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A
Welcome to Condemned to Repeated A Standard of Truth podcast production. In each episode, host Dr. Garrett Dirkmot and Professor Richard Leduc examine different aspects of American and world history. These events of the past have shaped our world today, and those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat the same mistakes.
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Hi. Welcome to another episode of Condemned to Repeat It, A Standard of Truth podcast production. I'm your host, Dr. Garrett Dirkmont, and I'm joined by my friend, Professor Richard Leduc.
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Hello, Garrett. I believe in this week's episode, we are finally, we've been at war for some time and we're finally going to get to the Declaration of Independence.
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I think it's actually taking us longer
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to get through the first year of the war than it took the Americans
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to get through the first year of the war.
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It's like the show M.A.S.H, a show that lasted longer than the actual Korean War.
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Yeah, We have fond memories of MASH because growing up, it was the only
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thing one of the shows on tv.
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Yeah. So you ended up watching it a lot. So we were going to talk about this. I did. The last we left you, we were talking about the Marshall Plans of black Dick Howe and his, his Red coats and their plan once they, they left Boston to Halifax and how they were going to take New York. So that's going to be. I'm going to put, I'm going to push pause, though, on the military side of things for a minute to discuss the, the, the movement towards a full break from Great Britain. Now, I've talked about this in earlier episodes when we were talking about the lead up to the revolution and even the initial phases of the revolution that to an American today, it's a pretty foregone conclusion that you simply declare independence and then you fight against Britain to be independent. It is not a foregone conclusion for the early colonists. And it's the reason why so many of the early colonial petitions, so many of the early colonial legislatures try to seek this distinction between the king and what his parliament is doing. Even as late as 1775, you have people sending petitions into the king saying, you know, we respect you, your majesty, and we'd do anything for you. But you've got these corrupt, you know,
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advisors that are, you know, running amok
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and taxation without representation and whatnot. There are some early advocates of independence, people like Samuel Adams and John Adams, they're all about independence all the time. But in the early Congress, in the early, in the early meeting of the Congress, most people are moderates or, or at the Very least, their, their colonial governments have not given them leave to pursue actual independence from Britain. I mean, this is the reason why when we talked about the Benedict Arnold invasion of Canada, that Congress had to style the invasion of Canada hundreds of
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miles away from the thirteen colonies, a full on invasion as a defensive measure. You know, what are you doing?
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Well, we're just defending ourselves against the tyranny of the Crown by marching to Quebec and trying to capture it. It seems like that's a little bit more than just we don't want to pay for our tea taxes. But as the war gets into 1776, there is a much greater sense that this is not going to be reconcilable. People like John Adams have been arguing the entire time, hey, this isn't fixable, we can't be a part of this. Obviously people like Thomas Paine are arguing it doesn't make any sense that an island thousands of miles away rules a land like America. But still there is a great deal of trepidation. I'd said this before, but it bears repeating. There really aren't any good Examples in the 1415 and 1600s of a nation throwing off its monarchy and doing better because of it. And in even a bigger sense, the last time there was a type of civil war, because that's what this is for. The American colonists, remember, they all consider themselves British. The British, of course, also consider themselves British. And in a crazy irony, it's a
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crazy turn of events if the British consider themselves to be British.
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The British had a civil war in the mid-1600s.
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They threw out the king, they lopped
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his head off, and all that was left was Parliament. It was just you know, supposedly going to be pure democracy. And what it became was, was the dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell because he was the head of Parliament. And of course, were there opposition people in Parliament?
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Yes, until he ordered them executed or banned from Parliament. And then it worked out really well.
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And the army was controlled by Oliver Cromwell because he was this great general. And so many people don't really see. I think a lot of people recognize monarchy is, it's ineffective, it can lead to totalitarianism. It's got problems, but what's your solution? Someone who's arguing, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, just democracy. Democracy will work. They, they see that as well. That's a pipe dream. Okay, you can claim you're going to have democracy, but what you're really going
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to have is whoever controls the army
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becoming a dictator, just like Oliver Cromwell did. So they have this shared collective history. The other thing Is the English empire is a worldwide empire. It is. It's not just powerful in North America, it's powerful everywhere. And the Americans, with their huge shoreline and many, many, many merchants, they profit from the imperial power of Great Britain. What's the reason why Barbary pirates aren't attacking American shipping in the Mediterranean? Well, because they aren't Americans, they're British. And while a Barbary pirate doesn't have a problem hitting a Genoese merchantman, they know that if they hit a British merchant ship, the world's largest navy is now going to be coming after you. So the Americans actually enjoy an awful lot of protections by being in the empire. Sure, we talk about their unfair taxes, but there's also a lot of benefits they have because they're part of the empire. And so those are other things that people are trying to think through. And then of course, you also have the realists and the pacifists among them, the realists who are saying things like, hey guys, I don't know if you realize this, but there's way, way, way
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more people in Britain than there is in the United States. They have a navy, we don't. They have a professional army, we don't. They have money, we don't. They have everything, we don't. They're attractive, we aren't. They have better teeth than us.
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I'm sure that that couldn't possibly be true, but somehow was true. The, the, the reality. Those realists, you know, liked the idea of independence, but they were like, you've got to be kidding me, right? Yeah. A couple of farmers with, with a pitchfork that they're gonna win against the world's most well trained and powerful empire. Yeah, the empire of France with 10 times our resources just lost a war to them. But don't worry, we've got this. I mean, so there are certain people who, at least the ideal of independence was fine, but it's not a realizable goal, Right? So. So I'm opposed to independence not because I think it's wrong for us to be independent. I'm opposed to independence because we're going to die and not win. So.
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So there is no independence when we're just all murdered for being in favor of it.
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And then you also have people that are, in a sense, pacifists in nature who think that any kind of bloodshed's wrong. They want to avoid any kind of bloodshed. And so you really have this huge range of people that are in the Continental Congress, some who are firebrand advocates for independence and Then you have others that are loyalist, in fact, that think the problem is just with the king's ministers and that the king, if he only understood the king, would come back. Now, this kind of thinking has a long and glorious tradition in British history of blaming. Because, look, it was illegal to criticize the king. It was. It was a treasonable offense to criticize the king, to tell the king that the king was wrong, or to speak against succession of the king. So what developed in England was the criticism of his ministers, the people that he'd appointed, and the criticism of the Parliament. It was safe. It's okay to say, you know, that Lord north doesn't know what he's doing. It's not okay to say King George III doesn't know what he's doing. And we actually have other documents that will precede the Declaration of Independence that are all part of English history to every one of these people. As the summer, well, the spring begins to wear on into the summer of, of 1776, with the king having rejected the petitions of the colonists, with more and more forces being sent to the colonies, it became more and more apparent that whether you want there to be a declaration of independence or not, that there. There's going to be a break. And in the. In June of 1776, Charles Henry Lee, who is one of the delegates from Virginia, a Virginian, which is the most populous colony, he is going to put forth the petition that. That these colonies should be free and independent states. Now, he's not certain that that's going to. I mean, he's just putting forth a resolution. It's his resolution that he puts forth in June of 1776, and it reads, resolved that these united colonies are, and of a right ought to be free and independent states, and they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved. So that's the actual resolution of independence. Lee proposes that. And of course, there's all kinds of arguing. And one of the big things that has to happen is there's a whole bunch of delegations who legitimately don't have the right to vote for independence. There are some delegations that are sent by their state constituencies, their colonial constituencies, with instructions that you are not. We can give you power to process this, but you're not allowed to vote for independence at all. Right. So. So there's, there's some time that has to be there, but a committee is appointed to write a declaration describing why they are becoming independent. So Lee's resolution is we are free of Britain. The committee that's appointed to write the Declaration, they're appointed to explain. So the Declaration of Independence is not. It's not the law that's passed that makes us free from Great Britain. It's the explanation that accompanies the resolution that was passed to make us free from great. But you seem to think that. No, that's sweating hairs here.
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No, no, no, no.
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Richard's over here grimacing like.
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I feel like you lost everyone at the word British.
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Oh, it's, it's, it's just. It's very legalistic, and it's very important that the people understand.
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Well, you just said that was very important. The way that you would tell someone
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that it's very important how close their
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car is parked from the curb.
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No, it was, it was, it was.
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It.
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The way you described it was. It tickled me.
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It's a way of saying.
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Boring. Okay.
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Well, no, I would never say that.
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I.
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It's. I had. I had never thought of this additional context. I just thought, you know, Jefferson's in a room just, you know, like, all right, let's do this thing. And then writes it out, and then they're going to read it, and then
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you just spitball on it. Right. I'm gonna just pound this out and we'll talk later about this. Well, so
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this committee is appointed, including John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Adams will later make a big deal about the fact that he taught that he was the one that said Jefferson needs to write it. And he told Jefferson, now, again, this is coming from John Adams and it's coming from John Adams later. But there's at least some. There's at least some historical evidence that this is pretty well the reason why John Adams is actually one of the more well known and accomplished writers there is among the Continental Congress. And of course, he's been at the business of seeking liberty from Britain longer
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than anyone else has because of the problems in.
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In Boston and in Massachusetts generally.
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He.
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He at least claims that he tells Thomas Jefferson that Jefferson should draft the Declaration of Independence. Why? He says, first of all, you're from Virginia. Virginia is the most populous, richest, most powerful colony. And, and look, there's a lot of sage wisdom to that, right? Because up to this point, the only violence that's taken place. Well, there's certainly violence that's taken place in other places, but the vast majority of violence has stemmed around Massachusetts and a little bit of New Hampshire and Connecticut. I mean, but primarily New England, you already did have some critics of the Congress saying things like, why in the world are South Carolinians going to go fight for a bunch of, you know, Puritans in Massachusetts that are dumping tea in the harbor? I mean, there's already this sense that the Massachusetts are trying to exert their authority over the other colonies. So the fact that Jefferson's from Virginia is a pretty key thing. Secondly, again, I'm quoting John Adams here.
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So maybe John Adams is just being,
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he had a tendency to be pretty self effacing, which is I think why I like John Adams. And he tells Jefferson, at least he claims he tells Jefferson that he says I'm arrogant and disliked and, and everyone likes you.
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So I can't write it because people might not accept what's written because I'm the one who wrote it. So it's a very self effacing thing.
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Right.
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And then of course he tells him,
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you have, you know, you're one of the most beautiful writers we have. So Jefferson's going to be the one who takes the lead in this. Benjamin Franklin's gonna be part of this committee as well. But everyone agrees that it is, it's, it's, Jefferson is going to take the lead now in drafting this Declaration. There's a lot of history behind this. Let me read you something from 1689. Okay, so roughly 90 plus years earlier called the Declaration of. Right. What is this document? This document is the document that's created by Parliament when they toss King James II out of the kingship. If you've ever heard of the Glorious Revolution, right? The Glorious Revolution is when William and Mary take the throne of England. How do they, how do they take it? Well, James, now, now for many of our listeners who are Latter Day Saints, they're well aware of who James the First is because of the King James Bible. And if you've ever been really bored in sacrament meeting, you've opened the title page of the King James Bible and
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you've read this nice giant treatise to
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our, our Lord King James. And have you ever done that, Richard?
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I've never been that bored.
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So you've never ever read the, the introduction to the Bible?
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I have not, no. Or the Bible or the Bible General
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or any part of the Bible. I feel like any part of the Bible is just, I don't, I can't be bothered. What about the Gospels? It's too much effort. It's too much effort. I've watched all the Netflix series while we're sitting here for this recording, but there's no way. I'm reading the Bible.
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So James the First is the one who has the King James Bible put together. James ii, however, is trying to restore Catholicism back to the now very Protestant England. And with that fear of what is going on, he then will, he will lose the faith of the people, let's put it that way. And it will culminate in the Parliament deciding that they are going to get a. A replacement for James. They are going to find someone else to rule. And this is how William and Mary come to power. But they aren't just going to toss James II out on his ear without. Well, they are going to do that.
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They are going to toss him out,
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but they're not going to do it without explaining themselves first. So it's a very English thing to not just do something, but to explain yourself politically why you're doing it.
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So we're going to give a declaration. It's a lot of wherebys and so
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forth that you can't just do a thing politically. You have to do it and also say henceforth and the reason why whereby we shall do it. I mean, no, I mean this idea of creating a public declaration for the political thing that you've done has a long history in English, in English law. And so this Declaration of Right that is made in 1689 lists off the reasons why this monarchy, why essentially the elected Parliament of this monarchy is justified in deposing their king. So this is the Declaration of Parliament explaining their actions. Now, again, this is not actually the
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action that they're taking, this is the explanation of what they've done. So it's, it's more like providing a justification for what we were going to do anyway.
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You know, it would be like
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me
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taking three different pies at Thanksgiving and eating all three of them. And Angie noticing my then explanation of the three pies I'm eating is not
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actually, it's not actually me taking the pies. Me taking and eating the pies was already going to happen, right? It was never in doubt. It was already happening. I mean, I had pie all over my face, I was scaring children as I, as I shoved whatever, whatever various types of pudding and cherry pie in my face that I could hypothetically. But then my explanation of what I was doing that would have been my Declaration of PI at this point, my Declaration of PI is that this is why it's justified.
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So that's what they do. They're going to pass this and we're going to read some of this and I want you to pay close Attention to the language, because the language is
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what
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helps, helps you understand how the Declaration of Independence will stem from this shared collective English history. So what is this again? This is the Parliament's justification of why they were able to depose a sitting King and replace that king with a different king. Now, as far as divine right goes,
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you know, monarchies are supposed to be hereditary and God's the one who's supposed to decide.
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Well, here Parliament is going to explain how they have the ability to do it. Whereas the Lord Spiritual and temporal and Commons assembled at Westminster's lawfully, fully, freely representing all the estates of the people of this realm, did upon the 13th day of February in the year of our Lord 1688, present unto their Majesties, then called and known by the names and style of William and Mary, Prince and Princess of Orange, being present in their proper persons a certain declaration in writing made by the said Lords and Commons in the words following that. Whereas the late King James ii. That's.
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It's actually pretty funny that they make
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a reference to the late King James II who is not dead.
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It is funny because the way they use the term late then really is similar to the way we use it now.
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Like when we say, oh, the late, you know, you know, you know, Brother Johnson, that means he's dead.
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They're using it to mean he's no longer king, but he's very much still alive.
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He's. He's fled the country, he's in France,
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but he's very much still alive. He's just the late King James ii,
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by the assistance of diverse evil counselors, judges and ministers employed by him, did endeavor to subvert and extirpate the Protestant religion and laws and liberties of this kingdom. So the, the beginning of this declaration is we are doing this because James the Second, because of his evil counselors, judges and ministers, now again, they always want to deflect away from the King being culpable. I mean, right there, you're trying to say it's not James has allowed these evil ministers and counselors to influence him. That the main issue is this idea of a Protestant religion being extirpated by the King in favor of Catholicism. One of the things that spurs the Glorious Revolution is the fact that James has a son. Before he had a son, well, he was going to die, and that would be the end of his little Catholic reign. But once he had a son, now there's a real threat of a Catholic dynasty being back on the throne in England. So really, his, He. They were already Mad with what he was doing. Then he had a son, and then it was go time on Idol. Yeah.
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It suddenly became, we've got to move. We've got to move now. We've got to hit him fast. We've got to hit him hard.
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So it makes a list of these grievances. Number one, by assuming and exercising a power of dispensing with and suspending the laws and the execution of laws without the consent of Parliament, notice, what made King James an illegitimate king? He suspended certain laws and the execution thereof. Think back to the colonists. What did King James do? What did King George III do to them? Suspended the right of the people in Massachusetts to meet in colonial assemblies. Prevented their port from being used at all in Boston. Now, of course, English people, I don't know if English people today, they probably don't know a whole lot about this history, but English people at the time would say, well, this is very different because Parliament passed the Boston Port Act. The king just signed it. I mean, Parliament passed the Massachusetts Government act, you know, but here Parliament is saying there are certain things that the king can do that make the king an illegitimate ruler. One of them is suspending laws in order to do what he wants to do. Number two, by committing and prosecuting diverse worthy prelates, which is a term of a religious person, a religious leader, for humbly petitioning to be excused from concurring to the same assumed power.
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Okay, so because there are people who
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said, hey, King James, you can't just cancel, like, the law and stuff. And then he, of course, had them executed. I don't know if they said it exactly that way.
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I'm pretty sure they did. Yeah, they declared it. Then he had him executed.
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Yeah, they said, well, no, they said it.
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Then he killed him. Then they declared.
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What's all they said? And then the head comes off and, you know, here's your ninepence by. By levying.
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So the third one is by issuing and causing to be executed a commission under the Great Seal for erecting a court called the Court of Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes. This is essentially a court to persecute people who are Protestant who weren't properly being Catholic by levying money for and for the use of the Crown by pretense of prerogative for other time and in other manner than was granted by Parliament. So one of the arguments made by Parliament is, we gave the. We levied money to the Crown to do X and he used it for Y. Now, this is going to come as a shock to anyone listening. Apparently back in the ancient history of. Of governments. Governments at times would take money, saying
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they're going to use it on a certain thing and spend it on something else.
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Don't believe it.
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Look, this is.
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Look, it's a.
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More.
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It's a. It's a chaotic time.
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This is. This is dark matter just flooding the universe. This is not. It's going to be hard for our
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listeners to think of a time that
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a government could take money and spend it on something that it was not intended for.
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But you know what?
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That's why we had to break away. We had to break away because of how evil that is.
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By now, this is going to be something. Again, very important to keep note of number five by raising and keeping a standing army with it with. Within this kingdom in time of peace without the consent of parliament and quartering soldiers contrary to law. Remember what one of the primary concerns of people in Massachusetts and other parts of the colonies were? Hey, there aren't any French people here anymore. Why are there thousands of British soldiers still here?
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Oh, yeah, we have them here. Because you guys are going to, like,
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pick fights with, like, the Indians and stuff.
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Why are they in Boston? There's. There's no Indians in Boston. We know we're the reason why there's no Indians in Boston. So why are you stationing troops here?
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You claim it's for our benefit, but then you're making us pay for them and also we don't want them. Right. It's something that will be a similar claim among the colonists by causing several good subjects, being Protestants, to be disarmed at the same time when papists were both armed and employed contrary to law. It is not a matter of happenstance that eventually the Bill of Rights in America is going to include the right to bear arms as the Second Amendment to the Constitution. It's actually something that 90 years earlier, the Parliament had declared that the King had been doing unjustly. Namely, preventing Protestant citizens from keeping weapons, but helping Catholic citizens to acquire weapons. Again, it's an idea that is going to have long history by violating the freedom of election of members to serve in Parliament, by prosecutions in the King's court of bench for matters and causes cognizable only to Parliament and by diverse and other arbitrary and illegal courses. And excessive bail has been required of persons committed in criminal cases, and excessive fines have been imposed and illegal and cruel punishments inflicted, and several grants and promises made of fines and forfeitures before any conviction or judgment against the person upon whom the same were to be levied. Or in other words, King James was confiscating the property of people accused of being a criminal without actually trying them to determine whether or not they were a criminal. It only took him accusing you to take away your property. Flash forward to what's going on in the American colonies. How is that very different from the entirety of the Massachusetts government? All of its citizens being punished for the fact that a hundred of them tossed some tea casks over into the water. The collective punishment that was being levied clearly was not a matter of due process of, oh, we found the 500 people. If it was that many, it's only 100. But we found the hundred people that were involved and we brought them to court and we're going to make them pay the fine. Nope. All of you are going to pay it. All of you are going to pay it. We're shutting down your government, we're shutting down your port. We're shutting down your ability to have judges anymore. And, and you can see that when, if you have a shared collective history of, hey, governments aren't allowed to do that. How do I know? My own government said governments aren't allowed to do that. I'm not making this up. English history says kings aren't allowed to take away those rights arbitrarily. So the colonists feel like they're on, on, on safe footing with that. So they go on to state that they are inviting Prince William of Orange to come and become the new king of England. Now, it's not a, it's not a mistake, of course, that they're going to Orange because the Netherlands at the time is one of the most Protestant nations in all of Europe. It is highly Calvinistic Reformed theology. And if you're listening on our other podcast, Joseph Smith and the Restoration, we're talking about Calvinism. And if your fear is that the government's becoming too Catholic, inviting Williams of Orange of this very Reformed theology government to come be the new leader. I mean, it's, it's a very good demonstration. We are not going to be Catholic again. The, the reality is England has gone through the wringer over the past hundred years or so of all of these religious disputes. You had Henry viii, who at first is going to cast off Catholicism basically because he wants a divorce.
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He's not, he's not super religious.
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It's not like it's gonna. He's. He's someone who's continually marrying people and then chopping their heads off when they don't provide him a son. Probably isn't the most religious person. I mean, there are other ways to measure religiosity, but they're not necessarily the worst. But there are other ways. There are other ways to marry. To marry.
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No, that, you know what, that's exactly what Henry thought. And then it's the, you know, off goes that
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his daughter Mary, who's known to history as Bloody Mary, and the
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reason why she's known as Bloody Mary
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isn't because she's a drink that will give you a nice pep in the morning if you happen to not be a Mormon or if you're on a long flight. It's because she tries to return the kingdom to Catholicism and begins executing every
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Protestant who's opposed to that.
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When she dies, Henry's other daughter from Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth becomes queen and she returns the country to a type of moderate Protestantism. Well, that moderate Protestantism is deigned to be a little too moderate for quite a few people in England. And, and you have the rise of people that want to purify the Church of England and they're called Puritans. They have this Reformed theology. Those Puritans press and press and press that England needs to adopt a more radical form of Protestantism. James the first is going to eventually come to power after Elizabeth dies. Remember, Elizabeth reigns a long time and he's where we get the King James Bible. Right. James's son, however, is going to really upset Parliament.
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He's going to, he's going to do
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B
all kinds of things. He's going to have some kind of dalliance with potpourri, which is not a sweet smelling incense put into a candle burner, but Catholicism. They use the pejorative popery or papist. And, and eventually this is going to give rise to the English Civil War in which the English Parliament is going to take power, which, which we, we'd already talked about at the end of that civil war. There's going to be an invitation to Charles to come back and, and, and regain the monarchy. But there's always this fear that there's going to be a return to Catholicism. And with James ii, it very much appeared to be the case. And so he's deposed. And so when, when Jefferson's trying to figure out how to draft this, they, they are drawing upon other things that have already been written. So that's something that was written in the ancient past. Let's, let's move to something that was written in the far more recent past past, in fact, something that was written only a few weeks earlier that Jefferson also had a primary Hand in. And that is the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Right about the same time that Richard Henry Lee in June is proposing that these colonies are, and of a right ought to be free and independent states. These various colonies aren't waiting around for the Continental Congress to decide that they're independent. Several of them pass their own independence resolution saying, I don't know what's going on there, but in Connecticut, we don't respect the crown anymore at all.
- [36:53]
D
The Crown doesn't have anything to do with us.
- [36:55]
B
Virginia's declaration of rights first. So this is June 12, 1776. So this is a month before the Declaration of Independence is adopted. Okay. That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights of which when they enter into a state of society, they cannot by any compact deprive or divest their posterity, namely the enjoyment of life and liberty and the means of acquiring and possessing property and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety. Does that sound a little familiar? It does because he's drawing from the same ideas, the same Lockean principles of individual freedom and rights.
- [37:49]
C
So these things, though, that Jefferson is pulling from, obviously the people in Parliament are aware of these things. I mean, they. They're aware of their relatively recent history here that he's calling to. Are these arguments not being made? I mean, these same. I mean, these same British parliamentarians would. Were saying the same exact thing 90 years previously.
- [38:13]
B
But the key difference, the very key difference is Parliament then was asserting that Parliament had power over the Crown. Here the colonists are asserting no one has authority over people. People have authority over Parliament. Remember the Parliament. While, I mean, look, I guess it's better because there were a few people, quote, unquote, giant air quotes that you can't see right now, but I'm holding my arms as far apart as I possibly can. Air quotes, quote, elected. Almost no one has the right to vote in England. Almost. No.
- [38:50]
C
So Jimmy Carter wasn't there observing, making
- [38:52]
D
sure that everything was done properly.
- [38:53]
B
If he was observing, it would be a pretty easy observation because almost no
- [38:57]
D
one has the right to vote. So, like, there's four people. They're like, did Johnson vote? No, he needs to get in here, get in here. Oh, there's our fifth vote. And you're now going to Parliament.
- [39:07]
B
I mean, we call it the House of Commons and in our mind we make it think like, oh, that must have been like the House of Representatives. It's not even close. So few people have the right to vote in England. And those Parliamentary. I'm not talking about today. By the way, someone listening.
- [39:24]
D
In England, you know, everybody is RAW tv. I'm not. I'm not saying that. I'm saying your accent is great.
- [39:31]
C
You're picking up the. You're getting Yorkshire, you're getting Cockney, you're
- [39:34]
D
getting all over the place. Everybody. Yes. I want to include everybody for a terrible accent. But
- [39:42]
B
the. At the time, the House of Commons. Yes. Was elected, but the people who were allowed to vote was so minimal, in part because property requirements were part of that and almost no one owned property. Right. So it's still the House of Commons and it's supposed to represent the common people. But Parliament never intended to represent geographically every person in the empire. The House of Commons and the House of Lords were the check on the King's power. But they didn't accept. They wouldn't accept that their power was legitimate. They would say the Massachusetts Port act, which closed the Massachusetts port, wasn't an illegitimate use of power. If the King had just declared that the Massachusetts port is closed, that would be illegitimate. But Parliament declared it. And Parliament represents the people. To which the Americans would say, it doesn't. It literally.
- [40:41]
D
It literally doesn't represent us.
- [40:43]
B
We have literally no representatives in Parliament. And the parliamentary response would be, that's not how Parliament works. Parliament doesn't represent anyone individually based on where they're from. It represents all of the English people collectively. Don't worry, we know what's best for you. I mean, look, it's not hard to find politicians, even today, who will say, well, I don't think the people understand what they really want. They don't really understand what they really need. Luckily I do. And I know more than their collective wisdom. Point number two of the Virginia Declaration, that all power is vested in and consequently derived from the people, that magistrates are their trustees and servants, and at all times amenable to them. So again, what is the statement here? There's no divine right. Power comes from the people, not from anywhere else. A judge isn't a judge because he has power. A judge is a judge because the people give him power. And guess what? The people can then take that power away. The government is. This is number three. The government is or ought to be instituted for the common benefit, protection and security of the people to nation or community. Of all the various modes and forms of government that is best, which is capable of producing the highest degree of happiness and safety, and is most effectually secured against the danger of maladministration, and that whenever any government should be found inadequate or contrary to these Purposes. A majority of the community hath an indubitable, unalienable and indefeasible right to reform, alter or abolish it in such a manner as shall be judged most conducive to. The public will notice what they're saying here. If the majority of people that are governed by a government reject that government, that government can be destroyed. It's a declaration of how government can be destroyed. They have the right to reform, alter or abolish it. Number four. That no man or set of men are entitled to exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges from the community. But in consideration of public services which not being descendable, neither ought the offices of magistrate, legislator, judge be hereditary. Okay, so a declaration there. Nobody gets to be in. In power because their dad was half of Parliament. The House of Lords is exactly that. Why are you in the House of Lords? Because my dad was a duke and I am now too.
- [43:29]
D
Oh. What great thing did you do to become a duke?
- [43:31]
B
I was born.
- [43:33]
D
What. What great level of education did you arise to?
- [43:35]
B
I. I was born. It worked out great for me that the legislative. And this is number five. The legislative and executive powers of the state should be separate and distinct from the judiciative. And that members of the first two may be restrained from oppression by feeling and participating in the burdens of the people. They should, at fixed period be reduced to a private station, returned to that body from which they're originally taken. And the vacancies be supplied by frequent, certain and regular elections in which all or any part of the former members to be again eligible or ineligible as the wash. So again, part of what they're saying is no one should be in office for life. And that people should be able to elect them. And they should. They should not always be in there.
- [44:23]
D
These.
- [44:24]
B
There's quite a few. I'm not going to read all of them. We'd be here all day. Of the Virginia resolves. But they form a basis for what it is that the colonists are demanding from England. And it gives you an idea of what the Continental Congress is going to demand from England. Again, Virginia is the most populated colony. It's the richest colony. It's a southern colony. It isn't a colony that's had the out. You know, the. The open warfare that. That Massachusetts has had. But they principally are arguing for these very similar things. For instance, item number 12. The controversies respecting property and suits between man and man and man. The ancient trial by jury is prefer. Sorry, this is number 11. Is preferable to any other that ought to be held sacred. Okay, trial by jury is there. Number 12. The freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty and can never be restrained but by despotic governments. Number seven. That all power of suspending laws or the execution of laws by any authority without consent of the representatives of the people is injurious to their rights and not know to be exercised. So again, they're just going down the roll. Essentially everything that the King of England and Parliament has done over the past decade, they're saying is not even an actual right. Back to the Declaration of Rights from England. The excessive bail ought not to be required or excessive fines imposed or cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. They're almost quoting the document at this point that was used to expel James II from the throne. That a well regulated militia. Now notice this. The Virginia resolves. This is not the Second Amendment to the American Constitution. This is 1775, the Virginia Resolutions. That a well regulated militia composed of the body of the people trained to arms is the proper, natural and safe defense of a free state that stands standing armies in time of peace should be avoided as dangerous to liberty. And that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to and governed by the civil power. That people have a right to uniform government and therefore that no government separate from or independent of the government of Virginia ought to be erected or established within the limits thereof. That no free government or the blessings of liberty can be preserved to any people but by a free firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality and virtue by the frequent recurrence to fundamental principles that religion or the duty which we owe our Creator and the manner of discharging it can be directed by reason and conviction, not by force or violence. And therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience. And that is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, charity towards one another. That's the, the 16th resolve there. That this idea of religious liberty is part of what Virginia is arguing. Now I'm sure it doesn't hurt that men like Thomas Jefferson are themselves deists. They are opposed to, opposed to the idea of a state church. They see that as oppressive, forcing someone to believe a certain thing at the same time. Some of those languages sound pretty familiar to us, right? That it's according to the dictates of conscience sounds very familiar to a latter day Saint, in fact. That people are willing to worship according to the dictates of Their own conscience. So these are. These are the Virginia resolves end up finding their way into other, wider American, American documents. Now, before we turn to the Declaration of Independence, because we want to give. I mean, I guess we'll talk about it. I mean, it's. I mean, I guess, I mean, there's a lot of things that you could talk about. It's important to understand that it wasn't even certain that when they started drafting it that things would actually go the way of independence. They had to convince all of these other colonies who. Some of them had to go back and get more. They had to go back and get better instructions from their colonial governments. But this is being drafted with the intent that if the resolution on independence is granted, this would be the explanation. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America. And then you get these famous words that begin it. When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them to another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them. A decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. In doing this. Sorry, I'm no longer quoting anymore. In doing this first part, this first paragraph of the Declaration, Jefferson and those who sign on to this are merely doing what the English have now done. For centuries. They have drafted declarations to explain why they're doing a political thing and why the political thing that they're doing is justified. And that's how this starts off. Hey, we realize it's a big deal that we're casting off our monarch. We're going to tell you why it's okay that we cast off our monarch. Back to the Declaration. We hold these truths to be self evident. That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. There are probably. Again, I'm no longer quoting. For those of you who don't have the Declaration memorized, there is probably there. There are very few, few sentences in all written literature in the world that have had as big of impact on the history of the world as that sentence and in the history of the United States. That we hold these truths to be self evident. That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights, and that among these. Again, this is not a list of all of them. Among those rights is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This is the full circle of turning things on its head. It always in the past, the argument has been kings have power and then they deign to give some of that power to their various lords or to various parliaments in order to make things run efficiently. But those people and those parliaments don't really have power because the king can always take that power away. Right? As Louis XIV very famously said that he was the state, the state is me. So sure, I can have a. I can have an Estates General that meets together to, to, to agree with my taxation, but the only reason they have the ability to meet together is I gave them that right. Similarly, the way that rights were viewed by monarchs was, well, because I'm such a good king, I guess I'll deign for you to have a free press. I shouldn't because, you know, you. Someone's criticized me and I don't like that. But the reason why I can grant you the right to publish a newspaper is I have the ability to take that away whenever I want. Sure, I can let you vote a little bit, your little parliament there, but I can take that away whenever I want because I'm the one who gave it to you. It's such a very key aspect of this whole argument. Where do rights ultimately derive for people? In this, you know, late enlightenment, you know, early industrial Europe, it's pretty well believed that rights come from what kings grant and those kings have that power because it's given them by God. It's a radical notion to claim rights are inalienable. What does that mean? They're unalienable. You can't actually legitimately take them away from people.
- [53:40]
D
Look, for sure people are going to
- [53:42]
B
take them away, but you can't legitimately take them away. Right. Someone can come to your house and take away your right to liberty, you know, point a gun at you and say, you're not moving anywhere. Yes, they can make you listen to them by pointing a gun at you. But none of us would say that that's legitimate. You would say that's illegitimate. Yeah, I'm listening because I'm forced to, because there's a gun. It's not legitimate. It's an illegitimate power. Now he starts with that. And the reason why I said this is, this is so impactful is these words will be found in many other freedom movements throughout the country, throughout the world. It is these words that, written as they were by someone who himself owns slaves, will be trumpeted again and again and again by people who are opposed to Slavery, as the years go on after the American Revolution, that they are endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights. One of those rights is liberty. First, that we're all created equal and that we all have a right to liberty. Well, it becomes pretty hard to justify slavery if we're all created equally and
- [55:03]
D
we all have a right to liberty.
- [55:06]
B
Joseph Smith himself, when he's running for president, the document he's going to quote from is in fact the Declaration of Independence. He will quote those same words that we claim to be this nation of liberty, where all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator, and yet we hold people in slavery. Back to the Declaration that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Okay, why are governments instituted? For the sole purpose of protecting an individual's right to life, liberty, and happiness. So I don't create a government. Governments aren't in and of themselves. Governments have no legitimacy outside of the consent of the people. They derive their powers from the consent of the govern. So a government's completely illegitimate. As. As the Virginia resolves declared, a government's illegitimate if it doesn't have the consent of the people that are governing that it's governing. Governments have power to secure the life, liberty, and happiness of the people that it governs. And then, as he goes on to the point that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to those ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. Notice the wording. Very similar to what the Virginia resolutions. It is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety inhabitants. Prudence indeed will dictate that governments, long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes. And accordingly, all experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably from the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such a government and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former system of government. The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. And so now Jefferson, having made his. His preamble why it becomes legitimate to rebel, is now going to list off the reasons why it's legitimate to rebel. And we are going to cover those reasons in our next episode. How's that for a cliffhanger? You don't even know why we're rebelling.
- [58:30]
C
No clue.
- [58:31]
D
Richard, right now you wouldn't be able
- [58:33]
B
to look this up.
- [58:33]
C
I'm on England's side until. Well, right now I'm on England.
- [58:36]
D
So right now you're okay, we need to. We'll get to the second part of this as quickly as we can because we need Richard to. To stop being a loyalist sympathizer.
- [58:48]
A
Thank you for listening to Condemned to Repeated, a Standard of Truth podcast production. Please join us in again for another discussion of the past. For our other productions, please visit standardoftruth.com.