The Laws Of Nature, Celebrating The Anniversary Of The Bill Of Rights Part 1: On WallBuilders Live we are having a three-day series special in honor of the anniversary of the Bill of Rights! We will be sharing a portion from our one of a kind Constitution Alive courses. In these three days, you will learn all you need to know about the Second through the Tenth Amendment. Join David Barton and Rick Green, Constitutional experts and advocates for the original intent of our founding documents as they share with you the meaning and purpose of the Constitution!
Air Date:Â 09/25/2017
Guests: David Barton, Reagan Green, and Rick Green.
- WallBuilders | American historical events, founding fathers, historical documents, books, videos, CDs, tapes, David Barton’s speaking schedule.
- Constitutional Defense Class
- Bring a speaker to your area.
- Constitution Alive Use promo code WBL17 to receive 10% off your entire order!
Listen:
Download: Click Here
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
Rick:
You found your way to the intersection of faith and the culture, welcome to WallBuilders Live! Where we”re talking about today”s hottest topics on policy, faith, and the culture, all of it from a Biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective.
David Barton is our premier historian here at WallBuilders, the founder of WallBuilders. Tim Barton is a national speaker, pastor. And my name is Rick Green, I’m a former Texas state representative.
Find out more about all three of us at our websites WallBuildersLive.com, that also has a list of all the stations across the country carrying the program. And you can get archives of the program over the last few days.
Today, tomorrow, and the next day, three days of a special series in celebration of the anniversary of the Bill of Rights. Of course last week was the anniversary of the Constitution itself but now we’re celebrating the Bill of Rights.
What a great opportunity to learn that Biblical, historical, and constitutional foundation of America. What we’re going to do is bring you Section 9 out of Constitution Alive with David Barton and Rick Green.
If you want the whole series you can get it at our website today at WallBuilders.com or go to that link very easily at WallBuildersLive.com. You can get the full series or you can just listen over the next three days and you’ll learn a lot about the Bill of Rights. Let’s dive right into Constitution Alive.
God Revealed Himself In Nature
Rick:
Welcome back to Constitution Alive with David Barton and 0.
3Rick Green. We’ve covered a lot of ground we’ve talked about the presidency, we’ve gone through Congress, the judiciary, and we’ve started with the Bill of Rights. In our last section, we covered the First Amendment and now we’re going to cover the 2nd through the 10th. So a lot more ground again. These are all of our inalienable rights that we want to protect.
David:
If you go back to what was said about fundamental principles from the Declaration that frames the Constitution, you start with, “There is a God, He gives inalienable rights, government exists to protect those rights, and there is a fixed moral law called the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.”
At the time that was including the Declaration, everybody knew where that came from, that it came from this set of books right here. This is Blackstone’s Commentaries and the Law that was introduced in about 1766 through 69, it”s a four volume set. This is what American attornies studied because we were still British citizens back then.
Thomas Jefferson made the comment that American attorneys studied this in the same way that Muslims studied the Quran, so they knew this. It is in volume one in the second chapter that Blackstone- and by the way, Blackstone was so significant to the Founding Fathers that of all the potential thousands of books that were out there on government that in the founding era from 1760 to 1805, he is the second most cited sourced by the Founding Fathers.
Rick:
So a huge impact.
David:
Huge impact! And he is the second most cited a human source. The number one most cited source was the Bible, 34% percent of all the quotes went back to the Bible in the founding era. Then you had folks like Baron Charles Montesquieu who was the single highest human source, and he’s the second highest human source so these are the guys.
In here you get that phrase, “The Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.” As Blackstone points out, that deals with a revelation of God, because God revealed Himself in nature and God also revealed himself in laws. The Laws of Nature’s God, the God who created nature and the laws of the God who create nation, that”s in the Scriptures.
Rick:
So that”s not just any religion, it”s not just a New Age kind of sense of- there is a specific revelation?
You Mean Milk Comes From Cows?
David:
No, there is the holy- as he said in the Holy Scriptures. So it is the Bible. But what’s interesting is they were trained to think in a way we don’t think today. They were a very Agrarian society. Even if you lived in Boston you still had to deal with horses, you had to deal with animals, and livestock. You will find that people who were raised in the country have a different view of the laws of nature than those that are raised in the city. If you’ve been raised in New York City, you’ve grown up your whole life- a lot of folks in New York City have never gone out of a six block area. Those high rises, they’ve got doctors, and they’ve got beauty salons, they’ve got a grocery stores-
Rick:
Their whole life is right there.
David:
Their whole life is right there.
Rick:
A lot of things that they haven’t been exposed to that a person living out in the country-
David:
Literally, we used to take groups of kids out of New York City, out of the Long Island, and let them walk on grass, they”ve never done it. There’s grass in Central Park but a lot of these kids had never been there. Then you’d point at a cow, “What”s that?” “Well, that’s a cow. That’s where you get milk.”
Rick:
You get them from that carton, right?
David:
Exactly.
Rick:
Now, that’s not an exaggeration. I served on the Ag Committee and I remember we actually used to have displays at the livestock shows to bring those kids in. I mean, this is today. Teach these kids that’s where the milk actually comes from. So, if your world is contained in the city you have never been exposed to this.
David:
You’ve never been exposed to it. If you don’t have that rural mentality. Â You missed the Laws of Nature. The Laws of Nature are interesting for a number of races. The Laws of Nature tell you what’s right and wrong. So the Founding Fathers said, “There are the Laws of Nature and the Laws of Nature’s God.”
The Rules Of The Laws Of Nature
Kind of explaining how this works. Â I’m a cowboy. Got the ranch, got the horses, got the cattle, all the stuff that goes with it. So I do a lot of trail riding, horses, you”ve got to have a horse that you absolutely trust, have to have a bond with your horse because you get in dangerous situations.
So if I tell my horse to go off the side of this cliff and walk that trail, it”s gotta be willing to do it because if it does anything goofy I’ll be the one going down, maybe with the horse on top of me. If I tell a horse it”s got to swim this fast moving river- so you have to have a good relationship with the horse.
I have a great relationship with my mare. Well, she had a little foal. If go into the barn to feed that horse, I’ll come out with the footprint in the middle of my forehead because it is kicked into her that, “I have to defend my young.” Wait a minute, that’s my barn, I built it for her. Yeah, but she thinks that’s her home.
Rick:
And she”s supposed to be the mare that trust you, what changed?
David:
What changed is the Laws of Nature. It is natural for animals and for any created nature to defend what it considers to be it’s home, to defend what it considers to be it young, and to defend its own life. If you come after her with malice she will fight back. You come after her kids, she will fight back.
Rick:
That’s the mama bear, she”s going to protect those cubs.
David:
That’s the Law of Nature. I don’t need the Bible and I don’t need any civil parchment to tell me that I’ve got a right to defend myself. That’s the Law of Nature.
Rick:
Or your family.
David:
Or your family. Same with property ownership. I don’t care whether you are a snake, or whether you’re a rat, or a mouse, or a raccoon, when you’re born you find something you consider to be your home and you live there and you will defend that. You have a right to that property around there.
If you die, somebody else gets it, another racoon or possum. But you have a right to property. There is private property. It”s not owned collectively, they will stake out what they consider to be their own turf. So you have a natural right or a Law of Nature that says that you have the right to property.
The Law of Nature says that you have a right to liberty. Significantly, elk don’t enslave possum. Rabbits don’t enslave cows. There’s over 10 million pieces in nature and you don’t have slavery. A couple of people pointed, “Well, that”s slavery.” The folks who deal with this say that’s not slavery. So there is no slavery.
“How come our Founders didn’t understand that?” If they wrote the laws of nature and nature’s God? What happens is education allows, we look for every opportunity to condemn the Founding Fathers that we are happy to point out slave owners.
Bring A Speaker To Your Area
Tim:
Hey, this is Tim Barton with WallBuilders. Â 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, “As 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.
Did All Of The Founding Fathers Have Slaves
David:
I was at a law school recently and I put up a picture of the signers of the Declaration of Independance, 56 of them. And I said, “Isn”t it unfortunate that all these guys are racist, slave owners, and bigots?” and they all said, “Yeah. Â It’s unfortunate that that”s America’s founding.”
Then I said, “By the way, who in that picture owned slaves?” They said, “Thomas Jefferson.” I said, “Who else?” They didn’t name-
Rick:
Didn’t get any further.
David:
And I said, “Wait a minute, there’s 56 folks here, you name one that own slaves, and on the basis of one owning slaves you say that they’re all slave owners, and racists, and bigots?” And they didn’t know what to say.
So I started going through and showing all the antislavery Founders which is about 70% of the Founding Fathers were anti-slavery, abolitionists, and or released slaves. So, those 70 percent jump the other 30 percent. I said, “Guys, this follows the Laws of Nature. There is nothing in the Law of Nature that enslaves any others. This is a violation of natural-“
So, the abolitionist John Quincy Adams and others that we”ve talked about, that’s what they used was the laws, they didn’t use the scriptures, they didn’t need to, it”s the Law of Nature.
Why We Need The Rules Of Nature”s God
In the same way, moral rights and wrongs come from nature. For example, there is no species in nature that kills its young while still in the womb. There is nothing in natural law for abortion. I don”t care whether you are evolution or creation. Abortion, killing the young in the womb, is a violation-
Rick:
Based on just natural law, you can have a pro-life argument.
David:
That”s right, I don’t need scriptures to say that. I can say the same with homosexuality. They exist in a few species in nature, in 10 million species you can find a few that have it occasionally but even in those spaces it”s an aberration. Which is why in the early American law books, Blackstone’s and other American law books, they didn’t use the Bible to say it is wrong. It was called, “The Crime Against Nature.”
It violates the Laws of Nature which aren’t made by human beings. We can pass laws all day long and say, “We suspend the law of gravity.” It doesn’t matter, it’s a Law of Nature. You”re not  going to suspend the law of gravity.
That’s the position they had. So when they said, “The Laws of Nature,” that told them certain things were right and wrong. Try finding rape in nature. As a matter of fact, you have a right of association in nature.
Once you’re born you can pick the herd you want to run with. If you run with that herd- if you decide, “I”m tired of running with that herd of deer, I’m going to herd.” You can’t do that.
That’s what the Founding Fathers called, “The right of expatriation. I can leave one herd and join another.” That’s when you get the First Amendment right of association. I can choose to be with who I want it. So all of these are natural rights.
How To Apply The Rules Of Nature’s God
Now, here’s the problem. When a cowboy, like I am, under the laws of nature, is theft a common part of the laws of nature? You bet it is. You”ve got several horses, I’ll feed them, they’ll try to steal the food from the other horses. They don’t stick with their own. They want everybody else’s food.
Then when you look at nature, is adultery common in nature? Oh yeah. Monogamy is not normal. That’s why you have one bull with forty cows. That is because monogamy is not common.
Then you look in nature and you say, “Is murder common in nature?” Absolutely. You ever see what a skunk does inside a henhouse? They don’t go in there to eat meat. They go in there to slaughter the chickens.
Then you look at things like incest. Is that common in nature? Absolutely. That’s why a Cowboy will not ride a Mustang because they’ve been inbred for so many generations they don’t have stamina and strength.
Well, if the Laws of Nature are what we use then how do you explain that? That’s where you have the Laws of Nature’s God. God comes through and the Ten Commandments say, “Don’t murder. It may be common in nature but you don”t murder. By the way, you don’t steal.” So between the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God you get right and wrong.
Rick:
So it”s Nature’s God that really civilizes?
David:
It is.
Rick:
Instead of being the wild, Laws of Nature-
David:
You see, that’s where inalienable rights come from. I have an inalienable right to life that came without any civil government telling me. A right to liberty, from the moment I’m born I have the right to be free. I have the right to associate with who I want to, I don”t have the right for certain sexual behavior to be part- like rape, things like that. That’s not part of the Laws of Nature. I have the right to defend myself, whether you like it or not I’ve got a right. That’s a natural law.
So, that’s really the origin of what we have as the Bill of Rights. When you look at the Bill of Rights- and we’re going to study the rest of those, you went to the First Amendment in the last lesson. We’ll go through the other amendments this time.
They’re origin really tracks back to the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God which establishes a fixed moral absolute. It is absolutely 100 percent right to protect the right to life. It is 100 percent right to protect the right of self-defense because those are established by God.
Rick:
And that’s the becoming civilized part, it”s the role of government is to protect those rights. So you’ve got a right to that life, if in nature something was trying to take your life, it’s government’s job to protect you- you have a right to protect yourself from it. But even if you couldn’t, the government gotta-
David:
And by the way, it’s often the government who violates those rights. It”s not just individuals. It”s not just thugs who try to take my property, the government tries to take my property.
That’s why they put the Takings Clause in the Fifth Amendment to say, “Government, you can’t take private property. It’s individual’s private property.” And I want to defend myself and the government says, “You can’t defend yourself, you can’t own guns.” No, it”s not-
Often it”s the government that violates the very rights and therefore we say, “Government. These are off limits to you. Not only can you not violate them. You have to protect them.”
What About The Second Amendment
Rick:
Speaking of guns and the Second Amendment, that’ll be the first one we get to when we get to Philly. But before we go to Philly, I wanted to mention in our workbook we have an article that we’ve reprinted from you on slavery and the Founding Fathers. Because as you were mentioning that, it”s a chance to dive a lot deeper there and folks can get it on your website or at WallBuilders.com.
Rick:
Alright, let”s go back to Philadelphia to Independence Hall. We’ll dive in a little deeper to the 2nd through the 10th amendments, those inalienable rights. In fact, the kids are going to help teach there at Independence.
Rick:
How about the Second Amendment? As a Texan, you know I’m going to want to cover the Second Amendment a little bit, right? So instead of me covering it though, I’m going to ask for another one of my boys to come up. Reagan Green is going to come up and help us out. He’s going to share with us a little bit about Second Amendment. Y”all welcome Reagan, come on up buddy.
Reagan:
Richard Henry Lee was the Founding Father in the Continental Congress who made the motion for America’s independence on June 7th, 1776. Who, by the way, was sitting right over here when our Declaration of Independence was signed.
Lee has said that to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of all people possess arms and be taught how to use them, especially when young. This may explain why John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States, was out with the Massachusetts Minutemen doing musket drills when he was only 8 years old.
The Founding Fathers said that the Second Amendment is the one that protects all our freedoms. It says, “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
At that time the militia was every man that could fire a rifle. This freedom wasn’t for the official military. It was for we the people. Which is why it says, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
Even if you don’t like hunting or guns as much as our family, you would be wise to help protect the rights of other families like ours so we can keep our guns just in case some day we need to use those guns to help protect your rights. Please welcome back my dad.
Rick:
Thank you guys. No, I’m sorry, we won’t be having shooting lessons tonight outside. So that’s it for tonight. But, you know, with movie Red Dawn being redone, I think it’s important that we all recognize that Second Amendment, just in case we do get invaded.
So, there is a Second Amendment for you. A lot of debate on that issue over the years, the Supreme Court did hear that case, the McDonald case we talked about last night. Finally, for the first time, the Supreme Court weighed in and said, “Yes, it is an individual right to keep and bear arms.” That was something that was really up in the air as far as how the court would rule on that over the years.
I thought I was ready. I’m a Type A personality. I had shot my gun out at the ranch but I never had any real training; I didn’t think I needed it. I’m a person of action, I’m going to get it done. I just knew that if the time ever came that I wouldn’t need to step up and defend my family that I would.
But I was wrong. When the moment came I froze. I didn’t have the training, or the confidence, I didn”t have the skills needed to defend my family. And I never, ever, want to be in that situation unprepared again.
Fortunately, my moment of truth came in a simulation. So it wasn’t the real world. Man, it was a wakeup call for me. It began a journey of preparation and training so that I could defend my family.
I know for thousands and thousands of families out there every year, the brutality of evil becomes very real. It’s not a simulation, it happens to them, and they have to live with that devastation.
I want to know that when evil comes knocking on my door, that if that situation ever becomes real in my life, that now because of the training and the preparation, Lord willing, I am ready. I want you to be ready as well.
Constitution Alive
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 you 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. 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 Citizen’s Guide to America’s Constitution. Â 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 at WallBuilders.com.
The Seventh Amendment
Rick:
The Seventh Amendment, this is where you get your right to a jury trial in a civil case. But there’s a big hurdle here. I mean, it’s a huge hurdle. There”s got to be a lot of money at stake. Everybody look down at the Seventh Amendment there and tell me how much money has got to be at stake for you to get your jury trial in a civil case?
Twenty bucks man. Unless you’re suing the gumball manufacturer because you got the wrong ring, you’re probably going to be able to get your jury trial. So that’s the 7th. Also, the Seventh Amendment incorporates the common law. So it’s important for us to remember that.
“In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury,” I love this, I wish we still did this. “No fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.”
Boy, we have lost that one, let me tell you. The influence and the last bastion of protection of a jury trial has really been lost in our jurisprudence today. It used to be we actually called them, “Courts of Justice” because the goal was justice, right? Then we started calling them, “Courts of Law.” And now we just call them, “Courts.” The way that has devolved, in my opinion, is we’ve lost a lot of Justice.
It used to be that you had the right of what we called, “Jury Nullification.” A jury could say, “Yes, the law says this. Yes, the person did this. But we as a jury think that’s an unjust law or it is unjustly applied in this situation.” And the jury was the one that would protect an unjust law from being forced on someone.
These days, man, we basically say to a jury, “Fill in the blanks, yes or no, that’s your only option.” We take away their real opportunity to have the final decision in so many of these different cases out there.
Without getting too far in the weeds, I just think we need to rethink the fact that a jury of our peers should have the ability to hear everything in the case. We ought to stop holding stuff back from the jury. The jury of our peers ought to have the ability to reason and make the final decision.
Unfortunately, today, we do very little of that and we allow anything that the jury does, pretty much, to now be appealed and a judge overturned what the jury did. Yes, sir?
Has The Law Changed Or Is It Just The Methodology
Guest:
A question on that is, has the law changed or just the methodology changed? Because my understanding is Jury Nullification is still an option. They almost never tell the jury that’s an option.
Rick:
Not only do they not tell them, they either ignore it or overrule it. You end up with your de novo decisions and your judges that are saying, “Hey, you know what, the jury might have found out but we’re smarter than you.”
Again, it’s that high priest of the law mentality that the judges know better than the people. But you’re right, it’s still there in the Constitution, those protections are still there. I forget the phrase you used, not the law has changed but the methodology, was that the word used? Yeah, it’s the methodology that’s changed. No doubt about it.
Again, it goes back to a generational change. Us educating our congressmen and here’s the good news. This mentality of the law moving away from a constitutional basis, and a strict constructionist basis, to this living breathing document thing. Most law schools are all into this living breathing document thing. They empower the judiciary, empower the legal community, “Because we’re all too dumb to do it.”
But you’ve got some new law schools over the last 20 years or so that are raising up a whole new crop of attorneys and future judges that are actually strict constructionist, very much into the Founding Fathers, studying all the things that we’re talking about, and not so sold out to stare decisis to say that it doesn’t matter what the Founders did. It’s what the last judge said. And they’re saying, “No, it does matter what the Founders did.”
If the last judge on the decision got it wrong, we need to correct that. If the judges were so perfect Dred Scott would still be the law of the land. The Supreme Court of the United States said that no black man has any right that any white man has to recognize. But that was wrong, wasn’t it?
But we don’t say, “Just because the court said it we’re never going to overturn it.” We say, “Hey, the court gets things wrong. We need to correct it. If they get their interpretation wrong of what the Founders in this room said for the Constitution we need to correct it over time.”
And get empowering the jury, and us knowing- You know, a great point on that, sir, is that we should make sure that we educate our friends, and family, and neighbors and say, “Don’t run from jury duty. We need you on the jury. That’s one of our responsibilities under this Constitution.” We want good justice, we want a good system. We’ve got to be willing to go, “Sir, I know it’s only six bucks a day, I know it’s painful to do, it takes you away from your family, it takes us away from our work. But it’s the duty that we have if we want good government, we’ve got to participate in that government.”
Maybe the more we know about it we can raise it when we’re on a jury panel. We can ask the judge, “Why don’t we have the opportunity to hear that evidence? Why don’t we have the opportunity to actually make the decision not just fill in the blanks that you’ve got for us here?”
So, I think this can get better, partly because of we the people getting more educated, but also because of these law schools and new attorneys that are getting turned out there.
The Laws Of Nature On Constitution Alive
Well, we’re out of time for today, folks. You’ve been listening to Constitution Alive, it’s Section 9 where we dive into the Bill of Rights. We’re going to do that today, tomorrow, and the next day and give you a chance to learn a lot about our Constitution.
You can learn the entire Constitution by getting Constitution Alive on DVD and workbook and get the workbook and actually open up your home, or your Sunday school class, or wherever you can and share it with other people.
We want you to show this program to other folks. You don”t have to pay any royalties or anything like that. Take it and share it with your friends and family, get them educated on the Constitution. It”s called Constitution Alive with David Barton and Rick Green. You can find out more about it at our website WallBuilders.com, don’t miss tomorrow we’ll pick up right where we left off today with Constitution Alive.
Leave A Comment