Founders Were Just As Unhappy With Gubbmint As We Are

August 9, 2012 1 1

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – Don’t feed me this crap that we’re the first generation and we have it worse than anyone else. I guarantee you that those that lived to the 1820’s that were of the founding generation, many of them if not almost all of them went to their graves believing that the end was near, that they had totally screwed up and botched it, and that their countrymen that came after them were going to blow it, that there wasn’t going to be much good that was going to come after they were in the grave. Keep that in mind when you think you’re ready to bail on the next election and not vote or vote for the other guy so you can hasten the end. Come on, man. I may not say that I’m ever going to endorse Governor Romney, but I’m certainly never going to say I’m going to vote for Obama so I can bring the end about more quickly. Check out the rest in today’s transcript…

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike: I was reading from Burke earlier that you never abandon your country as long as there is a pulse beating and resuscitation is possible. This idea here that we’re done and through and going to give up, this is another part of this disregard for actual history. As I have labored for the last five years to bring to the public mind, and I wish more people had heard or watched my CDs or DVDs as I’ve labored, and as Kevin Gutzman and Tom Woods and Marshall De Rosa and Brion McClanahan and Don Livingston and others have labored.

Jefferson went to his grave — in the last few years of his life, Jefferson wrote a letter saying that after the Missouri Compromise, he smelled the knell of the union, and that Jefferson was so despondent over the way that events were hastening to what he thought were going to be their tragic conclusion. He was right, that the Missouri Compromise would ultimately result in a war, it did. Jefferson decided what he wanted on his epitaph and tombstone, and it was nothing of the federal edifice that he helped create. I’ve told this story before, but I think it bears repeating. If you think you’re the first generation that’s ever been despondent about your government, you’re wrong. Even the founding generation was despondent. Do you know the three things on Jefferson’s obelisk at Monticello, Steve?

Caller Steve: It’s been a while.

Mike: Do you know the three things that Jefferson asked to have on his obelisk?

Caller Steve: No, I don’t.

Mike: Number one, he was the author of the Declaration of Independence. Number two, he was the author of Virginia’s Act for Religious Freedom, 1786. Number three, he was the founder of the University of Virginia. He did not want on his tombstone, on his obelisk that you can see at Monticello — it’s in my movie, by the way, Road to Independence, in the opening scene. You can see there’s nothing on there about him being president and vice president. Nothing on there about him being secretary of state. There’s nothing on there about any of the federal role that he played, only that he was the author of the Declaration, author of Virginia Statement of Religious Freedom, which ultimately became law in Virginia.

We have Jefferson and Madison to thank, chiefly Jefferson. Madison usually gets the credit, but it was Jefferson’s work from the 1770’s that Madison presented in 1786 and was ultimately passed by Virginia, which was the first statement of religious freedom in the history of the world. No country ever, and Virginia was a country at the time, had ever declared that men were free to worship and there should never be an establishment of a religion by a state, meaning a government. And he was the founder of the University of Virginia. That tells you an awful lot about Thomas Jefferson’s mindset as he was departing this world.

So don’t feed me this crap that we’re the first generation and we have it worse than anyone else. I guarantee you and submit to you that those that lived to the 1820’s that were of the founding generation, meaning they participated in the formation of the general government, involved in the 1780’s and 1790’s, the founding generation we call them, many of them if not almost all of them went to their graves believing that the end was near, that they had totally screwed up and botched it, and that their countrymen that came after them were going to blow it, that there wasn’t going to be much good that was going to come after they were in the grave. Keep that in mind when you think you’re ready to bail on the next election and not vote or vote for the other guy so you can hasten the end. Come on, man. I may not say that I’m ever going to endorse Governor Romney, but I’m certainly never going to say I’m going to vote for Obama so I can bring the end about more quickly.

Caller Steve: Absolutely not. I’ve never, since I’ve been old enough to be able to bring myself to, vote for anybody on the left. I’ve not always been happy with the choices on the right side of the equation, but I’ve never ever been able to vote for somebody on the left. It’s always been too easy to see through the subterfuge that they had in mind for where we were going. One of the big differences, I think, between our founders and the politicians of today is a lot of our founders, George Washington is a good example of this, and Jefferson to some degree as well, he didn’t want to be president. Washington was asked to be president because there just wasn’t anybody else that anybody had any faith in at the time that wouldn’t abuse the power. The founders’ concern from day one is that anybody who had that power would abuse it.

Mike: Kevin Gutzman on President’s Day last year was on this show and then on the Post Show. I believe this transcript and this audio is on the new site. Gutzman had said that it was his belief that of all the great men of the last two millennia, that George Washington was the greatest. It was Washington’s opportunity — he was encouraged by General Henry Knox and others that after Cornwallis surrendered, rather than resigning his commission, that he should lead a military coup to take control of the Continental Congress, on some level, and should basically appoint himself or have his army take over the Congress and appoint Washington king.

Washington smacked them all down, would have none of it. He wrote a letter to Congress resigning his commission. He rode his horse to New York to where the Continental Congress was meeting at the time, handed them his sword and resigned his commission and said, [mocking] “I’m going home, boys. Good luck with this whole new republic thing. Send me a letter if you need my advice on anything. Goodbye.” He rode back to Mount Vernon, resisted the calls of his countrymen in Virginia, especially that of James Madison and of Governor Edmund Randolph. This story is told in my docudrama Fame of Our Fathers. It’s a great way to spend your time tooling across the countryside this vacation season. Washington would not attend what was called the Federal Convention that was coming up in May of 1787 in Philadelphia to propose amendments. Steve, he wouldn’t go. He kept saying, [mocking] “No, I’m not going. Stop bribing me, Madison. Leave me alone, dude. I’m a farmer.” He’s like Dr. McCoy, “I’m a farmer, not a politician, dammit.”

Washington finally — the only reason he went, I believe anyway, the only reason he finally caved in and decided to go, there were two reasons. Number one, Henry Knox and others in Taxachusetts were basically using the propaganda that was Shays’ Rebellion to convince him that there were going to be rebellions across the entire countryside and that anarchy had taken over. That’s number one. Number two, a former lieutenant under his command, a guy named David Roberts, had been writing Washington telling him all the horror stories of the enlisted men who had been promised to be paid by the Continental Congress and they were never paid. They were given these things called war notes. They couldn’t cash the war notes in because they weren’t worth anything. They ultimately had to sell them for 10, 20 cents on the dollar to who these people called speculators. Then the speculators would go to statehouses and try to get taxes passed to make the war notes worth something, and then they would sell them, taking advantage of the vets.

This is what I believe finally moved George Washington: his sympathy and care, the duty that he believed he owed to those men who had served and were being jilted and never paid for their service to help establish independence. You’re right. George Washington resisted, at almost every turn, power when it was given to him, other than accepting control or command of the Continental Army. That’s why Washington was the greatest statesman, and may have been the greatest man that ever lived in the last 2000 years. That’s why Professor Gutzman said that on this show.

End Mike Church Show Transcript