The Founders' Key - Larry P. Arnn

[Music] good evening everyone my name is David Bob I'm the director of the Kirby Center Hillsdale College it's a great pleasure to welcome you all this evening to tonight's first principals on First Fridays lecture by dr. Larry Arne 12th president of Hillsdale College whether you're with us here on Capitol Hill in the Kirby Center Steve and Cindy Van Andel lecture hall or watching via webcast we are glad that you've joined us tonight one year ago Hillsdale formally opened the doors of the Kirby Center some 40 years ago the college sent its first student intern to the nation's capital as part of the Washington Hillsdale internship program 167 years ago Hillsdale College began its existence with a statement of gratitude grateful to God for the inestimable blessings resulting from the prevalence of civil and religious liberty and intelligent piety in the land and believing that the diffusion of sound learning is essential to the perpetuity of those blessings the founders of the college stated that the Hillsdale would be committed to best develop the minds and improve the hearts of the students Hillsdale College operates today with this end firmly in mind so that we as citizens young and old alike might live worthy of those in estimable blessings in formulating the college's mission Hill sales founders drew deeply upon the wisdom of America's founders and it does that wisdom tonight which dr. Arnn will address as his topic his forthcoming book has a short title and a long subtitle the founders key the divine and natural connection between the Declaration and the Constitution and what we risk by losing it it promises what it for its readers what his students at the college receive in class a careful consideration of what it means to be a human being what it means to be a citizen and what is stake what is at stake today for our nation to introduce dr. Arnn this evening I now ask to come forward Hillsdale College senior and politics major Nicholas young strim this semester he's as part of the Washington Hillsdale internship program interning in the office of House Speaker John Boehner Nick [Applause] hello everyone dr. Larry P Arnn became the 12th president of Hillsdale College in 2000 he received his bachelor's at Arkansas State University and his master's and PhD in government from the Claremont Graduate School from 1985 to 2000 he he was served as president of the Claremont Institute he is the author of Liberty and learning the evolution of America's education and the founders key which is the topic of today's speech please join me in welcoming dr. Larry our [Applause] Thank You Nick thank you David thank you all for being here we're here in Washington DC which as you know is the center and creator of everything in the universe and so I thought I should direct our attention elsewhere first of all the chairman of our board is here and he's about the greatest guy that ever was and his name is William J brought back and he's right there and the second thing is sad we're here in the Steve and Cindy Van Andel lecture hall dedicate a year ago and Cindy Van Andel was I am sorry to say one of the most beautiful 57 year-old woman I ever saw in my life you can look at the picture back there it's recent she's a gorgeous person she's kind and caring and sweet and everyone testifies to her goodness and she died four days ago and her husband Steve she's a 1975 graduate of Hillsdale College her husband Steven ándale who's chairman of Vania van wey and was the president of the United States Chamber of Commerce he's a member of our board is a member of our Executive Committee is a wonderful man and we send him our condolences she died of cancer and six weeks notice and we grieve for that very much to prove that Washington DC is not the center nor the maker of the known universe I can tell you that the most important thing that's happening in the country tonight is happening in San Bernardino California because they're the Hillsdale College charger ladies volleyball team is in the semi-finals for the national championship [Applause] at 10:30 Eastern Time 7:30 Pacific time you can go to the NC double-a website and navigate to the women's volleyball page and you'll find a link there and you can watch the match for free and you will marvel I mean a Cal State San Bernardino is the undefeated number one ranked team in the country and they're the hosts of the tournament and that's who we're playing tonight to see who gets to the final and they look really fearsome to me but our girls will look both beautiful and fearsome to you I think and I'll tell you something odd about those girls so I can brag on them a little bit they're all students these girls and the guarantee of that is that radical thing that we do at Hillsdale College about half our curriculum a little more than half is made up in the core curriculum and that is the study of the great books and the natural sciences and the languages and it's very difficult and everybody has to take it and it doesn't make any difference who you are and that means come to Hillsdale College you got to be a student so those lovely powerful girls that you'll watch on the thing if you go look and there'll be a lot more entertaining than I will be tonight they're very smart and if they weren't they'd flunk out so go girls do great and I'm not finished to writing Washington yet there's still one more thing I have to say there's something you're forbidden to do in Washington now and nobody knows how we became forbidden to do it it just happened there was a time when everybody did it long about this time of year and then you couldn't do it anymore and if you do it it's kind of crass it's not quite right to do it you can surmise that I'm about to do it whatever that thing is but I want to call attention to the fact before I do it that I'm not supposed to do it and that will lead me into what I want to say to you tonight I can tell you the reason why I'm going to do it there are three reasons and they are the three purposes of Hillsdale College come to find out the college was founded in 1844 as d-bob said sorry dr. David Bob the director of the one of the vice presidents at the college is named Richard Pei Wei he's big tall long thin guy so I call him mr. pee-wee so Dee Bob said that we have this mission at Hillsdale College written before the Civil War it's very beautiful and one of my points is going to be that beautiful things are the most important things there are they matter more than anything else and they are also the most commanding and compelling things there are and I'm going to argue that it is the deprivation of the beautiful things that is the cause of the despotism that is surely coming upon us except that we're going to stop it because of the power of beautiful things and our college was founded in service of these beautiful things and all of the marvels that it's worked in its hundred seventy years including the marvel of this building a recent marvel including the marvel of that painting a recent marvel including every lovely thing you see around us was called forth by these beautiful things and the College was built upon precisely three of them and they are contained in one sentence the opening sentences the college's founding document as I say it's a beautiful document people have died for the meaning of that document people from our College they risked their lives for the meaning of that document two of them were chosen to bear Lincoln's body from the Springfield railway station to his grave because they had risk mortal injury at Gettysburg and won the Congressional Medal of Honor there in the name of the principles of that document and the principles as I say are just three and they are by the way just like the principles of our country the first principle is that we stand up for what we call civil and religious freedom that's stated in the first and that that that good I can tell you is America's gift to the world first realized here actually as George Bush said better than I once it's not America's gift to the world it's God's gift to man we love freedom at Hillsdale College including the religious kind and for that reason we've always been open to everyone this room and this broadcast is always open to everyone of any faith if they're a person of good will and you will get a Christmas card from us and it's called that and it contains a quote from George Washington on it every year and the quote is from the first letter that a chief executive of any country ever wrote to some Jews greeting them as equal citizens outside Israel that is it is now no more he says that we speak of religious toleration as if it were by the indulgence of some that others enjoy their inherent natural rights that's the first purpose of our College it's the reason we stand up for freedom it's the reason that we've always believed that you can't take account of anybody's color when you do things like admit them to college because skin color is not a qualification to think and we've always done that always fought for that some of those people who died for the Union Army in the Civil War had heard Fred Douglas give a speech on our campus if you look at a book of photographs of Fred Douglass one of the most famous of them any good book was is a photograph that was taken in central hall which still stands on our campus that's the first the second it says the articles is that we stand for intelligent piety that means we don't like impiety and we don't like dumb piety God is the kind of being that would be really good to know something about and if you study hard enough you can figure out some things about it in fact some of the greatest proofs for the existence of God are rational alone and those proofs tended to strengthen faith and our College it says in these same articles that begins with the devotion to civil and religious freedom and intelligent piety that the teaching of the Christian faith by precept and exam well shall remain a conspicuous name of our college and it is that today and it shall be that tomorrow and the third thing about the college that you need to know is that it says that sound learning is necessary to the preservation of these blessings of civil and religious freedom and intelligent piety and what is sound learning it names what it is it's learning that is literary scientific and theological in its divisions and it's learning that improves the hearts and develops the minds of the students in other words it produces through its operation the moral and the intellectual virtues now I'm going to claim after I do this thing that I'm not supposed to do that it is actually the loss of that kind of learning that is responsible for the impending death of freedom in our country and that to get that back is the only thing that can call us back to the preservation of that freedom Merry Christmas [Applause] Christmas brings up the eternal and the urgent it is about the contact of God with earth one of the two contacts in the Christian faith and it is this connection and difference between the eternal and the urgent that is at issue today in American politics it's easy to say and it's true if you had to name what made the United States of America if you reasoned about it for a few minutes you'd have to come up any list of five would have to include two things and one is the Dec Royce of Independence and the other is the Constitution the United States and those two things are different in their nature because have you ever thought about the difference between them the difference is obvious on its face this book that I've written by the way you won't I don't know I think I'm not supposed to say that you won't need to read it if you listen carefully tonight on behalf of my publisher I said you must still read the book on pain of strapping I said there's a connection between them but the connection is not obvious and it's very commonly divine didn't deny it because first of all have you ever noticed the Declaration of Independence is very beautifully written and the Constitution United States is not do you ever read of it you ever think about that when you read them I mean the preamble to the Constitution is pretty good but there isn't anything quite like the claim that there are laws of nature and of nature's God that these entitle us to rights that are fundamental and apply to every one of us whenever and wherever we are born that's a very remarkable thing to happen and it speaks exactly and precisely and repeatedly in the name of eternity and it's in a very urgent situation that it does this but that's what it does it's it's incredible the scope and breadth of the thing and that's not as incredible as the height of the thing never been anything in politics done quite like that of course it's a very dramatic thing to have done because it ends with this death pledge if the beginning is Universal and grand and elevated all the way up to heaven the end of it is in that room you know maybe a time and a half as get a big as this room where 55 or so people are gathered and where they mutually pledge to each other their lives their fortunes and their sacred honor I have to interrupt myself and say that I just saw walk in here one of my students who has recently graduated from Yale Law School and he's come here tonight to remind him what the Constitution United States means a Morell see the Alumni Association will be all over him there from from Yale so that's the declaration right and what happens in the Constitution what happens in the Constitution is there's all these details there are seven articles you know the Senators will be this age and serve this long and represented this way and on and on and on it goes right and there's bills of attainder and coining money and all that stuff and it's not glorious it isn't when in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands that have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them is that not complete and dispositive and eternal and by the way it's because the Constitution differs from the language of the Declaration that an opportunity has been found an opportunity to sever them to divide the one from the other I have a quote that I like that explains how it does this is from Joseph Ellis historian do you guys know who that is he's good he's a very good guy thank must be a wonderful man I don't know him but this piece of writing here I'm about to read to you is indefensible here's what he writes he follows by the way most historians and writing this there were really two founding moments the first in 1776 which declared American independence and the second in 1787 88 which declared American nationhood by the way I'm not going to talk about it but that sentence by itself doesn't work the decorative independence is the seminal document in the first instance the Constitution in the second the former the Declaration is a radical document that locates sovereignty in the individual and depicts government as an alien force making rebellion against it a natural act now I swear that this fella is a teacher in a major university a college actually the latter the Constitution is a conservative document that locates sovereignty and that collective called the people makes government and essential protector of Liberty rather than its enemy and values social balance over personal liberation now the consequence of that kind of talk by the way because if it's really true that there were two foundings and one is about the eternal rights of man and the other is about the specific structure and manner in which we will be governed and they're not connected what follows automatically it means we can organize our government in the old way we want to the Speaker of the House two years ago was asked by a journalist you can hear a recording of the interview on the internet now the journalist was from CNN I'll send you the reference if you ask me where in the Constitution do you get the authority to require person to buy health care and the response was quote are you serious are you serious now by the way on the Sunday afternoon when they passed the whatever that dang thing is called Patient Protection and Affordable something something the Obama care bill Nancy Pelosi read with great respect from the Declaration of Independence she got that wrong too but she admires that thing right she gets to make it a mean whatever she wants it to mean but the Constitution did by the way to which she personally swore an oath as a condition of holding office is an afterthought or a negation and that's made possible by the fact that there were two founding moments the one a radical document that locates sovereignty in the individual and depicts government as an alien force now the declaration independence is a little less than 1500 words long and it is divided into three sections in the first section is a proclamation of some universal principles and the second section is some charges against the king and those are very important I'm going to talk about those a few for a few minutes and the third section is about implementing the thing that is to say we hereby declare that this thing means this thing all this stuff we said before and we are prepared to die for it that's the end universal particular particular that's the structure of the Declaration about 1500 words long that's about twice as long is an op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal in other words it's not a great feat of scholarship to master its words anybody who hadn't read it could do it tonight before they go sleep the former document is a radical document that locates sovereignty in the individual and depicts government is an alien force making rebellion against it a natural act I can't find it the first charge against the king in the list of 17 he has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good I think what it means that Thomas Jefferson enlisting the reasons that justify the rebellion picks that is the first one in other words we are not rebelling because government is an alien force we are rebelling because it has not been provided to us in other words exactly opposite the point and explicit and hidden they're buried in a vast document of fewer than 1500 words now it's not just that one accidental thing it's over and over it says it what is the first right that is proclaimed in the back course of Independence I just recited it when in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands that have connected them with another for one people people that's in the plural right it's not an individual right it's the right of a people and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature a people is entitled to form and provide government for itself and so that means by the way that it's obvious and it's profoundly true in every line because there's no line in the debt course of Independence that one can read to interpret it to say government is an alien force the exact price of Independence is interested in government and it's interested therefore necessarily in how the government should be arranged and come to find out that's important and I'll tell you why it's important because we've gotten ourselves into the most remarkable mess these days are you we're Merry Christmas it the nature of the mass goes this away the part of the Constitution that we celebrate the most is article 1 section 8 in article 1 section 8 lists the things that the Congress can do and so to return to the Constitution is to return to those things but to return to those things is impossible at least in the short or intermediate term and the reason is education is not among those things and healthcare is not among those things and retirement benefits is not among those things and welfare is not among those things right and that by the way I just named most of the government of the United States and we have made enormous investments in those things and we can't really lose the investments I mean you know we it is true they have very significant net deficits those things but there's been a lot of assets put into them too and so the American people are not going to vote and ought not to vote by the way to simply dissolve all those things overnight and that means if you're a constitutionalist how you gonna go about being that I don't know well actually I tell you I do and in a minute you will because I thought about that for a long time and I thought there needs to be something we can do that sets us on the road back to where we need to be and since we're not gonna abolish Medicare you know the the Paul Ryan plan which you know I adore that guy I and ice you know it's not my business to support or not support the Paul Ryan plan I haven't read the dang thing although you know I know its main outlines but if you know its main outlines you know it's not justified by article 1 section 8 of the Constitution so what are you gonna do if that comes up for vote you're gonna vote for it or not and I guess if I were in the Congress I would so what can you do is there something about the Constitution that has a dignity today that we could support today and come to find out there's a constitutional understanding written in this middle section of the Declaration of Independence and it specifically emphasizes the main features of the Constitution as it was later written so the Declaration of Independence is interested in government and it explains how it ought to be set up in that something did you ever hear that before me neither so now I've lost my specs and I've lost my place but I'll get straight now I'm going to name three things that are constitutional in the Declaration of Independence that seemed to me according to it necessary to free government and by the way notice the character of these things because the way the debt crisis of Independence is written it begins by an assertion that we humans in our equality that means above the beasts and below the divine that we humans have a natural authority to organize government according to the way we want and then it goes and says we're right to do this in these circumstances because the king has done these things and it doesn't say it doesn't say he did them after he agreed not to do them it's just the fact that he did them that makes them wrong anytime such things are done they are invasive of the rights of man and that list is very pregnant with meaning for the shape of a constitution if he just read that read it and here's what one of them is he has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance it's not the only one that's a famous one right don't you like that one by the way thank God nothing like that's going on today because because we'd be in a world of hurt if something like that was happening now in fact by the way the richest Society in the history of man by a lot teeters on insolvency and what were they worried about back then what had been going on right why did the king do that the story of the revolution is replete with the reason the point is in 1763 the British won a back and big war and they became the great world power and they decided we're gonna run these colonies they've been costing us a lot we're gonna we're gonna govern these things and so they started telling them what they were I have to do and by the way they started passing laws that Kings had been beheaded for trying to pass in British history to apply to the to the Americans and the Americans said wait you can't do this and so the king did what they do he passed a bunch of taxes and he used it to hire a bunch of people to force them right and so now the government is going to overwhelm the society and do you think that didn't make them angry he is kept among us in times of peace standing armies without the consent of our legislatures he is affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power he has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution by the way the claim is made by Thomas Jefferson that the colonies already have a constitution and they have one unacknowledged by our laws giving his assent to their acts for quartering large bodies of troops among us so in Boston Harbor this big sailing ships come in and what gets off them except soldiers with bayonets clanking and a rip that says that we get to stay in the barracks of your militia and if that won't hold us we get to say in your public houses and if that won't hold us we get to stay in your homes so you see the government is to overwhelm the private society and I want you to understand I'm gonna make a lot of that fact this is to be the first great liberal society in all of history the first great free society and the first condition of that is that the free society be large and the government be small now across the street at the Heritage Foundation they keep these numbers better than I can keep them and when they tell me what they're I can't remember them so forgive me if I get them wrong but I don't think I will I think the gross domestic product of the United States is about 15 trillion dollars Matt Spaulding's there he's laughing if I get this wrong but Matt Matt's not the kind of guy we'll know either I think it's about 15 trillion dollars and I think that state federal and local spending is close to seven trillion and if I'm not mistaken half of fifteen trillion is seven and a half and Obamacare is coming and is that not said to be twelve percent of the GDP or something like that can you see that it's possible that the government might be about to become larger in economic terms than the private society and by the way that's not constitutionalism because how's the constitution itself written except that the powers that are not delegated are held by the people and they have only given certain ones and that's the whole structure of the Constitution but I'm saying that a breach of that fact is one of the causes of the American Revolution we should have a liberal society and that means a large and thriving and vibrant private sector for example liberal arts colleges you know ours was started in 1844 and that makes it you know about two-thirds of the way back in age it means a lot of them were started before and you know they made it on their own until about 1965 and thought they were doing a great service cuz you know I'm saying we had about a hundred boys at the Battle of Gettysburg and when Joshua Reynolds said to his adjutant we're gonna run down that road and we're gonna get there in time and two-thirds of them were dead by nightfall it means a hundred students from a little bitty liberal arts college that nobody had ever taught anything military to they just taught them to love freedom like today we do that they were in that bunch and they ran down that road and most of them died now the government didn't pay any money to get that to happen but it was right that it didn't because the government actually belongs to the people it is our responsibility it is not some large thing from which we take it is there to be there for us and so the first precept of constitutional rule is that we should have a limited government and for goodness sake couldn't we agree that the government ought not to be larger than the rest of the society and if a person couldn't agree to that then he would have to admit that he is not in favor of Liberal government but the declaration independence says that we have a right to that and it says that if we are that is deprived if we are deprived of that it says that we declare to such people who attempt to do that our independence and we will hold them in peace friends and in war enemies once you have a liberal society to additional Marvel's become possible they're the most awesome thing and they never happened anywhere in human history until they happened here not either one of them the first one is if it's true that there's this big society and they can own the government then something becomes possible that's not possible otherwise and that is the authority over government can be outside government you see sovereignty James Madison says that first time in history sovereignty is to say the legitimate title to rule is entirely located outside the government and then government can be and this is my second point the first is limited with sovereignty outside the second one is the government can be representative and that has some big benefits that are simply huge and the main ones are to the first one is in the government and remember it's the position of the Declaration of Independence that the government needs to be powerful big enough to win Wars big enough to protect us from Osama bin Laden by killing that man which is what he needed you know he's a much better fella than he used to be but if the power to control it is outside then everybody working in that powerful thing can work for someone outside that's the first benefit but the second one is they say in Sunday school is like unto it and that is I'm gonna close by saying why you have to have all these arrangements according to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution but a little portent is just simple if there's a problem with the government being too powerful that's because the government is constituted by people but we're people too so that means we shouldn't be too powerful either and if we are sovereign but we're in an entirely representative system we can't do anything today except argue and grump and carry on like I'm doing right now but that's good for us because it means that we get used to thinking before we act because we have to wait for election time you know two months ago we might have elected Herman Cain president probably not now and I'm you know I don't mean to criticize him he was just on the campus I'm just saying people got a minute to think about it and facts were revealed or maybe they were I don't really know and and and so we can chew on that we can think before we act and that's good for us but by the way think what it means about the liberal society because if you set things up that way as Madison says that was done for the first time in history in the United States of America it does mean that the only way the the sovereign can control the government is through elections whereas in Athens the people would meet and cast a vote or in England the king was sovereign and he would be the executive branch in our case the only way we can do it is we wait for elections but by the way what's going on with elections the government's very big now isn't it and its retainers are very big players in elections another reason why you need a liberal society because you could see how if the elections are dominated by people inside the government or was interest connected to the government sovereignty could move inside the government so you see that's a fundamental constitutional arrangement and it is threatened by the growth of government it's a purely representative form made possible by a liberal society where the government is not so big that it can send swarms of officials to eat out our substance and harass our people but by the way the third thing is simple and that is once it's a representative form then it can delegate the authority of the people to different places and what becomes possible because of that separation of powers and you know about both representation and separation of powers neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution can shut up for a minute many of the offences that the king has worked are interfering with representative assemblies and he even even accused him of this he says okay I won't let any law be passed to take care of this problem you've got unless you give up the right to representation and he said and there in Jefferson writes of that formidable only to tyrants and he also writes of it incapable of annihilation it must go back to the people if there's no law to doubt to set up representation they take up to put the power to govern directly then and so if you have representation you can have separation of powers now did you ever count the clauses of the Constitution and think what they're about there are seven one of them is about how you ratify the Constitution one of them is about how you amend the Constitution and one of them is about the transition from the Constitution to the articles from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution and that leaves four that are about the regular operations of the government now in the Declaration they're very critical of the king because he keeps interfering with judges for example that's the worst offense the worst single thing that the government can do is get between a judge and a citizen because you see what that protection is and how sacred that is if the if the Congress passes the law but it can't execute it it takes somebody elected by some other means to execute it if that happens that's protection but then if the person in the executive branch reaches out his hand and grabs you and says I'm gonna put you in the pokey and take your property you need a judge and he needs to be serving for life and he needs to be just the kind of guy who will say to the executive stick it and you know in England where my wife comes from and to whom the Declaration of Independence is addressed what's all that about right they forgot the lessons they learned Charles the second was Charles the first was dead not around to remind them so you see separation of powers of the four that are left article one is about the legislature Article two is about the executive branch article three is about the judges an article four is mainly about the states and by the way those are the four places to which the government of the United the people the sovereign people of America delegate their governing authorities now you may think well that still works right of course the states but it doesn't because you know what's happened that changes both the representative character of the government and separation of powers do you ever hear the fourth branch of government does a guy who teaches at Harvard Law School Klarman is his name and you know Robert Byrd got through a law that says that if you take money from the federal government near a college you have to have an annual Constitution Day celebration so all the colleges have now and so they all invite speakers to come and tell the students how bad the Constitution is and Mark Michael Klarman gave such a thing in 2010 I think it was and he says the Constitution is very evil we can't follow what he gives for reasons but then one of the reasons he says is that the Constitution doesn't allow for this new fourth branch of government the administrative state in other words the bureaucracy and what's the point about these bureaucracies by the way why are they favored why are they the darling of modern liberalism they don't represent anybody and they hold all three of the powers of government in their own hands if Boeing doesn't like the National Labor Relations Board telling it that it can't make Dreamliner's in South Carolina first of all Obama he's quoted in the paper well I can't do anything about it it's a regulatory agency he appointed you know a majority on the board and doubtless they're doing what he wants but he can't really make them nor can anybody but if Boeing wants to protest about it they have to do by the way exactly what Hillsdale College had to do when it didn't like the Department of Education going after it in 1974 it had to sue the Department of Education now see that's a great sounding phone we had to sue the Department of Education before it was in health education and welfare before a functionary appointed by the Department of Health Education and Welfare taking his salary enjoying his tenure from the same administration that had come against us and you know what they did they did exactly the kind of thing the King dud used to do to the colonists they were located right here in the center of the universe in Washington the District of Columbia and we were located in Hillsdale Michigan so of course they held the hearings in Denver Colorado and the reason is hard to get farther away without going to California and I guess the guys wanted it might have been the winner maybe they wanted to ski and see they're spending the taxpayers money and we're spending our own and then we had to sue and fight with those guys for years and spend our money to get a ruling from one of their functionaries and you know didn't work out very well wonder of wonders you know why is 80 abandoned its attempt to take over whatever it is t-mobile I don't even know if I want them to do that I don't even care what I care about is somebody has decided that many billion dollar thing and who is that somebody and where is the separation of powers and where are the checks and balances and doesn't that tell us something we could do now couldn't we take those three things limited government surely the government ought to be less than half of the economy and representation surely this fourth branch of government should become representative and separation of powers surely all of these rules that they make and enforce the making and the execution and the enforcement should not all be in the same hand and by the way if we could do those things we would have our safety back we wouldn't quite have our Constitution back but we would have our safety back and then we could work on the Constitution and then we would be in following the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution together and I'll tell you finally what the sanction is for those things come to find out when James Madison is explaining in the most beautiful places where explains why the Constitution is written the way it is in one place he says it is our reason that should be placed in control of the government our passions must be controlled by it you know the best thing I'm doing this term I'm teaching 17 students Aristotle's Nicomachean ethics we finished yesterday it's just about the most fun people can have without getting arrested and it was it was sublime fun to do with these young people see and they want to be good they want to learn to have a good character and the summation of that book could not be better made than saying that it is the reason of man that must be placed in control of his passions and Madison knew that and he wrote the Constitution to be a reflection of that and then in another place about the reason why the government and by the way that means that we - every one of us we're all human we can't just do whatever we want we can't be given the power just to do that but then what about the government and its claims that it can be trusted with any power whatsoever and it can do today is the day when the ocean ceased rising and the planet began to heal but that's a strange you ever read the first paragraph of Bill Clinton's first inaugural address we meet here in the Bleak of winter but by what we say and the faces we show the world we can force the spring nature itself is asked to bend isn't it not the laws of nature and of nature's God Medicine says about nature that the reason the constitution must be organized the way it must be is because we require to be governed because we are not angels if men were angels no government would be needed but if angels were to govern men neither internal nor external controls on the government would be necessary I said that the Declaration of Independence begins in heaven doesn't that prove that the Constitution the United States ends there and doesn't that prove that in the end and finally they are the same document and we're going to get them back or we're going to lose our freedom and we're gonna live like barbarians but we're not gonna let that happen [Applause] yes sir dr. Arnn thank you so much for a lovely Christmas present you're a lecturer and you're thinking you alluded to but maybe you would expand a bit on the problems of our representatives passing laws to which the bureaucracy then writes seven or eight hundred regulations to carry them out well I am happy not to have ever witnessed this process but I read about it the Obamacare bill in the dodd-frank financial regulation bill I think they're both two thousand pages long we only have the evidence of a few explorers who claim active actually to have read either of those acts so let's say they're 2,000 pages long well the agencies there they're really only blueprint documents and so the agencies are busy in fact right now making the rules and that's a vast log rolling process right everybody shows up now we're making rules and what what do industries do while that's going on they support and they trade their support in exchange for a seat at the table and then they make many many many more pages than the original 2,000 pages of rules and I'll tell you how that you know my first a practical encounter of that was I was hard at by Bill broad back at Hillsdale College in 2000 and I hung in green and stupid and I thought you know what I'm gonna do I'm gonna read title four of the Higher Education Act because that's the thing that we're giving up several million dollars a year not to have to abide by I'd like to know what I get it for the money for not having the money and so I called our lawyer we I don't think we still have him I hope not but for years and years we kept a lobbyist in town whose job was to keep the government from giving us any money it cost 30 or 40 grand a year to make that happen and a good good person to and I called him up and I said you know I want you to send me title four of the Higher Education Act if that is in fact the part that we are escaping by not taking all this dough and he said no use no use in my sending it and I said why not and he said well you won't be able to read it you know he's like Morell back there from Yale Law School right he thinks thinks he's real smart and I said I said well you know reasonably intelligent man maybe I can't read it what are you a lawyer and and he said no I said I can't read it either we keep a specialist to read it and she's actually the only person I ever met who can read it now Madison says in the 73rd Federalist that if the laws are so voluminous are changeable that you can't read them then it doesn't matter if they're made by the rod for right process and you know that's a feature of constitutional rule I'll mention it you know one reason why Hillsdale College you know there's a bunch of people here who work at Hillsdale College and you know I got no idea what they've been doing today except probably they've been doing really well because they're very good people and because in Hillsdale College we all know what we're about and we and the reason is we keep it simple you know I said at the beginning there three things I had an accreditor say to me one time I've never been anywhere in 30 years where everybody could tell me what the mission statement was how did you do that and I said I'm done she said who did it and I said well we all did it and she said how did you do it and I said we run the college out of it it's simple right that's constitutional rule it disperses power and invites people to cooperate it's the reason it works it fits with human nature whereas we're proving it right now in America you can't be rich enough to sustain a process like this and I'll tell you one more thing go read the North I'm sorry go read the Northwest Ordinance to go read the Homestead Act those are the two greatest pieces of statute law I've ever read one of them sets up the mechanism by which the United States of America will grow across the continent and it's a unique document it's very beautiful document and the Homestead Act gives away 10% of the land air of the United States two for free to about two million people the Homestead Act is about the length of the Declaration of Independence about thirteen hundred and fifty words words not pages words giving away that much land the Northwest Ordinance is under 4,000 words and and you know it sets up governments it's very complex right but they thought it should be simple and that's a that's a key thing we should learn the art of constitutional legislation again we have lost that art and so we can't imagine running anything without somebody off somewhere heck and gone away making a bunch of rules yeah yes sir was the first american statesman to sever the two documents okay did you hear that that's good question what wilson was sort of against both of them and and franklin roosevelt you've got go read the Commonwealth address there's a you know there's by the way we're about to publish our Constitution reader for anybody to buy I think it's in David winds are gonna be available do you know it's in January the month of January no more delays we're slowest Christmas at doing fundamental things but that's because they're fundamental and if you read it you'll find that more than half of the documents in the Constitution reader are written by people who are enemies of the Constitution the United States and two Federalists Confederates such as that and progressives and so Wilson's idea was it's all outmoded the founding itself the declaration independence he says is accountable to an aid is written for an age accountable to Newton but now we have Darwin right so it's obsolete it's passe and the Constitution is just as bad every bit as bad because it constructs a government the way you he writes the way we construct an orrery you turn a crank and the planets go around the Sun you know little change where old people like make and remember these things and and a chain and then the moon goes around the earth right that's an order II and he says our governments like an Ori and it won't work so we got to get rid of both of them and what Roosevelt did I in in my reading and the reading of many friends of mine have been working on this for a long time and I'll interrupt myself just to say this remember there's an incredible work of recovery that's been going on for a long time and one of its focal points is that Hillsdale College and you know Claremont California across the street of heritage there a lot of places where good work is being done to try to figure out how did it work what was the point of it what about all these charges against it are they true what Roosevelt did this scholarship says and it's reflected in this constant you can read it in original source stuff too by the way not what I say about it Roosevelt figured out that the Declaration of Independence is a kind of magic it's very powerful and he sung its music and he made it mean something different and it won't work it's just like Nancy Pelosi who follows him when she speaks of the Dec Royce with great reverence before the health care bill but it won't support her reading of it in in my argument and it's but it's good she talks about it by the way because now it's a thing there to be debated let's have the debate so that's my point my point is he condemned them both this will be our last question yes sir I know him well I'll get him later thank you I'd like to follow up on this gentleman's question here authors like Gary will say that the link that you and I believe in between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution was not determined by the founders that they didn't express that themselves that it was actually Abraham Lincoln that first made that sort of connection and then from then on constitutional scholars started talking about that I'm wondering in your book the founders Keys do you talk about that explicit connection and do you provide any kind of excerpts from the worst of the founders in that area and perhaps also in the in the Constitution constitutional reader well I'll be darned so I do here's an example there's live you know boring when somebody says well my book does this and my book does that so instead of telling you what the book does I'll tell you a point the it happens to be in the book but at the point itself it's what's beautiful during the weeks the three-week period when the deck horse independence was drafted and ratified or adopted the state of Virginia was adopting the Virginia Declaration of Rights and the Virginia Constitution and George Mason and James Madison and Thomas Jefferson in absentia were on the committee and so they're writing this these two documents and they passed the two of them the same body was heavy overlap with the Continental Congress that was drafting and ratifying the Declaration and the two documents by the way are very remarkable documents because both of them contain elements of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution they both contain some charges against the king and they both contain Universal statements of how government has to be organized to be safe and by the way James Madison of later fame was on the committee that wrote it and the point is the Virginia Constitution is not nearly as good as the Constitution United States in just exactly the way that a first effort is not as good as the real McCoy and Madison himself never of course disavowed and Jefferson intervened in the Virginia convention only to make the separation of powers stronger he kept writing a letter saying you can't have it this you can't have it this close you got to have you got to have these devices also he was for a broader suffrage than they the very broad suffrage that they adopted so the point is you just have to ignore things like that because I'm saying not only are these two documents the Declaration of Rights and the Constitution being written as the same time as the Declaration of Independence and they're like the Const but they're also just like each other and they overlap extensively so where does that come from because you know Gary Wells does say that about Abraham Lincoln but you know who never says that Abraham Lincoln never says that in others he doesn't say ha I'm the one that figured out he says that's how it was I'm come to find out go look I can't find anyway now Gordon wood is a very great historian was it mistake or to write but he he what he thinks and see there is something that's added in the Constitutional Convention that's really great I mean it's because what's your life like I'll tell you what mine's like I first read the Nicomachean ethics of Aristotle in 1974 and I'm no you know they're people who know more about it than I do but I love it very much and I've been reading it all that time and I know a lot about it now and I've just taught it for the third time and you know we actually had the class and I had two extra classes we actually had scheduled for extra classes but we couldn't fit them in and since in my way of teaching because I have to travel so much every class is a week we went to class for two extra weeks and we regretted one time we had class of seven o'clock in the morning over breakfast and we regretted we didn't have more time now my point is I'm better at that then I was that's how my life works I bet yours works that way too I'll bet James Madison's worked that way too and so it's very possible that the truth is what he said it was and that is if the Constitution is different in some ways and it is then then the Virginia Constitution maybe because he'd been thinking for 11 years and he'd gathered some experience because he says it's the same thing in principle and he says twice in the Federalist Papers that the purpose of the Constitution is to secure a Republican form of government and our individual rights and in the saying of that he quotes the Declaration of Independence and you know he and Thomas Jefferson had one of the closest political friendships in all of human history so come to find out there's a fact or two on the point and and I don't know of the facts against the point thank you [Applause]

Channel: Hillsdale College

Views: 44,327

Rating: 4.9350915 out of 5

Keywords: college, arnn, liberty, declaration, independence, founder, founders, key, america, freedom, Hillsdale College (College/University), Larry P. Arnn (Organization Leader), Hillsdale College Kirby Center, Kirby Center

Id: D9eL2fAI-xI

Length: 65min 51sec (3951 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 14 2012