Well, thank you all for having me. Yes, I have to actually give thanks to Dr. Woods. Without Dr. Woods, I wouldn't be writing this book.
So, first in the series, of course, he blurred my book to you, so that's much appreciated for that.
And of course, I'm coming from a two-year level, so this is nice to be able to talk to a group of students who maybe know who
Nathaniel Macon or George Mason are instead of a blank stare about the founding generation.
So, thank you for having me.
One of the reasons why I wanted to write this book and when I started thinking about a book that would be good for Americans in general and I know we have the Guide to American History and I was actually contacted by Regnery to write the pig in the series for the War Between the States but didn't receive that contract so I thought about another book in the series and I came up with this idea because I think that the founders are often a misunderstood generation. There are a group of people who
As I say, are often considered worthless because of the society in which they live and they have nothing really to offer to modern society and modern issues and contemporary events, for example, banking or foreign policy and things of that nature.
So I really wanted to put the founders in their proper place, which I call them the greatest generation if you had to pick a generation in American history as a whole, and of course there are always negatives you can find.
But if you just had to pick one, I think that you can't get around the founders.
And so I thought, you know, it would be a great book not only to talk about some of
the things it would say about contemporary society, which I do a lot, but also to talk
about some of these people in biographical form and look at some of the things that they
thought were important.
And I think the most important thing, what I'm going to talk more about than anything
else is the idea of limited government and, of course, states' rights, and that comes
and so on, throughout the generation, throughout that group as a whole.
Now, when I say that the greatest generation, I don't want to be misconstrued as getting involved in hero workshop.
This is not an attempt to place these people up on pedestals and say that there's nothing wrong with them.
Of course, we can find many things wrong with any generation, but I think that better understood the principles of limited government,
of Liberty and Freedom, definitely than our current bunch in Washington, D.C. and most of our state houses.
So I think if you're looking for examples and people to look for answers for things,
if you want to use an American generation, you should point to them. And without a doubt,
I think they would have some good solutions to some of the problems that we have today.
Now, let me talk most importantly about states' rights. And as I was picking individuals to write
for the biographies. I tried to have a cross-section of individuals. I do bring up some of the
quote-unquote big government guys in the group, people like Hamilton and Marshall, and I write
about them. I think one thing that was striking to me as I went into this, because I definitely
had some ideas about who I probably would like and who I wouldn't like in that group,
and I think that I found that as I read some of the individuals like Hamilton, what struck
me the most is that they made a lot of anti-big government statements in their life. And even
Even though Hamilton, for example, was the architect of modern state capitalism in the
United States, you can find some things that he said that were interesting to me.
So let's talk about Hamilton, Mr. Big Government, Mr. State Capitalism, because he is in that
way.
He gave us the modern central banking system in so many ways, or at least the idea for
it, the Hamiltonian economic system, which is very much what we have in the United States
today.
But when you were looking at the ratification of the Constitution, of course he was an ardent
proponent of it, but some of the things he said in New York were quite striking.
For example, when it came to state authority, Hamilton essentially said that the federal
government could never coerce a state.
I think that's pretty interesting.
Here's a guy that would firmly believe in a strong central authority but said the federal
government cannot coerce a state.
And he also said the very structure of the Confederacy, now he's talking about the government
of the Constitution affords the surest preventatives from error and the most powerful checks to
misconduct.
What he's talking about there, of course, is state authority.
Hamilton also said that people's natural inclination is to side with the closest level of government,
first and foremost.
So he would say your family and you move up to your local government or a town government
onto your county and then onto your state and onto the federal government.
So he firmly believed that people would still have those sound allegiances, which I think
I think Americans now have kind of flipped that, and we always look at the federal government, first and foremost, incorrectly as our primary objective when you're talking about government.
So Hamilton, even though you can say that, of course, he was definitely much more interested in strong central authority than, say, a lot of the men in this founding generation, definitely has some ideas about states' rights and firmly believe they would always be there.
He's also a man that believed that liberty and freedom, the same type of things that this generation honored in so many ways, would never go away and never evaporate from the American consciousness.
And I think that's something that we've lost. To a man, the current generation, doesn't really believe in it like they did.
I mean, Hamilton believed that because Americans believed in this stuff so firmly and they would always do that, we would always have it.
And so I think he was incorrect there, but, of course, one who firmly believed that.
And then you take someone like John Marshall. If you want to talk about maybe even more
important and centralization, you have to look at John Marshall. But he said during
the Virginia ratifying convention that the Supreme Court could only declare laws that
violated the enumerated, these are his words, enumerated and delegated powers of the federal
government unconstitutional. So what does that say? Is it saying right there that of
course the only thing that the government's allowed to do is what it's enumerated or
are delegated, those are the only things it can do. Of course, that's in the 10th Amendment.
So Marshall is essentially saying that the Federal Government only has certain responsibilities.
Now, of course, he would go against that as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, but during
the ratification conventions, he very much made states' rights statements. I found a
lot of these things striking when I was doing research for the book.
And then you have someone like John Adams, of course, another guy that's essentially
is considered a strong centralizing force. He said in a letter to John Taylor of Caroline
that congressmen were simply ambassadors. That's all. They were ambassadors from their
states, and they were there to do things like, say, foreign, in terms of a foreign government
to a different governing body. So they were there to represent state interests. Not the
interests of, say, the United States as a whole, but the interests of their own states.
So that's how important states' rights were to that group of people, even the centralizers,
who said, we still believe that states' rights are there.
Madison, if you want to talk about Madison, and I'll get to him in just a few minutes,
but Madison ultimately said that the states can exist without the federal government,
but the federal government can't exist without the states.
So again, here's a guy that's saying we need state authority in this government.
So even though you're going to get a much stronger central government, and of course
The Anti-Federalists were very concerned about how much power that government would ultimately have.
You still have the Federalists rationalizing this new power on the basis that states are still going to be sovereign in this government.
And of course, then on the flip side, we have the limited government guys, and I talk more about them than anyone else, and I give a whole bunch of examples, of course.
Nathaniel Macon, one of my favorites in North Carolina, and John Taylor of Carolina, George Mason, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut, and George Clinton of New York.
of New York. These men were very important in their time and, of course, ardent states'
rights individuals and very much true believers in limited government. Now, there's a funny
story about Nathaniel Macon that I actually bring up in the book, and this is something
that you would never see today. Macon, of course, as I said, from North Carolina, a
guy that was often considered the most negative vote, maybe next to John Randolph and the
entire Congress. He voted no on everything. Everything that came up, it was unconstitutional.
Constitution.
I'm going to vote no.
And gosh, wouldn't that be refreshing today to have somebody that would actually do that
all the time in Congress.
But he actually voted against a monument for George Washington.
And people were shocked.
How can you vote against a monument for George Washington?
He said, well, first of all, I don't think a monument is going to do the man justice.
I mean, it's not going to remember him.
You're just going to look at a statue and say, well, great, George Washington.
But it would cost him the equivalent today of about $100,000.
He said, that's too much money.
Too much money to spend on a monument. $100,000, you're crazy.
Wouldn't that be great to have a guy in Washington today that said $100,000 is way too much money to spend on something?
That's great.
We need Nathaniel Macon.
You know, his personal life was quite interesting. Of course, he lived on
a very large plantation called Buck Spring there in North Carolina.
He called that his country, actually, first and foremost, his plantation.
Everything else was
up the creek, so to speak, and his allegiance was first and foremost to his plantation.
And when he died, just before he died, apparently the rumor is that he knew he was going to
die and he called in his undertaker and his doctor and he paid them both before he died
because he said, I don't want to leave any debts to my descendants, to my children. No
debt should be left behind. Those are great stories and I think great things to talk about
When you're looking at a group of men, you know, no debt should be left behind to your
descendants, your posterity. My gosh, how much debt have we left behind to how many generations
on down the line today? So, I mean, again, where is Nathaniel Macon when you need him?
No debt should be left behind. Then you have someone like John Taylor of Caroline. I mean,
a great example of the warning shots against state capitalism. Here's a guy that wrote
a number of books on the evil effects of Hamiltonianism.
And of course, not a whole lot of people listen to them then.
It seems like, I mean, of course, maybe that was because John Randolph said you couldn't
read his books.
They're too hard to get through.
If he wrote in English, he actually said maybe you could read them, but they're great.
And I think that it's unfortunate that not enough people read his books like Tyranny
on Mask or Eritre and some of these great treatises on political economy and the danger
Capitalism, State Capitalism, State Capitalism, State Capitalism,
about these individuals, a lot of them preferred retirement to politics. They just didn't want to be there.
John Taylor definitely liked to be at his plantation rather than anywhere else.
Nathaniel Macon, same thing. Nathaniel Macon never ran for office. He was elected without ever running.
How do you do that nowadays? Now you've got to spend millions of dollars just to get elected.
George Mason, another great anti-Federalist, he hated being in politics, rather be bad at his plantation there in Virginia.
These are three guys that I think are great examples of the disinterested statesmen that this founding generation was in many ways famous for.
Of course, you had some that weren't, but the disinterested statesmen, that's what we need.
People that are able to go into government or at least take part in government without wanting to enrich themselves or empower themselves, they want to do it just because it's the right thing to do.
It's their duty rather than a station.
George Mason, of course, the famous anti-federalist who feared centralization, who feared all
the things that can come from it.
He did go to the Constitutional Convention, convinced that we needed maybe a little more
central authority over some things, foreign policy, maybe even commerce, but when he got
there and he realized what they were trying to do, he said, my gosh, we're going to ruin
liberty.
We don't have a bill of rights, we're done.
This government's going to provide far too much authority to our executive branch.
He was definitely fearful of that.
He thought the Supreme Court would be too powerful the way it was designed.
There wasn't enough check on central authority, so he became, in essence, what's often called
the father of the Bill of Rights.
Without George Mason, maybe those amendments to the Constitution aren't added.
And he also said, this is a great phrase, he'd rather cut off his right hand than sign
the Constitution as it stood.
I mean, you can't come up with a more powerful statement against the Constitution than that.
Who would be willing to hack off their right hand rather than sign a document?
And of course became a very powerful force at the Virginia Ratifying Convention.
So someone like George Mason, I think, we forget about.
These are men I call the forgotten founders.
You don't hear about them.
If you were to take a college textbook today and look up a lot of these individuals, Macon
or Taylor or Mason, they're not going to be in there, maybe a sentence or two, and that's
about it.
And of course they're always going to be made fun of, typically by the left, because they're
quaint and amusing.
You know, ha, ha, isn't that funny they talk about limited government, because of course
they've won.
You know, the other side has won.
And then you have, of course, in the North, the states' rights tradition was still in
the North.
You know, I think oftentimes we think it's just in the South, but Northerners were definitely
part of this, too.
Someone like Roger Sherman of Connecticut.
Here's a guy that was a mild Federalist, someone who definitely believed that maybe we needed
a little more central authority in terms, again, of commerce and defense, but that was
it.
And actually, it's more Roger Sherman's constitution than James Madison's.
If it wasn't for Sherman, the Constitutional Convention falls apart.
Sherman wanted to protect the interests of the states.
He's often seen as a man from a small state, so this is a small state against a large state.
Well really, more than anything else, it was states' rights against people who were trying
to eliminate the power of the states.
And Sherman wanted to safeguard the power of Connecticut and its new government, not
just the power of Connecticut, but also the power of Virginia or New York, whatever state
you're talking about.
Roger Sherman served his state faithfully, Connecticut, for almost his entire life.
John Adams called him the Atlas, very interesting guy.
He was also a devout Christian, and one thing that's often forgotten about John Sherman
is that in the state of Connecticut they had a state established religion in 1787 when
the Constitution was written, so he definitely wanted to protect the culture and heritage
of Connecticut and serve as a hedge against, say, Virginia, who maybe he didn't like Virginia,
the plans on the government from Virginia.
So Sherman wanted to preserve the rights of Connecticut, and states' rights were a way
to do that.
And finally, another person on the list who I want to talk about was George Clinton, no
relation to Bill and Hillary, of course, from New York.
That's often a question I get if I bring him up.
Is that, you know, he's from New York, so is he related to Bill and Hillary?
No.
Of course, Bill is William Jefferson Blythe, so, you know, not a Clinton, and he stole
that name.
But great old American name and a great governor of New York, interesting guy.
Some people call him a thug because he was actually one generation removed from Ireland
and definitely had Irish politics at heart in some ways, but Clinton as governor of New
York for 18 years didn't have any taxes on freeholders. No taxes. He definitely didn't
believe in federal authority when it came to say internal improvements and things of
that nature, so he argued against at times even Hamiltonian's economic system and Hamilton's
from His Own State, Clinton was against the Constitution and as Vice President of the United
States cast a deciding vote in 1811 against the recharter of the first bank of the United
States. So a great patriot in the cause of limited government or against state capitalism.
And so I bring up a lot of these people and there's more in the book. I actually have
20 biographies and I have the big six, the six you'd roll off your tongue if you talked
about the founders, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin and Hamilton.
But then I have 14 others and that's just a snapshot of what I've written about.
Let me talk one minute about Madison.
There really was a folly.
Madison went to the Constitution convention hoping that he could create a different type
of government.
And when he left there he was sorely disappointed because what he got was something he didn't
in 1861 and what he had to defend with something he didn't like, but his greatest folly in
all this, and I hear this all the time, is this idea of dual sovereignty. I think it's
been proven over time that you really can't have that. One or the other has to be sovereign.
Of course, in our case today, it was solved at the point of a bayonet in 1865, finally.
But he firmly believed that each government could be sovereign in its own sphere of influence,
of the Federal and the States. And I think that to a man, most of the founding generation
thought it couldn't be that way. Of course, Madison argued against that and ultimately
we have a document that's supposed to have dual sovereignty. But I think Madison was
definitely a character who was an enigma in many ways. I mean, Madison could be everything
to everybody and unfortunately he's used by the left quite often to justify their positions
and I think, unfortunately, sometimes used by our side as a good example. And I think
That's unfortunate because he does flip-flop quite a bit.
He's not really the father of the Constitution, as I mentioned before.
You know, Roger Sherman, as much as his Constitution is anybody else's or anybody there in the
ratification conventions in all the states when they finally agreed to it, it's their
Constitution.
There was 13 different Constitutions rather than just one.
He was also a despised man in many ways in his own state.
You know, Patrick Henry hated the guy.
He was a nerd today.
I mean, that's what you would call him.
He didn't like the liquor-filled, jovial parties of Virginia Leeds.
He hated that stuff.
Almost was booted out of the House of Burgesses because he didn't participate in that stuff
and his daddy had intervened.
He reminds me in some ways of the old Burt Reynolds movies, Smoking the Bandit and the
Little Sheriff.
And then he has his son as, you know, daddy?
He kind of reminds me of that guy when he was a younger man, you know, because he's
always seen his dad has to intervene to help him out and wasn't always very well-liked.
And he definitely wanted to check the power of someone like Patrick Henry in his own state.
Henry was really the most important man in Virginia for a long time.
And he wanted to make sure that Henry was cut off and the federal government was going
to do that.
So Madison definitely had a personal agenda in many ways as well in looking for a new
constitution.
Of course, Henry never forgave him for that.
You know, Henry didn't like him.
Henry didn't like Jefferson really much either.
And so, of course, when Madison is a comic event after the constitution, you know, Madison
Madison was like, I call him like the little mosquito buzzing under the covers, you know,
during the, everybody didn't like, you know, they kept on bringing up stuff they didn't
want to talk about.
And ultimately when he goes back to Virginia and the Constitution is ratified and Henry
tries to gerrymander him out of even serving in the Congress, he doesn't allow him to be
elected a Senator and then he tries to gerrymander him out.
So Madison actually has to go basically with cap in hand to his friends and say, hey look,
will you send me to Congress, you know, I'd really like to get in there.
and ultimately does, but he for a time was not a very well-liked person.
Of course on the other side he does help offer the Virginia-Kentucky resolutions or resolves
and so in that way he's seen as a guy that's in some ways definitely interested in states'
rights though.
He did make some other statements as president that I think you can question.
For example, saying that the bank was, the Bank of the United States Second Bank was
fined because precedent had established that.
I mean, there are things that he does that you could say are not in line with a limited
government perspective.
And finally, Jefferson, I think that I need to bring him up because he's also one of these
figures that you can play both sides.
Jefferson on one hand, before he becomes president, very much a state's friends guy.
I mean, the Kentucky Resolves are great, brilliant.
That's where we start coming up with the solidified doctrine of state interposition.
But when he becomes president, of course, there are things that he does that even people
The embargo, the Louisiana Purchase, trying to avoid war with Britain over and over again and doing things that may have seemed unconstitutional to, or were unconstitutional, the embargo for example, but in Jefferson's mind, I think what he was always trying to do, this is not a defense of Jefferson and his objectives, but he was always trying to maintain U.S. independence, and he thought that was very, very important. He didn't want to go to war with Britain or France because he knew what could happen. He wanted to buy
by initially Florida and navigation of the Mississippi because he thought if the French
maintained that, we're going to have to be tied to the British.
So he was always trying to maintain that independence, and I think that's an important thing to mention
about Jefferson.
Okay, well, one other part of the book, of course, I get into the issues that confront
our modern society, you know, gun control and gun rights, foreign policy, of course.
Nobody has really picked this up yet in my interviews.
I was doing one yesterday and they came in and saying about how great it was the United
States is involved in Iraq and all over the world because we're spreading democracy and
everywhere else and they haven't read the part of the book I guess where I start talking
about how the founders would have been against all those things.
So that's surprising but they haven't gotten there so maybe one time somebody will call
me on that.
I think one person actually did and I had to talk about that but you know the foreign
policy of the founders of course you might say Washington might have been a little more
Banking is more nationalistic and aggressive, but then again he's also saying in his farewell address, which of course is also maybe authored by Hamilton, that we need to avoid these entangling alliances.
And how many Americans listen to that? They wanted free trade and free commerce with the world. We want to be peaceful trading partners.
We want to avoid European wars for European problems. My gosh, how many American boys and men and women have died in foreign soil?
and I think the founders to a man would have thought that abhorrent.
Banking, I've already mentioned central banking, you know, so many of this generation would have at least tried to oppose central banking and the Hamiltonian system which we have.
Light taxes, I mean, my gosh, the taxes they paid back then were paltry compared to what we're all paying now, well if you are paying, if you're not getting the back end of it and giving the money to you.
So, I mean, they would have definitely been against the income tax, look at things like the direct election of senators, never would have countenanced that move by the progressives in the 20th century.
So there's so many things that I think the founders could have a voice in that, unfortunately, we don't listen to them, again, because the idea is that they're limited government individuals.
And if you start using the founders who defend your position, unless you can find a little quote here and there and cherry pick something,
You're going to run into a brick wall when you start saying, well, the Founders would
have agreed with this.
When Barack Obama can say that the Founders, we need to follow our founding principles
and founding documents and remake America, in essence, that's what he's saying, my gosh.
How perverted can you get?
So that's, again, one of the major reasons why I wanted to write.
Of course, Obama hadn't made that speech yet, but the warning clouds were there.
We knew it was going to happen.
Anybody can see, as a constitutional scholar, quote, unquote, constitutional scholar, what
So, in the conclusion of the book, of course, they asked me to, I actually had a different
conclusion which actually became a piece on lewrockwell.com, but they thought that was
too big, so they wanted me to do something else, so I went into a reform agenda in terms
of what the founders would do, and of course I first said, if they don't succeed, then
they would do this.
I mean, I think the founders would look at it and say, it's time to go, you know, we've
come to a point where we can't change this.
But if they had to reform certain things, of course, they would start by following the
Constitution.
That's pretty simple.
It seems like a simple thing to do, but of course we don't do it.
Or being against the infringement on civil liberties in the first ten amendments of the
Constitution.
They would have held up the tenth amendment and said, we need to follow this.
You know, it's amazing that amendment was actually the first on the list of many of
the states that wanted it.
It became tenth, so it kind of flipped.
Maybe for a reason, because you get to the first few and then you kind of get tired and
and what we are today.
And I appreciate your time.
Applause
Any questions?
Okay.
Was the Constitution a mistake?
I would say...
Hans Hoppe makes the point that he said that every adoption of the Constitution would always work against him, step up and send him out.
He puts the argument in the opposite way.
Hoppe asserted that it's true.
I would say most definitely it was a mistake. If you had simply amended the Articles, which I think, to a man, that's what they thought they were doing in Philadelphia when they got there at first.
That would have been the much more preferable course. The Constitution has caused all kinds of problems. My gosh, it's so contradictory in and of itself.
in Philadelphia.
You read one part of it and then it's contradicted somewhere else, and the executive powers are
so vague, the Supreme Court powers are so vague, I mean, you can just read into it however
you want.
And the amendments, of course, are supposed to supersede what's in there, but the Tenth
Amendment is ignored.
You don't have to follow that.
So I think it was a mistake in doing that.
We should have just left the articles.
And if you wanted to have greater control, say, over foreign policy, have a unified voice
The founders were men of their times. To say that they're going to include women or blacks
at that time didn't really cross their mind. Some of them talked about it a little bit,
but that wasn't an issue to them yet. They were definitely living in a society that freeholders
were males, white men, for the most part. And I think some states, of course, look at
North Carolina. They actually had, in their initial constitution in 1776, they allowed
free black males who had property, the right to vote. So there were times that they discussed
and property of course is more important than anything else and so I think that
when you when you start using an argument again it's just to kind of hit
you over the head with the book of racism you know that's what they do it's
like okay you're racist bam we can't listen to what you're saying and I think
that's that's you can honestly say that of course in today's society we wouldn't
agree with their position say on on race or or or sex but I think if you start
doing that then you're going to disaccount just about every civilization
in history for the most part you can't listen the Romans you can't listen to
Well, and if this, the anti-Federalists, existed on, on the, on the, on the, on the, what's, you know, the Federal Service paid for that, would it be public?
The most interesting argument in that was Roger Sherman's.
He said he didn't think that the Bill of Rights were necessary because the states already
did these things.
And so if you actually put it in a constitution, almost, Mr. Rockwell, if you put it in a constitution
and say the government can't do this, you're actually creating a whole other problem.
You're saying, I mean, if it's not said there, then the government can do what it wants.
So by writing it down, it actually created more of a problem than not.
And he said just let the states take care of it because we already do this stuff.
We already protect many of these freedoms that you're putting in here.
So you took the various drafts and resolutions to include them in your reading work?
I mean there there are dozens of them at the time during the convention and how
many different things came up and one of the most interesting things in that in
the initial drafts you know the phrase we the people gosh they hammered in the
Virginia ratification convention they hammered them over this phrase and one
the initial phrase was actually we the people of the states of and they listed
the states but they didn't know who was going to ratify it who wasn't you know
Rhode Island wasn't even represented so what do you do you know so they
shortened it up we the people cut it right there and that's of course the
The preamble means nothing, but people will use that to say this is a central government, a centralized authority, and that's it.
I haven't read every single one, to be honest with you, no, but there's so many out there, it's very hard to...
...most definitely. Madison kept his journal, and he's very honest in a lot of it.
Of course, my advisor, as Mr. Rockwell said, was Clyde Wilson, and he and I talked a lot about this when I was writing the book.
He's a great ally to have, and he sent me back one time about Madison when I was bringing some things up,
said you know one of the reasons why Madison really didn't want to have his
journal published was because it made states right so foremost amongst the
founders I mean he had come around in his later life in the 1830s of course he
had nullification it was South Carolina and he was really taking a stand against
that so Madison was afraid he was actually rewriting things rewriting
Jefferson's words in his in his trying to copy Jefferson's handwriting so he
can make Jefferson a little different I mean the guy was a maniac in some ways
and really forgotten by the time he died, in so many ways.
Yes, all men, yes, no.
Yes, I've seen that.
And of course, you know, you'd have someone, you know, John Adams' wife was an influential figure in his life.
Do you see any recent leaks here in the house?
Were you a victim?
There's a couple things I did like, you know, the part where Adams, of course, when he leaves Washington,
you see there, of course, you know, Saul's assess pool, essentially, at that point.
Wouldn't it be great if we should leave it like that, right, and then we wouldn't want to be there.
But one of the things that was great was that he takes a public bus, essentially.
That's what that was, home.
He's not spending all this money to fly around the country and everything else, takes a bus home.
Now, of course, that was improper etiquette.
He should have stuck around for Jefferson's inaugural, but so I think they did that very well
They've all been showing that Adams was this old curmudgeon and just not very well aligned.
One part, when they read the declaration, they had the scene with the reading declaration,
they cut out parts of it.
And some of the most interesting, some of the most important parts in terms of limited
government and what the founders are saying, even at that point about limited government.
They cut that stuff out.
So I think they did that on purpose.
as a pretty tidal law.
Would you think that is a sort of fact?
You know, libertarian is great, but what I'm saying is,
was he really that in-orchestrate president?
and of course again elected so he served and his first inaugural address is
fantastic I mean he says that we have the right to secede if you want to be in
the Union I mean that's fantastic and talks about all the great things that
limited government to do reducing the debt cutting spending I mean but
Jefferson in the second term definitely did some things that his allies were very
critical
How do you pay individualists to do that based on follow-up?
Government, which of course is still a level of government. But I don't think that they
were pseudo-communist. I mean, that's what he's going after almost. It's not true. These
men definitely were not interested in the collective all the time. I think they had
an idea that independence was important. But look at Virginia. My gosh, they declared their
independence before anybody else because they thought they could do that. I mean, they didn't
need Massachusetts approval to do it. Now, maybe Massachusetts wanted everyone else to
Do you agree that the State and the United States were against and was against state authority or were they against state authority or were they against state authority?
or just federal authority? Or were they against government in general? I think, you know,
they were definitely, they weren't against government in general. I mean, they definitely
believed that their state governments were fine as a locus of power, location of power.
They didn't mind the state governments. Of course, Jefferson always had ideas that ran
against the state constitution. There were, you know, if you just look at Virginia, for
example, there was a Virginia Declaration of Rights. So they believed in individual
Did they ever argue for vocal rights against the states now, in the American system, in
and Money for the State.
Right.
Sovereignty, but...
Not that I'm aware of.
...their rights and our rights or...
Not that I'm aware of.
I'm not aware that it ever went that further down.
Yeah, I'm not aware that it ever went that much further down.
Yeah, I mean, you can look at that maybe or, you know, Shays' Rebellion and things like
that, but in terms of saying that, you know, we have a community trying to secede from
from a State or really interpose the sovereignty of the State.
What about General Ford Republicans?
Yeah, I mean, he had that idea, you know, where you could have these, you know,
he said basically democracy is only effective in the limits of a town.
And he had these war republics. I mean, he's looking at, you know,
through history and deciding that, you know, a republic,
and he actually said this, is only so good as far you can walk in a day.
I mean, that's as far as a republic should go.
And then beyond that, then it's kind of a confederation, a loose confederation.
Both side of the country, the United States, the United States, the United States and the United States?
Both actually lead to Gods and
Gods have been present for me all my Of course you did have that over time
Of course you havethe frontier now you get into a whole new situation
How are you going to govern the frontier?
How are you going to make states out of this?
I mean my gosh, that's a huge issue
And of course, Jefferson thinking those areas would come in as
Sovereign entities, in line with the other states
Then you got the messy issue of who's creating the states
Will you be able to set off at any value you're getting in the business industry?
When I went to college, I was probably just like any other college kid, first time in
school, I just wanted to be away from home and have fun, you know, but I had a very good
advisor as an undergraduate named Bart Talbert, and he really opened my eyes to a lot of things.
I like history, but I came from a family that, you know, working class people, just, you
know, my grandfathers were both very much interested in history, and I loved Virginia,
I was born in Virginia, went to Williamsburg a number of times, just loved it there, and
And actually I wanted to do that. I wanted to dress up and act like I was in the 18th century, but then you don't make any money, so.
I was born in Vienna, Virginia, in the northern part of the state.
And so then from there I went to, you know, as an undergraduate, got a degree in history and I met Clyde Wilson, you know, and from there it just took off.
I actually picked different, I was either going to go there or Alabama. I hate to say that because then I worked at Auburn, but I was going to go work for Forrest McDonald or Clyde Wilson.
When I went and met Forrest McDonald, he said, go work with Clyde Wilson, so that's what I did, and he said, if you want to study what you're studying, go work with him.
Of course, actually more his wife said that than Forrest. Forrest just kind of sat there and his wife directed me to go to Clyde Wilson.
But that's how I got there, and of course, you know, Clyde's just a great friend and just a wonderful person, the nicest hate monger you'd ever meet in your life.
You know, he's always considered this guy that just hates everybody if you look at the, you know,
Clyde and the media, but I mean, I've never met a nicer person.
And he's just such a great individual.
I think, you know, my conversion has happened over time.
I didn't just, as a young man, think I was going to be a limited government individual.
Alright, thank you. Thank you very much.