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- [00:05]
Larry Arne
Every week, Hillsdale College President Larry Arne joins Hugh Hewitt to discuss great books, great men and great ideas. This is Hillsdale Dialogues, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More episodes at Podcast Hillsdale. Edu or wherever you find your audio.
- [00:31]
Hugh Hewitt
Morning Glory and Eden Grace America. And some of you are saying, wait, it's not Friday, it's Wednesday, December 10th. Why am I hearing that music? It's because it's a special edition of the Hillsdale Dialogue with our friend Matt Spalding. Dean Spaulding, I want to get his title down correctly. The Kirby professor in Constitutional Government and the Dean of the Van Andale Graduate School of Government at Hillsdale College, who oversees the Alan Kirby center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship at Hillsdale's Washington D.C. campus is now best selling author Matt Spalding. Because I hold in my hand a brilliant book, the Making of the American the Story of Our Declaration of Independence. And I'm doing this hour with Dean Spalding on Wednesday so that you all run out to Amazon and get your gift receiving friends who love American history, this book, the Making of the American Mind. Dean Spalding, welcome. Have I ever told you that Frank Lunt's law did. Do you know the Frank Lots law on selling books?
- [01:30]
Matt Spalding
What is that?
- [01:31]
Hugh Hewitt
You have to say the title of the book, the Making of the American Mine at least seven times in every segment or people won't remember the Making of the American Mind when they get home to their computers to go to Amazon to order the Making of the American Mind to send the Making of the American Mind to their friends. I've got six of them down now. You're going to have to do it again and again. First thing I want to do, first revelation of. This is really a grand book. Congratulations. Have people told you that?
- [02:00]
Matt Spalding
Thank you.
- [02:03]
I've been working on it for so long, it's now to the point where it's getting out so starting to come in. It's hitting some people and I'm getting some good feedback. So I'm very excited about it.
- [02:14]
Hugh Hewitt
It's grand and I'll demonstrate why in a moment. But first, my surprise. I always read the epilogues, right? I always lead the acknowledgement. I had no idea that Charles Kessler was your first professor. No wonder you're comfortable with me. We look alike.
- [02:31]
What did Charles teach you?
- [02:34]
Matt Spalding
It's the Harvard connection. I took my first serious class from Charles his first semester at Claremont, having graduated with his PhD from Harvard. So we were early and fast friends. We were in each other's weddings and I took Every course, he told me to take courses with Harry Jaffa. And that started my education, because before that I was just some kid from the Central Valley, the farming valley, and. And I started learning about political history and political thought and Shakespeare and Lincoln, a lot of Lincoln and the Founding. And so it began this. This romance with this thing called the American Founding, which was the first time I fell in love with it. And now I'm falling in love with it again because I'm writing about it.
- [03:16]
Hugh Hewitt
And, well, Charles is a great first teacher. Just a quick anecdote. I arrived at Harvard in 1974, and Charles came by to meet me because we had been introduced by letter by William Buckley, who had written to both of us and told us that we needed to meet. And Charles came over and found me on the first night in Cambridge. And I'm not nearly smart enough to be a teacher like Charles Kessler, but I know what a fine man he is. And so no wonder you turned out such a great professor.
- [03:45]
Matt Spalding
That's a great story.
- [03:46]
Hugh Hewitt
Now, I'm going to begin at the end with the epilogue, because the virtue of a book like the Making of the American Mind is when you learn new factoids that will stick. Here are four that come from the epilogue, titled Iron Men. That phrase comes from Lincoln in a speech of July 10, 1858. I'm going to ask you to explain it. The Benjamin Harrison of Virginia joke about hanging Abigail Adams, caring for the four children of Dr. Joseph Warren, who was summarily executed by the British. And Lincoln also calling the founders a forest of giant oaks. And finally, that the last of the signers to die was Charles Carroll, the only Catholic among them. So let's begin with the phrase iron Men. What did Lincoln mean by that?
- [04:32]
Matt Spalding
That was a. So he gave a very famous speech in Chicago when he was beginning his Senate campaign against Stephen Douglas, and it was at a famous Chicago hotel. Douglass spoke there the night before in 1858, and it was near the 4th of July. Most of the speech is about Douglass, but towards the end of the speech, he gives some remarks about the meaning of the fourth of July. And the famous line in the speech, the famous part of the speech is where he talks about the Declaration being an electric cord that connects us with past generations. And when we read that Declaration, we are all blood of the blood and flesh of the flesh. But in passing and setting up that passage, he almost makes a passing remark where he talks about these great men and what they had done, and somehow we look back to what they had accomplished and Then passage says they were iron men. And I just thought that was such a powerful, powerful description of what they were. So I used the speech to frame this epilogue in which I talk about the signers and what they did, especially in the Revolution and in terms of their own fortunes supporting the Revolution, life.
- [05:48]
Hugh Hewitt
Liberty and sacred honor. And that brings me to Benjamin Harrison in Virginia making a joke to Elbridge Gary of Massachusetts about hanging. Do you recall the joke offhand? Because I'll never forget it.
- [06:00]
Matt Spalding
I do.
- [06:02]
Hugh Hewitt
Go ahead, tell him.
- [06:02]
Matt Spalding
So he was a rather portly fellow, and the other fellow was a rather thin fellow. And so when they were signing, they all signed as individuals in August, and they come up to the table and sign. And there was some gallows humor. And one of the best ones was when Harrison to his thin fellow, the poorly managed to the thin fellow. When we are hanged, sir, mine will be quick because of my. Essentially my weight. You will kind of swing in the air for a long time. It'll be harder on you. You will dangle.
- [06:39]
Hugh Hewitt
It's actually gallows humor. It's real gallows humor.
- [06:43]
Matt Spalding
In the best kind. In the best kind. And I connect that to a letter. Washington writes a letter to his brother when he refers to, if we are caught, we will be hanged, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I always wondered what he meant by et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. What more can they do other than just hanging them? Well, it turns out that Washington knew this. I'm thinking he probably told them this when they were signing that declaration that the punishment for treason under British law at the time was to be hanged, but then drawn and ordered, even sometimes have your bowels taken out. So there was some, et cetera, et cetera there.
- [07:22]
Hugh Hewitt
The elegant writing, though, Matt Spaulding, and my hat tip to you is after the joke. You refer to Abigail Adams caring for her four children while John Adams was laboring away at liberty. And caring as well for the four children of the widower Dr. Joseph Warren, who was summarily executed by the British. I did not know that she did that. I did not know that he had been so executed. They would kill them all, those signers of the Declaration. They all would have been executed.
- [07:53]
Matt Spalding
Absolutely, as a matter of fact. So Warren is killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill, which Abigail and her children, including John Quincy, watch from afar, and she's taking care of all those children. He was executed when they caught him because they knew who he was. He was the head of the Massachusetts Provincial Council. But the signers when they signed that declaration, literally were signing a death warrant. And we have ample evidence, much of which I give in that epilogue that their homes were attacked. They went after them and hunted them down. They sent cavalry out to track them down. They went after those signers not just as a matter of normal course of a war, but intentionally. And they went after their children. In some cases, they captured their children and they punished their children because their father would not turn and deny the Declaration of Independence.
- [08:47]
Hugh Hewitt
And I mentioned at the beginning Charles Carroll, who is among the forest of giant oaks, that's what Lincoln calls the framers. He was a Catholic man, the only Catholic to sign the Declaration. But he was also the last of the signers to die. You note that he signed in his full name so that they would not mistake relatives. That's another detail I had never known before.
- [09:09]
Matt Spalding
Yeah, so he's Charles Carrollton, but there were others. His own father, I think was a nephew or cousin, I can't remember what were also Charles Kessler. So he said Charles Carroll of Carrollton. It wasn't because he was some aristocrat. It was because he didn't want his other relatives to be killed mistakenly when they were identified.
- [09:28]
So he added that to his identification. And then of course, when Hancock signed in such big handwriting, he was doing it to make sure that his name was clearly seen. He had already been identified and in the King's proclamation, identified by name as a treasonous individual. So he signed even larger than normal so the king would not mistake his name and would double the price on his head.
- [09:55]
Hugh Hewitt
Coming right back with Dean Matt Spaulding on the making of the American mind.
- [10:00]
Narrator
When you think of America's founding, you might picture the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, where great figures like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. Franklin. But those moments and those men didn't appear out of nowhere and they didn't succeed by chance. The ideas that shaped our nation were forged over more than a century of struggle and faith. Tested and proven by the colonists who carved a civilization from the wilderness, these men and women escaped tyranny, defined self government, and set the stage for history's greatest fight for freedom. In Hillsdale College's free six part documentary series on colonial America, you'll discover how the virtues of courage, faith, hard work and freedom defined our earliest Americans and why they still matter today. You'll hear their stories set against the backdrop of the Great Awakening, the Glorious Revolution and the French and Indian War, and see how the American character was forged long before 1776. Watch the series for free at Hillsdale Edu Network. That's Hillsdale Edu Network.
- [11:09]
Larry Arne
Hey there, it's Scott Bertram, host of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. On this week's program. You see him on cnn, perhaps hear him on the Salem Radio Network. It's Scott Jennings and his new book is out now, A Revolution of Common How Donald Trump Stormed Washington and Fought for Western Civilization. We go in depth with Scott about his new book and Hillsdale student Ava Downes. She's a junior, but also a 2025 Junior Olympic champion in international trap shooting. We'll talk with her about how she trains, how she studies and how Hillsdale has helped her. All that this week on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Find it at podcast hillsdale. Edu or wherever you get your audio.
- [12:00]
Hugh Hewitt
Welcome back, America, a special edition of the Hillsdale Dialogue with Dean Matt Spalding, whose brand new book of the American Mind is the perfect Christmas present, not just for the people who love history in your life, but for every American who wants maybe to be clued in on why 1776 marked the beginning of our independent republic, our republic, our great commercial republic, our land of liberty. But I got a question, Matt Spaulding, in the introduction titled Falling in Love Again, you open with a CS Lewis quote which reads, and with that plunge back into my own past, there arose all at once, almost like heartbreak, the memory of joy itself, the knowledge that I had once had what I now lacked for years, that I was returning at last from exile and desert lands to my own country. Now that Joy is his wife, that is from surprise by Joy. Why did you make that choice?
- [12:58]
Matt Spalding
There's a thematic here, and CS Lewis is in many ways my guide.
- [13:04]
That book, his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, talks about Joy as his wife, but the other thing he talks about is the joy he had when he studied great history, because that great history drew him towards more permanent things and ultimately towards eternal things. Indeed, he describes his study of history as what ultimately started him down his path of a Christian conversion. So there is this sense, I actually do think you get this in the Declaration, properly understood, that the Declaration, which is on the one hand mere history, really draws you towards more permanent questions about the nature of man. And then there actually is a theology of the Declaration that really draws you and indeed points you towards a larger understanding of eternal things. And I think that's actually what is what CS Lewis meant. He explained what he meant by these surprises of joy that he is sometimes struck by when he has these glimpses of the eternals.
- [14:05]
Hugh Hewitt
I defy Anyone who heard the first segment with the five anecdotes contained therein from your epilogue not to have had a little shiver, inspired admiration for our framers. Now I want to move on to so many great. You did so much work on this and then you wove it together. Tocqueville going to the parade in Albany. Now, I've read Democracy in America. I've actually gone over it at length here on the Hillsdale Dialogue with Dr. Arne. But I never heard about the parade in Albany, which includes the fire brigade and the tradesmen's unions. Quote, every ludicrous detail enmeshed with a loftiness of purpose that spoke to the house, to the, to the heart. That's like every 4th of July small town parade that is ahead of us this year, Matt, they're going to be ludicrous and we're going to love them. Why? Right?
- [14:55]
Matt Spalding
No, that's exactly right. And you can imagine Tocqueville and Beaumont, his traveling companion, being completely surprised by this, in this American sense of these things. They were expecting and used to seeing the great European celebrations, and instead they see this very American celebration, a parade, children running around. It culminates in a church. And they read the Declaration and they honor those who fought in the Revolution. Remember, this is still in 1831. And they saw in that moment, I think, the essence of American patriotism. I use Tocqueville here because in Democracy America, he makes a distinction between instinctive patriotism, which is the patriotism of place. Think of your hometown, your parade, your local gatherings, the Knights of Columbus meetings, or the, the local football team, your state. And then what else he calls reflective patriotism. And I think in those moments, in this moment in particular, by Toto's own description, these are in his letters home describing it. He basically witnesses and has a sense of one of those moments which was the instinctive patriotism of these people in this parade and their celebration. And this sense of Americanism culminates in a reading of the Declaration, which he says when it's read, it's electrifying when they come to that moment.
- [16:24]
Hugh Hewitt
You know, I for years attended a. For years I attended a fourth of July party given by my friend Tim Cook at which he always read the Declaration of Independence. And I thought it unique and wonderful. Turns out it's not unique. It is wonderful. I hope Speaker Johnson finds an opportunity at some time. He's a constitutional officer as opposed to the leader of the Senate. He's named in the Declaration, in the Constitution. I hope he reads the Declaration from the rotunda. At some point. Do you think he will.
- [16:54]
Matt Spalding
That is a great idea. I might have to look into that one. I think, look, we're going to celebrate this 250th anniversary. There's a lot of history. Oftentimes we read the Declaration, we just kind of take it for granted. But I think that there is something here that's more powerful, which is why I wrote the book. But also, it's the full story, the narrative, the meaning of the document we have to revive in the American soul. And the Declaration does that. It really is America's poetry. It's our epic poetry.
- [17:24]
Hugh Hewitt
It is poetry. And one of the things you bring. Again, I think I know the Founding pretty well, but in the Making of the American mind, on page 191, I'm jumping around. Now I'm into my jumping around. Notes General Washington's order of the day on July 2, 1776. First, the passwords, and then quote, let us therefore rely upon the goodness of the cause and the aid of the Supreme Being in whose hands victory is to animate and encourage us to a great and noble action. I bring that up because right now I'm writing the preface for a theologian who's written on the Christianity of George Washington, which is often dismissed as Deism. It wasn't Deism. He was kind of a classic Anglican.
- [18:06]
Matt Spalding
And.
- [18:06]
Hugh Hewitt
And here it is in the order of the day on July 2, saying, look, we need the Supreme Being on our side. So good on you for bringing that forward. Some people might have backed away from that in this age.
- [18:20]
Matt Spalding
No, absolutely. The one thing I've always believed, I especially learned in this, working this through, is there actually is a clear theological thread through these writings, which you see in the Declaration especially. You mentioned his Anglicanism, but it's the language of the Anglican prayer book. It's not as evangelical or perhaps as open and outwardly as we might expect today, but it's clearly there in Washington in the documents of the day, in the other statements of the Continental Congress, the letters they write, and ultimately in the Declaration, which is way. So I read it as, yes, this is drafted by Jefferson. It's highly amended. We sometimes forget that this is not understood pops out of Jefferson's head. But Jefferson knew the audience for whom he is writing. He's writing for an audience that was overwhelmingly Christian, some of them quite devout, and a public, including Washington's armies, who will read this document and understand it to be the God they pray to. So I think we can't read the Declaration without understanding the theology of the thing, which is really everywhere. We miss it, but it's everywhere.
- [19:32]
Hugh Hewitt
I'm glad you brought it up. We're going to go to a break, but I want to tell you why I'm glad you brought it up. So much of the hatred online is anti Semitic, it's anti Catholic, it's anti traditional theology, whereas the Declaration is a unifying document for all creeds and faiths or none at all. You can be Tom Paine, you can be an atheist. We'll take you if you're a patriot. But the theology of the Declaration, well done. And I think we'll get to the fact that it's a legal document in the next segment. But it's still a unique approach. The book we're talking about is Matt Spaulding's the Making of the American Mind. That's S, P A L D I N G. Go and get it as Christmas. For anyone who loves America or anyone who loves history, and hopefully they're both, Stay tuned. I'll be right back with Dean Spaulding after this. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. It's a special edition of the Hillsdale Dialogue on a Wednesday afternoon with Dean Matt Spalding, the author of this brand new book, the Making of the American Mind. Go out and Making of the American Mind ordered from Amazon tonight. Make sure you get it delivered to your gift receiving friends who love history and love America. The lawyer heart in me sang out Matt Spaulding because I wasn't smart enough to be Charles Kessler and study Straussianism, I had to be a lawyer. But you recognize the Declaration is a legal document using, for example, the term therefore. You note that on page 198, which signifies the binding nature of the language in the Declaration. Expand on that because I'm so glad you made the point. It is a legal document.
- [21:08]
Matt Spalding
We sometimes forget this. And it's not merely a rhetorical occasion. Part of this goes back to the long history of great English documents. And one of the things I track is the extent to which the Declaration in many ways models previous great English declarations. A declaration itself is a legal document made by a legitimate legislative body, whether Parliament or in this case, the Continental Congress. It's clearly laid out like a legal document. It actually follows the order of a common law legal document. And it ends with a, you know, it's a series of prepositions that end with a therefore clause. It's passed by a legislature. It is debated and treated as a piece of legislation of law that we have public law. And it's the public law that goes with the Declaration of Independence, meaning the formal declaration on July 2, two days earlier. So I think we can't look at but as a legal document which underscores all of these other things we've been talking about. This is. I give all due honors, Lincoln would say to Jefferson for what he wrote. But it was ultimately a congressional document. It's heavily edited by the Continental Congress. It's a, it's a. A work of a legislator. Sure. And it is produced by a legislature and is issued by a legislature and it's signed by members of that legislature. So.
- [22:37]
Hugh Hewitt
And it's not that it's not received well in England. And I love this. On page 149, the actual charges against the King have become forgotten details in a well worn narrative, Matt Spalding writes. Yet for the British, the officials in London as well as the loyalists in the colonies, this section of the Declaration was the primary focus because it was the primary attack. The grievances, you note, were also the most debated and edited portion of the document. I always talk about the officials going out to eat up our resources when I inveigh against the administrative state. But I didn't know that it scored, it wounded, it got their attention.
- [23:16]
Matt Spalding
Yes, no, absolutely. They thought the rest of it was nonsense. And when they hired their hired gun to respond, because they couldn't officially respond, John Lynn wrote a pamphlet. It was kind of an official, unofficial pamphlet. He focused almost exclusively on the grievances that was the attack because that's what attacked the king in his royal person. And also kind of backhandedly devalued the power of Parliament. So they saw that as the key thing. So I actually spent a lot of time going through those grievances one by one to try to put them in some sort of pattern. There doesn't seem to be a pattern on its face, which is why we don't usually read them. They don't follow the same kind of rhetorical beauty, if you will. But there is a pattern to them. And especially in 1776, if you're a colonist or if you're, if you're the British, everyone knew exactly what they're referring to. And it builds in a pattern based on abuses of the law by the king, usurpations of legislative power by the king, and ultimately the king's war on the American colonists, his war against human nature, essentially by the barbarism making war on his own people. So the grievances are crucially important.
- [24:34]
Hugh Hewitt
I would remind every television viewer in America who likes legal dramas. There's opening argument, there's evidentiary proceedings, there's conclusion argument. And this is the evidentiary proceedings part. I think that's a fair analogy, Matt Spaulding, isn't it?
- [24:49]
Matt Spalding
I think that's exactly right. And that's how they looked at it. They're legislators writing this. That's how they looked at it. And that's clearly how the British looked at it when they read the document. Here's the evidence. So if we're going to destroy the case, we've got to destroy the evidence.
- [25:03]
Hugh Hewitt
When we come back, we're going to talk about the opening argument because that is the heart of the theology of the decl. Once again, Matt Spalding's brand new book, in Time for the Making of the American Mind. Or if you're listening to the replay of this episode on January 2nd, you got a gift card for Christmas and you don't know what to do with it. Here you are, the Making of the American the Story of Our Declaration of Independence. Be smart as we go in the.
- [25:34]
Growing enthusiasm for a 250th birthday. Come right back. Dean Spaulding will be here.
- [25:42]
Larry Arne
Hey there. It's Scott Bertram, host of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. On this week's program. You see him on cnn, perhaps hear him on the Salem Radio Network. It's Scott Jennings and his new book is out now, a Revolution of Common How Donald Trump Stormed Washington and Fought for Western Civilization. We go in depth with Scott about his new book and Hillsdale student Ava Downs. She's a junior, but also a 2025 Junior Olympic champion in international trap shooting. We'll talk with her about how she trains, how she studies and how Hillsdale has helped her. All that this week on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Find it at Podcast Hillsdale Edu or wherever you get your audio.
- [26:34]
Matt Spalding
This show is a part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network.
- [26:38]
Larry Arne
If you like what you hear, please.
- [26:41]
Matt Spalding
Subscribe to your favorite. You'll get brand new episodes of all your favorite shows sent right to your device and you'll help us know that you're out there listening. Never miss another episode by going to Podcast Hillsdale.
- [26:56]
Hugh Hewitt
Eduardo.
- [26:59]
Matt Spalding
That's Podcast Hillsdale Edu. Subscribe or click the Follow or Subscribe button on Apple podcasts, Spotify or YouTube.
- [27:14]
Hugh Hewitt
Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. On this Wednesday, you're driving home with Dean Matt Spalding from Hillsdale College. He's got a brand new book out, the Making of the American Mind perfect for your Christmas shopping. Remember the Making of the American Mind by Matthew Spalding. Whoever you give it to will be very, very thankful. It's just elegant, wonderful writing and reading. Chapter two, Matt. I saved for this penultimate segment the laws of nature and nature's God. In this chapter you cite Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, St. Augustine, Coke, Hooker and Locke. But you don't do in a way that is overwhelming. I mean, you do it in a way that brings people into the idea that there is a thread running through all of recorded human history that culminates in the Declaration of Independence. I think it's brilliantly done.
- [28:04]
Matt Spalding
I thank you for that. Coming from you, that's a great compliment. But yes, no, I think what is overwhelmingly here, sometimes when we study these things, we miss the forest for the trees and we focus oftentimes on Locke exclusively or this, that or the other. Locke is important. I don't mean at all to diminish Locke, but the more important question here is what did the Americans understand? Not what Locke understood. And the Americans are clearly shaped by this broader, longer, older tradition going back to the Greeks and the Romans. The Roman influence on our education is much more important than even I thought was historically the case. And they're also deeply shaped by the whole Christian tradition. Not only the Christian tradition growing out of the Thomistic natural law tradition in the medieval ages, but that Christian tradition which is shaped especially by someone like Richard Hooker, the great Anglican divine, who, among other things, when he writes his book, footnotes extensively, Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle. So there's just clearly this tradition. So then the question becomes, where do the Americans see themselves in that tradition, which is a tradition that transcends the whole immediate.
- [29:21]
More recent, if you will, Lockean tradition, which is a part of that. And I think they read Locke through those lenses and that is what really shapes the whole moral horizons which this document is written.
- [29:35]
Hugh Hewitt
We've got the notes on the Constitution from James Madison, who took center stage, sat front and center so he could take these copious notes on the framing of the constitution, which follows 13 years later. Do we have anything about the Continental Congress as they approach this Declaration and whether or not they're citing Hooker or going to Aristotle? Do we have anyone who is keeping notes?
- [29:59]
Matt Spalding
We don't. There are records of the Continental Congress and you can read those day to day, and there's lots of interesting things we can learn there. But there is no record, no written record, because it was done secretly behind closed doors. No record of the editing debates which went on for two days, two full days about the Declaration. And then we don't necessarily have a lot of the correspondence and back and forth between Adams and Franklin and Jefferson in drafting the document in particular. So I think we have to rely on other things were written. The Continental Congress did write other pamphlets. There are private letters, there are all sorts of things we can look to. But we don't have the same record as we have for the Constitutional Convention. But that shouldn't prevent us from looking at the words of the Declaration. One of the things I emphasize here is that the terms, as you would know as a lawyer, when you write a legal document, the terms of art that are used have meanings. These are not odd terms that are invented out of nowhere, but they are terms of art used at the time. Remember Jefferson writes a famous letter in 1825 referring to the Declaration as an expression of the American mind, from which I get the title of my book, the Making of the American Mind.
- [31:19]
Hugh Hewitt
And I gotta tell you, my expression.
- [31:20]
Matt Spalding
Of the American mind. He meant nothing new. I didn't invent something. I captured the mind of the moment, of the moment.
- [31:27]
Hugh Hewitt
And what I'm very glad you emphasized. The laws of nature and nature's God. One declaration, two authorities. The laws of nature and the laws of nature's God. They are not in tension. They are weight bearing walls of our independence. And they are both cited so that you can rely on Athens or you can rely on Jerusalem. But the Declaration stands on them both.
- [31:52]
Matt Spalding
No, absolutely right. Today much of modernity, we see reason, revelation, at odds with each other. And they can't coexist. There really is nothing in the American foundry that suggests that was their belief at all. And so it's perfectly natural, if you will, to make reference to both of these things. And so at the very beginning, which is that first opening paragraph, it's a reference to these two pillars, if you will. But remember, there are two pillars, but they're two pillars fundamentally connected. The laws, the laws of nature. The laws of nature's God. It's the same laws, they just have two different sources. Which historically in the tradition we can understand is laws understood by reason simply or laws understood using man's reason through what we might call general revelation that has been revealed to us through nature itself. So they're perfectly. They're not the same, they're differences, but they're in agreement. Especially when it comes to these general questions.
- [32:53]
Hugh Hewitt
Last quick part for this and we're going to finish up in a minute. George Washington sends a letter to Katherine Macaulay Graham about Which I've been ignorant until I read the Making of the American Mind. And he says much was to be done by prudence, much by conciliation, much by firmness. That's on page 130 of. Of the making of the American. I've never read that before. But what a great summation of the three qualities of a revolutionary.
- [33:17]
Matt Spalding
No, absolutely. And I have a whole chapter in the book on the question of prudence which. The Declaration has these principles, all men being created equal. Chief among them, then it's prudence will dictate. And prudence in particular is a classical virtue, which is the key practical verb, if you will. The Declaration is this. This movement of prudence. Again, it signals to us very clearly it's a dominant, extremely important word in political writing and in law. And it really signals to us that this document is not written in the modern world. This is written in this older understanding of the nature of things.
- [33:56]
Modern French Revolution.
- [33:58]
Hugh Hewitt
It's what we need to recover for 2026. We need to recover that understanding. Don't go anywhere, America. Dean Spring Spalding will be back for one more moment, except during the break. Go over and order. The Making of the American Mind. The Making of the American Mind, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, good fine bookstores everywhere. It is brought to you by our friends from Encounter Book. Well done, Roger and gang on getting this out. I'll be right back, America. Stay tuned.
- [34:26]
Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. As we wrap up today's program, the Making of the American Mind by Matt Spaulding is what we've been talking about. Matt, of course, is at Hillsdale. All thingshillsdalesdale. Edu. All of our dialogues@hughforhillsdale.com, you'll be hearing this again probably on January 2nd. On Friday, in the normal slot for the Hillsdale Dialogue, Matt Spalding. I want to read a paragraph that's holy. Matt Spaulding, page 104. Here's the difference. There is no such relationship between man and man as there is between man and horse, such that one is the inherent ruler of the other. In a world of vast inequalities that are used to make claims to political rule, no man is the natural sovereign of another man, booted and spurred, ready to ride. Well said. Why don't you explain it a little bit in the two minutes we have left?
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Matt Spalding
Well, the central proposition here they've turned to. To solve the problems, political and theological and philosophical, is this idea of human equality. And they didn't understand human equality in some abstract, merely philosophical way, if you will. There's in very practical terms, and that particular passage is a reference there to a letter from Jefferson quoting someone from the English Revolution about these distinctions, which is a very classical distinction. We understand man as man. He's not a horse. He's not born with a saddle on his back. And no other man is born with boots ready to ride another man as if he were a horse. Those are natural distinctions. And this is also the distinction that Lincoln then turns to when he understands the distinction between men is not one of human slavery when he first meets the great Frederick Douglass. So that's the essential thing, but it's so fundamentally human. It's not a hard question, but it's something we've lost track of because we've lost a sense of understanding the basic concepts, the first principles that they would call them the fundamentals. But here the Declaration turns on a grasping, a grasping of the human mind, a metaphysical freedom to grasp those concepts is the heart of the Declaration. That's the universalism of the Declaration. That then gets more made practical through the exercise of prudence about what is actually going on in 1776 in the colonies. In those grievances.
- [36:49]
This is the laid down.
- [36:52]
Hugh Hewitt
We will return to that again and again. I just got 30 seconds left. Are you an optimist about our celebrations ahead, Matt Spaulding, that they will in fact look back on the right thing?
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Matt Spalding
Well, I am an optimist, yes, partially because I'm always an optimist. But we have something so rich and beautiful and wonderful to look back upon. Any looking back upon it and taking it seriously, as one ought to, will naturally bring great fruit. And I think that will happen in ways that we don't necessarily know about and don't necessarily control. There will be great events, but the more important thing will be rediscovery and relearning and come to love again these great ideas that are at the heart of the matter.
- [37:29]
Hugh Hewitt
Well said. The book again. America the Making of the American Mind. The story of Our Declaration of Independence. Perfect. Christmas present, New Year's present. Get your gift cards ready to use if you're listening to this on January 2nd. Dean Spalding, thank you for joining me. The Making of the American Mind. A wonderful way to begin 2026.
- [37:54]
Larry Arne
Thanks for listening to the Hillsdale Dialogues, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More episodes@podcast. Hillsdale, Eduardo, or wherever you find your audio. For more information about Hillsdale College, head to Hillsdale.
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Matt Spalding
Eduardo.