Tea, Rebellion & the Constitution.  Tim Sandefur Talks to A&G

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: Armstrong & Getty On Demand
Episode: Tea, Rebellion & the Constitution. Tim Sandefur Talks to A&G
Date: April 10, 2026
Host: Joe (Armstrong & Getty)
Guest: Tim Sandefur (Goldwater Institute, Cato Institute scholar, author of Proclaiming Liberty: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and the Declaration of Independence)

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Episode Overview

This episode features a rich and lively discussion between host Joe and renowned legal scholar and author Tim Sandefur. Tim presents his new book, Proclaiming Liberty, describing it as a "biography of the Declaration of Independence" through the lens of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson’s friendship and their philosophical—and at times contentious—roles in the American Revolution. The conversation delves into the origins and significance of the Declaration, the cultural forces leading to rebellion, ongoing misperceptions about America’s founding, and the personal dynamics between key founding fathers.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Declaration as a Story of Friendship and Conflict

[03:52]

• Tim sought to make his new book accessible by narrating the philosophical and legal foundations of the Declaration as a story, centered on the relationship between Adams and Jefferson and the controversies of 1776.

  “I wanted to make it not just a boring recitation of philosophical or legal issues, but to try and tell it in the context of all the controversies that were going on at the time…”
  — Tim Sandefur [03:52]

• He emphasizes that the Declaration’s grievances were deeply rooted in Parliament’s overreach, not just “a little three penny tax on tea.”

  “The issue was how much power, if any, does Parliament have to [exert] over the colonies… The answer was no. 0.”
  — Tim Sandefur [05:21]

2. The Importance of Compromise Among the Founders

[04:43–06:23]

• Joe highlights how even fiercely disagreeing founders like Adams and Jefferson found ways to collaborate, a lesson for today’s polarized world.
• Tim elaborates that the revolutionaries were “not united”—negotiation and even anger were key to progress.

  “We have this idea that all the patriots were united, but they really weren’t. They had a lot of internal disagreements and it took a lot of patient negotiation and argument.”
  — Tim Sandefur [06:23]

• Anecdote: Jefferson once wrote “we must devoutly pray for [Patrick Henry’s] death.” [06:50]

3. The Deep Roots of American Rebellion

[07:02–08:41]

• The revolution was not a sudden burst but "had been simmering for 150 years”—with origins reaching back to the English Civil Wars.
• American revolutionaries were “steeped” in the tradition of autonomy and liberty, unlike the French during their revolution.

  “…everything is downstream of culture. Everything.”
  — Joe [09:40]

• Adams’s skepticism about rapid cultural change leading to democracy, as in France, remains relevant:

  “Adams…said, how could anybody expect for millions of Frenchmen who had known nothing but absolute tyranny…to go overnight into a modern democracy is totally insane.”
  — Tim Sandefur [08:41]

4. Is the Declaration of Independence Law?

[10:21–12:27]

• Sandefur challenges common misconceptions—among scholars and even Supreme Court justices—that the Declaration is not a legal document.

  “The Declaration of Independence is the cement of our Union…It still has legal consequences. It’s in the statute books. If you pull down volume one, page one of the statutes at large of the United States…there it is. What else is necessary to make it a law?”
  — Tim Sandefur [10:21-11:50]

• He criticizes Supreme Court Justices Barrett and Scalia for claiming the Declaration isn’t law, explaining its function as the “frame in which the Constitution exists.”

5. How Jefferson Got the Job

[12:46–14:19]

• Jefferson was chosen to draft the Declaration because of his prior well-written works and legal scholarship, not out of mere convenience.
• Adams was the influencer and orator, while Jefferson was the gifted writer behind the texts.

  “Jefferson was a really gifted writer…he also wrote the Declaration of Independence. It’s just incredible.”
  — Tim Sandefur [14:19]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On enduring disagreements:
  “I have always been inspired by…Adams and Jefferson…they stuck together and they said, we will work this out, we will figure out a compromise…”
  — Joe [04:43]

• On Americans' attitudes toward Parliament:
  “The rebellion was a rebellion against Parliament at first, not against the King…”
  — Tim Sandefur [05:21]

• On the myth of unity:
  “We have this idea that all the patriots were united, but they really weren’t…”
  — Tim Sandefur [06:23]

• Adams on Patrick Henry:
  “We must devoutly pray for his death.”
  — Thomas Jefferson, quoted by Tim Sandefur [06:50]

• On the roots of liberty:
  “Everything is downstream of culture. Everything…”
  — Joe [09:40]

• On the Declaration’s place in law:
  “It is the basic law. It’s the frame in which the Constitution exists.”
  — Tim Sandefur [11:50]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:05] – Introduction of Tim Sandefur and his new book
• [03:52] – Sandefur describes the “biography of the Declaration” approach
• [04:43] – Joe on disagreements, compromise among founders
• [05:21] – Tea tax myth and rebellion against Parliament
• [06:23] – Patriot disunity and negotiation (“devoutly pray for his death”)
• [07:02] – Why focus on Adams and Jefferson
• [08:41] – Culture and readiness for freedom, Adams versus French Revolution
• [09:40] – Importance of culture in shaping liberty
• [10:21] – Is the Declaration law? Tim’s refutation of common myths
• [12:46] – How Jefferson came to draft the Declaration
• [14:19] – On Jefferson’s character and youthful exploits
• [16:49] – Adams’s influence, legislative specifics he inspired in the Declaration
• [19:38] – The slavery clause; Jefferson’s passionate anti-slavery language
• [20:16] – Misperceptions about Jefferson and slavery clarified
• [22:12] – Tim’s recommendations for further reading on slavery and the founders

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Additional Highlights

Adams and Jefferson’s Roles

[17:22–19:27]

• Jefferson as the writer, Adams as the defender and orator.
• Example: Adams added the complaint about the King moving legislatures, which reflected his own experience in Massachusetts.

The Slavery Debate

[19:38–21:51]

• Jefferson’s original text denounced the King’s protection of slavery; Adams supported this clause.
• Other delegates, especially from the South and Northern slave-transporting states, removed the passage—Jefferson was so upset he circulated his own version privately.

Resources for Deeper Learning

[22:12]

• Tim recommends Arguing About Slavery (William Lee Miller) and promises more titles for the show’s website.

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Takeaways

• The American Revolution’s roots are more complex and deeper than often taught, with centuries of cultural and political context.
• The Declaration of Independence, often misunderstood or downplayed, is central to American law and identity—“the cement of our Union.”
• Friendship, argument, disappointment, and principled compromise were as much a part of the founding as grand ideals.
• Historical myths persist—around everything from “the tea tax” to the founders’ attitudes about slavery and the Declaration’s legal status.

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For Further Exploration

• Proclaiming Liberty: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and the Declaration of Independence by Tim Sandefur
• Arguing About Slavery by William Lee Miller

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Summary prepared for listeners and learners seeking the most vital insights and moments from Armstrong & Getty’s conversation with Tim Sandefur on the intellectual, legal, and human origins of America’s Declaration of Independence.

Transcript

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[Joe (Host of Armstrong and Getty)]

friend of the show, Tim Sandifer Tim, the lawyer who is a big wheel these days at the Goldwater Institute. We'll talk about that in a minute. Also an adjunct scholar with the Cato Institute, among other things, and the author of a number of fine books which I recommend heartily, one and all, including a brand new book proclaiming Liberty, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and the Declaration of Independence. Can't wait to read it. Tim Sandifer joins us now. Tim, how are you?

[Tim Sandifer]

I'm just great. Been too long.

[Joe (Host of Armstrong and Getty)]

Yeah, it really has been. I hope you and your beautiful, brilliant bride are both doing well. I'm looking at what you wrote about your new book proclaiming liberty, and you describe it as a biography of the Declaration of Independence. I love that. What do you mean?

[Tim Sandifer]

Well, I tried to tell the story of the Declaration of Independence in order to cover the legal and philosophical basis background of the Declaration, but to tell it in sort of a story format about the friendship between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and the issues that they were facing in 1776. So I wanted to make it not just a boring recitation of philosophical or legal issues, but to try and tell it in the context of the of all the controversies that were going on at the time, which I think a lot of people don't know about. I mean, I think today people read the Declaration of Independence and they get to that long list of complaints about what Britain was doing and they don't really know what those things are all referring to. And so I wanted to go clause by clause through the Declaration and say exactly what it was that Parliament was doing that bothered the Americans and how that connected to the lives of the people who wrote the Declaration.

[Joe (Host of Armstrong and Getty)]

Yeah, two points. Number one, I have always been inspired by, for instance, Adams and Jefferson. There are plenty of other examples of guys who are disagreed with each other vehemently. I mean like red faced, spit flying, but they stuck together and they said, we will work this out, we will figure out a compromise. Which I think is a lesson all of us could follow. And the second thing is I love the idea of going through the various clauses and helping people understand what they mean and why they were so serious. They merited launching a new country because I'm certain people will say, wait a minute, I can relate to that in my, my business, my family, my town.

[Tim Sandifer]

Oh, definitely. And you know, one of the reasons I wrote the book is because it annoys me so much when you hear people say, well, the American Revolution was just about a little three penny tax on T. And you know, people were saying that back in 1776 too. And it really annoyed people like Jefferson and Adams when people would make that claim because it just was not true. The issue was how much power, if any, does Parliament have to over the colonies of North America? And the answer was no. 0. It was the King who governed them, but the laws were made by their own local legislatures and Parliament would not accept that. So really the rebellion was a rebellion against Parliament at first, not against the King. It was only when King George made clear that he was not going to do anything about it and that he sided with Parliament that the Americans said, well then we can't even be loyal to the King either. And that's why the Declaration is aimed at the King and doesn't even mention Parliament by name. They couldn't even bring to mention the name Parliament in the Declaration because they were just that angry.

[Joe (Host of Armstrong and Getty)]

Wow.

[Tim Sandifer]

But you're right about, you're right about compromise and negotiation with people who disagree with each other. Because you know, we have this idea that all the patriots were united, but they really weren't. They had a lot of internal disagreements and it took a lot of patient negotiation and argument. And sometimes they got very angry at each other. My favorite example is Thomas Jefferson. Later in life, Thomas Jefferson said about Patrick Henry, we must devoutly pray for his death.

[Joe (Host of Armstrong and Getty)]

I've always wondered whether that was cool or not in the eyes of whatever concept of the Almighty. So why did you go with Jefferson and Adams in particular since there are many fine founding papas that you could have focused on.

[Tim Sandifer]

Well, I've always been a big Jefferson Fanatic ever since I was a kid. But you can't really write about the Declaration and just about Jefferson. He was very young. He was one of the youngest members of the Continental Congress. He was 33 years old at the time that he wrote the Declaration. And he showed up at the Continental Congress pretty late in the day. John Adams had been there the entire time, and he was really the champion of independence from an early day. And their friendship, you know, everybody knows that they ended up having a lot of very serious disagreements. But that wasn't until later on in 1776. They were both very radical, and they were really good friends at the time. And so it became. It started out as a book about Jefferson, and then as I wrote it, it turned into a buddy picture, you know. And from that point, I had to tell the story about what happened the century before that, because people don't know much about the English Civil wars of the 17th century, 100 years before the Revolution, that the Americans were already demanding a certain degree of autonomy at that time. And it was those wars that set the background for the American Revolution. This isn't something that just, you know, everybody woke up in 1775 and were like, hey, we're tired of being British. You know, this was something that had been simmering for 150 years before the Declaration.

[Joe (Host of Armstrong and Getty)]

I was gonna say steeping in honor of the Tea Party, but yes. Well, that's. And that's one thing that I don't want to get off on the tangent about Jeffersonian democracies in Middle Eastern countries, but we were steeped in the principles that gave birth to this country for a hell of a long time. I mean, it was truly in our DNA.

[Tim Sandifer]

Yes, and that was a point that John Adams particularly was very emphatic about. You know, when the French Revolution broke out, you know, more than a decade after independence, Adams was very cynical about the possibilities of the French Revolution because he said, you need this long cultural development of the ideas of freedom before you can have political freedom. And he thought the French were acting too quickly because they didn't have that tradition. And there's a funny thing. Adams was one of these guys who liked to write in the margins of his books, like I do. And so he had a copy of a book about the French Revolution, and he wrote all these angry comments in the margins. And there's one part where he says, how could anybody expect for millions of Frenchmen who had known nothing but absolute tyranny and absolute monarchy for centuries, to go overnight into a modern democracy is totally Insane. And, I mean, it's amazing how that lesson is something we could still learn a lot about today.

[Joe (Host of Armstrong and Getty)]

Yeah, it's half a cliche, but, man, I spend a lot of time thinking about the fact that everything is downstream of culture. Everything. And people, whether they're attractive half wits serving in Congress, who declare there's no such thing as Western culture, or just people who failed to even notice that it exists. It makes me insane. But that's part of the reason I get up and do this job. So when you. I'm sure you occasionally run into somebody who clearly has either no understanding of the Declaration of Independence or tends to think it's, like, not one of the important founding documents, it's the Constitutions or a founding document. What do you lead with? What's the most. What's your lead pitch? That. Whoa, whoa, whoa. You need to wake up and understand this.

[Tim Sandifer]

You are absolutely right. I have encountered this for decades. Ever since I was a teenager, this issue has bothered me especially. There's a lot of conservatives who like to downplay the importance of the Declaration, say, oh, no, the war was really about the traditional rights of Englishmen. All that stuff about equality and liberty that was just put in there to interest the French. The Americans didn't really care about those abstract principles. And that's total nonsense. The Declaration of Independence is the cement of our Union. In fact, even Jefferson said, when he was an old man, he said that the Declaration was the fundamental act of the union of these states. And Jefferson was a states rights guy, and he still said that. So the Declaration is part of our Constitution. And that actually, that's another reason I wrote the book, is I was really bothered. When Justice Barrett was going through her confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court, one of the senators asked her, is the Declaration part of our law? And she said, no. And that's completely wrong. Of course it's part of our law. It was passed by what was the legislature of the country at the time. It had legal consequences by separating us from Great Britain. It still has legal consequences. It's in the statute books. If you pull down volume one, page one of the statutes at large of the United States or the United States Code, there it is. What else is necessary to make it a law? It is the basic law. It's the frame in which the Constitution exists.

[Joe (Host of Armstrong and Getty)]

See, I didn't even know that last part about it actually being in the codes. It's bizarre and troubling to me that she would say that. I don't think I fully appreciated it at the Time.

[Tim Sandifer]

She's not the only one, either. Justice Scalia said the same thing. In fact, when he was on the Supreme Court, Justice Scalia would frequently refuse to join opinions that cited the Declaration of Independence because he says it wasn't law. Of course it's law. And the reason that it's important that it's law is because, you know, it's like the 9th and 10th Amendments. If those are law, then the Declaration is law. And the role of the 9th and 10th Amendments of the Constitution plays. They teach us how to read the Constitution, and that's what the Declaration does.

[Joe (Host of Armstrong and Getty)]

Also, we're talking to Tim Sandifer of the Goldwater Institute. His new book is Proclaiming Liberty. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence. I meant to ask you, when we were talking about this, Jefferson Young showed up late to the party. How did he get the gig of being the head of the writing the Declaration Committee?

[Tim Sandifer]

Well, he had written two documents that really impressed people at the time. He wrote a response to Lord North's conciliatory proposal. So what that was was Lord north was the prime minister, and he had sent what he claimed was an offer of compromise to the American colonies. But if you actually read it, it turns out it was just an illusion. There was no actual offer to compromise at all. And so Jefferson in Virginia, he was given the opportunity to write a response to that and did such a good job of it that he later went to Philadelphia and they asked him to write a second response to Lord North. And then the second thing was he had written a pamphlet called the Summary View of the Rights of British America. And that also was so impressive to people, so well written. Jefferson was a really gifted writer, and they liked it so much that, in fact, Jefferson used whole phrases from that pamphlet in the Declaration of Independence itself. So he was a young, gifted scholar. And that was the other thing was he was really knowledgeable about the history of law. He was really good at looking up old law and explaining what the old laws meant because he was a very scholarly guy. I mean, there are these legends about him as a college student staying up late in the night, reading to the point where his friends got annoyed. And at one point, they wanted to go out and have fun, and they came and they overturned the desk he was trying, he was working on in order to get him to go out and have a good time with them. And, you know, it's funny to read stories like that and be like, Jefferson was a guy like everybody else. He, you know, he. He flirted with the girls when he was in college and he went out with his friends and a good time. But he also wrote the Declaration of Independence. It's just incredible.

[Joe (Host of Armstrong and Getty)]

Yeah. Yeah. Tim Sandford. Tim, can you hang around for a little bit?

[Tim Sandifer]

Absolutely.

[Joe (Host of Armstrong and Getty)]

We'll do a short break and then continue the conversation. Would absolutely love to do that. I want to talk about Adams and how he was such a wonderful balance to Jefferson.

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[Joe (Host of Armstrong and Getty)]

What a pleasure as we near the 250th anniversary of our founding to be talking about Tim Sandifer's brand new book proclaiming John Adams Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence with the author. Tim, thanks for hanging around.

[Tim Sandifer]

Thank you.

[Joe (Host of Armstrong and Getty)]

So I think a lot of people who are at least history nuts are familiar with John Adams as a balancing guy against your Thomas Paine's and Thomas Jefferson believed more in federal power as opposed to, you know, pure states rights, blah blah, blah. But what was Adams effect on the drafting the Declaration?

[Tim Sandifer]

Well, so Adams tells this story when he was an old man. He told this story about how he had chosen Jefferson to write the Declaration because he was so busy and because he says, he says I was very much disliked at the time and I was afraid that everybody would pick on on it if I tried to write it. So I gave it to Jefferson to write instead. And that probably is not true because at the time actually Adams was not disliked. John Adams was very much admired and respected at the time. It was only later that he became unpopular and so that's why he had that, that misremembered what had happened. But he was the older and more experienced guy and he was really a trial lawyer. I think, you know, since I'm a lawyer, this is how I think of it. John Adams was a trial lawyer and Jefferson was an appellate lawyer, meaning that John Adams loved to get in there and argue with people and he gave the speeches and he persuaded people. And Jefferson liked to get behind the books and start looking into the history and writing stuff. But he didn't like to talk and he hated public speaking. Jefferson always his life hated public speaking. So he wrote and then let John Adams go and defend the thing. And as for the contents, most of it was stuff that Jefferson already knew or that had already been circulating for many years. But there were some things that Adams added to the Declaration. And particularly there's a complaint in there that says that the King has moved our legislatures around and made it difficult for our legislatures to meet. And that happens to Adams specifically. The Governor of Massachusetts had gotten annoyed at the patriots and so he ordered the Massachusetts legislature to meet in Cambridge instead of in Boston, which was a real hassle. But most of all it upset the patriots because it was like, well, the King can just ignore the legislature and boss us around, tell us what to do, violate separation of powers. And that's not right. And so Adams got Jefferson to include that in the Declaration of Independence. And then once the thing was finished, Adams stood up and defended it against its critics, line after line after line. And it took two days for them to finally decide on the final wording of the Declaration after Jefferson had written the first draft.

[Joe (Host of Armstrong and Getty)]

Were there any real sticking points, serious points of contention between, say, Adams and Jefferson or other folks? I mean, real bare knuckle brawls over what the Declaration should say.

[Tim Sandifer]

Not between Adams and Jefferson, but definitely between them and the other delegates. And the most obvious example is the one about slavery. So Jefferson had included this long, impassioned attack on slavery at the end of the Declaration. It was the longest passage in the Declaration, and it was the most emphatic. Jefferson was using all caps and underlining words and things because he was so angry about slavery.

[Joe (Host of Armstrong and Getty)]

I want to stop you. I want to stop you right there. Did you hear that? Products of America's beleaguered, perverted public schools. Jefferson hated the institution of slavery. Anyway, back to you, Tim.

[Tim Sandifer]

All his life, he hated the institution of slavery. And the idea that Jefferson was somehow pro slavery or something like that is just a ludicrous lie that has been foisted on a lot of American school kids, I'm afraid. Jefferson had written this long denunciation of the king, so that when you read his version of the Declaration, it sort of like rose to this rhetorical climax where it starts out with, well, he did this and he did that, and then he did these worse things, and then these even worse things and then these even worse things. And then worst of all is he prohibited the colonies from limiting the importation of slaves. And slavery is this horrible thing. And that's how it ended it. And Adams loved it. And years later, he said, I loved every word, especially the attack on slavery, but the other delegates at the Congress would not allow that in there. And Jefferson later said that it was South Carolina and Georgia in particular that were such heavy employers of slaves. But also the northern states, which were heavy transporters of slaves, also had qualms with it. And so they ended up taking that entire paragraph out. And Jefferson was so upset about that that he went back to his apartment and wrote out his version of the Declaration and sent it to a bunch of friends and said, don't you think my version is better? And then 50 years later, in his memoirs, he did the same thing, copied out his version of the Declaration in order to make sure that everybody knew that he had tried to do this thing. Jefferson was very much against slavery. The problem was later in life he just gave up on the issue when he really shouldn't have. And I think he does deserve blame for that. But in 1776, he was an emphatic enemy of slavery.

[Joe (Host of Armstrong and Getty)]

You know, Tim, someday we'll have to impose on your time a little more and bring you back and talk about the founding fathers in slavery and the truth about that. Now I have, to my credit, I have not read the whole thing, but I have a copy of the book Arguing About Slavery, which is wonderful. But are there any other books on the topic you'd recommend? We've barely got a minute, by the way.

[Tim Sandifer]

Oh, yeah, I do love Arguing About Slavery by William Lee Miller. Absolutely marvelous book. There are some really good books by. Oh, gosh, there's what's his name? I'm forgetting the name, you know, Drop me a note.

[Joe (Host of Armstrong and Getty)]

We'll post it at, at the [e-mail] Tim Sandifer, the Goldwater Institute the new book is Proclaiming Liberty John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence. I truly can't wait to read it, Tim. Always enjoy it so much. Great to talk to you.

[Tim Sandifer]

Thanks, Joe.

[Joe (Host of Armstrong and Getty)]

All right, thanks. We will talk again soon. Next hour, if you are privileged, if you are, if you have fourth hour privilege. We've got a great conversation coming up with Gordon Chang about China, not only in the wake of the conflict in the Gulf, but just what they are up to because everybody's kind of been looking away, including the shocking fact that the Trump administration seems to have gone a little soft on China and why that might be. So that's hour four. If you don't get hour four, you gotta go somewhere. That's fine. Just grab it via podcast later. Subscribe to Armstrong and Getty on Demand. It downloads automatically. And you get the One More Thing podcast as well. Thanks for being here. More to come.

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[Jana Kramer]

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