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From the historic campus of Hillsdale College
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in Hillsdale, Michigan, where the good, the true and the beautiful are taught, nurtured and honored.
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This is the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour,
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bringing the activity and education of the college to listeners across the country.
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Among the group that we call politically active elites, 82% of them think most Americans agree with them on key issues in this world. They not only trust the government, they mistakenly believe most voters do as well.
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This is your host, Scott Bertram. Welcome to the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. That was Scott Rasmussen, famed pollster and political analyst. His new book, out of the elite 1% and the battle for America's Soul. We go in depth with Scott on today's program. Also later on, Richard Samuelson is back From Hillsdale in D.C. as we walk just a little bit closer to America 250, we'll talk about those final steps toward the Declaration. First joined now by Scott Rasmussen. His brand new book is out of the elite 1% and the battle for America's Soul. Scott, thanks so much for joining us today.
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It's a pleasure to be with you. Happy to talk about the book and always happy to be associated with Hillsdale.
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Well, we appreciate your time today. The book is a data driven look at the differences and the splits among Americans. It begins with you saying this divide, whatever we talk about today, people might say, oh, it started 2015, 2016, started with Trump. You say this divide started long before Donald Trump entered the scene. Where do you sort of backdate this?
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I think that's a really important point. First of all, it's not all about Donald Trump. You have to start with that and get, I spent a whole chapter talking about it because it's an important grounding. I trace it all the way back to the late 80s and early 90s and very specifically to an event involving the first President Bush. It's hard to imagine today, but in 1988, he was the vice president running for the top job. And Republicans had won four of the five previous elections, three of them by massive landslides. People were wondering if the Democrats could ever break the Electoral College lock and win a presidency again. Bush won, but there was a lot of skepticism about him. So he made one big promise to reassure the base. Read my lips. No new taxes. And of course, he broke that promise. And when he did so, he, he shattered the Reagan coalition and it created a lot of problems. But what it's done to our political system, We've now had 10 presidential elections in a row. Without a landslide. We have had during that time 1.2 billion votes cast for president and neither party got 50% of them. Very close because neither party has found a way to reach out to a governing majority. The Republicans split into a base in the establishment. The Democrats won the White House with Bill Clinton in 1992, but he only got 43% of the vote.
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You look at this group that has advanced degrees, high income urban residents, and sort of begin to drill down into this smaller section of people. You see, they rarely think about everyday Americans at all. So post Bush, how does this chasm begin to develop between that elite group and the rest of America?
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It had been growing a little bit beneath the surface for a while. Aaron Wildofsky wrote about it in the late 60s that he could see, you know, what, what we would call a liberal educated elite. But over the last 40 years, it's become two establishment parties talking about different issues. And I noticed these three groups in my polling. And look, I see lots of polling data every day. I look at the crosstabs and I see that postgraduates have wildly different views than people with a bachelor's degree or without a degree, people who make a lot of money, people who live in these urban areas. And so I began to theorize, what if a post grad who goes to live in Manhattan and take a job at a law firm or a hedge fund has different views than somebody who gets a post grad and goes to Cedar Rapids? And it turned out when we combined all of those attributes, we found a group about 1% of the population and they have views that are very extreme to begin with. They tend to think the rest of us have too much individual freedom. They tend to think that most of the rest of us trust the government most of the time. That hasn't been true in half a century. So they're a little bit out of touch. They're a little bit convinced that they're right and the rest of us will be better off to follow them. Bottom line is they really don't accept America's founding ideals. They don't accept the idea of consent to the governed, freedom, equality, self governance, all the things that the rest of us cherish.
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Scott Rasmussen is with us. His new book, out of the elite 1% and the battle for America's Soul. There's a formulation that you present and then return to throughout the book that we're not a 5050 nation. You call us a 10, 1080 nation. Explain to our listeners what that's about.
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Yes. So first thing that you have to realize on that is most people don't live and breathe politics. Two thirds of voters never talk politics more than once a week. Only about 8% talk politics daily. So this is a bubble you're in if you're in that political world. I envision a situation and describe a situation where 10% on the left, on the political left are engaged in a bitter war with 10% on the right. And the 80% are just keeping their heads down, trying to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. And sometimes the 10 percenters get so caught up fighting each other, they just ignore the 80%. They're not even part of the conversation. And to be honest, they look down on them. If they were more like us, if they got involved in the political fight, they'd agree with us and we'd win. And I actually think the 80% are where the hope for America's future lies.
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You mentioned this trust gap, the public distrust of government. And it seems to me, while reading out of Touch, that this might be one of the key takeaways, that this 1%, this elite, has a real trust, a real tangible trust in government and the good of government and the power of government. Why do they believe so firmly in government when the rest of America, or most of the rest of America sees through that?
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Well, I think there's a lot of reasons for it. The first one is probably that they know people making the decisions. They're people like them. You know, if they have a problem, they can get to see their congressman, or they have a regulatory issue, they can go talk to someone. Their voice will be heard. And the people who are making those decisions are in the same world. And so it's just a comfort factor. And they don't realize that not everybody else shares it. In fact, one of the more disturbing findings that I report in the book, among the group that we call politically active elites, that's the elites who talk politics on a daily basis, 82% of them think most Americans agree with them on key issues. And it is stunning. And look, we all have our bubbles. Yours and mine are probably different, but there's some overlap. We can't see things outside it. So in this world, they not only trust the government, they mistakenly believe most voters do as well. So they have this sense that voters trust the government, that voters share their views, and so they don't see what's wrong with them making the decisions.
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Is this one of the reasons why we have seen these 80, 20 issues develop in the way that they have? This is a topic that was very prominent around the 2024 Trump campaign. And, and if I can tie this into something that comes a little later in the book, this idea about the media control of national narratives, meaning this elite 1% believes that the rest of the country agrees with them and that is viewing, reading and seeing media that tells them the same thing. It's a reinforcement cycle, right?
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It sure is. And that's part of the bubble effect. And by the way, I just did a briefing a couple of days ago where I talked, or last week where I talked about the fact that these people who are in this elite world, and by the way, most journalists, when they start to write about elections in September and October of this year, when the campaign is really heating up and people are beginning to pay attention, they write as if all the voters know, all the storylines going back to January, it just doesn't happen. So there is a self reinforcing narrative on that and it doesn't exist for most people who aren't engaged in it.
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Scott Rasmussen with us, his book out of the elite 1% and the battle for America's Soul. So if many people, most people aren't thinking, talking about politics on a daily basis, if they are, as you say in the book, inattentive in some ways, is self governance still possible? That's a question you ask and answer. So is it the answer?
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Is self governance still possible? Absolutely. However, when I bring this up in political circles, people usually respond by using the term self government. It is a subtle difference. Self government as it's defined by people in the political world and journalists and theorists is people being actively engaged, studying the issues carefully and making thoughtful decisions about who their leaders should be and what the policy should be. If that's your definition, it's never going to work. And in fact, there's a lot of academic literature expressing surprise that democracy actually works when people don't pay attention. The reason is that self governance is about far more than politics. It's much more about the kind of life we lead. And it starts with the idea that we have the freedom to make our own choices. So you're governing the part of the governing that we do in society. My wife plays a role in governing my life, I play a role in governing hers. People who work with me, we have relationships. Those are the ways society actually holds together. And when you see things happen in the political world that seem out of sync with what's happening in the real world, you know, big change is coming. And one of the points I make in this change begins Positive change in America begins outside the world of politics. The people's smartphone has had a bigger impact on American life in the 21st century than any of our four presidents. And the same thing will happen with AI. I trace it all the way back. There's a humorous anecdote from my younger life. Jimmy Carter assembled a great coalition of business and professional and political leaders to create a national agenda for the 1980s. And in this book length report, they never mentioned the word computer.
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Right.
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Steve Jobs and Bill Gates changed the world. These guys didn't know it was coming.
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Talking with Scott Rasmussen, the pollster and political analyst, his new book, out of the elite 1% and the battle for America's Soul. More with him in just a moment. First, I want to remind you, if you haven't heard yet, there's a brand new Larry Arne show on the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. Hillsdale College President Dr. Larry Arn sits down with guests to talk about topics of enduring relevance. As we approach July 4th, the perfect time for Dr. Matthew Spaulding to make an appearance. Dr. Spaulding is Vice president of Washington Operations and dean of the Van Andel Graduate School of Government at Hillsdale in D.C. and more important for this conversation, he's the author of the Making of the American the Story of Our Declaration of Independence, a fantastic book. We talk with him here on the program. Hear more. And hear Dr. Arn ask Dr. Spalding questions on the new Larry Arn Show. You can find it at podcast hillsdale. Edu or find the video version on YouTube. That's the new Larry Arn show with Dr. Matthew Spaulding. We continue now with legendary pollster and political analyst Scott Rasmussen. His book is out of touch, the elite 1% and the battle for America's Soul. Scott if we're looking for change, one place that people point a finger off it is Congress. And the phrase that Congress doesn't work. And it's meant two ways. It's meant, you know, Congress doesn't work for us. They're not listening to the American people. But also in that Congress doesn't work, they're not doing anything. They're not fulfilling their constitutional responsibilities. You say inside out of touch that fixing Congress directly is not in fact, a top priority right now. Why not?
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You know, I have to, when you say it that way, I have to offer a little defense. I think voting is very important. I think you should get involved in congressional elections. But Congress doesn't work the way it was intended. We have about 750,000 people in a congressional district. George Washington and James Madison thought it should be about 30,000. They envisioned people who were close to their constituents. And right now, you know, I can come up with all kinds of plans. You can come up with a lot of plans how Congress could work better. But the reality is voters don't get to pick who represents them in Congress. And about 90%, 95% of the districts, the representative is chosen by the mapmakers. It is very unresponsive to public opinion. That's why it can't work. And the group that has the authority to make Congress larger and make it more representative, well, it's Congress. They're not going to do that. I started my polling career in the term limits movement. That was an 80% issue that Congress was never going to pass either. I think we have to be creative. We have to come up with some workarounds to the problem of an unresponsive Congress. I give a couple of examples in the book. One was a term limits movement itself. We went state by state rather than going through Congress. But women's suffrage is perhaps the best example. Congress turned down women's suffrage bills for half a century, but Wyoming started letting women vote in 1869, and they did it because there weren't enough women in Wyoming. It was a marketing campaign to get women to move to the state. Over the next 50 years, state after state gave women the right to vote by working around Congress, working within the Constitution. And, oh, by the way, a woman was actually elected to Congress before Congress thought women should be allowed to vote. Those are the kinds of creative steps we need to take. We need to find ways to use our state and local governing officials to bring about change. And after we've done all that, then the system will be healthier and we can deal with Congress.
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Scott Rasmussen with us out of Touch is his new book. You say that anger at the public is the root cause of the most hateful, toxic tone that defines current politics. This elite 1% often lashes out if the electorate chooses Donald Trump once and chooses Donald Trump twice or doesn't choose the elected representative they think would be best. Why isn't there more of, of an agenda and more of an effort to actually talk to the public and change the minds of the public as opposed to this anger.
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You know, there's probably a lot of different reasons to that depending on who you're talking to and where the issue, what particular issue it is. But it goes back to what we mentioned earlier. They're in an echo chamber. They're in their own world, they do believe that people are responding to them. They do believe they're representing. One of the fascinating things I've found in talking about the 10-10-80 nation in this whole book is I've learned that the people who have the hardest time accepting there's common ground in America are the 10 percenters on both sides. They don't believe they have anything to do or anything in common with the other team. And so they're really not looking for it. I think the other layer on top of this is there is an elitist agenda that simply disrespects voters. They don't think voters should be in the process. And we show in the book that people who are in this elite world think if a regulator wants to do something and they learn that most people are opposed, well, they should ignore the voters and go on. So there's this one part of it is there's a bubble in which you can convince yourselves that you're representing the public. And the second is you don't really care what the public thinks and therefore why would you look for it?
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You define this great divide as being between those who want freedom, want equality, and want self governance, as opposed to this other group, the elites who see citizens as unfit to decide how to live. Now, defined in that way, it seems very unlikely those two sides are going to meet. So why should we be hopeful about some sort of good resolution?
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We should be hopeful because this divide goes all the way back to the Constitutional Convention and, and actually before that, there has always been a dark undercurrent of people in America, elitist, who believe they were destined to rule over others. You know, I talk about Alexander Hamilton, who had a tremendous career, and we owe him a lot of thanks for a lot of things that he did. But his plan for a government of the United States at the Constitutional Convention was deeply, deeply offensive. We had people like John Calhoun and leaders of the Confederacy who rejected the founding ideals. So there's always been this undercurrent. Woodrow Wilson kind of put us on the path we're on right now when he laid out a plan, a vision for an administrative state, he wanted a government. He openly talked about it being more like the Prussian government than America's founding ideals. And one of my favorite or most horrific quotes by Wilson as he talked about the problem with the American people is they've never gotten over the Declaration of Independence. And you know what? I haven't gotten over it yet. I still believe in it. But that's where the divide is. And what happens is we have gone through times when the elitists seem to gain the upper hand. During the 20th century, when there was a centralization of media and other communications, it was a good time to be in the elite world. You could be a gatekeeper, you could control the agenda, but that world is slipping away.
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Late in the book, there's a two word question that pops up that perhaps can point us in a good direction. That's who decides? And you write about this in the realm of cell phone bans in schools. Would you want someone in Washington D.C. to make that decision? Or maybe someone much, much more local? Your principal, your teacher, you as the parent? I apply this, of course, to school choice as well. Do we want the zip code that the government decides to determine where you go to school, or should we put more choice in the hands of everyday Americans? Who decides is the question that can be applied to any number of topics. How does that perhaps help point us in a right direction?
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The first thing, it should be the first question you ask about any political issue. Don't ask what should the cell phone policy be? Ask who should decide? How do you put parents in control? And the same thing applies to school choice, as you mentioned, and lots of other issues. We need to make that such an automatic question in the political space because it rattles the elitist. Their answer is we should decide. We can figure out what's best. One of the examples that I like to give, you know, of this whole phenomenon is federal bureaucrats issue what they call guidances. These aren't really rules, but they're just telling people how they would enforce the rules and they send them to local bureaucrats and state bureaucrats and often they get implemented without state officials even knowing about it. I believe that every state and local elected officials should ask to see those guidances. If it's something that affects a school district, well then let the school board decide if they want to follow the guidance. If it's a county commissioners meeting, well, ask if they should follow, if their officials should follow. This idea of raising questions of who should decide, very important. And the more you raise the question, the more it becomes clear that decisions should be made closer to home. Same as we talked about in other issues.
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Scott Rasmussen with us, his book out of the elite 1% and the battle for America's Soul. What do you make of this trend? I don't know if it's so recent as much as I'm not thinking of examples that date back a bit farther, but perhaps you can tell Me, this trend of the elites trying desperately to find candidates on the left who kind of look and act like the rest of the country, even if they don't have the, the beliefs of the rest of the country, be it Beto O' Rourke in Texas, J.B. pritzker, a billionaire in Illinois trying to act like a common man. Graham Plattner now up in the Northeast in Maine. What do you think that this says about our current situation as the elites see it?
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You know, I think what that reflects is the idea that they think voters are stupid. They don't really believe that voters care about issues or policies. So if you get a, a good looking candidate who kind of says something that sounds like what normal people would say, they're going to fall for it. The vice presidential nominee, Tim Waltz, you know, he was a football coach, so of course the men are going to love him. I think it's really offensive. And the reason it's offensive is because of the disrespect. It tells you something about the elitist view. They think we should all pay attention to what they think is important, when in fact a political system should be paying attention to what voters think is important. And look, Donald Trump, whatever else you want to say, like him, dislike him. He tapped into an issue during his 2016 that the elites completely dismissed. He talked about illegal immigration as a problem. He made a distinction between illegal and legal immigration. He went in exactly the opposite direction that the Republican leadership wanted to go in. And Hillary Clinton and the analysis of campaign ads really bore this out. She didn't talk issues. She just talked what a jerk Donald Trump is. Issues do matter, but you have to find the issues that people care about and then find a way to connect with them.
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Scott Rasmussen is the author of out of the elite 1% and the battle for America's Soul, which is available now. Scott, thanks so much for joining us here on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.
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Thank you for having me.
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Up next, Dr. Richard Samuelson from Hillsdale in D.C. is back. As we walk closer to America 250, we'll talk about those final steps toward the Declaration. I'm Scott Bertram. This is the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.
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Hello.
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This is Jeremiah Regan, executive Director of Online learning here at Hillsdale College, and I have some great news. We've brought Hillsdale's incredibly popular free online courses to the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. And our next series is the American Left From Liberalism to Despotism, a course taught by Associate professor of Politics Kevin Slack and Hillsdale President Larry P. Arnold. After listening to all 11 episodes, you'll have a deeper understanding of what has happened to America in the past 60 years and what we can do about it. Today. The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast, hosted by Online Learning Marketing director Juan Davalos and me, expands Hillsdale's mission to provide all who wish to learn the education necessary to increase happiness and to preserve the civil and religious liberties of America. We want you to be a part of it at Podcast. Subscribe now to the Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast to hear new episodes every week with additional commentary and insights from our team. Go to Podcast Hillsdale. Edu to learn more. That's Podcast Hillsdale.
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Eduardo welcome back to the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. I'm Scott Bertram. Don't forget to check out more great audio from the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. You can find it at podcast hillsdale.edu, the Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast, the Larry Arn Show, Imprimis and more. Is there or wherever you get your audio? We're joined by Dr. Richard Samuelson. He's associate professor of government at Hillsdale in D.C. he's been joining us off and on as we walk up to America. 250. Dr. Samuelson, thanks so much for joining us.
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Thank you, Scott. It's great to be here.
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We're into May and we're into June of 1776 at our conversations today as we discuss the May 15th resolution and the Lee Resolution. As we begin again, give our listeners a sense of where we're at among the colonies in, say, May, June of 1776.
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So in March 76, March 17, the British forces left Boston. And it's not clear where they were going. They're going to wind up in New York. We are in a bit of a waiting period to see where they would land. Meantime, the king, in the August proceeding, had declared his colonists out of his protection. They had declared the vessels of the colonies forfeit. And so the king was gradually attacking. He had his troops and his ships were starting to attack the colonies. And Thomas Paine's common sense had really hit the colonists and they were moving towards a belief in independence. And In March, April, May 76, one by one, the colonies start saying, you know, maybe it's time for us to think about independence as a practical matter. And you're starting to get localities, counties, higher up, city towns saying, you know, declaring independence, saying we want to do their own version of declaring independence, realizing it's not binding in everybody but pushing towards it. And there's also movement, you see here. And There against connection to the, to the king or any king whatsoever. And so all that they are moving away from their connection to British patriotism, their connection to the king and towards independence step by step. It's all they've ever known is British identity. And they have liberties thanks to Britain. But they realize that the king's troops are the ones who are attacking him. And the king is even sending foreign troops to attack them. And that's angering them. So they're moving towards a recognition it's time for independence. There are those who think it's not James Wilson and some others, John Dickinson in Congress, but their resolutions are carrying less and less weight and the independence forces are becoming more and more important in Congress.
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So the May 15th resolution, Dr. Samuelson, what exactly was the May 15th resolution? Why does it matter historically?
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Well, what's happened is partly some of the opponents of independence were briefly outside of Congress. So they got a resolution through and preamble through the resolution. So what do we do about our governments now that we functionally don't have any of the officers appointed by the king? And they're saying you should, where no adequate government exists, appoint your own government. It says, let it be recommended to the respective assemblies and conventions of the united colonies where no government sufficient to the exigencies of. Of their affairs have been hitherto established to adopt. Such governors shall, in the opinion of the representatives of the people, best conduce the happiness and safety of their constituents particular and America in general, that is. He's. They're telling them if the government is not up to it, you guys have to go create your own governments. In other words, this is functionally independent. If you're saying we're reject, we're not using the government we've had under the king before, we're going to create our own. It is as a narrow legalistic matter or very deeply matter, it is independence. But of course, formally it's going to take people a more positive declaration who say, oh yeah, that's what we're doing, right? The lawyer might recognize something that the typical person would think through. What exactly are we implying here? But so they get that resolution through, which is a very important step to independence. And on that same day in Virginia, the slow walkers had been convinced, yes, it's time. And they asked, let's resolve for independence. And Virginia, of course, is incredibly important because they are the biggest colony of 40% of the population, roughly speaking, the first colony. So those two things both happen on May 15th. And John actually, interestingly writes Abigail, thinking about this resolution, is it not a saying of Moses, who am I that I should go in and out before this great people? When I consider the great events which are past and those greater, which are rapidly advancing, that it may have been instrumental in touching some springs and turning some small wheels which have and will have such effects, I feel it all upon my mind, which is not easily described. Great Britain has last driven America to the last step. So I think these great people have fled the tyrant and are moving towards independent. And he feels himself somehow as a leader of this, as he was in Congress. But it's humbling that this great. They recognize very strange. They recognize a great event is happening and they're in the middle of it. And they're right about that. It's not something people always recognize.
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Yeah. You mentioned some colonies are still concerned perhaps that Congress is moving too quickly here. Which colonies are dragging their feet? Which colonies are the ones that are on the leading edge of pushing us forward?
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Well, particularly Pennsylvania is slow. New York is slow. They're two of the most important. I think North Carolina is the third one that's slow. And their turn, Pennsylvania and Carolina will be turning in the next month. And then New York is going to be right down to the wire in July of 76.
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And you mentioned Virginia with a center of population. Why is Virginia so important in pushing independence forward?
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Well, Virginia's most important colony and they're also kind of, I mean, they're not exactly the central, but they're pretty, relatively speaking, in the middle. Be divided in the middle will not be good. Someone once described the American Revolution as a temporary alliance between the Adams and the Adams family. The Lee family. And so you have the Virginia Massachusetts access. But getting the Virginians on board was really important. Without them, you couldn't do much with them. You really have a lot. You have the most important, most influential people in the colonies. And so that's going to make a tremendous difference as they move forward to have the Virginians on board.
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Talking with Dr. Richard Samuelson from Hillsdale in D.C. the May 15 resolution and now the Lee Resolution, the next logical question question as the colonies continue to move forward is are we really ready to declare independence outright? So who was Richard Henry Lee? Why was he the one who introduced this resolution?
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Well, Lee was a member of the Lee family of Virginia, leading family of the colony. And he came down from. From Virginia, right, in Philadelphia with instructions finally to declare independence. And the legend said these colonies are and upright ought to be free and independent states introduced that 6-6-7th of 76. And so Lee doing as a high ranking Virginian is very important. And Virginia leading the charge is important, but signalized that it's not just the radicals New England who want this. It is the more sober Virginians who support independence. And that means it's not. You don't have New England isolated. You have the Union of the colonies, which Paine talks about by the way in common sense. And the colonies are talking about their union all the way through. United we stand Divided we saw was a slogan going back to Dickinson's Liberty Song in the late 1760s. So it helps secure the Union that it is a Virginian moving this resolution as opposed to someone else. And so they get this resolution and they say, well you know, we're still waiting for a couple colonies to catch up. So they get, let's, let's take a few weeks and let's, let's appoint a committee to draft a declaration. So you get, they put, you know, John Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, a few others and left them to prepare this. They also appoint two other committees, one to draft articles in federation. So how are we gonna. How will this union work? And the other is to draft a treaty. How will this independent union, if not nation operate in the field of foreign affairs? How will connect to other nations? Because maybe we won't do on doing exactly the same way other nations do because we're a different kind of thing. And so that's partly delaying give us time. And it's partly because they do want to draft a formal declaration. And as my colleague Matthew, colleague Matthew Spaldings noted in his book the Making America Mind, the Declaration was a formal legal thing. It was, that term was a term of art for the type of thing the Declaration was. It was not just selected at random.
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That language, that quote that you read, these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states. This is June 1776. We are just weeks away now from July 4th. Is that a sentiment that is common among those who are leading this effort or is Lee putting this together in a slightly new way?
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It is becoming increasingly common. It's part of the story of time. If you say it too early, no one's going to listen. Too late. How are you? As people are moving to recognize that independence is necessary. And even the other element that was snuck into the May 15 resolution says the king declared us out of his protection. He hasn't answered us and it's necessary to suppress the exercise of the king's authority. And so once you declare that the next step is, well, we have to. Let's make this more formal and declare independence. And people are gradually waking up to the realization, you know, it's time. We've given the king more than enough chances. This is the colonists now, Americans view, and it's time. It's just not happening. And pain. Going back to early 76, getting people think, you know, it doesn't really help us being connected to the British. Maybe we'll do well. We'll get alliances with France, maybe with Spain, and maybe we want to go to war. When Britain's at war, we can fundamentally transform our relationship. We don't have to be stuck under the king, under Britain, we can be independent and have our own place in the world.
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B
Now, Congress didn't vote immediately after Lee introduced this resolution. Were they looking for unanimity? Did leaders feel that independence had to appear completely united to be successful or
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C
as close to it as possible? It was very important to have a union. Union was fundamental all the way through. Remember Daniel Webster's famous proration in the second reply to Hayne? And was at 18:30. Right. Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable. That sentiment from, well, the middle of the nullification debate, in a sense, came out of the American revolution from before 76. The United We Stand, divided we fall. That idea of union was fundamental. And as you move toward independence, you knew would be fundamental. Hence John Dickinson, who opposed the independence vote in Congress at the start of July, 76. When he lost, what did he do? He didn't keep trying to change things. He went to New York to help lead troops, to help his side win. He knew which side he was on. He had his vote. He lost, and he was bound to accept the result of that vote. And it was his job to help support his side. He knew he was not English, he was a colonist, now an independent American. And so they realized the union was fundamental. So doing things in a way in which public opinion was on your side was very important. Without public opinion, a lot of things cannot be done. So you need significant public opinion on your side for independence to work. And they move for it. They push for it. Logically, independence being necessary is one thing, but accepting it as something else. We all know people can be reluctant to accept when something's over and it's time to move on. That was the case with regard to our connection with Great Britain.
- [39:42]
B
Dr. Richard Samuelson with us, Associate professor of Government at Hillsdale in D.C. one thing that stands out as we discuss. Heck, we're discussing Two resolutions today. It's how procedural the Revolution was. There were resolutions and debates and committees and votes. Does that matter as we think back to July of 1776?
- [40:03]
C
Well, it reminds me of a very important element. The only legislatures in the Americas were those in the British colonies, including those that did not rebel Jamaica. Elsewhere, the Spanish and French colonies, Portuguese did not have elected representatives. And so what you had is significant numbers of people who had experience in representative politics. And they realized they knew what it was to build consensus to move forward and how important it was to do that in order to have a successful legal change of some sort, especially a significant one. And so they were always working through legal procedures. This is one of the key elements of the American Revolution that perhaps sets it apart from so many others. In the American Revolution, the colonists control the instruments of law. And so the Revolution was made consistently with the legal institutions as they existed in the colonies. So it was not simply speaking in opposition to the law. It was opposition to Parliament's claims of law. Hence the Declaration calls them acts of pretended legislation. Parliament had no such right. But all along they obeyed the laws, at least to a great degree. Nothing perfect as passed by the colonial legislatures. These were people experience in politics. And so in many ways, the argument was the British were attacking the rule of law by attacking legal institutions, attacking the practice of consent to taxation, among other things, attacking basic property rights by quartering troops, among other things.
- [41:41]
B
This Lee Resolution of June of 1776, and we've walked this path with you a few times here on the show. Is this the moment that leads us directly to the drafting of the Declaration of Independence?
- [41:55]
C
Oh, yeah, absolutely, because this is where they appoint the committee to draft a Declaration of Independence. That's the narrower answer, but the deeper answer is, yeah, that's exactly where the turn happened. And to look back at Virginia, what happens a few days later? They passed the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which is going to be on Jefferson's desk as he drafts the Declaration of Independence. It says, all men are born free and equal, or all men are born by nature equally free and independent. And Jefferson is going to have that on his desk when he drafts the Declaration. And so they're moving towards Declaration of Rights, the recognition of human equality, and of course, all this in the context of the right to revolution. When the government becomes destructive of the basic ends for which we have government in the first place, government is attacking our liberties, attacking our property rights. It's attacking our ability to live as we ought to live. It is making us something other than Free. They're making us subjects in the very much subordinate sense, as opposed to equal Britons who have equal rights. And so what's happening now is as we move towards the Declaration, we're making that move from the rights of Englishmen to the rights of men. So the move towards independence and the move towards the rights of men that we see in the second paragraph of the Declaration, these two things are inseparable. If they did not base their claim for independence on the notion that all men are created equal, it's a much harder claim to make that our move against the British is justified. Because if we're not equal, well then of course you're a colony, you're subordinate. Things aren't that bad, you should suffer. While ills are sufferable, they're not so bad. And so no, that's not what's going on here. They're sending troops over, they're attacking us. They're making it impossible for us to be self governing. So the Americans wanted to be. The colonies were self governing to a great degree and they wanted to keep that. But to keep that, they realized anti independence, but to do that in a legal way, they made a formal declaration of independence to proclaim to the world, so hey, we're open for business, France, you're going to lie with us. But also because they very much did not want to attack the rule of law. They were revolting in order to sustain the rule of law, which is being attacked from abroad, that is from a parliament which had no such jurisdiction and a king who was acting on the behalf of a parliament.
- [44:18]
B
As we get to the end here, let me ask a broad question, which is all this we've talked about today and talked about common sense last time as we get to the Lee resolution and the Declaration, does any of this largely surprise the British? Meaning that the pace, the timing, the language being used, does any of this really surprise the British?
- [44:44]
C
I don't know if they're surprised. The real question is, do they think the Americans are serious and can it be sustained? Do the British realized that there's no going back after the Battle of Saratoga in 77, when it looks like, you know, independent, secure, the British offer what would have been acceptable as late as the fall of 75, maybe the start of 76, when something like Commonwealth status, right, and it's just unacceptable by then. So the British, they did not. The basic problem is the British not understand the American colonists. Their experience with governing people was governing basically peasants. The Americans, where you get up to 80 or higher percent at least in the northern colonies of adult males, can vote. It's an entirely different situation. High literacy as well. Right. And so they just don't understand how the Americans are thinking. They're not entirely surprised by a declaration of independence. But the question, they don't take it particularly seriously either. But the Americans are very serious about it. I think the real problem is Evan Burke. If you read his speech on conciliation, he understands the Americans. He was aging for the colonies. He studied, and he was trying to tell parliament, what you're doing will not work. But they just wouldn't listen because it was so foreign to them. It was like he had two heads. He didn't make any sense. They agreed it's a brilliant speech, but then they ignored it because it was unacceptable. That that was the reality of things. Those were the actual options on the table.
- [46:15]
B
Dr. Richard Samuelson is associate professor of government at Hillsdale in D.C. Dr. Samuelson, thanks so much for joining us here on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.
- [46:26]
C
Thank you very much, Scott. It's great to be here.
- [46:28]
B
That will wrap up this edition of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Our thanks to Scott Rasmussen and Dr. Richard Samuelson from Hillsdale in D.C. remember, you can hear new episodes every week on this station. You also can find extended versions of some of our interviews or listen anytime to the podcast. Find it at podcast Hillsdale. Edu or wherever you get your audio. Until next week, I'm Scott Bertram, and this has been the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.