Pelosi As President, Trump And Lincoln, And More – On Foundations of Freedom: Could Nancy Pelosi be president and issue executive orders? Was the dislike for Lincoln in the 1860’s similar to how the media disdains President Trump? Did anyone ever have Constitutional authority to shut down businesses due to COVID? Tune in to hear some interesting historical facts about the past that might help us understand the future!

Air Date: 09/17/2020

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

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:

You found the intersection of faith and the culture. This is WallBuilders Live, where we talk about today’s hottest topics on policy and faith and the culture. We always do that from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective.

You can find out more about our program at our website wallbuilderslive.com. That’s the place where you can learn about those of us that are hosting the program. I’m Rick Green, I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach. I’m here with David Barton. He’s America’s premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders. And Tim Barton is with us. He’s a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders.

So at wallbuilderslive.com, you can find out about us. But you can also get archives of the program from the last few weeks, which means you can go back and listen to some of those Foundations of Freedom Thursday programs like we’re going to have today, that’s where we answer your questions. You can also get those Friday programs where we load them full of good news that’s happening out there, just a lot of great stories of what’s happening in the culture. Even in the midst of the chaos of 2020, there’s still a lot of good things happening.

And then of course, Monday through Wednesday, we typically have some great interviews of all kinds of folks from across the nation, major commentators, Senators, you name it, we get all kinds of people to come on the program to share their perspective on these hot issues of the day from that biblical, historical and constitutional perspective.

Email Us Your Questions

Alright, David, Tim, let’s jump into some of those questions for our Foundations of Freedom Thursday. For folks who want to send in more questions, you can send them into [email protected], that’s [email protected].

This first question comes from Patrick, and it’s about the election. He said, “Is it possible that Nancy Pelosi could be temporary president? If so, does she have the power of executive orders? Now, that we just gave the entire nation a nightmare and they’re wondering if they need to be shaken and waking up from this nightmare scenario?” We’ll answer the question. So we’ve painted the picture of Nancy Pelosi as president with the power to do executive orders. What say you, gentlemen, is that possible?

Tim:

Was it possible? Yes. There’s a lot of things that need to happen. There might be two assassinations along the way or right, there could be a lot now with the election speaking. I feel like we’ve covered this already in some previous weeks on Foundations of Freedom Thursday, that the way that things would fall if there was a delay because of mail-in ballots, or whatever the holdup might be if there wasn’t a president, maybe there’s a vice president, most likely, that delay would be coming from your more liberal States.

And if it’s coming from your more liberal States, in theory, the conservative or the Red States will have turned in most of their ballots, that will have been decided in their State and so presumably, their congressmen their senators will have already won. And so at that point, it’s possible that the majority of the house is Republican or the majority of the Senate is Republican. And if that’s the case, Nancy Pelosi might not be the Speaker of the House.

Could Nancy Pelosi Be President?

If there were 200 Republicans and there was 160 Democrats, the Republicans would be able to, in the majority vote for Speaker of the House, it would not be Nancy Pelosi. Because just like we’re having a presidential election, there’s congressional elections. Every two years, there are.

So Nancy Pelosi is on that ballot and the Speaker of the House is chosen after the election on these every two years. Presumably, she would remain the Speaker of the House if the Democrats control the house. But there’s still a lot of what ifs. And I think we’ve covered some of this before, but it’s not very likely that Nancy Pelosi becomes president.

David:

Yeah, if the election happens, and we don’t know the results on election night, November 3rd, Congress is sworn in on January 3rd, so we’re talking 8 weeks later. 8 weeks later, if we don’t know who the President is, and we’re having to choose the Speaker of the House as President, there’s something really, really strange going on and that’s not going to be received well by either side. Whichever side is delayed is going to cry fraud on the other side, this is going to be a big mess.

But the President is even three weeks after that, he’s a 20th of January, or two and a half weeks after that. So you’re looking somewhere from 8 to 10 to 11 weeks before those two entities are sworn in, the Speaker of the House and the President of the United States. And man, if we don’t know an election result by then, there’s something really strange going on.

Tim:

And what’s possible is it could be that looking at the election, that there was so much fraud that was caught with mail-in ballots, I think things it’s possible in certain States. We’ve already seen examples where State said we’re going to redo entire elections, because we’ve seen so much chaos or fraud or the case is. It’s possible there’s some of those crazy circumstances, but it’s kind of like saying it’s possible, it’s going to snow in Texas, in the middle of July. It is possible. It’s just not really ever going to happen.

Lincoln Parallels

David:

Now, can we throw in a little historical side note here that I just kind of discovered this last week that I’m having a blast with? You guys care if I jump into something that’s kind of related kind of not related?

Tim:

Yeah, that would be shocking.

Rick:

Only if we both get to steal it and use it on the road as we go speak and not give you any credit. So, you can go ahead as long as you know.

Tim:

It’d be shocking in our program if anybody jumps to something historical that maybe didn’t have direct connections, but kind of related peripheral around the edges. So yeah, this is out of the norm, but go ahead.

David:

Well, it’s kind of related, because Tim, you did mention election fraud and mail-in ballot and whatnot. It relates to something that staff recently gave me. They’ve done some research and we’re looking at election stuff. And we have requests from State reps and State Senators all the time asking specific things and so we’re doing some research.

Civil-War Times

And so they showed me the results of the research and I was reading some excerpts from books that were done after this particular incident, but it goes back to the Civil War. And the Civil War as Abraham Lincoln is standing for re-election in 1864, they move to mail-in ballots and they use mail-in ballots in the presidential election…

Tim:

Is this all the States in the Union, all the States in the Confederacy?

David:

No, it’s the same scenario we face today. Each state gets to decide whether it does mail-in ballots or not. So New York decided they were going to do mail-in ballots. And so New York is a Union State and they’ve got their soldiers deployed all over in battlefields, all over everywhere.

So, New York Governor, legislature, they designated certain people to go and interface with the soldiers out in the field and get their votes and bring it back and mail it in. So they went to the field, they found the New York soldiers. They said, here’s your mail-in ballot, fill it out, give it to me, I’ll get it back to the post office and we’ll get it mailed in.

Well, what happened is they didn’t get mailed in and they didn’t quite make the post office. The people who were collecting and this is ballot harvesting, is really what it was. One individual going through and picking up ballots for all these other people, supposed to deliver them.

Voter Fraud

They were going to these little workshops they had set up with three or four or five people in a row, because on the ballot, as a soldier, you needed to have your officer sign that you had voted, you needed to sign that you had voted, you need to give your address, etc. and then you choose the candidate that you think should be the President.

And so what they were doing in the shops were going off to the side. And they had somebody forging the signature of some Officer of somebody’s fortune, the signature of whoever the soldier was, and they were voting for the Democrat, McClellan in 64. And so they thought if they could get enough votes, Democrat from McClellan, they could get the war stopped and not have to go all the way through the Civil War, and they would be able to keep Lincoln from being reelected.

What turned out was they thought it was going to be a really, really close election and it turned into really a wide margin for Lincoln. So all the fraud did not matter in the mail-in ballots, because there was such a wide margin that the fraud didn’t come into play.

But it was interesting that these guys actually went to jail. There were the court trials, and I was reading some of the court transcripts. Really interesting stuff, I thought, alright. So we got mail-in balloting, we got harvesting going on. But maybe we have a margin is so wide that that kind of fraud doesn’t matter.

Tim:

It could be prophetic, we’ll see.

David:

Could be prophetic. So I had never heard about the mail-in ballots back in Lincoln’s election in 1864. But really, as I read the stuff, I thought, man, this really could fit easily for today.

Blue States

Rick:

And which states did you say did it?

David:

So actually, Rick, it was what we would call Blue States today or Democrat states and particularly the Democrats state of New York that really was most aggressive on this to do this kind of mail-in ballot the from the battlefield because they had so many soldiers out in the field, and those soldiers could turn in election. I mean, there’s just a lot of infighting, and it’s a big deal.

They wanted the Democratic candidate to win. The Democratic candidate was General McClellan and that was really one of Lincoln’s top generals. And so McClellan didn’t like the Civil War, didn’t want the Civil War, didn’t think it should be going on. They want a Democrat President.

Because in New York, as Democrats, they were still a very pro-slavery state, it’s just that they were pro-Union as well. They didn’t think you should have succeeded and split the Union from the south standpoint. But they did support slavery and that was not a big issue for them.

Rick:

That’s an interesting paradigm, David, because that helps me comprehend this better. New York, I immediately thought its north, it would be supporting Lincoln, but not so.

New York Wanted a Republican

David:

No, it was not supporting Lincoln, it was not antislavery in the way that the other northern States were. Even some of the border States were probably more antislavery than that far north State of New York. They actually had after the Civil War was over, a lot of race riots in New York, where Democrats and pro-slavery people were not giving civil rights to blacks who had been freed, etc.

So it really was a hardcore Democrat State that wanted to Republican Lincoln gone and came up with this plan that they thought would be a good plan. Because again, they thought the election was going to be really close, and it turned out not to be close, and so their plan really didn’t have a chance to do anything, because they just miscalculated.

But it’s interesting to see that same scenario, same kind of polarization and circumstances and the same kind of really, very rhetoric that we hear today which today may be kind of a repeat of what was attempted back then, we’ll see.

Rick:

Yeah, it’s eerily similar here. Racist Democrats coming up with a voting scheme to try to throw the election, that sounds very, very similar. In fact, we might have seen a lot of that in the Jim Crow years as well, also, from the Racist Democrats.

Quick break, guys, we got more questions coming our way for our Foundations of Freedom Thursday. Folks, send them into [email protected]. We’ll be right back on WallBuilders Live.

Our Founding Father’s Faith

Thomas Jefferson said, “The Constitution of most of our States and of the United States assert that all power is inherent in the people that they may exercise it by themselves. That 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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This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. Many today wrongly claim our Founding Fathers were largely atheists, agnostics and deist. Certainly, some founders were less religious than others, but even they were not irreligious.

Consider Benjamin Franklin, definitely one of the least religious among them. Yet, when the delegates at the Constitutional Convention hit an impasse in their deliberations, it was Franklin who called them to prayer, invoking numerous scriptures to make his point. As he reminded them, “God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured in the sacred writings that “except the Lord build they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this.” So, even the least religious of America’s founders urge public prayer and dependence on God.

For more information about the faith and the Founding Fathers, go to wallbuilders.com.

President Calvin Coolidge said, “The more I study the Constitution, the more I realized 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.”

Was Lincoln Well-Liked?

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us on this Foundations of Freedom Thursday. Next question comes from Christie and family. So the whole family got together, I’m assuming, around the table and came up with this question. It’s coming in from Missouri. Here we go.

“Our family was discussing how much the news media and especially the Democrats in power disliked President Trump, even though we Christians think he’s the best president in our lifetime…” By the way, can I just sidetrack for a second off of this question?

Way to go, Christie and family to sit around and talk about current events and what’s going on in the world and a biblical worldview of how we as Christians should act, that’s where we ought to be doing in Families, talk about these things, no matter how young your kids are. Okay, back to her question that she sent in.

“Do you have any knowledge to pass along about how much President Lincoln was disliked back in the 1860s? Was it as bad then as it is now? Did President Lincoln have as many difficulties as President Trump has? Everything President Trump says is twisted and everything he does is hated. Most of the celebrities and the rich of our time can’t stand President Trump.

Just wondering if there are any similarities. I believe, history will look back at President Trump and list him as one of the best right along with President Lincoln. Too bad, our entire country can’t see that now. Thanks for your radio program. Our family always learn something new. And we appreciate your biblical view on things.”

Christy, great question, great letter. Alright, guys, this is a really good question. Because I’ve always wondered if Trump is the most hated of any president and gets the worst treatment by the press. But Lincoln didn’t exactly have it easy?

Lincoln’s Early Life

David:

Well, let me take you back to the last segment. We were talking about Democrats in New York and they didn’t like Lincoln. And Democrats in New York had a newspaper back then called the New York Times and the New York Times really didn’t like Lincoln. And if you look at the editorial cartoons from back then, oh, my gosh, I’m not sure MSNBC or CNN has the guts to do what even New York Times did back then.

Tim:

Well, and I think there’s a little bit of irony to asking if Trump is the most hated when it comes to media or when it comes to Hollywood. Because I’m pretty sure, back in Lincoln’s day, Hollywood actually killed Abraham Lincoln, right? Because he wasn’t an actors, right? It was the people who were going oh, we’re going to do something different. It really is an interesting comparison on so many levels.

We’ve on this program before talked about the similarities between Trump and Churchillian kind of person or Churchill himself. Well, Churchill had so many weaknesses and faults and areas, but he was so strong and others at a time when England really needed that strength. And Lincoln is a very similar kind of guy.

Lincoln in his early life had a lot of problems and a lot of issues, whether it be alcohol, to kind of drugs, to womanizing, and adultery and prostitutes. And I mean Lincoln, when he ran away from God, he ran really far really hard and really well away from God. He became a really good singer. And I say that in the sense of he send a lot, often and really well when it comes to sinning. When God got a hold of his life again, and certainly, you see that change in Lincoln’s life.

An Incredibly Polarized Nation

However, Lincoln had a lot of issues. And then not to mention, in the midst of a nation that was incredibly polarized and divided where people are literally killing each other in the streets, there are so many similarities with these two guys in their lives with the administrations, what they’re dealing with, where Lincoln was literally saving a nation.

Right now, I would argue President Trump is literally helping save this nation. Certainly, those two comparisons seem very valid. However, is he the most hated? Guys, I mean, I think we can look back and maybe a dozen different elections and point to some really hated people.

I think you could go to the Adams Jefferson presidential campaign, there was a lot of hate between those two guys at their campaign…

David:

And the Jackson’s campaign after that.

Tim:

Well, that’s where I was going to go next. Yeah, the John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson campaign, where Jackson feels like it was stolen from him. And I think, there’s several examples of great political divisions, of great hate between parties. Although really, in Lincoln and Trump are the two where you actually are seeing violence and bloodshed on a different kind of level.

So it is an interesting comparison. But I don’t know that I would argue that Trump is the most hated. Certainly, he probably makes in the top five at least, though.

Emancipationists and Abolitionists

David:

But there are still some good comparisons, even going further than what Tim mentioned all the parallels. Take into account that Lincoln also had what would be called the “Never Lincoln” faction in his party or the “Never Trumpers” or whatever. Because the Republican Party back then was really split along the lines of Abolitionists, and Emancipationist. Abolitionist wanted slavery ended right now today, and Emancipation is one is slavery ended as quick as possible, but they wanted to make sure it got done well.

And so you have all these tactical battles and Lincoln is an Emancipationist, he’s not Abolitionists. And he kind of started that way and became an Abolitionist. But I mean, this thing is going back and forth. When he had his cabinet, his cabinet, it was composed primarily of guys who did not like him. So imagine having a cabinet around you that not only does a lot of your party not like you and the Democrats definitely don’t like you, a lot of your cabinet doesn’t like you.

So I think Lincoln had some really, really tough stuff back then. But it is still a good parallel, because Lincoln had to deal with the swamp even back in those days. I mean, there were career bureaucratic people within his party that were trying to take him out, just like the Democrats were. So there’s a lot of parallels.

Rick:

So, definitely a lot of parallels, definitely the same level of hatred, at least. It’d be hard to measure who got the most and I mean, I can remember walking through museums and seeing the caricatures of Lincoln that the newspapers did and the things they call him. I mean, it was just awful. Very similar to what they’re doing to Trump.

But you would definitely have to say Trump’s in the category of most hated, maybe top four. I think, Tim, you had mentioned the Adams and Jackson race and then the Adams and Jefferson race, I mean, it got ugly in some of these other races as well. Stay with us, folks, we’re going to take a quick break. We’ve got time for one more of your questions when we returned right here on WallBuilders Live.

Constitution Alive!

Thomas Jefferson said, “In questions of power, then let no more be heard of confidence in man that bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.”

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Have you ever wanted to learn more about the United States Constitution but just felt like, man, the classes are boring or it’s just that old language from 200 years ago or I don’t know where to start? People want to know, but it gets frustrating because they don’t know where to look for truth about the Constitution either.

Well, we’ve got a special program for you available now called Constitution Alive with David Barton and Rick Green. And it’s actually a teaching done on the Constitution at Independence Hall in the very room where the Constitution was framed. We take you both to Philadelphia, the cradle of liberty and Independence Hall and to the WallBuilders library, where David Barton brings the history to life to teach the original intent of our Founding Fathers.

We call it the Quickstart Guide to the Constitution, because in just a few hours through these videos, you will learn the citizens guide to America’s Constitution, you’ll learn what you need to do to help save our constitutional republic. It’s fun, it’s entertaining and it’s going to inspire you to do your part to preserve freedom for future generations. It’s called Constitution Alive with David Barton and Rick Green. You can find out more information on our website now and wallbuilders.com.

Samuel Adams said, “The liberties of our country and the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending against all hazards. And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.”

Who Has the Authority to Reopen America?

Rick:

Welcome back, thanks for staying with us on WallBuilders Live during this Foundations of Freedom Thursday today. Time for one more question. And if you’d like to get more of these, they’re available on our website right now at wallbuilderslive.com, just click on the archive section and look for some of those previous Thursday programs.

This last question comes from Scott, he’s a Fort Drum chaplain. And he said, “Amidst the discussions to reopen the US economy, who has the constitutional authority, the governors, or the president? Is it a combination of the two? Or is it a false dichotomy?” And guys, I don’t know if he means about false dichotomy that, because nobody really knows that nobody has the authority or exactly what he means by that, but this is a quite often asked question out there. Who’s got the authority to stop this cult of COVID crackdowns?

David:

Well, first off, huge shout out to Chaplain Ingram. Chaplains all over the Armed Forces, we really do appreciate. In this case, I know Scott, he’s a really great guy. I’ve known him for several posts, and he’s just a terrific guy. So thanks for the question, Scott. Now, let’s answer the question.

In some ways, Scott has identified the chicken and the egg scenario. He’s talking about the chicken, but I want to go back to the egg, the birth of chicken. And the question is, who has the authority to reinstate business, is it federal, is it State? The bigger issue is nobody had the constitutional authority to stop business in the first place. Neither the Fed nor the States had that authority.

The Declaration of Independence puts out six principles, but here’s three of them. There is a Creator God, Creator God gives us certain unalienable rights, and government exists to protect those inalienable rights. Now, some of those are in the Bill of Rights, we’ve got a number there.

Inalienable Right to Work

We have the right to keep and bear arms or self-defense. So we have five rights in the First Amendment. We have one right in the Third Amendment. We have several in the fourth, right? So there are several there and the Founding Fathers also gave others.

And it’s interesting that George Washington, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, several talked about the inalienable right to earn a living for your family. This is a God given right that you have the right to go out and earn a living for your family. Matter of fact, biblically, 1 Timothy 5:8 says, “If you don’t provide for your household, you’re worse than an infidel. You’ve denied the faith.”

And this was an inalienable right, government’s supposed to protect it. So neither the Feds nor the State should have shut down business that’s just not in their jurisdiction. That’s not a constitutional power that either one of them have.

Now, they can do some work. regulation for safety stuff within codes that is kind of like the OSHA stuff. And we can argue about whether even OSHA is there. But you can make an argument that you can have some safety requirements, but you can’t shut it down. You can’t take it over and you can’t seize it. It’s not within the jurisdiction of government.

So really, the answer to that question is who’s going to bring it back online? Well, both of them should, because they should go back to being constitutional, which means both of you should do everything they can to reverse the damage that they’ve done. And this is government caused damage, no question.

Tim:

And it could be argued that there are different aspects of the economy that might belong more to one level of this federalism than the other might belong more to, right? If someone imports, tariffs, whatever else, like that certainly does seem to be more in the federal category, although we could then debate about how constitutional some of those things are. And there are certainly some things within cities or counties or whatever else that certainly would seem to fall in more of the local jurisdiction or in the governor’s jurisdiction.

Censorship

But the idea that somebody can come into your business and tell you that you cannot operate or function as a business, if you have not done something that is clearly illegal and violates what the legislature is determined to be this or that, or whatever the case is, it certainly does seem to be an arbitrary power grab that happened and actually, something that was following much more of the medical professionals advice than anything related to what was constitution [crosstalk 23:20]

David:

Just following some of the medical professionals’ advice, because there was a whole lot of medical professionals who had a different opinion and governors weren’t going with that opinion.

Tim:

Well, now wait a second, I don’t think there’s different opinions, because YouTube and Google and Facebook only show me one opinion…

David:

That’s right.

Tim:

…And if there’s a second opinion, it’s taken down real quick. So I think there’s only one opinion, obviously, that’s ridiculous. But you’re exactly right, dad. This is what we’re seeing where one opinion is presented and this is the only position you can take, everybody has to wear a mask or else everybody’s going to die is what’s presented.

Really, you’ve just seen the massive overreach from people that are power hungry, and they are using this as an opportunity to usurp more power and to give themselves gives more control and it’s certainly not constitutional.

Unconstitutional Crackdowns

David:

So I would say where we are right now, the States certainly are the ones that are keeping business down at this point. It’s not the Feds. Feds may have started this, but it’s not the Feds that are continuing to keep business down month after month after month, saying only 25% occupancy in restaurants or hotels or whatever. That’s the States.

So if the States got out of the way and went back to protecting inalienable rights, which they’re supposed to do, this thing would be over a whole lot faster. So I will right now put the majority of the responsibility on the States. I think it partially started with the Feds, but Trump pulled out of it pretty quick. But then the States kind of put into steroids and kept going and they’re the ones that really need to get out of the way right now.

Rick:

Yeah, no doubt about it. It’s definitely been the governor’s that have gone off the cliff on this, gone way outside of the constitutional bounds of what they should be allowed to do. We’re seeing them slap down a little bit. Wisconsin governor got slapped down by the court saying that those COVID crackdowns were unconstitutional because he wasn’t seeking the legislature’s input after a certain amount of time. Pennsylvania slapped down.

So, I think we’ll see more and more this, eventually, these things are definitely going to be rolled. In my opinion, we’ll see if proven right, unconstitutional way overreach, not a compelling interest based on the science and the data once we began to know more and more what we were dealing with, and certainly not done in a narrowly tailored way or least restrictive. I mean, these blanket orders violate everything we know about what would be constitutional intervention from government.

Pelosi As President, Trump And Lincoln, And More – On Foundations of Freedom

So we’ll see as this develops, it’s so unfortunate that it has taken so long because so much damage has been done, but I 100% agree, it’s not been the Feds, it’s the States that need to back off. And unfortunately, we’re going to have to make them back off through civil disobedience and through lawsuits and getting the courts to rule in this way and eventually, possibly federal intervention on some of these issues. So we’ll see.

But we sure appreciate you for listening today. Thanks for listening to WallBuilders Live for this Foundations of Freedom Thursday. You can get all of our other programming at the website, wallbuilderslive.com. That’s also where you can donate, make that one time or monthly. contribution, and you were coming alongside us to help restore America’s constitutional republic.

You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.

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President Calvin Coolidge said, “The more I study the Constitution, the more I realized 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.”