Declaration of Independence and Self-Government with Matthew Spalding | BRI Scholar Talk

0:05 For this episode

0:06 of Scholar Talks, we will be discussing the principles

0:09 and meaning of the Declaration of Independence.

0:13 Our guest, Matthew Spalding, is a Kirby professor of government at Hillsdale

0:16 College, and it’s dean of the Van Andel School

0:20 of Government in Washington, D.C.

0:23 he is the author and editor of several books on the American founding.

0:26 Excellent books, I might add, including we still hold these Truths,

0:31 also a Sacred Union of Citizen Washington’s Farewell Address

0:36 and The American Character, and his newest book,

0:39 The Making of the American Mind The Story of Our Declaration of Independence,

0:45 which is, of course, the topic of today’s discussion.

0:48 I am Tony Williams, senior fellow at the Bill of Rights Institute,

0:51 and I want to welcome you to another episode of Scholar Talks

0:54 in our America 250 series.

0:57 Matt, I want to thank you very much for joining me.

1:00 Great to be with you, Tony.

1:02 You’re great.

1:02 You know, I really loved the book.

1:05 What a great combination of telling a really great story,

1:11 but then also understanding the meaning, the principles,

1:15 the ideas that went into the making of the Declaration of Independence

1:19 and I might add, you know, maybe,

1:20 maybe, just, just maybe why it’s still important today

1:24 and still has a great deal of relevance, going forward now.

1:28 Well, what I wanted to do something different.

1:30 I on the assumption they were going to be a lots of books out on the 250th.

1:35 I wanted to let the declaration, if you will, tell its own story.

1:39 Yeah.

1:40 We often study the document by, just studying Jefferson

1:44 or just studying a particular thing, or looking at what aspect of it.

1:49 I basically wanted it to kind of lay out a whole a full story

1:52 of how it came into being and then walk through it, very carefully.

1:56 I mean, as you know,

1:58 as you know, we oftentimes focus on the, on the most on the famous,

2:02 very important parts of the declaration, but we oftentimes ignore the rest of it.

2:06 And so I wanted to do an overarching treatment,

2:09 if you will, looking at the declaration, kind of treating it as,

2:14 you know, a symphony of different parts, but all in all, in harmony,

2:18 so that I would can draw the reader in with, with the story.

2:22 It’s actually a very fascinating, dynamic story.

2:26 But then once they get into it, start seeing, and,

2:29 and working through the declaration, its components, and explain them,

2:33 because these were all live questions, they were all debated at great length.

2:38 This is what they were arguing about in all their pamphlets.

2:40 This is not some sort of, invention out of some philosophical mind.

2:45 This is what,

2:47 as Jefferson said, which I, which which the title of the book comes from,

2:51 he said it was meant to be an expression of the American mind.

2:55 And that’s how I that’s how I approach it.

2:58 Very well.

2:59 Objectives achieved.

3:00 So let’s dive in and talk about it.

3:02 So, so can you provide a little bit of historical background, set the stage.

3:07 Some of the events that led to the, to American independence?

3:13 Yeah.

3:13 Without necessarily going into too much detail that everybody is,

3:17 is hearing, a lot about, I would, I would note a few things that make us

3:22 make the set of the declaration, perhaps, a little bit differently than we,

3:27 might look at, because I’m trying to center my narrative on,

3:30 Independence Hall in, in Philadelphia in the Continental Congress.

3:34 Congress had already met once, in 1774,

3:38 and they had already issued their, grievances to the King of England.

3:42 There are other various documents that done so.

3:44 But then the Continental Congress comes together for the first time

3:47 as a Congress, which is a unique use of that term.

3:52 And they decide that, well, if nothing happens, we will meet again.

3:55 Well, nothing did happen, but but something,

3:59 unfortunate or bad or tragic happened, I suppose.

4:02 Which was right before the Second Continental Congress.

4:06 General Gage in Boston sent troops out

4:09 to look for stores of of hidden munitions.

4:13 And we had Lexington, Concord just a few weeks before the

4:17 Second Continental Congress.

4:18 So that was kind of the immediate precursor.

4:21 The Continental Congress comes together there.

4:24 There’s a very intense debate what to do.

4:27 You know, sometimes we we forget and we have in hindsight,

4:30 since we know what happened, we don’t quite think about it this way.

4:33 But, you try to put yourself in their shoes.

4:37 Are we going to war or not?

4:39 Do we want to go to war?

4:41 We really don’t know what’s going to happen here.

4:43 We we really do not know.

4:45 Election Concord.

4:47 Triggers, a overall,

4:50 continental defense mechanism to start the in the place.

4:55 But then, come June of 17,

4:59 75, once they decide

5:03 we’re going to have to defend ourselves

5:07 and we we will recognize this army around Boston.

5:10 These are these, militias around Boston as a Continental Army.

5:13 And then they appoint

5:13 George Washington as a general, which itself is an act of war.

5:17 At that point, you had Bunker Hill, and once you have Bunker Hill,

5:21 you’ve got a war.

5:22 So it happens very rapidly, moves very rapidly.

5:26 And to some extent, I put the the declaration in the context of the,

5:30 the events.

5:31 You know, often we study the declaration as a, a separate document by itself,

5:37 as opposed to recognizing that it was it was actually a political document.

5:40 It was a piece of legislation passed by the Continental Congress,

5:44 and proclaimed by the kind

5:45 of Congress it had a committee, subcommittee.

5:49 It was heavily edited by the committee.

5:50 And then it was heavily edited again by the Continental Congress.

5:54 And so the kind of the legislative dynamic of that debate

5:58 about independence and then separately, about the declaration self is is,

6:03 a lot of the, the set up, if you will, the circumstances in the book.

6:09 Sure. Great.

6:10 So and you also, besides this confluence of events,

6:14 you also describe a confluence of ideas as well.

6:17 So you explain the different influences on the founders.

6:20 So how did it how do ancient thinkers and the English tradition

6:24 and the enlightenment Protestant Christianity, all of these

6:28 different strains of thought, all these different influences

6:31 and, influence the Declaration of Independence? Yes.

6:35 Just just a short, brief question. Yeah.

6:37 Just just in a nutshell.

6:40 Yeah.

6:40 Well, I mean, I would generally say by, by again,

6:44 backing it up and, and and looking at it more broadly, oftentimes

6:48 we think of the declaration, well,

6:49 that means we should just study Jefferson and Jefferson is important.

6:52 Don’t get me wrong.

6:53 But the colonial Congress

6:55 as a whole really debated and edited and shaped this thing.

6:59 So the question is, what were the influences on the the overall Congress?

7:04 And so I actually spent a lot of time in the book,

7:08 placing it in its historical context, you know, the cotton, the which begins

7:13 when in the course of human events, which is a historical reference.

7:17 How do they understand history?

7:19 And they really understood in a very traditional way,

7:22 but that also place them within a history.

7:25 And, and they very much understood that.

7:27 So I look at those, those influences, if you will, to try to draw out,

7:32 those influences and in ways that others have talked about.

7:36 But I’ve, I’ve tried to kind of, pull it together very tightly.

7:42 And in putting the book together,

7:43 one thing I did come to the conclusion even more that I proved

7:46 you thought was the influence of, say, Cicero in particular.

7:50 But the, the, the Romans and the classical thinking,

7:54 the classical education was the dominant form at the time.

7:58 They had clearly been influenced by that.

8:01 Cicero tended to be what they read when they learned Latin.

8:05 And the, the teachers, which were largely from Scottish,

8:09 Presbyterians, came over and, and, ran that ran the schools

8:12 where these guys were taught were largely classical scholars.

8:16 The, the the British tradition is extremely important.

8:19 The common law tradition.

8:21 And I talk about that at great length.

8:23 Blackstone and Cork in particular.

8:26 But of course, then broadly, the whole Christian tradition, again,

8:29 something I always thought was very important,

8:31 but even more so, I think, you know, as in spend some time in thinking this through

8:34 is how the Christian tradition, for all intents purposes, becomes the,

8:40 the bridge, if you will.

8:41 That brings the classical tradition, meaning the thinking about nature

8:45 and the kind of philosophical groundings of of what what man is,

8:50 the Christian tradition shapes that, but also then brings it into the modern era

8:55 and brings it in and greatly shapes the American founders,

8:58 especially through the thinkers like hooker, and others.

9:03 So the point is, there’s all of these sayings.

9:05 Again, don’t think of the declaration out of context.

9:09 All of these things are percolating up in all of their pamphlets,

9:12 all of their writings. It’s been quoted.

9:13 It’s been talked about at great length,

9:15 and it’s being debated in the Continental Congress.

9:19 So when Jefferson writes the declaration, he’s pulling it all together.

9:22 You know, there’s a famous letter, which I know you’re

9:25 familiar with, where he refers to the declaration being,

9:28 grounded in what Aristotle, Cicero, Sydney and Locke, etc.

9:33 of course, that, etc.

9:33 is very important, but generally speaking, he

9:36 he was thinking in those philosophical terms in terms of what he was doing.

9:39 But it wasn’t Jefferson inserting those that was the coin of the day.

9:44 They were debating these things.

9:46 Yeah.

9:47 And now I’m just going to say one I love

9:49 is that, you know, you talked about them not being abstract theories, right?

9:52 They weren’t.

9:53 And professors, is sitting around in a seminar room with graduate students.

9:57 I mean, they were practical statesmen.

9:59 I love that you brought that out there.

10:00 They’re part of the statesman deploying these, this this harmonizing

10:05 sentiments of the day, all these ideas into their arguments

10:08 for liberty and self-government.

10:10 Right? Right.

10:11 No, I think that’s that’s very important.

10:14 You know, we we we look for philosophical consistency

10:18 and a result we tend to emphasize, outside philosophical thinkers.

10:22 You, Locke, is the greatest example of that.

10:25 Locke was important.

10:26 I don’t I don’t downplay Locke,

10:28 but I don’t think it’s right to then say they were quote unquote Locke ians.

10:31 There’s they weren’t

10:33 they weren’t, kind of they weren’t political philosophy students.

10:36 They use what they had at hand, and they had all of these influences.

10:41 And Jefferson pulls it together very, very wonderfully,

10:43 beautifully in his, in his writing, these harmonizing sentiments.

10:47 But they harmonize and that’s very important.

10:50 Yeah.

10:51 One of the things I emphasize in the, in the book, in the

10:53 in the middle of the declaration, there’s a long conversation about prudence.

10:57 And prudence is the virtue of of is political virtue.

11:00 It’s a virtue of the statesman

11:02 which relates, abstract principles to practical circumstances.

11:06 That’s clearly what they were that were doing.

11:10 Right.

11:11 And so speaking of, of one of those, abstract principles.

11:14 So, so you talk a lot about natural law.

11:16 So, what is natural law and,

11:18 and how does it shape the Declaration of Independence.

11:23 Yeah, that’s that’s an important, question.

11:26 Right.

11:26 It really goes back to the kind of the tradition shaping,

11:30 their thinking coming in to the declaration, if you will.

11:33 Although there’s some immediate references in the declaration

11:35 itself, the laws of nature, of nature’s God, for instance.

11:38 But, part of it is to understand the tradition, if you will.

11:42 I mean, the, the Greeks, begin discussions about nature.

11:48 The Romans

11:49 and Cicero, you get the beginnings of what is actually called natural law.

11:53 So it really is pre-Christian, for that matter.

11:56 But then, especially in the Christian tradition, Aquinas in particular,

12:00 and others, you get this development of, this concept of natural law.

12:05 Now, don’t think it is some kind of crazy academic add on,

12:10 but this was the way to think about man and creation and, and,

12:14 the political world around him, which say there’s a nature of things.

12:18 Man has a has reason and can understand it.

12:22 And because of that, understand certain principles, certain, with the declaration

12:28 called self-evident truths, and and reason from that to conclusions

12:34 and, the phrasing they used for those, those truths by nature was natural law.

12:40 Those were laws.

12:41 Now, you can think about it

12:42 in a Christian sense, that those laws were laws or promulgated by God.

12:47 And we understand them by, either

12:50 formal revelation or general revelation, which is through a reason,

12:53 or you can understand it in a, in a, a classical Greek

12:58 or Roman sense, just rational thinking about the nature of things.

13:02 But but that language is, is just throughout their education.

13:06 And more importantly, it’s throughout their pamphlets

13:08 and it’s very clear they’re drawing that in.

13:11 And this, of course, gets us to the Locke question.

13:13 Locke again, is very significant, as is Algernon Sydney, by the way.

13:16 Both of them talk about natural law.

13:20 They also talk about natural. Right.

13:22 There’s there’s is some different, language, additions in the modern era.

13:26 That’s I recognize that.

13:28 But the question then is my in my mind is not what is not what John Locke thought.

13:33 Oh, that’s a very important interesting question.

13:35 It’s what did the American founders think of John Locke?

13:38 How do they use John Locke?

13:39 What do they where do they put John Locke in their pantheon, if you will?

13:43 And I argue that they understood John Locke and Sydney, for that matter.

13:48 In the longer tradition, which was a natural law tradition,

13:51 go back to the Greeks and Romans, also heavily influenced by by Christianity.

13:56 It’s it’s no coincidence, for instance, that the vast majority of the references

14:00 to lock the American founding era are found in sermons.

14:04 They were they they essentially read

14:07 the Christian Locke, the surface Locke, the two treatises.

14:10 Locke.

14:10 They didn’t read the philosophical Locke because they’re not philosophers.

14:13 They’re not political philosophers.

14:14 They’re practical statesmen. They’re trying to build a regime.

14:19 Right.

14:19 So, so you mentioned self-evident truths and how that that flows from

14:23 from the natural law.

14:24 So, you say that the declaration has five self-evident truths.

14:27 I love the way you framed that up.

14:29 Really lays it out nicely. So.

14:31 So what are those five self-evident truths and why are they significant?

14:36 Well, the the general flow of the document is very significant.

14:41 There’s the famous second paragraph, that begins,

14:44 we hold these truths to be self-evident.

14:46 I always like to point out, by the way, that they didn’t say,

14:49 we have some opinions we’d like to share with you.

14:52 They actually start talking about truths, which is very important.

14:57 And truths that are self-evident. Now,

15:00 we also have to think of self-evident that that comes at being a modern idea.

15:04 And it’s used in modern thinking.

15:06 But the most famous, the most famous real,

15:10 use of the concept of self-evident is in Thomas Aquinas.

15:14 And it really goes back to, to Aristotle,

15:17 who, who got it from, kind of logical mathematicians.

15:21 So it’s an older idea which you can understand.

15:23 The mind can understand things.

15:25 And so it is this kind of connects back to his natural law tradition.

15:29 But then I map out

15:30 in the, in the, in the book the five, truths

15:34 because it’s, it’s Jefferson is is is is a student of rhetoric.

15:39 So he’s very good at this we all these truths yourself and even that

15:43 and the word that signals

15:45 that all men are created equal, that they’re endowed by their creator

15:48 with certain animal rights, that among these are life, liberty, and pursuit

15:52 of happiness, that governments are based on consent

15:56 of the governed, and that,

15:59 if if government does not secure these rights, the people,

16:03 have a right to alter, abolish it and institute new government.

16:06 So I just if you look at the document, the way it’s written

16:09 and look at it closely and how it’s structured, he’s very careful with words.

16:13 There’s lots of signaling as to how it’s how it’s organized

16:17 in terms of a, a legal brief, if you will.

16:21 I mean, if the state’s principles,

16:23 then we go through prudence to figure out what to do,

16:25 and then it comes to a conclusion, the end.

16:29 Actually, you know, you just make it so easy to understand,

16:32 you know, for, for, you know, the average American citizen.

16:35 So, so, so I love it.

16:36 So, so you just we just talked about the self-evident truths.

16:42 We hold these truths to be self-evident.

16:44 All men are created equal, like we, most of us, or at least we should,

16:49 but we do know, that the second paragraph of the declaration.

16:53 But we often forget, the list of grievances.

16:56 And you spend, spend a good amount of time there, and I love that.

16:59 So what’s important about this often neglected list of grievances?

17:05 Against the king?

17:06 Yeah.

17:07 Well, I first of all, it’s extremely important.

17:09 It’s it’s it’s the longest section of the whole document, for sure.

17:13 It was the one that was most, amended and debated at the Continental Congress,

17:18 and it was the one that the, the British, especially the the the the king’s men,

17:24 if you will, and the loyalists in America spent most of their time responding to

17:29 so at the time it was the crucial piece, the,

17:32 the famous second paragraph, which we now all know.

17:36 It was it was, a core statement of, of,

17:41 their, their beliefs, and, and had that philosophical

17:46 meaning at the beginning it was always there, but at the time

17:50 it was somewhat, taken for granted is too hard of a phrase, I guess.

17:53 But it was all but it was kind of that was part of them.

17:55 And they had assumed that.

17:56 And so the focus was on the grievances.

18:00 And if you think about it as a legal case, they’ve said, here’s

18:02 what we believe, here’s what we’ve kind of stated our principles.

18:07 And they’re going to conclude later that the king is a tyrant.

18:10 But really, as you would expect in a courtroom where

18:12 what’s what’s the meat of the argument is going through your evidence.

18:15 That’s what the grievances are.

18:17 So, I do spend a lot of time on that.

18:19 And what I do is I try to find this.

18:21 Is this actually probably the longest part of my my research

18:25 because as with, you know, all of us, right?

18:27 We don’t study that stuff as as much.

18:30 What do they mean?

18:31 There are a whole bunch of them.

18:32 There are 20, some 27 or.

18:34 I can’t here the number.

18:35 They don’t seem to be in a pattern.

18:38 There’s not an obvious references.

18:41 There’s no dating.

18:42 They they don’t seem to be in a particular order.

18:47 And so I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what each one of them

18:49 meant and where each one of them came from.

18:51 And then what was the pattern?

18:53 And what I came up with was that it actually does follow a pattern.

18:56 If you break it down into its sections, meaning how it’s based on

19:00 how it’s written, which is the first part is about the king’s abuses of power.

19:05 What was what was the king doing to abuse his own power, against the Americans?

19:11 And then

19:11 the section on the King’s usurpations,

19:14 which is the stuff

19:15 we might more famously recognize, because this is where the King has,

19:19 usurped Americans power

19:21 by allowing Parliament to rule us.

19:25 And so here are references to basically all the laws

19:28 that passed that we object to.

19:31 And then the last part of the, the grievances is about the,

19:35 the King’s, out and out

19:38 violations of, kind of the use of power

19:41 to, to destroy the Americans, to go to war with his own people,

19:45 which famously talks about the Hessians and and, impressing,

19:49 Americans in the, in the, in the British Navy, culminating in the fact

19:53 that he’s a tyrant and he’s, Anyway, so, so I think there is a pattern.

19:57 And if you look at it, and see how it was constructed

20:01 and debated, it’s extremely important.

20:04 It really is the meat of the matter.

20:06 And it also shows you very nicely their practical statesmen

20:09 like thinking about, the particulars, because how you understand the particulars

20:14 and how they tie back to violations of the principles, is extremely important.

20:19 Yeah yeah.

20:20 It’s magnificent.

20:22 I just I’m just thinking, you know, I read it.

20:24 I don’t know how many times in my life, but.

20:26 And taught it and and and thought about it

20:28 and written about it for better I and my books and and yet,

20:32 you know, you’ve given me a new way to look at it, so.

20:36 Well, they’ve said I’ve done my job.

20:38 Yeah. So, Yeah.

20:40 So so you call the final part of the declaration it’s closing argument.

20:44 And this is what I really love.

20:45 And it’s basically a quote that the colonists saw themselves as a people,

20:50 as a nation, and as fellow citizens.

20:53 So I thought that was really magnificent way to put it.

20:55 Can you please explain, your understanding of that?

20:58 Yeah.

20:59 Well, part of that is, you know, I’m going through the declaration.

21:02 There’s been this long section on grievances, and then the last

21:06 the very last paragraph is, is actually pretty straightforward.

21:09 We we there for the representatives.

21:11 It’s the formal statement of, of their independence, at the end

21:16 of which they famously, pledge each other the lives, their fortunes, sacred honor.

21:20 Very beautiful price of the most beautiful line in the declaration.

21:23 But it took me a while to figure out there’s there’s this short paragraph

21:26 in between there.

21:27 It I couldn’t do for a while.

21:29 Figure out why was it there?

21:31 Jefferson doesn’t waste words.

21:33 The Congress cut it back by 25

21:36 to 30% to their, you know, the the worthless words are not there.

21:41 They were. It’s always been.

21:43 Why was that section there?

21:44 It famously talks about our British brethren.

21:47 Right.

21:47 And what it what it’s,

21:50 I concluded is that it was not actually intended

21:54 to be about the British per se, but it was actually intended to be about about us.

21:58 And the the declaration begins by we’re in the course of human events.

22:02 What people

22:05 is interesting as well, because the declaration assumes

22:08 we are already a people.

22:11 It it’s already there.

22:13 And so at the end of the declaration, they then come back to this question

22:16 of a people, the British are brethren which say we’re related to them.

22:21 Where there are ancestors, there are,

22:25 literally our brethren, our, our fathers, our uncles, we are related to them

22:29 that will continue, enemies in war, you know, in

22:33 in peace, friends.

22:36 But the British are not referred to as a people.

22:40 The Americans are a people.

22:42 And that that struck me as very important.

22:45 And I dug into that and found that throughout their writings,

22:49 throughout the writings of Congress, the Americans are always a people,

22:52 and the British are not a people.

22:53 They’re subjects of their brethren.

22:56 But it’s something different.

22:58 So you have to understand the extent to which the declaration

23:01 assumes an argument about what it means to be a people.

23:04 It has some do with place.

23:05 It has something to do with circumstances and common sufferings.

23:09 As Jay says in Federalist two.

23:11 But it ultimately has something to do with what are the what are the things,

23:15 we hold in common, and around which we are going to build our regime?

23:22 And and that’s actually what the,

23:23 the declaration is, is a statement of those things

23:27 by which we are a people

23:29 and by extension, those things, meaning that the British

23:33 are not a people in that sense, because they’re subjects indeed.

23:38 The declaration says they are death.

23:40 They are death to our claim of rights

23:44 because they don’t understand them, because they are not self-governing.

23:48 Individuals.

23:50 So I think the people and the people then becoming citizens.

23:54 And that term really begins in the declaration’s idea of citizen.

23:57 But of course, that’s not formalized until later once we get,

24:01 your constant state constitutions are formed,

24:05 and then and then eventually the federal constitution.

24:09 Right. Excellent.

24:10 So as we wrap up here, early in the book, you described

24:14 the declaration as a severance in the relationship of Great Britain.

24:17 I mean, it’s declaring independence, but you say it’s much more than that.

24:21 So more importantly, you call it the,

24:23 quote, the defining statement of America’s meaning and purpose.

24:27 So as we wrap up, in a nutshell, what is that mean?

24:34 Nothing’s in a nutshell.

24:35 Right right.

24:36 Well,

24:38 one thing is it always struck me again, you know, in going through the declaration

24:41 and I encourage everything to read it again.

24:43 We write millions of times.

24:44 Read it again, carefully and slowly.

24:47 Throughout the declaration, there are 3 or 4 places

24:50 where they talk about, their independence.

24:54 But it’s always presented in a twofold way, which is out there.

24:58 They are severing themselves from the British and creating a new government.

25:02 They have a right to alter, abolish and begin a new government.

25:07 There’s it’s always a two fold expression.

25:09 It’s never merely a breaking down.

25:11 It’s not revolutionary in that sense.

25:13 So there’s always other side.

25:16 And which is why I, by the way, I like to refer to it as the American

25:19 founding, as opposed to the American Revolution,

25:23 although it was a revolution in its in its own way.

25:25 But it goes to this other question about what were they ultimately trying to do,

25:29 and they all trying to to lay the groundwork for a much larger

25:34 and, bigger, a nation, a country, a regime.

25:40 But it was a regime based on a new way of thinking, a new set of principles,

25:44 which is why it’s radical in the sense of going back to the root.

25:47 And those new principles would be the ground for a future government,

25:50 which they didn’t have yet, which later takes us to the Constitution.

25:55 And that sense and it’s very clear, especially if you read,

25:57 you know, Hancock, said this to when he sent a letter out to the,

26:01 all the other colonies about the declaration.

26:05 It’s meant to be the thing around which we are going to build a nation.

26:08 So it’s in that it’s it’s a statement of principle.

26:12 And then if you start thinking of that so it doesn’t.

26:14 So when we say we hold these truths

26:15 to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,

26:17 that’s not just the grounds upon which we’re going

26:20 to sever ourselves from England, because they denied our rights.

26:23 It’s saying we’re going to build a nation

26:27 on those principles,

26:29 that all men are created equal, they’re endowed with rights.

26:32 And among these are life, liberty through consent,

26:34 so that those, those then become the principles

26:37 upon which American government is going to be built.

26:41 And so the declaration of the Constitution

26:43 are kind of two sides of the same coin.

26:45 They always have to be.

26:46 They always were historically, and they always have to be going forward.

26:51 You can’t have a constitution unless you have the

26:52 the precursor ideas behind it.

26:56 And,

26:57 you know, that is extremely, extremely important

27:01 in ancient thinking and, and Plato’s Laws and in particular,

27:05 you know, there’s a reference to you before the law.

27:09 You have to have the, the precursors law a, a, a prior

27:14 to a philosophical statement behind the law.

27:18 And I think that’s what the declaration is like.

27:20 That’s what they understood it to be.

27:21 It’s the place that you said, here, here I agree.

27:24 So, Matt, delightful conversation.

27:27 Thank you so much. Thank you.

27:29 Thank you for joining me to discuss the Declaration of Independence.

27:32 So important, so relevant today as we celebrate America 250.

27:37 It always has been very important in our American creed,

27:40 but also, hopefully for the next 250 years.

27:43 No, thank you for that. Thank you for the conversation.

27:46 Thank you for your nice words about the book.

27:48 And, thank you for all your work, by the way, as well.

27:51 Well, thank you.

27:51 We’re we’re doing a few good things that are very to.

27:54 So that’s great. Thanks.

27:55 All right.

27:55 So, thank you all for joining us as well.

27:58 On this episode of Scholar Talks.

28:00 Please check out the other episodes.

28:03 Scholar talks in the America 250 series on our channel and click subscribe.

28:09 Thanks.