Foundations Of Freedom Part Three- The Foundations Of Law: Foundations of Freedom is our latest television program. We are so excited to get share it with you here on WallBuilders Live! In this series, will be discussing The Founders Bible, what kind of influence the Bible had on America, and we also discuss the foundations of law! Tune in now for the third part of this five-part series!

Air Date: 08/28/2019

Guest: Michele Bachmann

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. 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 

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. This is WallBuilders Live! Where we”€™re talking about today”€™s hottest topics on policy, faith, and the culture, always doing that 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 and President of WallBuilders, and my name is Rick Green, I’m a former Texas state legislator, national speaker, and author. 

This is a WallBuilders Live special week, we’ve been sharing some Foundations of Freedom from the television series, and have had some special guests this week such as Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Dr. Carol Swain, and we’re gonna actually pick up right where we left off yesterday with the episode with Dr. Swain on the Bible and civil justice. 

We’re diving right back into Foundations of Freedom right here on WallBuilders Live.

David:

The problem is you can’t preserve a foundation if you don’t know what it is. We, in America today, don’t know our foundations. We don’t know why these clauses exist, and we don’t know the protections that were given us or the history that caused these protection to be given us. Therefore, we don’t know what we’re supposed to protect.

Dr. Swain:

We don’t even know the clauses are there. How do we get people to read the Constitution and to study the Bill of Rights?

Writ of Assistance

David:

When you start telling stories out of history, and you see how things worked, you can understand judicial abuses in the Declaration once you see what they were. 

Here’s a great example, let’s take the Fourth through Eighth Amendments, due process.

You get the Sixth Amendment, and the fourth amendment, both have protections on this, but the government’s not allowed to search your papers, belongings, house, or possessions—your effects—without a specific judicial warrant. 

That goes back to what’s called a writ of assistance, and a writ of assistance is what the British used. They would have a judicial writ, but it didn’t say what they were searching for. 

They’d knock on your door and say, “€œI need to check your house to see if you”€™ve got anything illegal.”€Â 

They would go through the house and once they found something they’d fill in the writ so it says, “€œOh, I found this illegal thing.”€

Dr. Swain:

But David, we don’t have those protections today, because we’ll have a government that intruding in every area of our lives.

David:

And it’s a great example as that writ of assistance is what happens when we have an IRS audit. The Fourth Amendment says that they cannot search your papers, property, houses—in fact, what that is specifically issued judicial warrant specifically describing the items and things to be searched. 

They can’t use a fishing expedition. And that’s what an IRS audit is. 

They come and say, “€œOpen all your accounts to us. We’re gonna dig around.”€Â 

That’s a writ of assistance. 

Once you say, “€œWait a minute. Writ of assistance of what the Founding Fathers didn’t want, and that’s what the IRS is doing now.”€Â 

The Constitution is Not Hard to Learn

If IRS wants to audit me, they can come back and tell me what check stubs they”€™re looking for, what account they”€™re looking for, and they have to get a judge to write off on that. 

And if you don’t do that, don’t show up at my door.

Dr. Swain:

The sad thing about it is that many people that are working for the government as bureaucrats, they don’t have a clue. So they’re doing things that they shouldn’t be doing.

Maybe they wouldn’t be doing them if they actually knew the Constitution. 

David:

That’s the problem we have today is, in the last election, 70% of voters had no idea the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. 

Dr. Swain:

How can we change that? 

David:

You’re not going to get it through the education system. Just look at it right now, the schools don’t teach the Constitution. We have a federal law that requires every September the 17th, which is Constitution Day, that says every public school in America is to take time and set aside time to read and study the Constitution. We’ve gotten to this mentality that it is too hard to learn. It’s not.

Dr. Swain:

We have dumbed down everything. 

David:

And if you’re waiting on schools to teach the Constitution, it ain’t going to happen. You go out and you get it. You read it yourself. 

If you want to get a good commentary on it, you get a book called Original Argument which is the Federalist Papers in the modern language. All the spirits are the same, arguments are the same. 

We the People, not We the Government

There’s so many easy ways to do that now, there’s a DVD series we have called Constitution Alive that breaks down the Constitution section by section. There’s just so many easy ways to learn it now. 

If we don’t get back to knowing that document then the government will continue to be in charge rather than people being charged, and it’s supposed to be we the people, as you say, “€œWe the people, not we the government,”€ and that’s a mentality aspect that has to change.

Dr. Swain:

I know, but it wasn’t meant to be that way.

David:

No, it wasn’t meant to be that way. Not at all. 

Dr. Swain:

We have a question from one of our viewers.

Question:

There are so many different aspects in the American system that are different from others in the world. Where did America get these ideas from?

David:

Another great question.

The answer is going to be very expected, and the source of the answers very expected, but in a Supreme Court case in 1999, Justice Stephen Breyer—and no one would accuse him of being part of the religious right or anything else— No one’s going to accuse Justice Breyer of being even religious, he made a comment in that case that really stood out to me.

He said, “€œWe all know the Bill of Rights came out of the Bible.”€Â 

Dr. Swain:

I didn’t realize as he knew that. I’m surprised. 

David:

So I looked at his footnote, and he cited this book right here. This is Federal Practice and Procedure, this book is what federal attorneys used to practice, it”€™s volumes and volumes. 

The Bible and the Bill of Rights

This is Volume 30. And here you open up to about page two hundred, and you find dozens, and dozens, and dozens of pages where it”€™s going through showing how the Bible built all of these clauses in the Bill of Rights. 

Dr. Swain:

That is great material. 

David:

I thought this is wonderful. It’s in the Federal Practice and Procedure, and even Justice Breyer said, “€œOf course, we all know it’s out of the Bible.”€Â 

This is amazing. I didn’t know that he knew that. I certainly did know it was in the Federal Practice and Procedure. 

It’s really fascinating to see. We’re gonna get into some specifics that these guys talked about, and it”€™s part of it is the difference between the US and Europe. 

In Europe, they had the High Admiralty Courts, they had the High Commissioner Courts, they had all these things, and what they did in trials and there was not good. 

We mentioned earlier that the courts were political enforcement arms for the government, they weren’t about justice, they weren’t about individual rights. 

“€œHere’s what the government said and here’s what you’re gonna do, and the courts are going to make sure you do it.”€Â 

And so that was a real problem.

As we got into the Reformation, and people got back into the Bible, they found all these trials in the Bible. 

We had the trial of Naba, you had the trial of Shadrach, Michack, and Abednego.

Stephen, John, and Peter, had trials. Jesus certainly had trial. You had Paul, with multiple trials. You have Aiken, who had a trial, you had all these trials in the Bible, and it get to understand that they had come through a thousand years of the Bible is off limits to anybody. 

Now they’re back in. 

The Geneva Bible

It’s like a brand new book, and they’re just reading it, and they see all the stuff about civil justice. Look what happened to these trials. These are the good trials, these are the bad trials. 

And so it resulted in this book right here. This is called the Geneva Bible. This is the Bible of the Reformation.

It was first printed in 1516, in Geneva, that’s why it”€™s called the Geneva Bible, and from 1516 to 1644 it went through 140 reprints. This is the Bible that came to America. If you go in the Rotunda in the U.S. capital, and you look at the painting of the pilgrims coming to America, it is the Geneva Bible. 

Dr. Swain:

How does it differ from the King James Version? 

David:

The Geneva Bible preceded the King James version by almost 50 years. What they did was they took the Bible, and you can see here, these commentaries down the sides, and so over a period of about 250 years there’s about 25 different reformers in seven different countries, and these are their notes. 

“€œGuys. Here’s the way we’ve been doing government, we’ve been doing it this way for a thousand years, but it’s wrong! Look what the Bible says about this! Here’s what we’re doing to education, but it;s wrong! Here’s what we do with economics”€¦.”€Â 

And so these commentaries are pointing out all the things in the culture that are wrong.

Share a veteran’s story

We Want To Hear Your Vet Story

Rick:

Hey friends! If you have been listening to WallBuilders Live for very long at all, you know how much we respect our veterans and how appreciative we are of the sacrifice they make to make our freedoms possible. One of the ways that we love to honor those veterans is to tell their stories here on WallBuilders Live.  Once in awhile, we get an opportunity to interview veterans that have served on those front lines that have made incredible sacrifices have amazing stories that we want to share with the American people. 

One of the very special things we get to do is interview World War II veterans. You’ve heard those interviews here on WallBuilders Live, from folks that were in the Band of Brothers, to folks like Edgar Harrell that survived the Indianapolis to so many other great stories you heard on WallBuilders Live. 

You have friends and family that also served.  If you have World War II veterans in your family that you would like to have their story shared here on WallBuilders Live, please e-mail us at [email protected]  Give us a brief summary of the story and we’ll set up an interview. Thanks so much for sharing here on WallBuilders Live!

A Biblical Way to Fix a Court

David:

So what happens is, as you go through this Bible, and it goes through the trials, it points out the stuff in the trials that are really wrong.

For example, Jesus, in John 8, in the trial there, He said, “€œWoman, where are your accusers?”€Â 

It’s like you’re supposed to be able to confront your accusers, but they’re all gone. 

And so they point out, they said, “€œIn European courts, we’re not allowed to confront our accusers! Jesus himself said you get to confront them!”€Â 

So all the commentaries you hear now, the problem was the king’s back then read it, and they didn’t like being criticized. They liked what they were doing. And that’s where the King James Bible comes out, essentially, as a censored version of all the commentaries.

By the way, the Founders”€™ Bible is like a modern day Geneva Bible. The Founders”€™ Bible says, “€œHere’s the way the Bible applies to every aspect of life.”€

Dr. Swain:

That is so interesting, because I know a lot of Christians, and the King James version is the only version they will read. 

They see it as the sacred, holy version of the Bible. But you’re saying that the Geneva Bible was first.

David:

And that’s what did the Reformation. That’s what changed church, and state, and education, and economic systems. Is what changed everything.

And see this book here? It goes with these books right here. 

These books here, they came out just shortly after this because the Bible goes out, and look at all these trials that are going on, look at the wrong things, and here’s what is supposed to be.

 And they criticize. 

Well, this is called Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.

Foxe”€™s Book of Martyrs

Dr. Swain:

I have heard of that, but I didn’t know that it started out looking like. 

David:

Oh, it’s massive volume. The way I was taught this in school and elsewhere was, “€œThese are all the martyrs for the Christian faith, and the number one martyr in there is Jesus Christ. He is the number one person they list, He’s killed first.”€Â 

And so it goes all the way through. And that’s why I was taught, but that’s not what it was.

Dr. Swain:

I mean the version that I’ve seen in bookstores and I own just a little tiny one.

So what I have would not contain all of these. 

David:

It won’t contain all the commentaries, because it was supposed to go with this. The Geneva Bible showed bad judicial process, this says, “€œThese are the martyrs killed by bad judicial process.”€Â 

I never get taught that these are the people who died in the history of the church through the wrong use of courts.

Dr. Swain:

I am astonished. 

David:

Courts put them to death.

The Geneva Bible and this. When they came to America, these are the books they brought. This is why we have a different judicial system in America from anywhere else.

Dr. Swain:

David, are any churches teaching this kind of content today like the Geneva Bible?

David:

You know, we’re at a point where America needs a Geneva Bible, because what’s happened is the Geneva Bible back then said, “€œGuys, the church is doing what the culture is doing. Here’s what the Bible says.”€Â 

The Founders Bible

And that really is part of the reason for the Founders”€™ Bible, because we have so many things going on today that the Bible addresses, and it’s how America came to be shaped. Just like all these books that built the American justice system, nobody knows that today. 

Reading the Geneva and it”€™s commentaries, that will shake you up, and the same for the Founders”€™ Bible, it’s more modern language, but it’ll do that. But we find that so much of what we have come out of that, for example, still in judiciary and judicial system.

What you’ve got is, back in the founding, when we started our judicial system, all of the Supreme Court Justices themselves roads circuits. They got on a horse and rode to all these different places instead of everybody coming to D.C. and meeting in front of the court. 

Dr. Swain:

You mean they went to the people? What a novel idea. 

David:

Now today we still say we have the “€œCircuit courts”€ and we still have judges over “€œcircuits”€, but everything goes to them.

But the reason we had these circuit riding courts and these Supreme Court Justices that go out and ride was out of the Bible, and internationally, again, a guy named James Kant—called the father of American jurisprudence—he took Blackstone’s Commentaries and Americanized them for our courts. He was over all the judicial system in New York, but he he Americanized all this European law for Americans. 

This is his quote:

“€œThe Jewish judges rode the circuits, and Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life, and he went from year to year in circuit to Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah, and judged Israel in all those places.”€Â 

That”€™s First Samuel 7:15-16. 

Circuit Judges

He said, “€œThat’s what we do, circuit judges, because that’s, in the Bible, what Israel did. They had a judge, it was Samuel. He rode from all these places.”€Â 

And that’s why our judges went from city to city to city and went to the people. Just like Samuel did. 

So that’s another characteristic of our American judicial system that comes directly out of the Bible.

But we’ve also got direct clauses out of the Constitution that came from the Bible. Let me just read two Constitution clauses. Here in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 3. It says, “€œNo bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed.”€

Then, Article 3, dealing with the judiciary. It says, “€œThe Congress shall have the power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture, except during the life of the person attainted.”€Â 

And people say, “€œHuh?”€

Dr. Swain:

What do they mean by, “€œCorruption of blood”€? 

David:

What do you mean by attainder? I’ve actually asked a number of legislators before, “€œWhat”€™s a bill of attainder?”€Â 

“€œI don’t know. I’ve seen it in there. I don’t have a clue what it means.”€

Well, take the time and look it up! 

And Bill of Attainder and corruption of blood was very simple. 

Let’s say I’m a British citizen several hundred years ago, and I’m part of wanting to get rid of the king because they’re very oppressive. They killed thousands of people. I want a representative government.

Corruption of Blood

And so I’m part of the revolution to get rid of the King, and I lose. The king wins, I am guilty of treason. So what happens is I have been tainted, my blood has been corrupted, and the King says, “€œYou know what? Barton was guilty of treason. No Barton in the history of England is ever going to own property again. No Barton in the history of England can ever vote again, and no Barton in the history of England can ever be a part of the civil process.”€

So in other words, it mean they stripped the rights in the family for generations to come.

That was corruption of blood. The Barton bloodline has now been corrupted for generations to come. That’s the way it was when the Founding Fathers and others came to America under British law. You’re guilty of treason? You”€™re entire family’s just been wiped out for the rest of eternity.

Dr. Swain:

That doesn’t seem so fair. 

David:

It doesn’t seem so fair, and it’s not biblical. And here’s what the founders used: Ezekiel 18:20. 

It says, “€œThe Soul whose sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked should be upon himself.”€Â 

Dr. Swain:

That sounds fair.

David:

That’s individuals. That’s why we put that clause in the Constitution, because the Bible says you don’t hold family lines accountable. You hold the individual accountable. That’s a really important clause of the Constitution, and it’s in there twice. 

The Death Penalty and the Constitution

Another one that is really significant is death penalty in the Constitution. 

Now, in two locations in the Constitution authorizes the death penalty. I want to give a modern example. I’m going to back up a few years, the Scott Peterson trial in California.

Dr. Swain:

I remember that trial.

David:

Yes.

Scott was accused of murdering his wife, Laci, and their unborn child Conner. At that time he was charged with one murder, but people said, “€œWait a minute, that unborn child was was very close to being born. That’s two murders.”€

And so they introduced in Federal Congress what they called the Laci and Conner Law, which says, “€œIf you kill a pregnant woman and her unborn child, you’ve killed two people, not one.”€Â 

That law took off across the states. 

We now call it the unborn victims of violence act. That’s a result of that trial. 

We said, “€œThat’s two murders, not one.”€Â 

Well, Scott goes to the rest of the trial, and I watched much of that trial, and he was convicted and sentenced to death. 

I said, “€œThere’s a problem with that. The Bible does not authorize the death penalty for that.”€

Here’s the Bible verse. This is Deuteronomy 17:6. It says, “€œOn the testimony of two or three witnesses, a person is to be put to death, but no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness.”€

Dr. Swain:

But, I mean, you know we have modern forensics. There was a lot of circumstantial evidence. He seemed pretty guilty to me.
David:

And he was found guilty, but he was given the death penalty. Probably, under that verse, we would’ve said, “€œYou’re guilty, you get life imprisonment,”€ because there were no eyewitnesses to the crime.

Bring A Speaker To Your Area

Tim:

Hey, this is Tim Barton with WallBuilders.  And, as you’ve had the opportunity to listen to WallBuilders Live, you’ve probably heard a wealth of information about our nation, about our spiritual heritage, about the religious liberties, and about all the things that make America exceptional. 

And, you might be thinking, “€œAs incredible as this information is, I wish there was a way that I could get one of the WallBuilders guys to come to my area and share with my group.”€

Whether it be a church, whether it be a Christian school, or public school, or some political event, or activity, if you’re interested in having a WallBuilders speaker come to your area, you can get on our website at www.WallBuilders.com and there’s a tab for scheduling. If you”€™ll click on that tab, you’ll notice there’s a list of information from speakers bio’s, to events that are already going on. And, there’s a section where you can request an event, to bring this information about who we are, where we came from, our religious liberties, and freedoms. Go to the WallBuilders website and Bring a speaker to your area.

Justice

David:

Even as you go back into the book of Genesis, where that God was talking to Cain, He said, “€œCain, Abel’s blood cried out to me.”€Â 

Well, that would be DNA. And so DNA is a witness. There’s not not even any DNA in the Scott case. It was all circumstantial, there was not any forensic DNA crying out. There were no eyewitnesses. 

So I have to say, I think Peterson is guilty. He should have been convicted, but he should have got life in prison because there’s not two eyewitnesses. Now, you go into the Constitution, and the Constitution to locations authorizes the death penalty two times. In one location, it gives you a specific death penalty crime because back then treason was a death penalty crime in every country in the world.

And so here’s what the Constitution says about treason. This comes directly out the Constitution, and it says, “€œNo person shall be convicted of treason,”€ which is a death penalty crime, “€œUnless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act or open confession in court.”€Â 

So even the Constitution says you can’t put somebody to death unless you’ve got two eyewitnesses to it. Bible says you can’t put somebody to death with one eyewitness, you have to have two or three. 

So there, again, we’ve put into the Constitution this protection from death, but now you can find somebody guilty and sentence them to life in prison. 

But to put them to death for treason, or for any other high crime, you’ve got to have the eyewitnesses. That was another protection of the individual. We’re trying to protect the individual, and that’s what the Bible does is justice. 

John Hart

Probably one of the indications of how Christ centered we were in our justice system is if you look even at court documents. I’ve got a lot of court documents here, and let me just pull one out.

This happens to be a court document from one of the Founding Fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence. This is John Hart. He’s from New Jersey. He talks about judicial process here. 

He’s got a witness here, and it says that this witness, “€œBeing duly sworn on the Holy Evangelist of Almighty God.”€Â 

He said the person came to court, and we swore him in, not just on the Bible, but on the New Testament, which has the story of Jesus Christ, in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Very Christ conscious. Try doing that in court today and see what happened. But that was the way we work.

These are court reports of some death penalty trials. This is a trial from 1885, these two guys were found guilty of murdering someone. The juries found someone guilty of murder. Eyewitness or open confession in court. What’s really interesting is the last part here. For example, this last part here. 

The judge is now pronouncing the sentence, the juries come in with the verdict. This is the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. 

It”€™s in 1805, the trial of Dominic Daly and James Halligan for the murder of Markus Lyon. They have been found guilty. Here’s what the judge says.

He’s got the defendant right there in front of him. 

An Alter Call in a Courtroom?

He says, “€œFor a crime so horrid and so abhorred by every pure and virtuous mind, you have demonstrated that you’re unworthy the society of men, that your minds are regardless of social duty, that you possess dispositions wicked perverse and incorrigible, and that your continuance in this life is hostile to the preservation of morality and the security of society.”€Â 

In other words, you deserve to go out of this life. 

“€œYou cannot therefore expect that your term of existence here will be prolonged.”€Â 

So don’t expect to be living here much longer. 

“€œIt becomes me, then, to recommend to you to look beyond this life and to direct your views to another, and to an eternal state of existence, you will very soon appear before a tribunal infinitely more awful than that which now investigated your guilt”€¦”€Â 

And he goes on to tell him about, “€œGuys, you’re going to be before God. You’ve got to get rid of your sin right now. His son is the way.”€Â 

We did altar calls in the courtroom. That’s what we did. These are people that took their faith very seriously. They created the best judicial system in the world, designed to protect the rights of every individual. They did it based on the Bible, based on books like Foxe”€™s Book of Martyrs. 

And now we’re trying to secularize it.

Dr. Swain:

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every law school actually taught the truth? 

David:

Oh yeah. I mean, that just gave this historical background.

These these documents, they’re real. They’re not fake, they’re not made up. We didn’t make these this morning. We didn”€™t come here and make them up. They’re out there in libraries all across America have these. We just don’t study these anymore.

How to Apply this Information

Dr. Swain:

Now, what can viewers do to take this information to the next level?

David:

They have to know it themselves. This may be new for everybody, and that’s one of the reasons the Founders”€™ Bible exists, so that folks can get in and find out. First of all, the Bible is a very practical book. It’s not just a spiritual devotional book. It shows you how to run a court system, how to run a political system, how to run an educational system, shows you how to do business, shows you how to raise your family, shows you everything. 

So the founders Bible is one that is really, really key.

It would be really fun, too, for people to go back and read it, you can get an old 1599 Geneva Bible any bookstore and read that. 

They need to see that this is what built the nation, this is what built America. So if we get people back into knowing their history, back into reading the Bible as a practical book, and then taken it everywhere they go. 

Kids are going into law school? They need to have this background. They need to read Federal Practice and Procedure before they get to law school, because most law professors will not have a clue about this. 

One of the things that I’ve seen a lot of professors say—not you. It”€™s so good to have professors like you.

Dr. Swain:

I have common sense common sense. 

David:

And one of the things that professors say is, “€œOh, you know, America is just a happy accident. All the stuff that made America? We were just lucky.”€Â 

Foundation of Law and the Bible

No, we weren’t lucky. It was very specific ideas, very specific applications, that made us different from other nations. If we can relearn the stuff and ingested ourselves, we can preserve the foundations of freedom.

Rick:

Well folks, that’s the conclusion of Foundations of Freedom. We”€™ve got four episodes in for you this week. You can get all of those right now at WallBuildersLive.com. Our special guests this week were Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and Dr. Carol Swain. It’s a television program called Foundations of Freedom, again, you can get it right now at WallBuildersLive.com. 

Thanks so much for listening this week to WallBuilders Live.