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So we begin the monologues today with AI and what is happening with AI the president says he wants to own some of these AI companies, some sort of sovereign fund. What is that? This is not a new idea. This is actually Hamilton. Hamilton's bargain is what it's actually called. And there's a lesson to it. I take you through that also. We tell you some great stories of founders and, you know, the war. We think the war started when we declared our independence. The war was already going on. Declaration of independence came after the battleships. And this week is the anniversary, 250th anniversary of a really important battle in South Carolina. We tell you a story that I had never heard before. I mean, I'm sure people in South Carolina are like, you dummy. Of course that's what it is. I didn't know. And you'd be fascinated by it. And we have special guest Tim Barton in Our Lives, Our Fortunes, Our Sacred Honor. It's the story of 56Americans. It's a book that is on sale today. They tell the best stories and get it right because they have the documents. Our Lives, Our Fortunes, and Our Sacred Honor. Get it at bookstores and you'll hear a little bit of that all in today's Best of podcast.
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You're listening to the best of the Glenbeck program.
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Hello, America. Welcome to the Glenn Beck Program. We have just taken another giant leap for mankind. Kind of giant leap for mankind. The president yesterday signed an executive order that America will lead in the quantum tech race. What does that mean? Oh, it means everything. And we'll get into that here in just a second. Also, the president is, is floating a trial balloon about taking pie of the AI companies. Let's not. I'll explain why this is actually something that Hamilton was for. Believe it or not. We, I mean, you know, the, the founders, you know, people like, they could have never seen this coming. No, but they saw a lot of things that are exactly like today. And I'll explain. Alexander Hamilton saw AI Coming. No, but he saw this problem coming. All right, so let me give you a couple of. Let me give you a couple of stories here. Trump has just signed an executive order to lead the quantum tech race. It's the first order that pushes for a US quantum computer at a national lab by 2028, plus sensors and networks in five years, while expanding training and supply chains across agencies, energy, commerce, and NASA. Quantum computing is something you're not going to have access to. Quantum computing is. Is everything. Quantum computing coupled with artificial superintelligence changes the entire world. The problem with all of this stuff is you're not going to have access to it. The government will. The government, you know, we're in this catch 22. The government has to have control of quantum computing for their own sake, because there will be no secrets. Your bank account will be gone. The minute we have quantum computing, any country can destroy the other because we. They can. They'll. They'll just wipe out bank accounts overnight. They just wipe them out. There's no secrets. There's no national secrets. You'll be able to go into, hack into our, our codes to launch missiles. There are no secrets. There are no doors that have any locks once you have quantum computing. That's the biggest problem. And that's the second post that he did for the executive order. And that is we have to have by 2030, 2031 encryption that is quantum. That will stop any kind of quantum attack on encryption. So we have to have it. I just don't like the government having access to things that the average person can have access to. And I don't want access to encryption, you know, technology, et cetera, et cetera. But this is much more than that. And you combine it with the other thing that was floated yesterday. JD Vance said yesterday the President is supportive of the United States owning these big AI companies. He likes the idea sort of as a sovereign wealth fund idea. Okay, that's good. I understand the sovereign wealth thing, and I understand where Trump is coming from on this. Where he's coming from is he believes that, that the nation needs to be strong. You know, this is the same argument that was made back in the colonial era. Let me tell you a story about an argument, okay? Because it just walked into the room with a new face, but it's the same argument. It's the winter, 1791. Two men are sitting in the same cabinet and they can't stand each other. They can't stand what the other one wanted to build. Alexander Hamilton. He was an orphan. He was an immigrant. He was a genius. He was the first secretary, treasury secretary. And he looked at this fragile, broke, barely stitched together republic and saw what America could be great someday. We could be a great power. He saw way over the horizon, but he believed that to get there, the government had to do something really, really bold. It had to partner with the biggest power on Earth. And that wasn't a government, that was money. He wanted a national bank. The federal government would assume the state's debts. In his report on manufacturers, the open argument that the state should Encourage industry directly through tariffs and subsidies and a thumb on the scale, he said, we can build national champions. We'll fuse the strength of the government to the muscle of commerce and you get a giant. And he's right, you would. But that philosophy seems really familiar, doesn't it? Now, across the table was Thomas Jefferson. And Jefferson looked at his blueprint and was like, oh, my gosh, this is poison. This is slow acting poison. His argument was not that it wouldn't work. His fear was it would work. Because Jefferson understood corruption the way the Romans understood not a bribe, you know, in a briefcase, but a marriage. You just marry people off. The moment you wed the government to moneyed interest, you create a class whose fortune depends on the state. Listen to this carefully. You create a class whose fortune depends on the state and a state whose appetite depends on that class. So those two grow together. By the way, you're not in that marriage. You're not even a child. You're not even a child in that marriage. That marriage will be between AI High Tech Quantum and the government. You're not in that. And they grow bigger and bigger quietly, until one day you look up and you find out, I've been squeezed out of my own republic. Nobody even fired a shot. I'm out. This is Thomas Jefferson's argument, okay? The argument got settled a little bit. They decided against the bank. But the actual argument, it just keeps changing clothes. The bank war, that, that, that was this argument. Then the railroads put this clothes, put these clothes on and they were like, we're too important. The New Deal, same argument. The 2008 bailouts, same argument. And now we put on the newest suit it has ever worn because the price vice president said out loud that the president is supportive of the United States owning the big artificial intelligence company, a sovereign wealth fund. That's the idea. A stake in the people's most important technology of the age. Now Donald Trump is doing it because America first. He believes, you know, that America can be strong exactly the way Hamilton did. Okay? When I first heard this, the first word that jumped into my head was fascism. And I've been saying this is, this is Italian fascism. I want to tell you why this is a losing argument, okay? It's not entirely wrong, but I, you know, in doing my homework, it's, we want strong arguments. Here's the thing about Italian fascism, okay? Italian fascism is not German fascism. Mussolini's economy didn't seize the factories like communism does. The owners kept their names on the door. What the state, state took was not the Title. It was the steering wheel. Okay. The company stayed private and ran at the pleasure of the regime, in service of the regime. Everything within the state, nothing outside the state. That's Mussolini. So, yes, the government that owns a piece and steers. It rhymes. Not gonna pretend it doesn't. It rhymes with fascism. But here's why I want to correct myself. So A, I want to correct myself because it's important that I do. And you can hold me to that. But it's important because people always think of race hatred. You associate race hatred with fascism. That wasn't the engine of fascism. Mussolini didn't pass his race laws until 38. And that was under German pressure, not from his own doctrine. Okay. Anti Semitism was essential to Nazism, not essential to fascism. So fascism without the race hatred, you know, doesn't reveal some secret core. It just describes early Italian fascism pretty accurately. Hatred is not required in it. But that. Nobody's going to listen to that. Okay, the part that really takes the word away from me, the government holding stake in a private industry doesn't make a country anything. What Donald Trump is saying is Norway. Norway has the sovereign wealth fund. It owns roughly 1 1/2% of every company on the face of the earth. It took stakes in the banks and the car makers in 2009, we did. And then it gave it back. Singapore does this. If state ownership equaled fascism, then Norway is a fascist state. And that's just ridiculous. Ridiculous. Okay. What makes fascism? Fascism is the politics. The one party, the leadership worship, the boot on dissent, the deliberate solving of the dissolving of the individual into the organic nation. Economics was a part of this. The reason why I'm afraid of this is it's more than just state capitalism. That's a better word maybe than fascism, state or mercantilism, the thing that the kings did. It's worse than that. Because what this actually, what this actually means. Is more than what Hamilton was talking about. It's because of what the state would actually own. Hamilton's bank would just move money. The railroads moved steel and grain. And you can see them and you can argue with them. But artificial intelligence doesn't sit downstream of your life. It sits. It sits upstream of your thoughts. That's the real danger here. And I don't want the government anywhere near that. It's becoming the thing that answers your questions before you finished asking the question. It drafts the email, it suggests the word, it frames the choice. It decides what you see and what order you see it in and what it leaves out. It's quietly becoming the surface on which free people do all of its thinking. And this is. I need you to think on this. There has never in human history been a tyrant who got to own the tool people use to form their own decisions, choices and minds. Every despot before had to wait for you to think the thought and then punish it. He had to come after you reasoned it out. But for the first time, the temptation on the table is to put the state's hand on, on the instrument before the reasoning, on the thing that shapes the question itself. That's not censorship. Censorship is crude. You can feel that this is gentler and worse, this is grooming. And, And a mind that has been groomed doesn't feel oppressed, it feels helped. So let me try to be the guy that you want me to be. Trust me to be, I guess, a guy who's not just yelling at the sky and yelling at you that the sky is falling. This does not need to be a death knell of freedom of choice. I'll tell you what we can do. There are three things that have to stay true, otherwise it's bad. Let me give you those three things here in just a second. I'm actually, you know, in doing my homework. I'm actually for sovereign funds, the way Norway is doing, you know, one and a half percent of everything that's on the market, you buy it. I'm not for, I'm not for our, our, our country just owning this tech. And I have a problem with this tech, a real problem with this tech. But I think to solve it, you don't get the government in bed with it. I think that's the worst thing you can do. So three things. If these three things stay true, we're okay. First, it has to be ownership in daylight, on a balance sheet has to be named, not laundered through some agency that nobody can find. Sunlight is the whole game. Jefferson's marriage only kills the Republic when it's a secret one. Second, the door swings both ways. We took the carmakers in 09 and we gave it back. Which proves the stake is not a sentence if the people insist on an exit. Third, this one matters the most, that you keep the one thing no government can, can vote you back. The ability to reason for yourself, to hold a thing in the light and decide. I don't think that one can be done. Once the government has power to manipulate you, they will manipulate you every time. And they will never reveal it and they will never give that power back. We have walked past this Cliff a dozen times. And every single time, the thing that saved us was not a law or a court. It was a citizen that could think his own thought and ornery enough just to do it. I am not afraid of a machine. I am afraid of people who forget how to argue with a machine. I trust you. I trust the American people completely. For exactly as long as you can still reason your way through your own conclusion and tell the state to keep your hands off the lever of your mind. As long as that ability is still existing in everybody, then we have a firewall. This thing, they've tried it with the banks, the railroads. They did it in 2008, and it was an argument that started between Jefferson and Hamilton. Guard this. Guard this. Because every other freedom is downstream of your freedom of thought. And that's what we're actually talking about the government owning. I don't know how to solve this problem, but I am wildly uncomfortable with tech having this ability to control your thoughts. I'm wildly uncomfortable with the government having the ability to control your thoughts. And those are the only two players in it. Nowhere is. Nowhere are you. And if you think we have a representative government, let's talk about the Save Act. The day you can no longer tell whether the thought in your head is yours, no vote will save you. And those days are coming. And when you. When you realize that, well, maybe it was, I was manipulated here a little bit, you know, you'll have done that. You'll have given that over to the government, feeling like you were helped. So think, think. Think out loud. While it is still entirely your own thought, I want to talk to Jason here for just a couple of seconds. Jason, talk to me about your concerns on. On the quantum mechanics and the quantum computing for security.
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Well, that, that, that's clearly one of the biggest concerns that the administration has here. And I. That's the. I think it's the. The very first is either the very first order or the second order goes directly towards. Oh, it's the second order goes directly towards standard encryption. And I don't really. I guess one of my biggest concerns is I feel like they don't even really know once they unleash this beast, what's going to happen with it. That's one of the biggest things of concern.
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It's just like, AI Yeah, this is the problem. There's no good answer to this. There's no. I haven't found an answer that I'm comfortable with in any direction. In any direction. I don't want the private sector to have It, I don't want the government to have it. You know, I, I just, I don't know how to solve for this one yet. This is the best of the Glenn Beck program and we really want to thank you for listening. Ah, glad you're here. Thank you so much. I hope you don't mind. I am, I'm. I, I'm fascinated by our 250th. I remember when I was a kid and it was the bicentennial, and I remember thinking, 250. 250 years. I'll be dead by then, won't I? You know, when you're a kid, you just think, like, by 30, I'll be dead because 30 is really old. But here we are at the 250th anniversary, and I'm fascinated at how we are not really celebrating it this time around. Bicentennial was everywhere. Everywhere. And, you know, we were proud of it, and we're not. And it's. I think it's because we've lost our stories. And I'm looking for stories to tell you every day, you know, this, this month. And, and try to try to get you a little interested in American history and not the names and the dates and all that stuff, because that doesn't matter. It's the stories. And I found a story Yesterday that happened 250 years ago this week. So it was right before we signed the Declaration of Independence. I didn't even know we were at war. Did you know we were at war before we declared our independence? They were already, they had already sent ships over. We were already at war. We were fighting them. Okay. And so it was like, you know, I might as well. We might as well. But the ships were in our harbors. The, the British ships were in our harbors. And I found a story that I Just wait until you hear the end of the story. Who are we really? Okay, who are we? We are people that when the experts have written us off, we are the ones that just keep standing. Now, maybe it's because we're too dumb. I don't, I don't know. But what created us is that we don't run from things. We run towards the trouble, not away from the problem. And then we, we are like, we can solve it. We can solve it. And then, you know, when we can't really solve it, somehow or another, a Mirac saves us. Okay, so let me take you to a sandbar. It's June this week, 1776. And you are standing on a low, hot, mosquito bitten island in the Mouth of the Charleston harbor. There's a fort here. And I'm. I'm being very, very generous when I say it's a fort. It's a square pen of palmetto logs. They're 16ft apart, packed in between with sands. Two walls are finished, okay? The back of it is open, you know, entirely. It's half built. It's kind of thing that if you, you know, you saw that on your own property and somebody came by, you'd be like, yeah, that was a project I meant to get to. I never really did it. Okay, out past the bar, coming for it is the most powerful Navy. Navy in the history of the world. Nine British warships, hundreds of guns, and on board is a guy named Sir Peter Parker. You'll remember that name because he's Spider man in a white wig. Okay? Peter Parker has crossed the ocean to put down a rebellion. And behind him, a few thousand red coats. And their spider senses are tingly, okay? General Henry Clinton waiting to come ashore and finish whatever. The cannons would start because they're just gonna blow everything up, okay? They've done the math. Everybody's done the math. And the math says, oh, that little pen of logs, yeah, that'll be gone in about 10 minutes, okay? And Charleston will be gone by suppertime. So the American general in charge of the whole Southern theater, agreed. Charles Lee was his name. He wrote out. He looked at the thing. He said, that's your defense? These two little walls of logs? Are you kidding me? This is slaughter pen. He's like, get out of there. Get out. They'll knock it down within a half an hour. Abandon the place, pull everybody out, okay? But that's not the American way. He's like, don't die for a sandcastle. But the colonel inside that sandcastle, he's a planter. William, I think his name is Moultrie. He's not famous. Not a man you've ever heard. Heard of. But you've seen the result of what he did in a couple of ways. So what did he do? He didn't give a big speech or anything. He just declined to leave. He was like, nah, we're gonna stay. He had about 435 men, some South Carolina regulars out on the far end of the island. Men were dug. Dug alongside 30 native warriors. And the fort had been, you know, raised in part by the hand of enslaved Africans who hauled and stacked the logs in the heat. They were there as well. The whole thing improvised. I mean, it's an unfinished collection of human beings that are not somebody that's going to stand up, okay? And they decide to stand on a position. The smartest man in the army had already said, get the hell away from that thing. Now here's the thing that nobody knew. Not Parker, not Clinton. I don't even think Moultrie knew this, okay? Palmetto, it's not oak. When you fire a 32 pound iron ball at an oak wall, what happens? We've seen this in all of the movies and everything else that ever show us fort getting attacked. The wood splinters and it becomes shrapnel and it kills all the people behind it. And that's how a fort dies, and it dies quickly. But palmetto is soft, it's spongy. So the British, they open up the fire that morning and they're expecting 20 minutes. We will be on. We'll be on the shore in about 30 minutes, okay? And they hit it with everything, I mean, thunder that you could feel in your chest across the water. And the cannonballs hit those palmetto logs. And the logs just take it. The whole wall was. It was like jello. It would just quiver and swallow the ball and then hold and the shot sunk into the sponge and then just stopped. Nine or ten hours, the greatest navy on earth hammered the half finished pen of logs and the pen wouldn't break. The sandcastle was standing. It was crazy. It's crazy. The men inside were doing something, you know, with their cannons that the British, they weren't expecting this, okay? They expected that to be over in, in 20 minutes, but that those palmetto logs held. And so they had time to aim slowly and carefully. They were low on powder. They couldn't waste a single shot. So every ball that they sent back had to go into the ship. So they needed patience. And it was, I mean, it was almost cruel. The fort that was supposed to die in half an hour and 10 hours in was tearing the fleet apart. And then came the moment where we make statues of these people. A British round caught the flagstaff and cut it clean. The flag was Moultrie's own design. It was one of the first flags that we had for the revolution. It was blue and it had a white crescent up at the top corner. And when the staff was cut, it fell down. Now, I didn't know this, but, you know, if a flag falls in a fort, the men firing on that flag, they immediately look at that and go, they've surrendered. Okay? When it falls to the ground, that's what happens, okay? Flag going down means that surrender, it's over. A sergeant Named William Jasper. He looks out at the fallen flag laying out there in the killing ground outside of the walls. Okay? He didn't think about the math either. He climbed up onto the rampart, full view of every gun in the British fleet. He jumped down outside of the wall. He walks out in the open, he picks that blue flag up off the sand. And because the staff was gone, he tied the flag to the rammer of a cannon. You know, it's a sponge on a pole. And he climbed back up and he planted the flag back up on the wall. He held it up so every ship out there would understand the still. No, no, no, we're not moving.
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They started in the morning.
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It's now nightfall. It's in the summer. It's been a long day. The fleet pulls back because they're bleeding, they're hemorrhaging, they're beaten. It was the very first time that in war. Americans stood toe to toe with the Royal Navy and won. And it happened six days before the Declaration of Independence was even signed. Governor of South Carolina took the sword off his own belt and gave it to Sergeant Jasper. And that tree became kind of important. They didn't build a statue of this. That's the South Carolina flag. It has the crescent moon up at the top. I'm sorry, South Carolina, for just discovering this. You're all rolling your eyes going, yeah, hello, dummy. Most Americans don't know this. That's why the palmetto tree is on that flag. That unimpressive, spongy wood that everybody overlooked goes on a South Carolina flag still flying today. The state made an emblem out of the thing. The enemy underestimated. So why is this story important today? Every wise voice is told, told these people the position was indefensible, abandoned. Get out of there. Be reasonable. Cut your losses. Had they listened to the smart money. Charleston falls, the south open up, and the whole story of America bends in a completely different direction. The Republic has always been the half finished fort that experts have always written off. Right now, somebody is doing the math on you, you in your own life, or on your town or on your faith on the whole idea of self government. There are millions of people now saying it's a sandcastle. It's naive, it won't hold. The forces against it are just too big, too modern, too sophisticated. Be reasonable. Walk away. Don't walk away, don't walk away. Be palmetto. The soft wood that takes the blow and doesn't splinter. It's like Jell O. I'm built for this. And when the flag goes down and it will go down. Some days it goes all the way down into the sand. Be the one willing to climb over the wall in front of everything and put it back up on any pole you can find. Put it back up. We keep the Republic by holding the ground that clever men have already surrendered. We're seeing it saved by miracles now and by people standing up and doing the right thing. They had already surrendered this nation to the global elites. Somebody climbed over the wall, picked the flag back up and said, not today Satan. Not today. Back in a minute. This is the best of the Glenn Beck. Some people feel kind of stuck right now. On one hand, they built up a lot of equity in their home over the years, but on the other hand, they're looking at that low mortgage rate that they've had for a long time. Like it's a family heirloom that you need to protect at all costs. I get it. If you locked into a really good rate a few years ago, the idea of refinancing your entire mortgage right now probably feels like a horrible financial decision. That's why I want you to know about the Smart Equity Loan from American Financing. It is designed to help you access the equity in your home without giving up your low first mortgage rate. So whether you're trying to pay off high interest credit card debt, handle a big expense, make improvements to your home, or just give yourself some financial breathing room, this could be a really smart option to look into. Call American Financing. They actually will take the time to talk you through your specific situation. There's no upfront fees to find out if you even qualify, so call them now. 8009-0624-4080-0906-2440 or american financing.net nmls182334nmlsconsumeraccess.org APR for rates in the five starts at 6.327% for well qualified borrowers. Call 800-906-2440. For details about credit costs and terms, visit american financing.net Glenn Average savings based on borrowers who you're listening to the best of Glenn Beck. Need a little more?
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Check out the full show podcasts anywhere you download podcasts.
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Hello America. You know we've been fighting every single day. We push back against the lies, the censorship, the nonsense of the mainstream media that they're trying to feed you. We work tirelessly to bring you the unfiltered truth because you deserve it. But to keep this fight going, we need you right now. Would you take A moment and rate and review the Glenn Beck podcast. Give us five stars and lead a comment. Because every single review helps us break through Big Tech's algorithm to reach more Americans who need to hear the truth. This isn't a podcast. This is a movement. And you're part of it, a big part of it. So if you believe in what we're doing, you want more people to wake up, help us push this podcast to the top rate, review, share together, we'll make a difference. And thanks for standing with us. Now, let's get to work. Hello, America. Welcome to the Glenn Beck Program. It's Tuesday. There's a lot to cover in the news. We have, we now have from US Intel. What a surprise. It's just been released proving the coronavirus research in China, even as Fauci was denying. I think they need to bring him in front of Congress again. You just need to ask him, you know, just. Just like you to testify. Is what you said to Congress true? Yes or no? They can't do anything about it unless he lies again, but he'll be forced to say no. I. I wasn't telling you the truth. Whatever. And so at least we'd be on record. He'd have to admit that he lied. And I would guess you could get him into more lies because he's too arrogant to tell you the full truth. He's just too arrogant. And then he'd finally go to jail. And I think that should be done. Also, the asylum seeker who's made the craziest claim on why he wasn't the rapist of this woman. Wait until you hear this story. It is. I mean, you think you've heard nuts things before? Nah, you haven't even scratched the surface. We have more nuts for you than you can possibly imagine. We'll get to that. Also, Donald Trump is thinking about raising the price of admission. You know, if you want to come in and you want to be a citizen, well, it's going to cost you a little bit more. Good. I say raise it to a trillion dollars. You know, whatever it takes. Just stop. Stop all of this. Stop this until we have it under control. When we have it under control, then fine. But, you know, admission here should not be free. It shouldn't be free. All right. More in just a second. We have Tim Barton coming in with us. He has just written with his father, David Barton, a new book about the 56 signers. You know, I've been reading about the signers. I have not read this book yet. I have to get it But I've been reading about some of the signers, and I am learning so much. These guys were incredible. He's got the receipts on it, so we're going to talk to him on this here in just a second. Tim, my man, how are you?
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I'm good, Glenn. How are you?
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I am great. I'm excited to read the. The book about the 56 founders. It's called Lives, Fortunes, and Sacred Honor. How long you guys been working on this? How many books you're writing? Like, 400 books. How long are you taking this one?
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B
Well, in fairness, this is one we've been writing for 20 years because we've been studying maybe, maybe even 30 or 40. Right. We've been studying these guys forever. You and my dad, for 20 years, have been studying and telling their stories. And we finally said that this, this seems like the optimal time for people talking about the 250. Like, hey, guys, let's have a place we can go back and not just have a general conceptual understanding where you and my dad, again, like, 20 plus years, have been working on. On helping Americans understand this, but have a place where instead of just learning the general story of them, let's get some specific details. And so this has been a labor of love, really, for the entire time my dad's been doing this for the entire time I've been with him. But we focused on this probably for eight or nine months hard, trying to get all the stories lined up and right and getting it ready to come out this summer.
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That's great. I have to tell you, Paul Harvey wrote a book on the 56 signers, and it was a very thin book. It wasn't like what you've just done. Tell me what.
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You.
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Tell me what you found that surprised even you that you're going through. And you're like, people have got to know about this guy. Yeah.
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B
So some of the stories, some of the guys we already had a general understanding of. But then when you do a deeper dive, you're like, this guy's even more impressive than we realized. And, Glenn, we talk about it all the time. Like, it blows up all of the narratives we think, right. Like, you know, John Witherspoon, who was the president of what became Princeton University, trained more Founding Fathers than any other individual. We know that he was a pastor, but when you start looking into the fact, oh, so he was a Presbyterian revivalist preacher from Scotland and you start sending some of his background, you're like, this was far more of a fired up Christian pastor than even maybe a General surface understanding would give you. You look at guys stories that might be more surprising that actually one of the ones that got me. William Whipple, a signer of the Declaration. His father was a merchant trader and so had lots of trade ships, which is not surprising. And his family actually engaged. One of the things they did was engage in the slave trade and of like the 100 something voyages he took. It was like 12 or 13 voyages that had. They transported slaves. So it's not the majority of what they did, but he grew up in a family that literally they were slave traders. And he becomes a guy who his father gives him a slave. He goes to fight in the American Revolution. He signs a declaration. He becomes then a soldier in the Revolution. He took the slave his dad gave him, but he's an abolitionist. And he's like, this is dumb. And at one point he was talking that the individual that was a slave is known as Prince Whipple. Now, Prince was not an uncommon term for a lot of slaves back then. And the last name was often the last name of whoever the slave master was. But he tells Prince, he says, prince, we must be men of courage and stand our ground. And Prince tells William, and he says, I would be a lot more courageous and I'd stand my ground a lot better if I had freedom. And William says, you're right. Well, then you're free. And literally on the spot says, you are free. Please continue to fight with me. And Prince fights for the rest of the revolution. When the revolution is over, he gets the official certificate that he gets his freedom. William closes the family slave trade business. So you have a kid who grows up in a family business where they are slave traders. He becomes an abolitionist, frees his slaves, stops the slave trade for the family. And again, like, you start reading these stories and you're like, not only are these guys a lot different than we realize, they're so much more honorable. One of my favorite stories, Thomas Nelson Jr. Was a signer of the Declaration from Virginia. He and George Washington were really good friends. And there's actually some really fun letters from George Washington to Thomas Nelson Jr. About how God's hand was all over what they were doing in the American Revolution. God showed up time and time again to save the military. But. But Thomas Nelson Jr. Is a commanding officer at Yorktown, the last major battle of the Revolution. And Thomas Nelson Jr. Was also a very wealthy guy, but he used all of his wealth to. To fund the military and the endeavors of what the Continental Congress was trying to do. So. So he gave it all for the cause of liberty, but because he's a wealthy guy, he was in Yorktown. He leaves Yorktown to be part of the military. The British have taken over Yorktown and he had the nicest house in your New Yorktown. So the officers make that the place where they're going to stay. And as the men surround Yorktown, the. The Continental Army Yorktown is under siege. He's with an artillery unit and they're firing cannonballs into Yorktown and they're driving the British back. And he realizes they fired on every house except mine. And that's literally where the British officers are. So he goes to the. The guy's firing the cannon, says, why aren't you firing in my house? And they said, sir, we know, like who's paying our check, right? Like, we know who you are. There's no way we would fire in your house. And so that, like the old historic accounts, they said that he pulled out his, his checkbook and he says, I will give a five pound guinea like this. I will give money for every man that. The first man that hits it with a cannonball, he gets the first one. But then every cannonball after that, I will literally pay every man. Well, to this day, his house still stands in Virginia, which is amazing. People can literally go to Yorktown and see it. And there are cannonballs in the side of his house. To this day, that record says he literally was paying the men to fire on his own house to drive the British officers back. And Glenn, these are the stories that when you read them, you're like, these guys are amazing. It's so fun stories.
- [41:46]
A
How many of them. How many of them were wealthy and died poor because of this?
- [41:54]
B
So I would say the percentage is small, but I would say probably there were probably 10 or 12 or 15. And. Right. I mean, obviously wealth, there's different standards
- [42:05]
A
out of 56, sure.
- [42:07]
B
But when you talk about wealthy guys, they're depth. John Hancock, very wealthy guy. Thomas Nelson Jr. Wealthy. Charles Carroll. There were some very wealthy individuals, but it was not the majority of them. And you do have a great disparity from like the John Hancock. One of John Hancock's best friends and running buddies was Sam Adams. Sam Adams is the poorest of all those guys. And you know the story, but. Right. Sam Adams, growing up at 14, goes to Harvard. He graduates when he's 18. His dad wants him to be a lawyer. Mom wants him to go into business. His dad gives him a loan because he decides Sam is going to go into business. And Sam fails Lost all that money, the dad dies, leave Sam's the business. Sam runs a business in the ground, they go bankrupt. Sam has to find another job, becomes a tax collector, which is super funny to think about. Sam gets fired from being a tax collector because he refused to take in all the taxes that were demanded because he would go to people's houses. And he's like, wait, you owe how much? That's crazy. Give me, like, half of that. So literally, Boston is going in debt because Sam Adams is not collecting enough taxes. But I say this because as you get to, like, the Stamp act tax, Sam doesn't even, like, really look for another job. He's so fired up for the Patriot cause, so he spends all of his time trying to rally other Americans. And by the time the Continental Congress comes around, Sam's been doing this for more than a decade. And his people say, that's the guy we want to represent us. He understands this the best. He's been writing all these essays, making these speeches. He. He formed. He started the Sons of Liberty. This. This is the guy we want. But they were embarrassed of the way he looked because he only had one suit and it had holes in it. He had one pair of stockings with holes in it. And so the town took up a collection. One man brought in a tailor that made him a tailored suit. One man bought him six new pairs of stockings. One man bought him a wig. Somebody wrote to John Adams, said, hey, will you loan him a horse? Because we don't want him to have to walk all the way to Philadelphia. So, so literally, Sam Adams is going because he's this incredible voice, but he's also incredibly poor because not only was he a failed businessman, he spent all of his time trying to rally patriots. And so when you look at the disparity of, like, a John Hancock, who's this uber wealthy guy, to a Sam Adams, you had people from all walks of life coming together. Some that had been doctors or teachers, some that were farmers, some that were like a Sam Adams, just a patriotic voice, some like a John Hancock, very wealthy. But it was all people who understood the vision. And then when they signed their names on the line, I mean, the reason we chose life's fortunes and sacred honors is there is not a single person that signed the Declaration of Independence that did not pay to some extent with their life, their fortune, or their sacred honor.
- [44:56]
A
Tim, I was reading up on doing something later this week on Caesar Rodney, and he's the guy who had to break the tie for Delaware. And. And so he. He They've told him, you know, you got to get here, we vote tomorrow and you got to be there. And it was like a three day normal ride. He rides hard all night in the rain. Etc.
- [45:18]
B
Etc.
- [45:19]
A
What I didn't know about him was that he was so riddled with face cancer that I think it was John Adams who said, not in a joking way, his face was like the size of an apple. He said it was so distorted and so rotted away by the time he was riding all night. The doctor's like, don't. You'll die, you'll die, you'll die. Don't do this. And he wore a veil most of his. Yes time because he, it was so. I. I didn't know that about him. That, that yeah, it's suffering beyond.
- [45:54]
B
Everything you're saying is correct. It's also something that even though they're founding fathers, there were times that, that people noted that because of the rotting flesh on his face, it also smelled terrible. And so he was so dedicated to be there because he believed in the cause, but he had to keep it covered because it was unsightly and then it smelled bad. But these were people to your point who literally were like, I don't care what it costs me. I care that we are doing something for the rising generation, for our kids, for our grandkids. There's a really, really great letter from John Adams to Abigail in 1777 where as he's a diplomat at this point, he's already signed the Declaration. He's a diplomat over in Europe and he's frustrated. And John Adams was dramatic at times. So this is not like super unusual, which we also cover some of these stories in the John Adams bio in this book. But John Adams writes Abigail, he's so frustrated. He says, Abigail, I don't think, I don't think people even fully appreciate that. They don't understand what we're doing. They don't fully appreciate what we're doing. He said, I wish I could just gather all of the kids around, like all of the college students. And I wish I could just tell them something. And here's what he said he wanted to tell them. He said, posterity, you will never know how much it cost this present generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you make a good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in heaven that I ever took half the pains I did to earn it. And this is the sentiment that I would say, even looking back today, most Americans, because we don't know their story, we have no idea the cost that was actually paid for us to be able to be free. And so, Glenn, this is something that we've been for years advocating for people go back and learn the story. And honestly, we didn't feel like maybe there was the best resources out there to do it. And so we said, look, and kind of like the wall builders fashion, we want to be the storytellers. Let's tell the story of these guys where we talk about some of their faith, their family, their accomplishments, even some of their positions for the abolition movement or for some of them that actually maintained that slavery position. We tell the good, the bad and the ugly, but we think every American needs to understand, especially on the 250th, who these men were and the sacrifices they actually made for independence.
- [48:07]
A
Tim, as always, good to talk to you. The name of the book is Lives, Fortunes and Sacred Honor. It comes out today. I can't recommend it highly enough. I mean, these guys have looked at the documents and taken the actual letters from the founder. This is not scholarly. People coming back, you know, 200 years later and saying, I think what they meant. They take the actual documents from the time. It is accurate. It is great. And they're both really good storytellers. Lives, fortunes and sacred honor. Tim Barton, say hi to your dad. We'll talk to you again. Thanks.
- [48:39]
B
Sounds great. Thanks, Glenn.