By Compact, Not Command: The Constitution They Erased

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

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The publisher wanted me, and I ultimately did, remove most of the references to Mr. Madison's faith. They were afraid. That was my first book, and when they said, you know, after I wrote the manuscript, and they're like, well, we prefer you take out the frequent references to his faith. We have a real great treat for you today. 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 was 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 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 Constitution 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.

And people would tell me this as I would go and give presentations about state sovereignty and about how 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 company, you know, and that's the thing. Like when Wayne Murrow took over as CEO of the John Birch Society, he called me and he's like, I want you to take control of the publishing because he's like, I want you to take control of the publishing company, you know, I want you to take control of the publishing company. And I want you to take control of the publishing company. And I want you to take control of the publishing company. And I want you to take control of the publishing company. And I want you to take control of the publishing company. And I want you to take control of the publishing company.

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And I want you to take control of the publishing company. And I want you to take control of the publishing company. And I want you to take control of the publishing company. And I want you to take control of the publishing company. And I want you to take control of the publishing company. And I want you to take control of the publishing company. And I want you to take control of the publishing company. And I want you to take control of the publishing company. And I want you to take control of the publishing company. And I want you to take control of the publishing company.

And I want you to take control of the publishing company. And I want you to take control of the publishing company. And I want you to take control of the publishing company. And I want you to take control of the publishing company. And so I agree with that completely. Absolutely. And so I'm like, how can we get, you know, these things that people say to me all the time. They'd be like, well, I've never heard of Abel Upshur. Or I've never heard of The Danger Not Over. Or, yeah, I've heard of 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 at Western Islands here at JBS, the designs are always insanely attractive. And so it looks nice. We restored the old Eagle logo.

I don't know if you can see that there very well. And we restored that and just make everything look nice. And like you say, this is the compact, 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, 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 Upshur's understanding? What was John Taylor of Caroline's understanding? And the funny thing has been that I was really shocked by how many people just didn't even know the basics of this stuff.

Right. Like, you know, 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. Yeah. And it's, it's terrifying. Yeah. And it's, 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 the, 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. Yeah. We have hardbacks. Yeah. I always get the hardbacks and, you know, sent to me. I think they're slick.

They're really nice. Yeah. I'm a book snob. It's like, if it's got a cloth cover or a leather back, like I'm just like, Oh, for better than that. That's absolutely right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So 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 to get 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. I think, um, 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, I probably told you that story, so I won't bug you, but the, uh, the real James Madison, the first one I wrote it, uh, the publisher wanted me and, and I ultimately did remove. Uh, most of the references to Mr. Madison's faith. They were afraid at this time when I published. And so the, the first edition, you know, the, the real James Madison, 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. Uh, cause 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 was 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, the, the user frequent references to his faith.

I did. So really much, much to my, much to my shame. Right. I did. So I left some of it in, but I, I took much of it up. Well, I promised myself after that, I'm like, someday I'm going to write it and I'm going to put all that stuff back in. And so I think the first thing that I tell, not, I think when people ask me that question, like what's the difference between this one and the first one, the 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, um, I restored the prominence of his faith to him. He, you know, one, one such example, I'll give you very quickly is his best friend, Billy Bradford. They graduated from print, what we call Princeton. Oh, the college of New Jersey, but it's the same place. Uh, they graduated from Princeton and Brad William Bradford said to James, you know, you can be anything in the world. You're, 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, and Madison famously as a, you know, 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, uh, strong, believing background. And so restoring the preeminence, uh, 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, uh, I restored what they call his Republican letters. So in most biographies of James Madison, uh, the biographers who are mostly neocons, they leave out the Republican so-called Republican letters of the early 17 nineties, 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 a, an essay on property, an essay on immigration, for example. And I put those, at least I put substantial, uh, 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, uh, 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, put that in the book here and, and most biographies, you won't find that. The biographies that are written in the early 1800s, you do find it. But, uh, like the, I just opened a random page, the Pacific is how vidious debates. There's no re that should be memorized by every school kid. Yeah. Because I mean, Ben, we're talking about, this is the decision of does, I mean, you talk about things 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 is the president have unilateral authority to blow up Venezuelan boats. No, but I mean, that's all Pacific is how videos is about Hamilton saying, yes, he does. And Madison saying, no, he doesn't. Now you say, but does he, well, why don't you read the argument of him? 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, you know, my account of it, and then go and go on the Google machine and read the actual how vidious Pacific is 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 how vidious Pacific is. But can you imagine being able to say, well, in how vidious number two, Madison says, X, Y, Z, and people will just be caught flat footed and not be able to answer you.

And that's a good thing. I've never 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 my take on the immigration and what my 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. 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. And Matt, 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? Well, that doesn't make any, nobody cares. Right. 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. Going back to your, oh, sorry. 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 DC.

Well, why is there no Madison monument in DC? Absolutely. 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. Wow. That's it. Madison. It's almost criminal. And so, but that gets you into the mind of who Thomas Jefferson was versus who James Madison. The humility of Madison. Yeah.

Precisely. So Madison would not be upset that there's no Madison monument in DC 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. And going back to what you said about his faith, you know, one of the things that I, I opened a lot of my presentations with is what are the two things that you're not supposed to talk about in, in mixed company, right?

Religion and politics. Right. And, and I, 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 my, in one of our last videos we did was about Lincoln and I talked about what Brigham Young said about Lincoln and I had, 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 to be one faith podcast, but I want everybody in 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, 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 answer, he asked if I could write knowing that I'm a Latter-day Saint.

Yeah. 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, 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 the, for example, I was up in Spokane speaking with Bill, not too long ago, a couple weeks ago, I guess. And 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 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 ecumenicalism, right? It's this balance of, we don't want to be Unitarian of sorts. Yeah. But at the same time, if, if, if, 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. Yeah. Let us, let the light of truth, you know, be shown on, on every point of doctrine and 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, 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, his 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 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 I, it's my belief that, you know, Christ has made us free and that we will someday all be free 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-religionists, so to speak, that, uh, that's a joke that I, I, I think that word sounds so funny, but people use it. That like co-religionists, you know, Latter-day Saints. Latter-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 are Pentecostal. I've, I've learned from them how to be a richer, uh, fuller saint. And I would hope that they've done likewise for, I, 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, 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. relevance to them today. And I, I just love how you've brought out, uh, things like Germania and you have Livy, you know, his history of Rome and, and even Machiavelli's review of that history. And, 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, 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, uh, president sending troops to Chicago or LA or Portland or some other current event. What would you say is the relevance to current events that we can find in learning about, uh, Madison through your biography? Yeah, I would say the biggest thing. Well, two things.

I think if I, if I sit here and ponder it for a second, without just answering, giving a tick tock answer, I think the first thing is we've already discussed it. The, the, the, the Helvidius Pacificus debate, because, uh, they literally are on the topic of how much, uh, how much authority the president has over war, uh, the execution of war, the blowing up of, of boats. How much authority does the president have to send in troops to Chicago or, or Memphis or whatever? Yeah. How much, and so if you, and you can get that on, you know, the Helvidius Pacificus debates, I would say. That's the first thing. Mm-hmm. 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, uh, because one of his friends was actually running James Monroe.

And so now James Monroe is a couple of years younger than Madison, but, uh, 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. Mr. Monroe, what are you, 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. So basically he had an aversion to campaigning and he said, I'm not going to campaign if they think I'm the best guy. And so 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? You're you get your ballot and you, you mark whichever guy you want and you stick it in the box and then they just count them, which, you know, you hope that that's what's happened. And then you can actually verify how you voted. Right. Exactly. But back then there was none. There was a piece of paper, but it had no names on it. You simply wrote Jay Madison and stuck it in the box or Jay Monroe and stuck it 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 the job, they'll write my name. And if they don't, then they don't. And that's as simple as that. And so James Monroe to his credit, and I, 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 wish we could get back to that. I wish we could get back to that. I wish we could get back to that. I wish we could get back to that. I wish we could get back to that. I wish we could get back to that. I wish we could get back to that. I wish we could get back to that.

I wish we could get back to that. I wish we could get back to that. I wish we could get back to that. I wish we could get back to that. I wish we could get back to that. I wish we could get back to that. I wish we could get back to that. I wish we could get back to that. I wish we could get back to that. I wish we could get back to that.

I wish we could get back to that. I wish we could get back to that. I wish we could get back to that. I wish we could get back to that. I wish we could get back to that. I wish we could get back to that. I wish we could get back to that. I wish we could get back to that. I wish we could get back to that. So that you can have a shot.

Mm hmm. At being even considered a candidate, a viable candidate. Yeah, they don't they equate money to seriousness. You're not a serious candidate. Yeah. You don't have money. Yeah. And so it's it's crazy. And I wish, you know, we could go back to the days where. Where we could say, do you know what?

If the people in my district think I'm the best state senator, then they'll vote for it. 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 right, 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 how video specific is because it would really give context to much of what's going on right now. And then the the no Adam of ill will, if we could get back to that place where we could disagree without being disagreeable. That's awesome. Okay. I want to get into your next book, the by compact, not command. Mm hmm. 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 picked 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 up 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. 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. And 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.

And 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, a maxim of Anglo American law that the agent for its acts to be. To be legitimate must act on behalf of the best interests of the principle. And any act that is against the best interests 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. 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 majority 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.

But the problem is we've allowed since the late 1800s, Mark section secular Marxists to control education to such a degree and to completely erase the understanding as shared in these essays that I include in this 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 nation undivisible. Right. Right. That that's ridiculous. Yeah. You know, no, no founding father would ever, ever be caught dead. Saying the pledge of allegiance.

Never. It would they that was so enough to my to 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 Abedema says it's the great advantage of the Americans that they did not confound their 13 republics into one great nation. Yeah, it's totally the brainwashing that has gone on. It's the total. Oh, my gosh. It's like they believe that the Declaration of Independence was quaint, but it no longer applies after you create a new. And like, how does that even make sense that we support, you know, we celebrate the Fourth of July, but we think that to ever do that same thing again would be treasonous. 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 and 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. Oh, yeah, 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 the Prussian Marxists. I've got a couple of years, what, six generations now, you know, you you were probably raised in a public schools like I was. Yeah, me too. And, you know, I had to unlearn a bunch of stuff when I became I'm a seriously student. I didn't have to learn unlearn as much as maybe people often ask me to like, how did who taught you all of this? Like, dude, 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, opened my eyes to things like the Scottish Enlightenment and and Algernon Sydney and people like that. But, 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 gone going on for six generations. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. 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, OK, I want simple ones that I think people might actually read. So, for example, the 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.

And 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 going to get to that. I was going to ask you about that. Yeah, because everybody would always ask me, where did you get that thing? Where did you get that thing? And I'm like, you know what, I'm just going to put it in a book. And because obviously it's out of copyright, it was written in 1830 by Charles Pinckney's daughter. She didn't have any kids of her own. And so she became the governess of her nieces and nephews.

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 Pinckney was just trying to be concise. And I'm like, oh boy, I could put that in there. And, and, 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 memorized the political catechism by Mariah Pinckney. And, 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. Oh. And that's, what's great about this is what I loved about it. 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 the, 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 Pinckney's, 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 achieved the revolution. Well, that's basically saying the declaration of independence still applies, right? Right. That's all she's saying there, but in, in, in much more powerful way. And, uh, so, you know, it's one of those things, it's like that saying, um, Cicero makes you, uh, what is it?

Cicero makes you stand in and applaud in Demosthenes makes you grab a sword. Uh, 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. I actually learn of learning of learning. That's, you know, the, the, the scriptures say that, you know, my people perish for lack of knowledge. The Lord says that in the scriptures. Yes.

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, um, I actually used your book and I quoted from this political catechism. The third question is says, does, uh, did the States informing the constitution divest themselves of any part of their sovereignty? Right. Did, did we create a new nation that, and so now each one of these individual nations were 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, uh, I guess, what was it? What is today?

Tuesday. So the other day I was on a podcast and the host, I guess, was trying to trap me and said, well, what, what, uh, 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. Yep. 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. Yeah. 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 of property? Have you heard, you know, have you heard of state government? Texas, you know, the governor sent dudes down there to protect, do your thing. Yeah. 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. This guy. And so you just pointed it out that, but imagine if that, if we could teach that then, and I know you obviously do.

And, and I can't thank you enough for all that you do because good grief, man, you are quite an excellent, uh, uh, blow torch of Liberty. I'm not, I'm not just blowing smoke up your skirt. You, you are such a, 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, let's 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 written 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, uh, 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, uh, root words that you're supposed to memorize. Yeah. Yeah. So that, 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 uses the word, uh, T U 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. That we, you know, to think that we're so much smarter now than the pumpkins from a hundred 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.

And 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, cause 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, enlightenment 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, uh, 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. He 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, right? 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 founder's recipe. Right. And so I was, I was on, uh, Grotius. I was reading Grotius and he references something from the Aeneid. No, I don't have the Aeneid memorized, man. Like Grotius has it memorized.

And he's like, he's like, Oh, you know how King so-and-so in the Aeneid. And I'm like, no, I don't know, but I do have a copy of the Aeneid. Yeah. 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 Grotius mention that? Well, Grotius 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. And he says, because look, it happened in the Aeneid, you know, written by Virgil. And it's like, I'll be dang. That's exactly what it says in book eight of the Aeneid, line 494. And it's like, I'll be doing this. And it's like, I'll be doing this. And it's like, I'll be doing this. And it's like, I'll be doing this.

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. Do 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 I think that's true of you. You, you stay on this ground 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. It means a lot. Really. I mean, a lot. Thank you.

And 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, 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 another time about James Madison's commonplace book as a young youth and the things that he wrote in there. And then what was, 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, 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 cause 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. We're not talking like 18, right? No, like nine, 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. And 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, uh, 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 10 chapters of the gospel of John from Greek into Latin. To Latin. Now, there is not a single professor at BYU who could do that. Let alone a student. Yeah, let alone a 17 year old. Madison not only did that, but he finished all four years of college in two years. Wow. Now, at Princeton, James found the freshman year lessons too easy and requested permission from the president of the university, John Witherspoon.

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 four years of college in two years without any shortcuts. He had to do everything as if it, you know, 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, but that's Madison came from a wealthy family that got on the most expensive tutors, right? And that's the thing, man. People think that the founding fathers were well. 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. Right.

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, if our, if you guys haven't picked up, and we talked about this in the past, the founders recipe, you, you've got to get that. If you don't homeschool, it doesn't matter. Just get it for you to, 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 five book as well. Um, all available at shop JBS.org.