In this compelling interview, constitutional scholar Dr. Joe Wolverton of the John Birch Society and Western Islands Publishing discusses the inspiration behind his newest works—The Miraculous Life and Legacy of James Madison and By Compact, Not Command. Wolverton reveals forgotten truths about Madison’s faith, his original understanding of the Constitution as a compact among sovereign states, and the deliberate erasure of those ideas from modern education. With engaging stories—from Madison’s college entrance exams in Latin and Greek to the “no atom of ill will” campaign with Monroe—Dr. Wolverton illustrates how America’s founding principles were grounded in faith, humility, and knowledge. His message is clear: liberty requires learning, and reclaiming the founders’ wisdom is essential to restoring constitutional government today.
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TRANSCRIPT
We have Dr. Joe Wolverton, the John Birch Society’s constitutional scholar, as well as the president of Western Islands
publishing. And they just have some fantastic new things coming out. I’ve just
noticing at Western Islands the other day, the price that you guys have on books.
I’m like, was that even that cheap when it was brand new? Some of these reprints
that you guys have going on. If somebody wants to build their Liberty Library, they
need to go check out Western Islands right now. So I’m just really pleased to have
you. Thank you, Dr. Wolverton, for joining us. I wanted to – I appreciate it. I
wanted to draw people’s attention to your two newest books that you put together.
I’m going to show them right now on the screen. We have your biography on James
Madison, which I think is really important because it seems like when we talk about
the founding fathers, he’s almost, even though he’s considered and referred to often
as the father of the Constitution, we tend to focus on Jefferson, Adams, and
Washington. And even though it was Madison’s letters in the Federalist Papers that
really offered a lot of the boost towards actually getting the Constitution ratified.
And then I want to get into what you have in by compact, not command. This is a
compilation that you put together and have a forward to on some really important
constitutional documents. And so what I’ve noticed is that this isn’t an insult.
I’m not insulting people in the Liberty Movement, people that consider themselves
constitutionalists, but these perspectives are not perspectives that you get from any
of, you know, most of the different
constitutional classes that are out there or books put out by like American Heritage.
Those types of things, they are from more of a modernist perspective where I believe
you go back to an actual originalist perspective by, and this is a saying that you
say a lot that I just love is going to the source and not drinking downstream. And
so this book by compact and not command is an important book for those that want
to drink from the source and not to get the muddied water downstream. So,
yeah, I completely agree. That was the whole goal of it to,
and people would tell me this as I would go and give presentations about state
sovereignty and about the, how the, you know, the union came about the how the you
know the union came about and how the constitution was a contract among the
sovereign states to create an agent called the federal government everybody would say
yeah there’s no way to there’s no accessible way to read those things and I thought
well we can make now that I’m in charge of a publishing publishing company, you
know, and that’s the thing. Like when Wayne Murrow took over as CEO of the John
Bird Society, he called me and he’s like, I want you to take control of the
publishing because he’s like, I want there to be no impediment between you and your
mind and what you can publish for us and, you know, what you think we need.
And so
instantly it turns to okay we’ve got to first of all resurrect western islands
because when i when i joined the john berg society in 1988 uh i was a freshman at
b yu and i joined the john burst because they had a presentation and um i just
bought i mean i was very obviously poor college student, but I bought the books I
could afford. I think there were like three or four of them that I bought and just
devoured them. And I thought this, you know, and Wayne, our CEO has a saying that
he has, which is, you know, leaders are readers. And so I agree with that
completely. And so I’m like, how can we get, you know, these things that people,
people say to me all the time they’d be like well i’ve never heard of abel upshire
or i’ve never heard of the danger not over or yeah i’ve heard of um the virginia
resolution i have no idea what it is and so i’m like how can we have all of this
great learning john taylor of caroline you know how can we have this great learning
and somehow make it accessible and so like you said i mean i just said i told
wayne i’m like we’re not going to get rich off these books but i want everybody
who wants these books to be able to have these books so we take whatever it costs
us to print them and we just shave the margin right down and we make it i mean
the people over it over at western island
not command just founding era documents on federalism and liberty with i wrote a
little introduction to it and all you got to do is just i you know little
biographies of the guys and jump in there man jump in and say what did what was
jefferson’s understanding of the relationship between the states and the feds well
right there it is what was you know, Abel Upshurst’s understanding. What was John
Taylor of Caroline’s understanding? And the funny thing is been that I was really
shocked by how many people just didn’t even know the basics of this stuff.
Right. Like, I mean, we’re talking people that are constitutionalists or,
you know, MAGA, America first kind of people, but who genuinely are bereft of any
sort of basic understanding of how the Constitution came to be and what it is meant
to be as far as a contract among
sovereign republics. And it’s terrifying. And so I’m hopeful that, Man,
I wish we could, you know, have one of those things where some wealthy person would
take up this book and just, you know, buy thousands of them to send to schools so
that, you know, kids could read these things and really go about changing our
situation, our political situation. You know what I mean? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Well,
Before we get into that, I wanted to start off with your biography of Madison. I’m
going to show that real quick, my copy of it. I always get the hardbacks. If you
guys have hardbacks, that’s what I buy first. I always get the hard backs and,
you know, sent to me. I think they’re slick. They’re really nice. I’m a book snob.
It’s like if it’s got a cloth cover or a leather back, like I’m just like, the
better than that. That’s absolutely right. in that one I just going over so I’ve
got your other one too you’re out of print one that the the real James Madison
hard to find took me forever to get it but I’m so glad you have this one what
are some things that you feel that just kind of bullet I don’t want of good bullet
points because I this is where we have the time to really get into it but what is
something that people that are constitutionalists should know but probably don’t know
about James Madison, some weird fact that would it really help maybe change, you
know, do a real paradigm shift? Yeah, well, I think one of the, there’s two things.
And one of the things that makes this biography so much better than the one the
real James Madison was, and I probably told you that story, so I won’t bug you.
But the real james madison the first one i wrote it uh the publisher wanted me and
and i ultimately did remove most of the references to mr madison’s faith they were
afraid at this time when i published so the the first edition you know the the
real james and that biography sold out in 24 hours so it was gone and I had I
had one box that the publisher the printer had given me and that was it the rest
of them were sold and gone yeah and it was so bizarre because I went over to the
publisher to the house or not house but warehouse because he wanted to show me that
the order had taken place and he’s like they’re all gone and I just had one little
box but but unfortunately for me and that was my that’s my first book and when
they said you know after I wrote the manuscript and they’re like well we’d prefer
you take out the the the frequent references to his faith I did so much much to
my much to my shame right I did
miraculous life and legacy of James Madison that I just wrote. And I get a little
choked up because Madison is, you know, such an important person to me. But I
restored the prominence of his faith to him. He, you know,
one such example, I’ll give you very quickly is his best friend, Billy Bradford.
They graduated from what we call Princeton. They called the College of New Jersey,
but it’s the same place. They graduated from Princeton.
And William Bradford said to James, you know, you can be anything in the world.
You’re the smartest man in the room. No matter what room you’re in, you could be a
preacher, you could be a lawyer, you could be a professor. You could literally do
any, you could be a legislator, what do you want to do? And Madison famously as a,
you know, a 21 year old responds to him and says, it doesn’t really matter what I
do as long as my name is recorded in the annals of heaven. And as long as I
don’t get erased from the Lamb’s Book of Life, then that it doesn’t really matter
what I do. And he comes from a very strong believing background.
And so restoring the preeminence of his,
of his faith was important to me. So I’d say that was the first thing. And the
second thing that I think people would be surprised by is I put,
I restored what they call his Republican letters. So in most biographies of James
Madison, the biographers who are mostly neocons,
they leave out the Republican, so -called Republican letters of the early 1790s
because it paints James Madison as kind of a proto -libertarian,
and they don’t like that. And so they leave that out. But I restore it.
And so he has an essay on property, an essay on immigration,
for example. And I put those, at least I put substantial selections from those in
here because,
I mean, I think, for example, if you’re going to talk about immigration, which is
something we talk about all the time, why not look and see what Mr.
Madison thought about who should we let in and when and why and how many and what
should be the qualifications for immigrants and all of this sort of thing and I
thought that was important and so put that in the book here and most biographies
you won’t find that I mean the biographies that are written in the early 1800s you
do find it but like the I just opened a random page the Pacificus Pelvidius debates
there’s no reason that should be memorized by every school kit because I mean Ben
we’re talking about this is the decision of does I mean you talk about something is
more Timely and timeless. This is the question, does the president?
Now, you think about what just happened a couple of days ago and what has happened
so many times recently. Does the president have unilateral authority to blow up
Venezuelan boats? But I mean, that’s all Pacificus Helviteus is about.
Hamilton’s saying, yes, he does, and Madison’s saying, no, he doesn’t. Now, you say,
but does he? Well, why don’t you read the argument of Ham, and I’m not saying you
have to side with Madison, side with Hamilton if you want to, but do it from an
educated point of view. Take this book, read my account of it,
And then go and go on the Google machine and read the actual Helvidius Pacificus
papers that Madison and Hamilton, you know, fought in the newspapers and see what
you think. Because then, boy, you’re suddenly, you’re self -identifying as a leader
because you can quote chapter and verse that other people,
even professors of American history, are shaky on with regard to Helviteus Pacific
is. But can you imagine being able to say, well, in Helvite is number two, Madison
says, XYZ and people will just be caught flat -footed and not be able to answer
you. And that’s a good thing. Most of them haven’t heard of that, right? Right.
That’s the point. And that’s a good thing. Or When, you know, if someone asked you,
like they just did, I just, I just ended another show, right before I jumped on
with you. And the guy asked me what might take on the immigration and what might
take on the fentanyl boats and all this kind of stuff. And it’s so easy to sit
here and hide behind the skirts of James Madison. I mean, honestly, and I don’t
feel any, I don’t feel embarrassed because of that. I’m like, this is a great man
and I have no problem standing behind great men. And Madison having his arguments
that I happen to agree with. Now, there are things Madison might say that I don’t
agree with it. And I point that out in the book. But when it comes to anything,
there is authority in antiquity. there is authority in your ability to quote the
words of the great men of the past. And it doesn’t, it comes across as being
educated as opposed to being opinionated. Right. Right. If I say James Madison wrote,
that sounds really persuasive. If I say, well, I think, well, who cares what I
think? I mean, really, honestly, you know what I’m saying? It’s like, who cares?
That doesn’t make any, nobody cares. But if I say James Madison said, everybody’s
like, blink, okay, that guy has got legit juice. I want to listen to what Madison
said. Yeah. And so I would anybody, anybody, no, anybody that is interested in a
fuller picture of the life and legacy of Madison because ultimately that’s the kind
of I guess where I wrap it all up at the end is there is no Madison monument in
D .C. But why is there no Madison monument in D .C.?
And if you go to, and you probably have been, I imagine and many of your viewers
slash listeners have been to, you know, see Monticello and you see that Jefferson
left instructions for how his tomb was to, you know,
what was to be etched on his tomb? I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed that. It’s
like author of the Declaration of Independence, author of the Virginia Declaration of
Rights, author of, you know, literally it’s like a whole resume on dude’s tomb i’m
not joking and he jefferson himself in his will says this is what will be written
on my on my tomb do you know what’s written on james madison’s tomb one word
madison
that’s it madison’s almost criminal and so But that gets you into the mind of who
Thomas Jefferson was versus who James Madison.
Precisely. So Madison would not be upset that there’s no Madison monument in D .C.
to him. To him, I think, if we’re able to keep the union together peacefully,
that will be all the monument he requires. Yeah. Not, yeah.
Well, and going back to what you said about his faith, you know, one of the things
that I open a lot of my presentations with is what are the two things that you’re
not supposed to talk about in mixed company, right? Religion and politics.
Right. And I say, well, I’m going to throw that right in. I’m, I cannot separate
those things from my actions. And so even though, like,
in one of our last videos we did was about Lincoln. And I talked about what
Brigham Young said about Lincoln. And, you know, you have people that don’t have the
same opinions of Lincoln, I mean, of Brigham Young that I do. And so they were
like, well, I don’t want to get into the religious aspects. Well, to me, like, that
is vital. Like, it’s not just, I don’t want this to just be one faiths podcast,
but I want everybody involved in it to be able to say, this is where I pull from.
We have William F. Jasper on. I want him to share, you know, I want him to not
leave out his faith as a part of what he’s sharing. And so I think that’s
fantastic. No, and I, as a matter of fact, you know, one of the things, the
December issue of the New American,
The editor, the managing editor, he asked if I could write,
knowing that I’m a Latter -day Saint. He’s like, can you write, well,
an evangelical article written by through a Latter -day Saint prism?
And I’m like, oh, heck yeah, I can do that. Because, you know half my family my
father’s side of my family is not members of the church of jesus christ of latter
-day saints they’re they’re pentecostal and holiness and etc and i really that
resonates with my soul although you know my mom’s side of the family are saints
since the beginning and so it’s like I love that opportunity to be,
I don’t want to say ecumenical in the worst sense of that, but to be inclusive in
the sense that we, like you were talking about with Bill, I love that Bill Jasper.
And for example, I was up in Spokane speaking with Bill,
not too long ago a couple weeks ago i guess and uh he was dropping me back off
at the hotel and and we had a prayer together and we do that every time that
we’re together we end up praying together and of course he he is a traditional
roman catholic and but i enjoy that fellowship and so the The notion that one
should separate one’s faith from one’s politics, I think is fatal because I think
that you end up getting lost in some sort of secularism where you will be blown
about by every wind of doctrine and you will end up not having that attachment to
truth that you certainly are going to need as our society becomes more and more
wicked, you know. And so I think it serves the enemy of all righteousness to trick
us into divorcing our politics from our, from our faith. Yeah.
And it’s, I think you kind of, you said, the worst part of the Ecumenicalism,
right? It’s this balance of we don’t want to be Unitarian, of sorts. But at the
same time, if Bill Jasper has a perspective that’s guided by his faith,
I shouldn’t just ignore it just because it’s not of my faith. That’s ridiculous. And
I would hope that others don’t reject mine just because of my faith. Yeah, bring
all truth unto Zion. Let us let the light of truth, you know, be shown on every
point of doctrine and in every point of dogma and and let us decide for ourselves
you know and at the end of the day i think that’s what it comes down to it comes
down to you know james madison himself and another thing i include in the book or
at least i include excerpts from it is his memorial and remonstrance uh his uh
essay on religious freedom he even refuses to use the word religious toleration he’s
like where do i get the right to tolerate your religion you know i i don’t
tolerate your religion you know you don’t that’s not the right word you have the
right to practice according to the dictates of your conscience and i don’t have the
authority to tolerate or not and so you know he is a great example of that you
believe what you want to believe i’ll believe what i and someday we will know the
truth of all things and it’s my belief that you know christ has made us free and
that we will someday all be equally under uh you know through the blood of the
blood and merits of jesus alone you know and uh so i think that it only helps us
all to share because like you said man if i can learn from from my catholic
brothers brother bring it on i want to learn if they can learn from me i should
hope they and i know that many of them do feel the same way you know i know that
that uh friends that don’t that we’re not co -religionist so to speak that uh that’s
a joke that i i think that word sounds so funny but people use it like co
-religionist you know letter day saints it’s like uh but i think that and i know
for sure that i’ve learned from you know my father’s family who who are Pentecostal,
I’ve learned from them how to be a richer, fuller saint.
And I would hope that they’ve done likewise. They even call me preacher in my dad’s
family because, yeah, they’re just like, when we get together and it’s time for
prayer, then Joey, it’s time for Joey to say the prayer. And they,
you know, love that, that we do that, even though, you know, I’m not Pentecostal or
holiness, but they recognize that there’s just, you know, one Christ.
And I talk and preach of the same Christ. Yeah.
So another thing I wanted to get into with this biography of Madison is its
relevance to today, because too often people think, well, what they maybe avoid
history thinking that it has no relevance to them today. And I, I just love how
you brought out things like Germania and you have Livy, you know, history of Rome
and and even McAvelli’s review of that history. And as you go through those,
to me, I would say that those are just as relevant today as they were when they
were written. It’s almost like you’re reading it from a different, what’s going on
today from a different perspective. So I wanted to get maybe some key things that
are happening today that you would say, James Madison answers the question, you know,
whether it’s the president sending troops to Chicago or L .A. or Portland or some of
the current event. What would you say is the relevance to current events that we
can find in learning about Madison through your biography? Yeah, I would say the
biggest thing. Well, two things, I think. If I sit here and ponder it for a second
without just answering, giving a TikTok answer, I think the first thing is we’ve
already discussed it, the Havidia’s Pacificus debate, because they literally are on
the topic of how much authority the president has over war,
the execution of war, the blowing up of boats, how much authority does the president
have to send in troops to Chicago or Memphis or whatever?
Yeah. How much is there? And so if you, and you can get that on, you know, the
Helvidius pacificus debates i would say that’s the first thing and the second thing
i would say is and this is going to sound odd but just follow along with me here
it’s kind of maybe a bit torturous but if you follow along it’ll make sense so
after the constitution was ratified uh it wasn’t at all clear that Madison was going
to be elected to Congress from his own district because one of his friends was
actually running James Monroe. And so now James Monroe is a couple years younger
than Madison, but he was running against Madison. And so Madison’s friends send him
notes, you know, letters, and we have the letters, and they send him letters saying,
hey, you’re being opposed over here in Orange County,
Virginia, by Mr. Monroe. What are you going to do? And he’s like, we need you to
come out here and sling some whiskey and shake some hands and stuff.
And Madison’s, no I’m not going to do that and so and and his friends were
perplexed and like James if you don’t do that you’re not fixing to be in Congress
and he’s like well if people don’t think that I’m worthy of their vote I don’t I
don’t see how retail politicking does anybody any good.
Basically, he had an aversion to campaigning. And he said, I’m not going to campaign
if they think I’m the best guy. Because back then,
there were no, you know, like you can imagine today and you’ve all voted,
it’ll say, you know, Trump or Madison, whatever, I don’t know.
You know, so you get your, you get your ballot and you, you, you.
Jay Madison and stuck it in the box, or Jay Monroe and stuck it in the box,
or, or, you know, Mickey Mouse or whatever, you just stuck it in the box.
There were no printed ballots that you, you know, would have names and you would
put a mark next to a name or anything like that. And so Madison’s idea was,
well, if they think I’m the best for for the job, they’ll write my name in. If
they don’t, then they don’t. And that’s as simple as that. And so James Monroe,
to his credit, and I put this in the book, James Monroe says to Madison,
well, how about if we do this? How about if we campaign together? How about if the
two opponents, if we do the circuit together and we don’t insult each other.
We simply sit on stage and present our own,
you know, little version of what we think is right. And that way there will be
what did Madison call it, no atom of ill will, A -T -O -M, not an atom of ill will
between the competitors. And so he and Mr.
Monroe traveled throughout Virginia that winter together in a stagecoach making
campaign stops together. I mean, it would be honestly like Trump and Kamala Harris
riding together in a car, getting out not insulting each other getting back in the
car after making their little speeches going back round together and that sort of
understanding of qualification for office then is what i wish we could get back to
that i don’t have to spend a billion dollars right to get my name on a ballot,
man, that I don’t have to. I mean, even in state politics,
you know, talking about over here in Tennessee and wanting to run for the state
Senate, it’s spending, man. You know, you’re looking at hundreds of thousands of
dollars just for the name recognition to be there so that you can have a shot at
being even considered a candidate, a viable candidate.
Yeah, they equate money to seriousness. You’re not a serious candidate because you
don’t have money. Yeah. And so it’s crazy. And I wish, you know,
we could go back to the days where we say,
do you know what? If the people in my district think I’m the best state senator,
then they’ll vote for but that, but when you read about it in, you know, that
this, the account that I put in the book,
you, you realize what,
you know, what we’ve sacrificed by making everything for sale.
You know, we’ve, Madison, his thing was, I won’t buy whiskey and hand it out.
I won’t go around glad handing and begging for a vote. If I’m the best guy,
write my name down. If I’m not write James Monroe’s name down or somebody else, but
I’m not going to, I’m not going to retail politics, you know, and just,
I’m not going to wrap politics up in a like a candy bar you know yeah that’s
awesome so yeah so i you know those two things the halvidius pacific is because it
would really give context to much of what’s going on right now and then the the no
atom of ill will if we could get back to that place where We could disagree
without being disagreeable. Okay,
I want to get into your next book, The By Compact Not Command. And this book is
really important. There’s some articles that recently came out that talk about the
two constitutions where we have the original constitution that’s by compact. And we
have basically the post -Lincoln constitution where it’s by compulsion where you see
every single state post the war between the states has in their state constitution a
requirement that says that or an article that says that you are that they are a
permanent indivisible indivisible from the union which was totally different prior to
that time period because we were like it’s like your book says by compact not
command so tell us about the title why you pick that title and we and i’ve got
some things that i want to bring out and then ask you some questions as well but
kind of talk about that basically just that you you’ve summed it perfectly because
compact meaning the you know the 18th century word for contract these you know the
states all
individually voted whether or not to enter into the union uh it’s very clear in the
constitution and in the convention of 1787 and in the ratifying conventions that if
a state had decided not to join the union and they were left as an independent
sovereign republic federalist 39 makes that very clear as well that there’s no
compulsion here it goes back to you know sydney’s whole thing of there you know
there’s only one legitimate you know form of motive of government and that’s by
consent of the governed otherwise it’s force and force is not legitimate because it’s
not consistent with liberty and so here you have the 13 states saying okay let’s
weigh it see if it’s in our favor to compound some of our interests together.
If it is, then we’ll enter into a contract with each other. And in this contract,
we’ll create an agent who, I mean, if you know even the most basics of agency law,
principle and agency law in England and America, you know that it is a maximum of
Anglo -American law that the agent for its acts to be legitimate must act on behalf
of the best interest of the principle and any act that is against the best interest
of the principle the principles are at or have the authority to refuse to ratify
that Act. And so you apply that to the Constitution. And it suddenly becomes very
easy to understand, Ben. And I think that’s the problem. The problem is once it
becomes the Constitution is a contract, the states are the principles,
the federal government is the agent, the employee created by those principles,
to act on their behalf and only to their benefit, then it becomes easy to
understand when the federal government has ranged outside of its constitutional
authority. And if it does, it’s just like any other employment contract.
The authority of that agent ends at the four corners of the contract,
Right. I have a contract with the John Birch Society. If I go out and start
spewing pro -abortion stuff on, well, they’re going to fire me.
Why? Well, because we have a corporate policy that we are pro -life.
And so if I start doing that, I violate the terms of the contract and I’m fired.
And no one would bat an eye at that. Right.
book that they’re completely forgotten to the point where it almost seems wrong.
When you read these, you’re like, that can’t be right. You know,
I mean, serious. What about one nation undivisible? Right. Right. That’s ridiculous.
Yeah. You know, no founding father would ever, ever be caught dead saying the pledge
of allegiance never it they that was so in nothing much of liberty to sit there
and swear to a an indivisible you know one nation that in fact i mean they even
say that right like the abe de mably says it’s the great advantage of the americans
that they did not confound their 13 republics into one great nation.
Yeah, it’s told the the brainwashing that has gone on. It’s the total. It’s like
they believe that the Declaration of Independence was quaint, but it no longer
applies after you create a new, like how does that even make sense that we support,
you know, we celebrate the 4th of July, but we think that to ever do that same
thing again would be treasonous. It’s insane. Oh, it absolutely. It is.
It’s remarkable, it’s remarkable the way they were able to,
you know, I always joke about that I’m going to write this book, Tyranny for
Dummies, and chapter one is going to be get control of the education. Yeah.
Because if I can teach you the wrong words for things. I’ve got you, man. I have
got you. And so teach, you know, and so we’ve got a how many generations now under
the, under the tutelage of the Prussian Marxists, what, six generations now?
You know, you, you were probably raised in the public schools like I was.
Yeah, me too. and, you know, I had to unlearn a bunch of stuff when I became,
I mean, seriously, you know, people I was a bad enough student. I didn’t have to
unlearn as much as maybe.
People often ask me, like, how did, who taught you all of this? And I’m like,
dude, I, I don’t know. I think I had to teach myself, which was worse. I mean, I
had a couple of good, I had a couple of good professors, Dick Vetterly at BYU who,
boy, open my eyes to things like the Scottish Enlightenment and and Algernon,
Sydney and people like that. But, but, uh, you know, having to unlearn stuff that
my teachers, they didn’t
purposely indoctrinate me in the sense that they knew they were doing evil because
they were told to teach. Yeah, this has been going on for six generations. Yeah.
So this, I just want people to, I just, I mean, if you just read it,
and I, and I chose the books that are in there, the documents, essays, based on,
okay, I want simple ones that I think people might actually read.
So, for example, The Abel Upshur, I think Judge Upshur is such a clear writer that
I think that reading his brief inquiry into the true nature and character of the
federal government, I think blows your mind. I think that I think John Taylor of
Caroline is such a careful writer. But, you know, I started out with the catechism.
Yeah, I was just going to get to that. I was going to ask you about that.
She didn’t have any kids of her own. And so she became the governess of her nieces
and nephews. And she was afraid that they were not going to be taught the correct
nature of the federal union. And so as was the case back then.
And you can go back. And I have a collection of them myself and a lot of people
probably do of these catechisms from early in the you know history of the republic
and this one i just thought boy it is one of the simpler ones that i think is
the most complete because some of them go off on tangents whereas this one i think
miss pinkney was just trying to be concise And I’m like,
oh, boy, I could put that in there. And everybody just loved. I mean, I’ve had
school kids, honestly,
get in touch with me, like, email me and stuff and say, I memorize the political
catechism by Mariah Pinckney. And it’s so cool. And thank you for, you know, that
kind of thing. And that’s all, that’s all you want, you know. Yeah. And that’s
what’s great about this is what I loved about, I was like, as we just talked about
how the enemies of liberty have completely taken over the government school system.
I mean, of course, because it’s the government school system. But this really shows
you how much things have changed. This was basically the understanding of all school
kids. Oh, easy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, like I say, you can go and you can find
tons of these catechisms that were written with the same sort of flair and like i
say none of them to me none of them as concise and direct as as miss pinkneys but
many of them with the same sort of tone and the same purpose yeah because that’s
the way you taught people right you just taught people by question and answer on
whom must Carolina depend on her hour of peril on the descendants of the Patriot
band who achieve the revolution.
That’s basically saying the Declaration of Independence still applies. That’s all she’s
saying there, but in much more powerful way. And so,
you know, it’s one of those things. It’s like that saying Cicero makes you What is
it? Cicero makes you stand and applaud in Demosthenes makes you grab a sword and so
I want to make sure make people want to grab a sword, you know, and show them
through these documents, through these essays that there is a right way, there is a
wrong way, there is a way we were intended to be, and we can get back to that if
we are willing to do the heavy lifting. Yeah.
Of learning. That’s, you know, the scriptures say that, you know, my people perish
for lack of knowledge. The scriptures are. And so do we want to be a part of the
cause of the perishing because of our lack of knowledge or do we want to use these
materials to be able to secure that problem. And in a recent video that I did, I
actually used your book and I quoted from this political catechism. The third
question, it says, did the states informing the constitution divest themselves of any
part of their sovereignty, right? Did we create a new nation that, and so now each
one of these individual nations gave up their sovereignty? The answer is of not a
particle. So I mean, it goes on into more detail than that, but just of not a
particle, not one, you know, minuscule amount of it, not one atom of their
sovereignty was given up by joining the union. Yeah, and this blew someone’s mind,
Ben, just, I guess, what was, what is today, Tuesday? So the other day,
I was on a podcast, and the host, I guess,
was trying to trapped me and said, well, what, what is,
what does, how did he say it? Over what does the federal government have
sovereignty? And I said, nothing.
The federal government has zero sovereignty because the word sovereignty implies that
there’s no one above. And there is always an authority above the feds the feds have
no original sovereignty and this is blue this dude’s mind he’s like well with an
idea like that you can’t have immigration laws i’m like right yeah yeah you got it
he’s like well that’s crazy how are you going to keep people i’m like have you
heard a property have you heard you know have you heard of state government Texas
you know the governor sent dudes down there to protect do do your thing you know
if you’re a private property owner secure your property man there’s there’s the word
immigration doesn’t appear in the constitution and this guy and so you just pointed
it out that but imagine if that if we could teach that Ben And I know you
obviously do, and I can’t thank you enough for all that you do because good grief,
man. You are quite an excellent blow torch of liberty.
I’m not just blowing smoke up your skirt. You are such a powerful force for good
and, you know, echoing and broadcasting this consistently.
but imagine if we could do that man imagine if you could stand up in a first
grade class in I forgot where you I know you live in Utah but in wherever you
live in Lehigh for the sake of discussion and say you know do the states informing
the Constitution divest themselves of any part of their sovereignty of not a particle
this was for a little kid. This is written for a third grader. I’m not kidding.
I have this book here. Let’s see. Right here. This book is called The Scholars
Companion, okay? Do you see it here? Yeah. It’s published in 1858,
okay? And it’s supposed to be for like what we would consider third graders. And
it’s your, all your Latin and Greek root words that you’re supposed to memorize so
that you can tell what a word means without knowing what that word means,
right? If someone uses the word U -T -O -R, if someone used the word T -U -R -B -A,
you know the source of that in Greek or Latin and you can be intelligent.
This is for third graders, what we would call third graders. To think that we, you
know, to think that we’re so much smarter now than the pumpkins from 100 years ago,
which is just insanity. It shows how well they’ve done at dumbing us down,
literally. Oh, that.
And, you know, I don’t know about you, But when I was in third grade, it was, you
know, rubbish. Garbage pill kids. I mean, it was Encyclopedia Brown.
But here we’ve got stuff like, L .E, you know, L -E -X means law.
So you know if this word is used, legislature, it means something to do with the
law. Anyway, my point is, we can, children can understand this stuff if we present
it to them uh richard price and i know you know that name because you know the
founder’s recipe but richard price famously in his uh sermon on the importance of
the american revolution he’s in 1790 he said uh enlighten men and you will elevate
them And so you can take the smallest child,
and he can be nine years old, understanding Greek and Latin. He can be nine years
old understanding the Mariah Pinckney’s political catechism.
If you hold him to that standard, if you hold him to the encyclopedia Brown
standard, that’s where he’s going. But you know what I mean? Oh, yeah. You will
rise to the level of the challenge. And right now, we don’t challenge our people,
man. We don’t challenge our people. And we need to. And that’s, you know, me and
you. I know you do. I’m preaching to the choir, to the converted. The royal weed,
right? The royal we. Yeah, the royal we. All of us need to, I mean,
what did I do last night? Last night, just for an example, right, of how everybody
needs to always be learning. I was going back, every year I reread all the books
from Founders’ Recipe, right? And so I was on Grocious,
I was reading Grocious, and he references something from the Aeneid. No, I don’t
have the Aeneid memorized, man. Like Grocious has it memorized, and he’s like, he’s
like, oh, you know how King’s so and so in the Aeneid and I’m like no I don’t
know but I do have a copy of the Aeneid so I go to the library my you know I
go to my bookshelf I pull off the Aeneid what do I discover there I follow the
reference that he uses in in his book and I discover how in the Aeneid one of the
kings is so destructive of the peace and prosperity of his people, that his people
turn on him and run him out of town. Now, why did Grosius mention that?
Well, Grosius mentions it because he said, ultimately, that’s the right that all of
us have. If a government becomes destructive of our life,
liberty, and property, then it is our natural right to rid ourselves of that
government, right? Just like he says, and it’s not a great secret, he says,
because look, it happened in the Aeneid, you know, written by Virgil. And it’s like,
I’ll be danged. That’s exactly what it says in book eight of the Aeneid,
line 494, they chased the king off the throne because he’d become he had used his
power to destructive ends and that’s what we need to do ben we need to be all of
us anxiously engaged in learning all the time and if we do that we you know you
catch fire with it like you know because you are so good at it man i don’t i
seriously Sometimes I talk to people about you because I’m like, I don’t know how
this dude does it. Like you stay on the grind all the time.
And it’s one thing. And I mean, maybe this is, you know,
opening the kimono too much. But it’s one thing to say, Joey does it because I,
that’s my job. you know what I mean that’s that’s my nine to five and I’m blessed
blessed beyond my worthiness that my passion and my job are the same thing but
that’s not true of everyone and so you you stay on this grow out of love of
liberty love of moving the needle of trying to set this people free and you know
you will in no wise lose your reward he who sees you will reward you and i hope
you understand that and know how many of us there are that really respect what you
do that means a lot really i mean a lot thank you i mean It’s not,
and that’s not just lip service. There’s, you know, we, it’s one of those things.
It’s like if I had my druthers and if I were, you know, Jeff Bezos,
we’d all be living a different life with, you know, but as it is,
as it is, you will be rewarded by he who sees in secret. Thank you.
It reminded me of some of the stories you just told there about another story you
told in another time about James Madison’s commonplace book as a young youth and the
things that he wrote in there. And then what was required of him to enter into
Princeton. And so just I think it’s relevant to both the books that we’re talking
about and the importance of building our understanding and not being right the not
being the cause of our downfall because of our ignorance tell our the viewers and
listeners what what was in madison’s commonplace book as a youth and what were the
requirements for him to get into princeton yeah so in one of the first things that
i so i started collecting madison’s papers and you know i had to do it slowly at
first because they’re kind of spendy and and before i started before i started
practicing law i would just buy one here one there and um i noticed that at a
very young age he was taking notes in latin and greek and i’m like that is crazy
by young we’re not talking like 18 right No, like 9, 10. You know,
you had an annotation from when he was like, I think he was 14. And it said
something like, okay, enough being a boy, I’ve got to settle down and be a man
now. At 14, you know, he’s like, enough playing cards and enough hanging out with
my friends. It’s time to realize that God has some great mission for me to perform
and I’ve got to settle down and get it done. And you’re just like, whoa.
And so when you go and you can go to, uh, uh, see what page is it here,
page 10 of the Madison miraculous life and legacy, it says in August 1769,
when he was 17 years old, Madison enrolled at the College of New Jersey.
Today it’s called Princeton. He was an excellent student known by his peers as
someone who devoted himself more to learning than to any other endeavor. Young James
was right to worry about his studies. Enrolling at a university didn’t necessarily
mean one would be accepted to the university. All students were required to take an
entrance exam. To be formally accepted, James was required to demonstrate,
now this is all quotations from their instructions to him, that they would have sent
him in advance, the ability to write Latin prose, translate Virgil,
Cicero, and the Greek Gospels, and have a commensurate knowledge of Latin and Greek
grammar. To give a rational account of the Greek and Latin grammars to read three
orations of Cicero and three books of Virgil’s Aeneid translate the first ten
chapters of the Gospel of John from Greek into Latin.
Now, there is not a single professor at BYU who could do that.
Let alone a student. Yeah, let alone I was 17 -year -old.
Madison not only did that, but he finished all four years of college in two years.
Now, at Princeton, James found the freshman year lessons too easy and requested
permission from the president of the university, John Witherspoon, to take tests that
would allow him to skip the first year classes and go straight into classes for
sophomores. Witherspoon was surprised to see someone so small and so frail,
behaving so bravely, but he gave Madison permission to take the exams and skip
freshman year if he passed them all. In a letter to his former tutor,
Thomas Martin, Madison revealed his readiness to apply him to his studies he said
the near approach of the examination occasions a surprising application to study on
all sides i am perfectly pleased with my present situation and the prospect before
me however terrible it must sound has nothing in it talking about college and he
did two four years of college in two years without any shortcuts he had to do
everything as if it you know yeah as if it were all four years they didn’t give
him any shortcuts and he says he survived by his quotation is the minimum of sleep
and the maximum of application surely because madison came from a wealthy family that
got them the most expensive tutors
No. And that’s the thing, man. People think that the founding fathers were well.
I mean, I guess yeah, they were wealthy in the sense that they had a ton of land,
but cash poor for sure. They couldn’t, you know, they couldn’t lay their hands on
money. His father to have money for anything had to work really hard in the field
and had to make the trip down to the docks and had to negotiate. And there was
no, you know, no notion of it being wealth the way we know it.
So thank you. I want to recommend and encourage everyone. There will be a link in
the description and in the article of this video on our website. Encourage you to
all of our viewers to get both of these books. Also, If you guys haven’t picked
up, and we talked about this in the past, the founder’s recipe, you’ve got to get
that. If you don’t homeschool, it doesn’t matter. Just get it for you so that you
know exactly the ingredients that it took to build a free society. Also,
what degree of madness? Folks need to get that. And then your Article 5 book as
well, all available at shopjBS .org. Thank you so much.
