
But you literally were renting space in a bed. It’s if your evidence is, “Well, he slept in a bed when there were other men in the bed sleeping.” If that’s your proof he was homosexual, that’s a very weak argument. That would be shredded in any courtroom by any decent lawyer because-
David:
Well, that means that everybody, 99.9% of people who went west in the gold rush, that they were all homosexuals to because they were so undersupplied out in the West when the gold rush hit, everybody bought space in a bed. They didn’t buy their own bed or their own room. That meant that only homosexuals were going west in the Gold Rush.
Tim:
Well, that’s like saying if you go camping today and you slept in a tent with another man, “Oh my gosh.”
David:
“That’s why the boy scouts changed, that’s why they changed their policy.”
Tim:
This is kind of the equivalent argument. It doesn’t make any sense, right? No, that’s not what happened to the boy scout, well, probably not. No, that”s not what happened to them.
But it’s the same thought with Lincoln, we’re jumping to conclusions that don’t match up with the context of history. And, that’s not actually really evidence that you can point to. But we are trying to make history say something it doesn’t say. Again, with the lack of evidence.
David:
Let’s use that standard for a minute and think. And by the way, this is what they base it on, they said that Lincoln slept in bed with other men, therefore he was homosexual. If that is your standard, who else in history could you call homosexual?
Tim:
Every man that’s ever lived. By the way, I grew up sleeping in a hotel room that I had to share a bed with my brother. So I think probably every family that’s ever gone on vacation and their kids that is share a bed, are you going to label them homosexual?
Rick:
Or even business. People go on business trips all the time and can’t afford to get two different rooms, you”ve got to- sales guys, you bunk up so that you can afford to go. I mean, it’s crazy what they’re basing this on.
David:
But notice how that once it”s said, it gets repeated. Tom heard it and that’s what Tom’s asking us. Simple answer to this, easy way to debunk it. But right now, we’re at that point in time with that this is the kind of stuff that gets circulation and gets spread around and becomes part of what people believe about Abraham Lincoln.
Tim:
Let me point out, this is where anytime we hear these claims we have to learn to start asking the right questions. And by the way, we appreciate that people ask us and they want to know what is true, what do you think, that’s great.
How To Ask Good Questions
But instead of maybe us catching a fish for you, let me teach you how to fish real quick. When this kind of stuff comes up you ought to be asking, “How do you know? What’s your source? What proof do you have?” And if you start asking these questions what you realize is when you kind of put the burden of proof on the person making the claim, you look at their information and go, “Ok, you actually don’t have any evidence. You don’t have any proof, you don’t have any sources.”
You can get to the bottom of a lot of these issues, by just asking the right kind of questions. This is what most of our culture has not been taught to do. We have been taught this in education in decades, learning to ask questions. That’s why we have so many in our generation that think, “Oh, wow, Abraham Lincoln was a homosexual.” Because we don’t know how to search for truth anymore.
Not implying that if you send us a question, you”re not searching for truth. I’m obviously not trying to say that, but this is where we have to start learning to ask the right kind of questions to help us discover what is truth so that we’re not misled by some of these nonsensical claims.
David:
That’s one of the things that in our Summer Leadership Training programs that we do, Tim really emphasizes that for these young adults that we bring in from 18 to 25 years old. Most are in college or right out of college.
It’s really those kinds of questions that he trains them to ask. Because you go into colleges and you get a professor who says- Matter of fact, Tim, what was the one you got a text on about the Founding Fathers being raging alcoholics? What was the deal on that?
Tim:
Yeah, there was a student who was in a class with 60-80 other kids in the class and I got a text from a student that said, “Hey, were the Founding Fathers raging alcoholics?” And I’m thinking, “Where is this coming from?” And I said, “No, why? He said, “My professor just said that they were all raging alcoholics.”
So we start having this text conversation. And I said, “Ok, that’s not true.” And he said, “What should I do?” And so essentially I help equip him and say, “Hey, ask these questions. Pretend like you’re just really curious you want to know more, don’t be confrontational, be the curious student and say, “Hey, I would love more information. Where can I find some original sources so I can read about this from the founding era?”
And the professor said, “Well, actually, here’s the best source. And gave him a link to the Huffington Post. Which is not really written in the founding era, that actually was written in the last couple of years.
Tim:
Which signer of the Declaration was named Huffington? I’m trying to remember who it was.
Tim:
Right. So, the course of the conversation goes on and essentially the teacher, more or less, gets caught not knowing where this information comes from even though this professor is making this claim. So the professor changed the subject and goes on to other things.
But this was the point, the professor was making these obnoxious claims. When the student knew to just ask a few basic questions, again, it’s in pursuit of truth. You’re not trying to stump, or shame, or whatever kind of terminology you want to put on, or whatever adjective you apply to it, you’re not trying to shame the professor. “I’m honestly pursuing truth. Because if what you’re saying is true. I didn’t know that, but I want to know what’s true. I don’t want to blindly accept something you’re going to say such as, “Abraham Lincoln was a homosexual.” I want to pursue truth. So how do I know?”
Again, obviously, you can email, you can write in to us, call, talk to WallBuilders, we”d love to help you with this stuff. But when someone is making these claims, I always want to talk to the person making the claims and say, “Hey, how do you know? What’s your source? Where do you draw information from?” And when you start asking the questions, most of the time you realize they really have no idea what they’re talking about.
Which is then when I say, “So why should I believe this? If you have no source, you have no proof, and you’re just making these statements.” But this is where we have to learn to ask the right questions.
Rick:
Absolutely. We”ve got to take a quick break, we’ll be right back with more of those right questions. Stay with us, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live on Foundations of Freedom Thursday.
Outro:
Calvin Coolidge said, “The more I study the Constitution, the more I realize that no other document devised by the hand of man has brought so much progress and happiness to humanity. To live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race.”
Moment From American History
This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. In the early seventeen hundreds, the Reverend John Wise preached that all men were created equal, that taxation without representation was tyranny, and that God’s preferred form of government was the consent of the governed.
All of which is language recognizable in the Declaration of Independence. Why? Because in 1772, the Sons of Liberty led by Founders Sam Adams and John Hancock reprinted and distributed the Reverend Wise’s sermons.
Four years later, much of the Declaration reflected the language of those sermons by John Wise. Â In 1926 on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, President Calvin Coolidge affirmed, “The thoughts in the Declaration can very largely be traced back to what John Wise was saying.”
Few today know that the Declaration was so strongly influenced by the Rev. John Wise. For more information on this and other stories go to WallBuilders.com.
Did The Founding Fathers Have Value For Morals
Outro:
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:
It’s Foundations of Freedom Thursday here on WallBuilders Live. Thank you for staying with us. We’re taking your questions. You can send them in to [email protected]
Here with David and Tim Barton, guys, before we jump to our next question, I”ve got to ask you about this whole thing. Not only the whole President Lincoln homosexual thing, like you mentioned Tim, this far out question about were the Founders Fathers raging alcoholics, how much of this is the fact that sometimes in a culture where your morality has gone so far off the rails Do you actually hope that the other people that are the heroes in the culture also had bad morality because it makes you feel better about your own situation? Is that a little bit of what’s going on here?
Tim:
I would certainly think so. One of the things we’ve seen from professors, we could even point to conservatives on this who are making an attempt to do what they call “humanizing the Founding Fathers.” They feel like one of the things with the Founding Fathers, they’ve been put on a pedestal saying, “Look how great these guys were.” They feel it’s their personal challenge to take them off a pedestal and say, “No, they actually weren’t great guys, look at all the problems in their life.”
And by showing all the problems, it really diminishes our nation as a whole saying, “We really weren’t a great nation because look at all the problems. All these guys were these rich, white people, they all had slaves, they all were racist, they didn’t give women’s rights, all these things they want to get into it.”
Ultimately, it’s just an attempt to diminish our founding so they can then attack America saying, “We’re not great, let’s get away from the Constitution, let’s go a different direction.” So anything they can do to take the Founding Fathers off a leadership pedestal. By the way, obviously when we come from a Biblical perspective, we have the perspective that all people are fallen and are sinful, they’re not perfect.
So when I look at history, my starting place is that these guys are not perfect. That’s where I start. So no one needs to convince me that the Founding Fathers were not perfect.
David:
Let me, have you ever heard a conservative or anyone else claim that the Founding Fathers were perfect?
Tim:
Of course not.
David:
But that”s the thing that they always attack on. “Oh, they’re not perfect.” Well, who said they were? I”ve never heard a writer, I’ve never heard anyone claim that they were perfect. I’ve never heard anyone make that claim and they feel like they’ve got to defend the claim that they weren’t perfect. Well, ok, but that’s a strawman, that’s an argument that nobody’s made.
Tim:
And to Rick’s point, if you can show how bad they were, it really can appease the immorality of this generation to go, “Hey, wait a second, it’s not a big deal for President Clinton that he has all these women, this indiscreet situation with Monica Lewinsky. It’s not a big deal all this happens, because lots of the Founding Fathers did. Thomas Jefferson did that, I mean, look at all these guys.”
If we can make the Founding Fathers look immoral, if we can make them look bad, then we can justify any of our bad behavior and say, “Look at these great leaders who are bad, so it’s if we’re bad because we’re just like these leaders from past. They really weren’t that great anyway.”
David:
And I would say it’s even a step past that because when you make them look bad you don’t want to follow them or follow their advice. And that was what so many of the religious leaders tried with Jesus. He had huge crowds, big following, “Oh, this guy’s a wine drinker, he’s a glutton.” They started the name calling, and the rumors, and the innuendos.
The deal is, if this guy is a real louse, I’m not going to follow him. So if somebody like Thomas Jefferson comes along and says, “Hey guys, never let judges make policy in the nation.”
“Oh, man, that’s not good because if we let legislatures do it we”d never get the stuff done on gay marriage. We’ve got to have judges do that. Oh, Thomas Jefferson is really bad. He slept with his slaves.”
All right, the DNA evidence didn’t show that. By the way, for anyone who thinks that DNA showed that Jefferson slept with the slaves, you need to get the book Jefferson Lies and look at it. It goes through half a dozen lies told about Jefferson today.
We talked twice to the guy who did the DNA testing and he said it did not show that Jefferson slept with the slaves, but you still hear that. But what you do is you go after them and then you say, “Who cares what he said about judges not making policy. My gosh, look what he did in his personal life. Or who cares what Jefferson said about immigration and making sure that you bring people in who agree with the values of the nation. He didn’t have values.”
So, it’s also a way to completely remake the philosophy of government. If you can attack the guys who gave you a philosophy that works, and show that they’re not worth listening to, “Well then listen to my opinion as well. I think socialism is where we ought to be. Who cares that these guys talked about the free market. They were all immoral.” So not only does it kind to justify our own behavior, I think it’s a great way to reshape the nation by dragging you off the principles that have been there in the first place that made you so successful and replace it with something else.
Rick:
And they’ve been very effective at it. That’s been a major goal of universities campuses for decades now, to tear down those heroes and create these stories, and these innuendoes, and just make it where they can say, “Well, it doesn’t matter what those guys thought. We”re remaking the nation in the way that we want to view it.”
That was actually the radical transformation of the American formula that Obama and others wanted to bring in and part of how they did it was, what you called David for years, deconstruction of the entities and the values that had made the country great in the first place. That would mean tearing down the Founding Fathers themselves.
A quick break, we’ll be right back, sorry we didn”t get to one of your questions during this segment. I’ve got to ask the question today, that was kind of fun, but we’ll have one of your questions when we come back, you”re listening to WallBuilders Live.
Outro:
Samuel Adams said, “The liberties of our Country and the freedom of our civil Constitution are worth defending against hazards. And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.”
Patriot Academy
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Outro:
Thomas Jefferson said, “The Constitution of most of our states and of the United States asserts that all power is inherent in the people that they may exercise it by themselves that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed. That they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press.”
California, Can They Secede From The United States
Rick:
Welcome back to WallBuilders Live, it”s Foundations of Freedom Thursday, today. Taking your questions, if you’d like to send some in you can email them in to [email protected], [email protected].
Next one comes from Michael, it’s about California. He said, “Please address what’s going on in California about the state pushing to be out of the United States. They’re saying it will take 550,000 votes to push to the ballot. What is going on in this state?”
David, Tim, usually any time there’s a question about any kind of state succeeding it’s Texas. That’s what everybody tends to say, “Texas is going to secede.” or, “We wish Texas would.” Here’s California, I think if I remember right, you guys may know off the top your head, it’s the Northern California folks that have been talking about seceding right? Or is this actually the more liberal part?
David:
No, that’s a different vote. They had a vote on North and South breaking in two different states, that’s a different one. This is now full secession. Do you remember how mad the liberals got when Governor Perry said that about secession?
Rick:
Yeah, that’s what I meant.
David:
And it was all over the news. Now that the liberals are talking about secession, have you heard this on the news at all?
Rick:
No.
Tim:
Which by the way, generally we’ve said that secession unconstitutional and that we”re not supposed to do it. But can we support California”s secession?
David:
I’ll pay for it.
Tim:
Maybe we should amend the Constitution at this point and say, “No secession except for California.” And maybe throw in a few other states, I don’t know.
David:
And by the way, what you just said is key because the U.S. Supreme Court, however long ago, that the only way you can secede is to amend the Constitution, the Constitution is a covenant. It is not a no fault divorce clause.
So you have made a covenant to be part of, and to recognize the others. Old school, here in Texas, I went through a lot of historical divorce cases, I was looking at what our state courts did with marriage. I found that here in the state, it would take a legislative act to be able to get divorced, that marriage was decreed by God as a lifetime union between a man and a woman.
The government’s not going to let you break something that God decreed unless you had a fault for it, a reason for it. The Bible gives like half a dozen reasons or so, if there’s unfaithfulness, or *, or abandonment, etc. But you couldn’t have no fault divorce. And it was that way with the Constitution.
So previous courts recognized it really does take a constitutional amendment to do this. So, California is trying to get out- and grab this, because they think the nation is “too conservative” and they don’t want to be part of such a conservative nation and especially under a conservative president like President Trump. They want nothing to do with that. Since they contribute the most money of any state in the United States, not that they don’t get the most money back by the way-
Rick:
I’d like to see those numbers.
David:
Yeah, exactly. But because they contribute the most it’s time to get out of the United States, “We just can’t be part of a nation that has Trump as president.” You know, there’s a whole lot of other states that thought that at various times over the presidents we had for whatever that was and you just don’t do that.
So here in California, they’re working on it. They were doing it, collecting signatures, I think they have to give 550,000 signatures. But let’s say they could do this, let’s say it didn’t take a constitutional amendment, and let’s say that they save their economy and they do this.
Ok, now you’re no longer part of the United States. How are you going to pay for a military to defend yourself? Because I guarantee you, China wants you now real bad. China wants that coastal area, and China wants to be real close to the United States, and wants to have an in road.
Tim:
They actually already have a plan for this. They’re going to have a no military zone in California. And so no militaries are allowed, they’re going to have to have no missile canopy over California, so you’re not putting missiles in. So they’ve already thought this through.
Rick:
Because the gun free zones worked so well.
Tim:
They feel pretty good about it. Nobody is allowed to invade. So they’re gonna be safe.
David:
They’ll pass a law and that will be it.
Rick:
There will be a sign right there on the beach, right? It will just be a little sign with a stick in the sand and it’ll say, “You may not invade this beach.” And that will take care of it.
David:
And then it”s all good. Put a sign up and that”s it. But then think about coining money. They will have to come up with their own money. But they’re going to have to have actual something to back that money, some type of commodity be it gold, silver, or whatever. So they have to come up with their own repository of money. Then they have to start coining their own money. Not that that’s going to be expensive, to create their own plates and their own non-counterfeitable money. They have to come up with that as well.
I guess if you don’t need a military, why would you need money? You can do it all electronically. They just have not thought through what it would take, all the infrastructure that goes with having your own independent nation.
Tim:
Let me throw out, you mentioned maybe there’s electronic money. That’s something a lot of people are already pushing for. You know, I think California actually will be on board with that.
I can’t see any way that could go wrong if everything is electronic, and the government can just have access to your accounts, any time they want to they can raise taxes and percentage.
Rick:
No red flags.
Tim:
I’m sure you can withdraw your electronic funds and keep them non electronically somewhere safe from the electronic controls of government, that sounds totally fine.
David:
Yeah, that doesn’t seem to work. Well, the thing is, this movement is not going to go anywhere. They tried it once, they’re now in what’s called Cal Exit Movement, California Exit Movement.
They tried it once and it kind of fell apart because the leader of it took all the news away because he was so closely affiliated with Russia and had ties to Russia that the leader of the movement kind of disrupted it. So now they’re back on round two and they’ve got to be able to come up with about 550,000 signatures, I think it is.
But the support in the state is only about 32 percent. So the chances of this going anywhere are nuts. But like so many liberal left policies they’ve not thought this thing through very well as far as what the consequences would be, or the costs, or the expense, or inconvenience, or anything else. So don’t expect it to go anywhere, but it’s a fun exercise to talk about, that’s for sure.
California, The Parts That We Don”t Want To Secede
Rick:
You know our friend comedian Brad Stine always used to joke about how they always threaten to break off and have an earthquake out there. He said, “I don’t want them to die, I just want them to float away.” So maybe instead of floating away they’re just going to vote themselves out. But like you said, probably not going to happen anyway.
David:
Make sure they leave the inner valleys behind, because all that inner Valley California is so stinking conservative, they’re more conservative than Oklahoma and Texas. So it’s just the coastal parts that are a problem in California.
Rick:
And some sequoias, the trees are pretty awesome.
David:
Keep those as well.
Rick:
No doubt. All right folks, more questions from you will be asked next Thursday. You can send those in to [email protected] and we’ll get to them on our Foundations of Freedom Thursday programs. Thanks so much for listening, you’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.
Outro:
Thomas Jefferson said, “The Constitution of most of our states and of the United States asserts that all power is inherent in the people that they may exercise it by themselves that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed. That they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press.”
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