Ask Charlie Anything 69: America's Founding, The Declaration of Independence, 1619 Project & MORE

Summary

Podcast Summary
The Charlie Kirk Show: Ask Charlie Anything 69
Episode Theme:
This special “Ask Charlie Anything” episode, co-hosted by Charlie Kirk and Pastor David Engelhardt, tackles questions about America’s founding, focusing on whether the United States was truly founded in 1619 or 1776. This is a direct response to the claims made by the 1619 Project, critiques of America’s founding documents, and the philosophical and religious roots of American liberty, with a strong defense of the Founders and their intentions.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. America’s Founding Date: 1619 Project vs. 1776

• Timestamps: [03:30], [07:41], [12:53], [13:13]
• Charlie responds to Cynthia from Ohio, whose teacher claims America was founded in 1619. He lays out the argument made by Nikole Hannah-Jones (creator of the 1619 Project), who asserts that America’s true founding is when the first enslaved Africans were brought to America.
• Charlie refutes this, citing original documents:
  • Continental Congress (1774): “We will neither import nor purchase any slave imported after December next, after which we will wholly discontinue the slave trade…” [04:30]
  • Constitution (1787): Prohibited importation of slaves after 1807 (signed by Jefferson).
  • Declaration of Independence (drafted by Jefferson): Included a condemnation of King George for introducing slavery to the colonies.
• Memorable quote, Charlie Kirk:
  • “Slavery has always been the human norm on the planet. The question we should ask ourselves is, how did it end? And why did it end?” [06:39]

2. Christian Principles & Moral Philosophy in the Founding

• Timestamps: [06:47], [16:06], [20:43]
• Pastor David Engelhardt highlights the influence of Christian theology on the Founders’ views about human dignity:
  • “We were made in the image and likeness of God… that stamp of dignity was born because we were made in God’s image and likeness.” [06:50]
• The podcast argues America was unique in putting a moratorium on slavery and establishing new territories (Northwest Ordinance, 1787) as free lands “with unanimous consent.”
  • “If we were a slave nation… why is it that by unanimous consent… the Northwest Ordinance… said, ‘there shall neither be slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory.’” — Charlie Kirk [08:16]
• The Declaration of Independence is framed as a universal statement based on “the laws of nature and nature’s God,” influenced by Aristotle, Cicero, and Locke.
  • “The Declaration… starts wide, then goes narrow, then goes wide. So it starts wide: ‘when in the course of human events’… this could be applicable in the year 1400, 2000, or 2300.” — Charlie Kirk [16:06]

3. Critiquing the 1619 Project’s Foundation

• Timestamps: [12:53], [13:13], [28:49]
• Audio clip played of Nikole Hannah-Jones stating, “What the project is basically arguing is that [slavery] is as foundational to the American story as 1776…” [12:55]
• Pastor David responds with analogy: the act of founding a nation is like a marriage contract—permanency is established when all agree and sign, not at the first meeting or first conflict. [13:27]
• Both hosts argue that identifying America’s founding with the arrival of enslaved Africans is arbitrary and undermines the social contract established by the Declaration and Constitution.

4. Addressing Historical Myths: The “Slave Bible”

• Timestamps: [18:24], [18:52]
• Question from Patrick about the “slave Bible.”
• Pastor David clarifies:
  • The slave Bible was heavily redacted to remove verses about liberation and was sent to the West Indies, not America.
  • “It never came to the United States… all the scriptures relating to the freedom and liberty of personhood… were torn out… sent by this bizarre group… to the West Indies.” — Pastor David [18:52]
• The need to edit the Bible, Charlie argues, actually proves the full Christian scriptures promote liberty and fueled the abolitionist movement. [20:02]

5. The Gradual Build-up to Independence

• Timestamps: [21:55], [23:41]
• Question from Anthony about British rule before 1776.
• Charlie and David explain the growing self-government in the colonies, British overreach after the French and Indian War (ending in 1763), and key events like the Boston Tea Party and the early abolition of slavery by Vermont (before the Constitution).
• “We were starting to govern ourselves… and saying, Britain, you don’t speak for us anymore.” — Charlie Kirk [24:10]
• Massachusetts, Vermont, and others abolished slavery early, contrary to claims America was founded on slavery.

6. Natural Law and the Universality of America’s Principles

• Timestamps: [27:09], [28:49]
• Charlie and David discuss how concepts from Aristotle and Cicero about natural law were adapted by the Founders (“all men… are created equal”).
  • “There is a universality to the American Declaration that is lost on the current intelligentsia.” — Charlie Kirk [27:52]
• Another Hannah-Jones audio clip criticized, with Charlie noting she conflates the Declaration and Constitution and misses Jefferson’s complex position on slavery.

7. The Constitution: Financial Interests or Liberty?

• Timestamps: [31:44], [32:43]
• Responding to a listener, Charlie and David reject the claim that the Constitution was written only to protect the Founders’ financial interests.
  • “The first founders who won a war… went out of their way to create a system that made themselves less powerful.” — Charlie Kirk [32:43]
• Discussion includes:
  • Many Founders lost their fortunes or lives in the Revolution.
  • “Whatever wealth they might have tried to preserve, it didn’t work… no liberty has a way to disrupt that.” — Charlie Kirk [33:57]

8. Closing Reflections on the Declaration of Independence

• Timestamps: [34:28], [35:41]
• Charlie emphasizes the Declaration’s closing lines:
  • “We pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor… 56 people decide to put everything on the line and say our rights come from God, not from King George.” [35:41]

Most Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “Slavery has always been the human norm on the planet. The question we should ask ourselves is, how did it end? And why did it end?” — Charlie Kirk [06:39]
• “This is a document that has no bearing of time and is applicable to all human beings.” — Charlie Kirk on the Declaration [15:32]
• “If bad people edited the Bible and sent it to the West Indies, then therefore it shows that tyrants were afraid of the Bible.” — Charlie Kirk [20:02]
• “The first founders who won a war… went out of their way to create a system that made themselves less powerful.” — Charlie Kirk [32:43]

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:30] Origins of the 1619 vs. 1776 debate
• [04:30] Founding documents on slavery
• [07:41] Northwest Ordinance and unanimous laws against slavery in new territories
• [12:53] Audio of Nikole Hannah-Jones; direct response
• [16:06] Structure and philosophy of the Declaration discussed
• [18:24] The real story of the “slave Bible”
• [24:10] Growth of colonial self-government
• [27:52] Natural law, universality, and original intent
• [32:43] Refuting claims about the financial motives of the Founders
• [35:41] The “sacred honor” closing of the Declaration

Tone & Style
The episode is unapologetically conservative, patriotic, and faith-oriented. Charlie makes heavy use of rhetorical questions and direct challenges to critics, with Pastor David supporting the importance of natural rights and Christian teaching to America’s founding. The discussion is philosophical, historical, and polemical, aiming to equip listeners with arguments to defend the traditional American narrative.

For Listeners Who Haven’t Tuned In
This episode provides a robust, passionate defense of 1776 as America’s true founding, challenges the 1619 Project’s assertions, and dives deeply into original sources—Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Northwest Ordinance, and the influence of Christianity and natural law thinkers on the Founders. It offers both historical context and rhetorical tools for defending America’s founding principles in today’s cultural debates.

Transcript

[A]

Hey everybody. Happy Monday. We take your questions that you've emailed us. As always, freedomarliekirk.com I'm joined by Pastor David Engelhardt. Where we go through the top lies of America and questions you guys have sent us about the founding of America, the philosophical underpinnings about America, the questions you might have on this Independence Day weekend. Independence Day is one of my favorite days of the entire year where we celebrate the greatest country ever to exist in the history of the world. The please continue to email us your thoughts freedomarliekirk.com and if you want to support our program, go to charliekirk.comsupport that's charliekirk.comsupport if you want to go to Tampa, Florida for our Turning Point USA Student Action Summit, go to tpusa.comsas July 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th tpusa.comsas Hope to see you there. It's Monday. I'm taking your questions. Hope you guys are enjoying your holiday. Buckle up. Here we go. Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

[B]

Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

[C]

I want you to know we are

[A]

lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

[C]

Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

[A]

I want to thank Charlie. He's an incredible guy. His spirit, his love of this country. He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point usa. We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives. And we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here. When running a business, HR issues can kill you. Wrongful termination suits, minimum wage requirements, labor regulations, and more. And HR manager salaries are never cheap. They're an average of $70,000 a year. Bambi spelled B A M B E was created specifically for small business. You can get a dedicated HR manager, craft HR policy and maintain your compliance. All for just $99 a month. With Bambi, you could change HR from your biggest liability to your biggest strength. Your dedicated HR manager. Available by phone, email or real time chat. From onboarding to terminations, they customize your policies to fit your business and help you manage your employees day to day. All for just $99 a month. Month to month. There are no hidden fees. Cancel anytime you didn't start your business because you wanted to spend more time in HR compliance. Let Bambi help. Get your free HR audit today. Go to Bambi.com Kirk right now to schedule your free HR audit. That's Bambi.com Kirk spelled Bam to the B E.com Kirk don't let an unexpected HR issue destroy your business. So again, go to Bambi.com Kirk Bambi.com Kirk I'm here with Pastor David Engelhardt. We're going to explore some of these questions together. Here is one in particular. Was America founded in 1619? Cynthia from Ohio has that question. Basically her email that she emailed us, Freedom CharlieKirk.com says that my teacher insists that we are founded in 1619. So I suppose the argument that Nikole Hannah Jones, the charlatan puts forward is America was a slave nation and therefore when the first slaves hit America, that was our true founding. Embedded in the lie that is that your children are learning, by the way, in elementary schools or in high schools across the country are is this belief, is this idea that because there was slavery that existed, the entire nation, our ideals and the documents and the aims and the ambitions of the Founders is therefore it is invalid. It must be completely thrown out. Now. Never does Nicole Hannah Jones ever. She's never able to provide original source documents that show a single Founding Father writing favorably about slavery. In fact, one of our listeners emailed this, and I forgot about this in the proceedings of the American Continental Congress on October 20, 1774, it showed the sense of Congress regarding slavery, quote, that we will need neither import nor purchase any slave imported after the first day of December next, after which time we will wholly discontinue the slave trade and we will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or manufacturers to those who are concerned with it. And the American Founders made good on it. In fact, the American Founders and framers in the Constitution put a moratorium on the importation of new slaves coming into America. It's in the final draft. It's actually in the approved copy of the United States Constitution that was ratified in 1787. You guys can see it for yourself. And the person who signed that into law In March of 1807 was Thomas Jefferson himself. Did you know? In the original draft of the Declaration of Independence in Thomas Jefferson's own handwriting. I've seen it myself. I've been in the archives in Dallas, Texas, where my friend David Barton has the original draft that shows that Thomas Jefferson wrote it with his own handwriting. He condemned King George for bringing slavery to the United States. Hey, Nikole Hannah Jones, if Thomas Jefferson was so pro slavery, why was he blaming King George for bringing slaves to the United States? In fact, let's read his own words. What did Thomas Jefferson say in his own private Musings about slavery, he said this quote, king George has waged a cruel war against human nature itself. King George has violated its most sacred right of life and liberty and the persons of a distant people who have never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery into another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in the transportation thither. That's Thomas Jefferson writing in his own handwriting, saying, king George, one of the reasons we hate you is you brought this sin of slavery here. Now you might say, well, Charlie, why didn't it make the final draft of the Declaration of Independence? That's a very good question. It's because in order to have the unanimous agreement of every single state, they had to have slave states and states that were about to be free, like Vermont and Massachusetts, who abolished slavery without any sort of external influence. They did it internally. And so to do that, they had to come to some sort of compromise at the great dismay of Thomas Jefferson, because Thomas Jefferson wanted to tell King George and poke him in the eye and say, you did this. You brought this to America. You see, slavery has always been the human norm on the planet. The question we should ask ourselves is, how did it end? And why did it end? And what sort of philosophical transition was taking place where all of a sudden we realized and we recognized that ownership of another human being was wrong and was immoral. And the pastors who founded America had a lot to do with that. Right, David?

[C]

Yeah, that's right. I mean, the understanding that we were made in the image and likeness of God and that we as human beings bore a stamp of dignity not because of our color, not because of our creed, but that stamp of dignity was born because we were made in God's image and likeness. And the insanity of these 1619 projects is to say, didn't you. Don't you realize that every other nation in the entire world had slaves and were trading slaves either locally or internationally? And we were the first nation in the world to put a moratorium on slavery because our founders were influenced by Christianity to such a great degree. They saw this as a great shame and sin that was upon our nation or would be upon our generation when we formed in 1776.

[A]

And so the. The Nicole Hannah Jones types that are teaching your children, they also can't. They can never explain the Northwest Ordinance. The Northwest Ordinance was passed by the Continental Congress right before the ratification of the United States Constitution with unanimous consent. And the Northwest Ordinance was all about the new Territories. It was all about, what are we going to do with this big open Land. It was in 1787, the same year that the Declaration, the Constitution was ratified, not the Declaration. And in Article 6, Nikole Hannah Jones, who now has tenure at University of North Carolina, I'd love to have her answer this. And by the way, she's considered to be the top intelligentsia of the idea that we are founded on slavery. I hope everyone understands the significance. This is not a philosophical debate. This is a question of whether or not America will continue to exist. If a country does not have a shared language, history and culture, it is no longer a country. And so, as far as long as people like Nicole Hannah Jones and Taha Nisi Coates and Ibram X Kendi and Robin Diangelo, the charlatans that are teaching her children, are allowed to lie with impunity without any sort of cross examination from people like us, it is death by a thousand cuts of the American republic. But she cannot answer this. If we were founded on slavery, why is it that by unanimous consent, why is it, with every single state agreeing, the Northwest Ordinance, which was Ohio and Indiana and Michigan and Illinois and Iowa and Wisconsin, said, quote, there shall neither be slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall be duly convicted. Slavery was abolished in the new parts of America, the New Territories. When you buy something new, that's usually a reflection of your value system. And there was no debate. It was done so unanimously. So the New Lands were free lands, and the Northwest Ordinance says that very clearly. Now, if we were a slave nation, wouldn't the thinkers and the writers of Hamilton and Jefferson and Madison and Mason and Franklin, they'd say, oh, no, no, we want slaves to be in the New Territories. How do you explain that, Nikole Hannah Jones? The 1619 Project cannot explain this. They refuse to explain it. And say, they say, oh, no, it was white supremacy that was cloaked from within. No, no, it was the opposite. Instead, it was human equality, not white supremacy. It was the first new land that we are able to point to in the history of the world. New territory, a new place where all of a sudden the ownership of one other human being was forbidden. That's a big deal. In fact, that's something that's worthy of celebration. And so on July 13, we should actually celebrate the Northwest Ordinance. Isn't it funny how all this stuff happens around the same couple dates? July 4th and today. We're right now, on this day in 1863, is when tens of thousands of Union and Confederate soldiers were fighting for the future of our republic right near this period of time. And so were we founded in 1619? Only if you think we were founded on slavery. But no honest and objective observer of history, using original source documents, looking at what the founding fathers believed, why they believed it could ever come to that conclusion. Instead, America was founded on this principle of self government, checks and balances, an independent judiciary, natural rights, the consent of the governed, the hierarchy of a transcendent order, and human equality. And that human equality is best expressed in Northwest Ordinance, the Declaration, and the US Constitution. Look, can I tell you something that really bothers me? When good people get scheduled for cancellation for no reason, that's what's happened to Mike Lindell. I was just with Mike Lindell with 15,000 my closest friends in Wisconsin, and Mike Lindell was hosting an entire event and the media went after him like you wouldn't believe. And they're trying to take my pillow out of every single store. Mike Lindell is a good person. And if you need pillows, maybe you're moving in for college, or maybe you want to build a pillow palace. Go to mypillow.com and always use the promo code Kirk. Remember, they won't go flat. You can wash and dry them as many times as you want and they maintain their shape. They're made in the United States. For a limited time, Mike is offering his premium MyPillows for his lowest price ever. You can get a Queen size premium MyPillow for 29.98 regularly 69.98. So if you love America and you want to support the good guys, go to mypillow.com and click on the radio Listener Square and and use promo code Kirk. You also get deep discounts on all MyPillow products, including Giza Dream Seats and MyPillow Mattress Topper. MyPillow.com promo code Kirk. If you love America and you want to support the guys that are trying to do everything they can to save it, go to mypillow.com, buy a bunch of stuff. Promo code Kirk. I'm gonna play some tape here, David. You will not be able to hear it, but our listeners will. But I'm gonna tell you, it's basically Nikole Hannah Jones saying, our founding is when the first group of Africans were brought to America. I want our audience to listen to this tape and then I want you to react. Cut 96, please.

[B]

16:19 in August of 16:19 is when the first group of 20 to 30 Africans were sold into the Virginia Colony and What the project is basically arguing is that that is actually as foundational to the American story as the year 1776, because nothing would be left untouched by that decision to engage in the institutional slavery.

[A]

So Nikole Hannah Jones said that August 1619, the first group of slaves were brought to America. That is the fundamental turning point in America. David, why is that logically the wrong way to look at the founding of anything?

[C]

Well, on the one hand, it's just an arbitrary establishment of a quote, unquote founding. Well, why wasn't it 1609 when the Dutch showed up and they were escaping religious persecution? Why wasn't it any other random date before 1620?

[A]

The Mayflower Compact.

[C]

That's right. Any random date before 1776. And if we think analogously to the joining of a people, the joining of disparate peoples or disparate states to create one nation, you say, how does that happen? Well, it's kind of like a marriage. Two individuals agree to be joined permanently together. That would be called the founding of the marriage. When they sign the marriage license, when they all affirmatively agree that we're starting something new. Before that, they're two unique individuals and functioning in unique ways for their own individual incentive. And that's okay. Is it the first time they met the founding of their marriage? Of course not. No one would ever say that. What about the first time they got in a fight over, you know, what. What restaurant to go to for dinner? Is that the founding of their marriage? Of course not. You would be crazy to think when you're establishing permanence of relationship, which is the founding of a nation, establishing a social contract, permanence of a nation, a covenant between one another. It's when we sign the documents and commit one to another. And that's what we were doing when we signed the Constitution. We signed to commit one to another.

[A]

And first, the Declaration. Right. And the Declaration of independence, obviously, on July 4, 1776. This was not a lighthearted document. 1776 was a profound year. It was the year that Adam Smith wrote the Inquiry into the wealth of Nations. It was the year that Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense. It was the year that George Mason successfully passed the Virginia Declaration of Rights, just about a month before the Declaration of Independence, which ended up being the precursor to the American Constitution and the Bill of Rights. And then we had this beautiful document that was written that was basically, hey, King George, we're now governing ourselves. And so the Declaration of Independence starts super broad. When, in the course of human events, when does that mean David? Yeah.

[C]

That means that this is. This is not just about us, but there are times in the history of the world where you have a tyrannical government and you are compelled, because of God's laws, the laws of nature and God himself, the Creator, you're compelled to disband or throw off that kind of tyrannical system in order that you and me, and whether black or white, who are created equally by God, that we can function in liberty and pursue the things and children and beauty, the gifts that we've been given.

[A]

So when, in the course of human events, puts in the first six words of the Declaration that this is a document that has no bearing of time and is applicable to all human beings. You see, the Declaration of Independence was this incredible. It was so profound and it was so unique in the sense that these founders were saying, you know, what's never really been done before, really. People haven't been able to articulate what is a moral claim to government. John Locke did and Cicero did and Aristotle did. They said, here's our opportunity. And it says, basically, it starts really big, and then it gets super specific, and then it goes really big. So the way to think of the Declaration is wide, narrow, wide. So it starts wide when in the course of human events. Oh, really? Thanks for being, like, the opposite of specific. So, basically, Thomas Jefferson is saying eternal. This could be applicable in the year 1400, year 2000, or year 2300. We're saying that nature is the norm, and we're making a moral claim that there's nothing necessarily special about our time. So what Thomas Jefferson starts with, from just a purely, like, just an argumentative type standpoint, he's saying, I'm going to tell you when it's right for people to do what we're about to do. And then I'm going to list in great detail why it's right and why it points up to that universal principle. And at the end, I'm going to tie it all together to say, this is really the time to do this. So it starts wide, then goes narrow, and then goes wide. If you are interested in American history, we try to do our best to tell you the truth about our country, the beauty of our founding, the. The exceptionalism of our documents, the philosophical roots of this republic, not a democracy that we live in. It's very important, especially if you have children, if you homeschool. Maybe you're driving right now in a car in Grand Forks, North Dakota, or in Riverside, California, and you're just saying, man, I want to get this all information in one place. That's where the Charlie Kirk show podcast comes in. We have a question here from Patrick from Virginia. It's kind of a meandering question, but he mentioned something around the slave Bible. What is that? And this was a question, by the way, that was emailed [e-mail] to us. Freedom charliekirk.com if we take your questions, you guys get a signed copy of the MAGA doctrine. What is that?

[C]

Yeah, so first of all, Charlie, the slave Bible was a Bible that was floating around in the early 1800s. Now people say this phrase, don't you know the slave Bible existed? Don't you know that it was given to slaves? Don't you know that the United States of America and the churches were evil and complicit in slavery? What they don't tell you because they don't know. This is the slave Bible never came to the United States.

[A]

What was the slave Bible?

[C]

Slave Bible was a Bible that it actually took out about 90% of the Old Testament. It contained only 10% of the Old Testament and then it took out about half of the New Testament. And specifically it took out verses like Genesis, Galatians, chapter 3, verse 28 that says there is therefore now no Jew, gentile, slave or free in Jesus Christ. Yeah, all of this, all of the scriptures relating to the freedom and liberty of personhood in Christ Jesus were torn out of the Bible and sent by this bizarre group that was pro slavery to the West Indies, to the Caribbean. It never came to the United States. It didn't affect the nation. And we're talking, Charlie, 1810, 1815, not 1619. There was no 1619 Slave Bible being passed around and, and churches in the United States and they try to join these and implicate the church as being pro slavery. When you have somebody like Wilberforce, William Wilberforce, who is going crazy to stand against slavery as a, as a member of the church, as a representative of Jesus Christ and liberation for all of mankind.

[A]

So, but the accusation is that it was used in America.

[C]

It was not, not at all, never brought to the United States.

[A]

And some people might be listening to this. They say, well, this is kind of an obscure thing. No, this is taught in schools all across the country. They've been saying stuff like this without anyone stepping up, you know, to cross examine them for quite some time. But then it also begs the question then, if they have to edit the Bible, then the Bible is therefore a document of liberty and freedom. It kind of proves the point that you and I have always made that the scriptures left intact, unedited, actually were the driving force for the abolitionist slavery. If bad people edited the Bible and sent it to the West Indies, then therefore it shows that tyrants were afraid of the Bible.

[C]

Yeah. Scripture is anti tyranny, which is why, as you mentioned earlier, all of these, these, you know, the black robe regimen, all of these early preachers were fueling independence because the scripture is about standing independently before God, your creator, and then saying, okay, this is the life I have to live. Not dependent upon somebody else's random tyrannical, you know, demands, but before God himself. And if I do that rightly, my home and my community and my village, my neighborhood will flourish when I'm standing before the great judge, not some petty judge that just wants my taxes.

[A]

Totally. So Anthony, who's a good supporter of [e-mail] support. Very wise guy. He, he's. I mean that he sends in some really good thoughts. We have the best listeners, the people that send in just the most. Awesome. I learned so much from our listeners. People say, charlie, how do you know? I read all these emails@freedom charliekirk.com we get some Looney Tunes at times. We like those too. We get some Froot Loops and all sorts of people, but we get people that are so wise. So he says this great question. I want to explore this with you, David. Afternoon, Charlie. Hope you're enjoying your trip to New York. Yep. Haven't been mugged yet.

[C]

We're stabbed on the subway.

[A]

Yep. In 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was written, I take it that the United States was formed. Since that the United States, we told England that we are breaking away. One reason for this is taxation without representation. That is true. That is one of the reasons. Not all of them. Now, anything prior to that, including 1619, we were still under England's rule. My question, do people understand that everything before 1776, we followed England's rules and laws and we weren't our own country yet if I am mistaken, let me know. I want to make sure I understand I have it correct. So the only thing, Anthony, and a great question that I would say that you're not. You're not wrong, it's just not complete, is that we fought. We. I want to make sure I read the question here. Okay. Yeah. So prior to anything619, we were still under England's rule. My question is, do people understand that everything. No, not everything. That is not true. So England gave a. So really what started The American Revolution was the aftermath of the French Indian War. The aftermath of the French Indian War caused this sort of border war between the United States and Great Britain, mainly because the United Kingdom, or Britain at the time wasn't called the United Kingdom. They went. They went really into debt and they inflated their currency to defeat the French in the French. And basically it's called the French Indian War. But we actually helped Britain. George Washington fought alongside British soldiers. And I think the French Indian War was ended in 1763, if I'm not mistaken. You can get an exact fact check on this. And so when, when we kind of, when we did that, when we won that war, all of a sudden there was this tension point of, wait a second, why are we. How are we going to pay for the war? Was 1763, was that.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Hey, I'm actually pulling these dates out of.

[C]

Pretty good, Charlie. Pretty impressive.

[A]

I don't know. That was totally out of thin air. So I get them wrong sometimes. And so there is this tension point, Anthony, to answer your question of how are we going to govern ourselves? So Britain comes in and they say, okay, now we have to pay for our war debt and we're going to keep the soldiers quartered in the American colonies. This was one of the main complaints, by the way, in the Declaration, if you read the Declaration that Thomas Jefferson wrote, he says, you guys have soldiers everywhere in peaceful times. Why? And what's the third amendment to the Constitution? You cannot soldier quarters without reason or redress. And some people read the Third Amendment today, like, well, that's kind of stupid. That was a big deal back then. And so, Anthony, to answer your question, this is actually what started the American Revolution. Was that the states or the colonies? The colony of Virginia, the colony of Massachusetts, the colony of Rhode Island. We were starting to kind of have these sort of continental compacts where we were starting to govern ourselves. And we were saying, Britain, you don't speak for us anymore. We can do this ourselves. And so, Anthony, what ended up happening was this tension point that boiled over into the American Revolution. Now, the fighting between America and Britain actually started before the Declaration. Lexington and Concord, if I'm not mistaken, was 1774, if I'm not mistaken, was 1774 or 1775. And a boiling point up before that. It was just kind of the official. It was almost. It was 1775. Yeah, it was before. And so this was this. It was not everything. I just want to make that very clear. But we had a buildup, right? So we had the Boston Tea Party we had. I don't want to. Alien sedition acts might have not been till then. The point is that there was this slow motion, almost separation that eventually hit its breaking point in the summer of 1776. But there, there was plenty of self government happening. For example, Vermont, in the midst of the Revolutionary War, abolished slavery. We did that totally autonomously. So Vermont, and this is a great talking point for your friends, they might say, well, America was founded on slavery. Then why was it that states were abolishing slavery before the Constitutional Convention? Exactly. We were doing that. We were doing that autonomously outside of the rule of Britain. So that's a great question, Anthony. Thank you. But it's not, it's not completely true to say that everything was under British rule. But David, some of the practices of tyranny and authoritarianism can be actually attributed to British rule.

[C]

Sure. And we have to remember, you know, world history, the context of world history. And we, when we think about 1776, obviously it's fun to think about Britain

[A]

as the bad guys. And they were clearly.

[C]

But the whole world, all of the developed nations, Spain, Britain, France, everyone had slavery and everyone had a slave trade. So yes, they were bridge practices that we brought over. The Church was trying to get rid of it and people influenced by the Church, by Samuel Rutherford and other thinkers were saying we need to do away with these idea, with, with the practice of slavery because there's an eternal law and it's not just a local law. There's not a king in charge. There's God's law that's in charge. And then when we started applying those principles and they were proliferating throughout our, you know, first colonies, we were finding that freedom was a primary. It was, it was being developed and discovered like it had never been before in the history of the world. And, and so it bled over into not only do we want to be free from England, but all people want to be free.

[A]

And that was a universal declaration. And what's so important, and you just reminded me of something, is that the Declaration of the Constitution was written on this idea of universal natural law. Aristotle started this conversation, but he stopped short by saying that all people are always under these principles. The reason is that Aristotle, in his time that he lived, he was somewhat contained to northern Macedonia or Greece. Cicero, who came after Aristotle, who was a one year Roman consul and was killed and was butchered because he was way too effective. He was kind of a sarcastic writer because of Rome's dominance globally of what they knew as the globe. He traveled A lot. He traveled from Gaul to the Middle east to Egypt. And Cicero wrote, he said, all human beings live under these universal principles. And so Cicero, thousands of years before the Roman, the American founding from Rome, said, no, no, there's a universal natural law. And so Thomas Jefferson picked this up and said, man, this is a big, this is a big step forward. And he said, right here, man, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve ties. But then he said, we hold these truths to be self evident. All men created equal. All men. Not white men, not American men, but all men. There is a universality to the American Declaration that is lost on the current intelligentsia. If you ask the current professor corps such as Nikole Hannah Jones, let's play a little more. Nicole Hannah Jones. She's kind of the super villain of Today's episode. Cut 97. Nikole Hannah Jones and how Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration and he owned 130 people and how those people were not included in the founding documents. And that's just not true. Cut 97.

[B]

Our true founding was actually not 1776. Our true founding was when we decided to engage in slavery. Because we know as Thomas Jefferson was writing the Declaration that we would issue to The World on July 4, he owned 130 people. And Black Americans, enslaved people were not included in those five founding documents or were not intended to enjoy the freedoms of the Constitution. And we would argue that if you look across American life right now, almost nothing has been left untouched by that legacy.

[A]

Thomas Jefferson freed his slaves before his death. And Nicole Hannah Jones can't even get her history right. She talks about Thomas Jefferson and the U.S. constitution. Thomas Jefferson was a critic of the U.S. constitution. So at least get your history right. He eventually signed on to it and eventually freed the slaves. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't depend on Nicole Hannah Jones to be precise because she's a college professor, which means her goal is to pathologically teach her children to hate the country. Did you guys know that 80% of grass fed beef sold in the United States is imported from overseas? It's staggering. That's why I get my meat from goodranchers.com because their product is 100% American. When you buy your steak and chicken from Good Ranchers, not only are you getting amazing meat, you're also supporting American farms. My friends at Good Ranchers have traveled the United States and met with the actual farmers that raise the livestock to ensure the product they are sending to your table is the very best. All the products are individually wrapped, which eliminate waste It's a great product. GoodRanchers.com safely delivers American craft beef better than organic chicken right to your door. Buy one time or better yet, subscribe. If you subscribe to any one of our packages, you will save 20% with each purchase. Subscribing brings the cost per meat down. Get steakhouse quality for less than $5ameal. We love the family feast, which includes steak, chicken and more. Stop trying to play the grocery store guessing game. No more Chinese meat. Get American meat. Know where your meat comes from with goodranchers.com support American farmers. Go to goodranchers.com to get $20 off free express shipping. Maybe you're grilling for July 4th. Maybe you need to do something for Independence day. Go to goodranchers.com use the code charlie 100%. American beef and chicken steaks are always USDA choice and prime chicken is 100% all natural. So go to goodranchers.com that's good ranchers with an s.com charlie or use the code charlie. That's good ranchers with an S.com charlie okay, there are so many questions here. Okay, here's one again. This is. We celebrate the Constitution in September. But why not? Was the Constitution written to protect the financial interests of the elites who wrote it? Is this the garbage there to. I mean, I guess, I mean, I suppose yes. The short answer is no, it wasn't written to protect the financial interests of the people who wrote it. What. What could they possibly. What could lead them to such a ridiculous accusation?

[C]

Right. So anybody that's coming through college thinks that corporations, money, business is all bad. It's. They're all an evil. And so if there's any financial incentive. That means all of your dealings were dark? Well, most of us, every adult that has a job in the world, most of their life is functioning and working for financial incentives. So of course that was part of their life and part of what they were doing. But it wasn't greed. It was liberty they didn't want. Also, as you just mentioned, soldiers living in their house uninvited and unallowed. They didn't want to live in tyranny. You know, in the, in the Garden of Eden, we see this picture. Before the fall of man, man was working in the cool of the day. But in the Marxist kind of idea, all work is evil. All work is corporate greed and narcissism and wickedness. But from the biblical perspective, work is good and financial incentive is good. It's a blessing as long as it doesn't become you're God.

[A]

And so I'm still trying to struggle to see what their potential argument is. Because you take for example, when you win a war in a traditional historical context, you don't want to give up power. These are the first founders who won a war and they went out of their way to create a system that made themselves less powerful. So this idea that they wrote a document just to protect their own financial interests is completely contrary to the actions of what they did after the war. You see, they could have beat Great Britain and they could have said, haha, now we're going to create the Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian and Washingtonian ruling dynasties and we're going to rule through ancestral right. And no one would have really questioned it. Okay, yeah, we're used to that. But instead they said, no, we're going to create something completely different. We're going to have a way that you could show up and you can have representation and consent to the govern, an independent judiciary. We're going to have a process of which power is allocated and we can take power away. That's the opposite of trying to protect some sort of financial incumbency.

[C]

Didn't most of the Constitutional Convention, because they were standing for liberty, lose their finances and lose their fortunes and get shot and killed in war and sacrificed literally their lives?

[A]

Well, let me prove it to you. Who is George Washington's descendant right now? I don't know.

[C]

I don't have any idea.

[A]

The point is that whatever wealth that they might have tried to preserve, it didn't work, right? Meaning whatever land they thought they were going to preserve through the generations. No liberty has a way to disrupt that.

[C]

There's a book written about the Constitutional Convention members and their sacrifice, creating the Constitution and forming the nation. And I think it says the majority of them went bankrupt because they were putting their entire lives on the, on the line to fight an empire to free the people of our nation from tyranny.

[A]

There's a beautiful letter written by one of the Founding Fathers after he signed the Declaration of Independence. And just so you guys understand, this was written in the summer when most wars happen, at a port city in Philadelphia against the greatest navy ever assembled, the Navy of Great Britain. They were basically poking Great Britain in the eye and they said, you know what? We're going to sign this in a place where we know we could be found and we know we could be tortured. And how does the Declaration of Independence end? As we finish this episode and we remember one of the most, if not the most important document when it comes to self government in history outside of anything that's in the Bible. It ends with, we, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America and general Congress assembled. Appealing to who? The supreme judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions to do in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies solemnly publish and declare that these united colonies are and right ought to be free. Free and independent states. And they finish and they say finally, we pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. That's a really important line though. They pledge it to each other. And they said, hey, John Hancock, I'm going to have your back. Hey Ben Franklin, I have your back. This is a compact US 56 that are signing this. And by the way, these are 56 important people. These are 56 members of Commerce and business, intelligentsia, faith and finance, you name it. These are the 56 of the most important people. And they say, we're going to try to change history and we're going to pledge everything we have, our fortunes and even something more important. That honor with a capital H is how the declaration ends. Everybody. We live in the greatest nation ever. And it's because of a group of 56 people decide to put everything on the line and say our rights come from God, not from King George. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Email us your thoughts freedomarliekirk.com and if you want to support this program, go to charliekirk.com support have a great Monday. See you soon. Thanks so much. For more on many of these stories

[C]

and news you can Trust, go to charliekirk.com.