The Truth with Lisa Boothe: Freedom, Rebellion & the Real Story of Independence with Dr. Brion McClanahan

In this Independence Day special, Lisa is joined by historian Dr. Brion McClanahan for a deep dive into the founding of America. Together, they explore the events leading up to the Declaration of Independence, the principles that fueled the Revolution, and the bold resistance to British tyranny. They also set the record straight on common myths about America's founding and discuss why preserving the ideals of liberty and self-governance is more urgent than ever today. The Truth with Lisa Boothe is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Tuesday & Thursday.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, first off, happy Independence Day. I hope everyone is
having an amazing day. I hope you're spending time with
the people you love. I hope you're spending time with
your friends, your family. Maybe you're on a trip, maybe
you're just doing a staycation, or maybe you even have
to work. But I hope it's a great day. Nonetheless,
as we celebrate Independence days, we celebrate America's independence from

(00:20):
a monarchy, we look today at what has really transpired
over the past few years, particularly during COVID and I
talk about this a lot on the show, but it
was so eye opening for me. I'm sure it was
for a lot of you guys at home. Of just
tyranny is here? Right? We're not immune to tyranny. Of course,
we weren't back when this nation was founded, but we're
certainly not today. And if you look back at the

(00:41):
founding generation or founding fathers, they didn't put up with it, right,
They weren't putting up with this oppressive regime from far
away trying to strangle their way of life, trying to
impose on their way of life, trying to dictate to
them their way of life. So why are we putting
up with it today, Right, Why are we putting up
with with our government? I'm not saying we don't have
to to obviously the tactics that are Founding Generation resorted to,

(01:03):
but there are other ways to fight back. There are
other ways to fight back, you know, locally, to fight
back against government, to fight back against tyranny, and to
resist a little bit. So today what I want to
do is sort of revisit the foundations of America, Revisit
our founding fathers, revisit the Founding Generation. You know, why

(01:25):
was America born? You know what happened in the lead
up before the Decoration of Independence, you know what happened
to that lead up before July fourth, seventeen seventy six.
So we're going to get into that with a historian.
His name is doctor Bryan McClanahan. He has his own podcast,
The Brian McClanahan Show. You can check it out on Apple.

(01:46):
I listened to like five yesterday. It's super interesting. He
gets into a lot of real world issues, today's issues
from a historical perspective, and he just has really interesting
takes on it. He's a really smart guy. So he's
also the author and co author of books He's written
books like The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers
The Founding Father's Guide to the Constitution. He's a faculty

(02:07):
member at the tom Woods Liberty Classroom. He received a
bachelor's degree in history from Salisbury University, of masters in
history from the University of South Carolina, as well as
his PhD in history from the University of South Carolina.
It's just a really interesting guy. So today, on this
Independence Day, we're going to talk about individual liberty. We're
going to talk about freedom. We're going to talk about

(02:28):
the birth of America, why this country is special, why
this country needs to be preserved, and what we can
do to preserve it. So I hope you enjoy this
fourth of July Independence Day Special with doctor Brian McClanahan.

(02:53):
Doctor Brian McClanahan, thanks so much for joining The Truth
with Lisa Booth. I appreciate your time.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Well, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
This is for the Independence Day Special. You know, we've
sort of seen a lot of narratives that we believe
to be true have been contradicted and shown to not
be true, and a lot of what we thought we
were insulated and immune from in America like tyranny. We
saw during COVID that we are actually not. So I
kind of wanted to revisit American history or nation's foundings

(03:21):
and sort of how far we've gone from that beginning,
and I thought you'd be the perfect person for this episode.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Well, I appreciate you having me on. Yes. I mean
it's when you look at what's happened in America over
the last couple of years, and I mean really in
the last one hundred plus years, and where where we've
come from and where we are today. There's a dramatic
difference between twenty twenty two and seventeen seventy five and
what Americans were willing to accept in seventeen seventy five
and what we're willing to accept today. If the founding

(03:49):
generation were dropped in twenty twenty two, they'd look at
all of us and say, what are you doing? You know,
we were willing to do far more for far less
than what you're willing to suffer through now. And so
it's a really important history lesson to get all of
this right, because if Americans really knew the story of independence,
I think they would be looking at things today dramatically different.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Well, and what's interesting is I was listening to your podcast.
It's really good. People should go take a look, So
subscribe the Brian McClanahan show. You sort of challenge a
lot of groupthink orthodoxy that you know, a lot of
people say a lot of points about history that may
or may not be true that we've been taught incorrectly
as well. But so you use founding generation instead of
just talking about the founding fathers. Why do you make

(04:32):
that distinction?

Speaker 2 (04:33):
Well, because if you just say to founding fathers, people
think it's the fifty five men who drafted the Constitution,
or it's maybe six people. I mean, I've call them
the Big Six. You know, it's Washington, Adams, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin.
And of course that's incorrect. You had an entire generation
of Americans through thirteen states that were interested in these

(04:54):
principles that we all think about today, independence, liberty, all
these things. And so when you talk about the Constitution,
for example, the Constitution wasn't ratified by fifty five guys.
It was ratified by thirteen states, and you had a
large public discussion about what that meant. And so there's
a lot of people in that generation of founders that

(05:14):
we wouldn't recognize. For example, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, who
was so important in that period of time, but nobody
knows who he is. Or even people that you might
recognize their name, like George Mason or Virginia, but you
don't really know much about him. So were John Dickinson
of Pennsylvania. And this is a bigger issue than just
a few guys sitting in Philadelphia in seventeen eighty seven,

(05:35):
or even just the delegates to the Continental Congress in
seventeen seventy six. There's so much more to this, and
I think we need to be comprehensive. And when we
talk about this generation of people, there was a variety
of viewpoints, but at the end of the day, they
were all committed to one particular principle, and that was
a limited central authority. And when they're talking about the
British and the relationship between the British and the American colonies,

(05:58):
and of course that would translate later in to the
Constitution and the Articles of Confederation and the Declaration. So
they're all committed to that and also to that principle
of independence, and I think that's something we often forget.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
How much of what we are taught about history is
actually true.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
Well, that's a big question when you think about the
Founding period. There's a lot that people get right, even
the leftist historians or things they get right. But I
would say that the real problem in America with teaching
history is politicizing everything. You know, if we're talking about

(06:33):
the eighteenth century, it has to be political. And what
I mean by that is these people have to be
twenty first century Americans. If they're not, then we're just
going to discard them. And this is the entire agenda,
going after people like Washington and Jefferson now for things
that they did that we don't do today, or views
that they held that we don't hold today. But that's
the real problem. It's saying, Okay, well Washington's a great man.

(06:56):
Well wait a second, because he owned slaves, he's not
really that great of a man. Or Jefferson's a great man.
We'll wait a second because he owned slaves and he's
not a great man so, or because he held views
on race that we don't hold today. So this is
the real issue. It's not that we're taught things incorrectly.
It's that everything is politicized and has an agenda behind
all of it. So instead of just using history as

(07:18):
a point, we can say, well, these people were great,
Let's look at what they said, and we know that
they do things or say things and we don't necessarily
agree with today. But what do they offer us for
Americans in the twenty first century. We have to discard
them because they are not twenty first century Americans. And
that's called presentism. And I think that's the real issue
with historical profession.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
That makes a lot of sense, a ton of sense. Actually,
you know, before we kind of get into abbreviated TikTok
of what led up to the Declaration of Independence, what
do we typically get wrong about the American Revolution?

Speaker 2 (07:48):
Well, I think one of the most important things is
that it was simply about taxation, and of course that
was an issue, But the real core issue leading into
independence was this idea that somehow the the parliament could
legislate for the colonies in all cases whatsoever. That's what
Tom Paine said in the American Crisis. That was the issue.
They were certainly willing to concede that parliament could regulate

(08:09):
international trade or defend the colonies. But what they didn't
want Parliament doing was going in and saying, Okay, these
are the taxes you have to have, and this is
the currency you have to use. These are the things
you have to do in the colonies. Because of course
the colonies had their own legislatures and the parliament. There
was no representation in Parliament for these colonies. So there
was a violation of the ancient rights of Englishmen. So

(08:30):
Patrick Henry talked about it was this idea that somehow
parliament had supremacy over these colonies when they simply didn't
have any role in that parliament. So when we simplify
this period of time, we're make it into about lofty
rights that were fabricated out of thin air, that you
know this that we do today, the proposition nation equality,
these kind of things. I mean, they certainly talked about

(08:52):
that stuff, but at the core, it was simply about
making sure that they could govern themselves, and they were
firmly committed to the Magna Carta, the English Bill of Rights.
These it was an Anglo American tradition they were fighting for.
So I think that's the major misconception that it was
just a simple no taxation, we don't want to be taxed,

(09:12):
or you know, we're willing to fight for some some
other kind of principle that you know, it's something in
the air that just doesn't make any sense. It was
certainly a commitment to this idea of local self government
that they were more concerned about than anything else.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
Well, and to that point, did it start with the
Stamp Act, because I know you had the Sugar Act
the year before, I believe, But the Stamp Act I
believe was a tax on items within the colonies, which
to your point was sort of this government interference from
a government far away that they did not have representation,
they did not have input. Was that sort of the
turning point? And when that relationship changed and the role

(09:47):
of government changed within these colonies.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
Well, yeah, absolutely, I mean you point out the Sugar
Act the year before seventeen sixty four, but by seventeen
sixty five, you know when the colony when the Parliament
passes the Stamp Act and the colonies were react to
that in the way they did. It was exactly what
you said, Well, you know what, you're not going to
a tax us internally when that's breaking over one hundred
years of precedent. I mean, you go back to the
era of salutary neglects, what is called the parliament let

(10:13):
the colonies alone, they could govern themselves, and so that
developed a system in their mind, a precedent for governance.
And so when the Stampack comes about, the colonial legislatures say,
you know, we're just not going to this. This is unconstitutional.
And of course the resistance was what we would call
today nullification. They actually used it that that that was

(10:34):
born out of it. We're just not going to enforce
the stamp Act, and we're going to tell our courts
not to enforce. We're not going to have anybody charged
with breaking the stamp back. So the resistance was, Okay,
you can pass a law in parliament, we're just not
going to enforce it here in the colonies. And you
saw this across what became the United States. It wasn't
just you know, Massachusetts or but it was in Virginia.

(10:55):
There was there was certainly resistance in every colony to
this Stampack. And that's because they viewed it as an
unconstitutional measure. And think about all the things we have
today that are unconstitutional. People just live with it. Okay, yeah, fine,
they can pass it. We'll just go along with it.
But that would not be the founding response to it.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
Or you know, you look at COVID, it's not even law.
You just have executive order dictating how we live our
lives or shutting businesses down. That people have put everything
into their whole livelihoods, their ability to feed their kids
without a blink of the eye. But then, you know,
but you can ride in the street that first amendment,
right is you know worthy, but not going to church.
So yeah, so I think a lot of people can
sort of sympathize with that. So to be clear, you know,

(11:33):
before sort of you know, like the Stamp Act, and
you know, there's a bunch of different actions and provocations
that the British government takes against the colonists. But so
there was really sort of a system of self governance
to a certain degree, even though they're part of the
British government. Is that correct?

Speaker 2 (11:51):
Absolutely? I mean every colony had its own legislature. In fact,
the first legislature in North America was established the sixth
nineteen in Virginia. That's the other sixteen nineteen, right, we
have the sixteen nineteen project. But the real importance of
sixteen nineteen was that first legislature in Virginia elected legislature,
and so you had local government here, and I think

(12:13):
that's what we miss now. Of course, every colony by
the eighteenth century had a governor, a royal governor that
was appointed by the crown. But still these colonies had
the ability to legislate for themselves. And they were very
upset about the fact that you had Parliament stepping in
and saying, okay, well, you know, we spent all this
money on defending you during the during the French and

(12:36):
Indian War, and so now you're going to pay for that,
and we're going to tell you how you're going to
pay for it. And so this was the issue. It
was legislating for them in all cases whatsoever. And Tompaign
called it tyranny. He said, that's it. If we can't
legislate for ourselves, if we can't dictate what kind of
legislation will accept for ourselves, And there's no other definition

(12:56):
but tiranny than that. And so when you look back
at this period, it was and you talked about COVID
and everything else. I mean, again, we're willing to suffer
in the United States today for far, you know, far
more than what the founding generation was. I mean, they
were not happy about a small tax that was being
levied against them against their will, and they were willing

(13:18):
to declare their independence over it. And how much are
we willing to accept today?

Speaker 1 (13:22):
How much of a leadism sort of came into play,
Like even though like George Washington was read, she's not
a British noble, right, he probably still felt like they
were thumbing their nose at him, looking down upon him.
How much of that sort of had to play in here.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
Well, that's a good question when you think about the
leadership in the colonies. If you just use Virginia as
an example. I mean, a lot of these people believe
they were in so many ways kind of a part
of this old gentrification system in Great Britain. I mean,
you have the distressed cavaliers that came over to Virginia

(13:56):
and they established plantations. But certainly there was an anti
monarch stance in America. I wouldn't say it was dramatically
democratic the way we think of it today, but they
were certainly more democratic than which you would find in
Great Britain. As far as the elitist position. I mean,
they certainly didn't care for the for the hereditary monarchy.

(14:16):
They at least a portion of the founding generation didn't.
They didn't care for it. There were those, of course
did I mean there were there were Tories in America,
so they were certainly fine with the monarchy. But those
that were interested independence, I mean that attack on the
king or this hereditary system was something they didn't like.
And this is why when there was an executive proposed
in Philadelphia in seventeen eighty seven, they all sat in

(14:37):
sun Stylus for a minute. They said, you know what,
my gosh, this is we're going to get a king,
and we didn't want that. And so when you look
at the artist of Articles of Confederation, there's no monarchy
in that, there's no executive. So that was something they
were certainly concerned about, and that elite I don't know
if it was necessary elitism, but they certainly didn't like
the hereditary monarchical system to a great extent.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
Quick commercial break back with doctor Brian McClanahan on the
other side, talk about sort of like the provocations, these
acts where that revolutionary spirit just started to build up.
You know, we talked about the Stamp Back, you talked
about the Sugar Act. You know, you got the Tact,
the Township Acts, all these different things, you know, talk
about sort of that build up and that increase just

(15:21):
frustration with the heavy hand of you know, the British
government kind of you know, putting it down on their necks.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
Sure well, I mean, if you, if you one of
my favorite characters in all that is Sam Adams, because
Sam Adams was the guy that we all know. This
person they stand on the corner or nowadays it's on
the Internet and they say, you know, it's going to
get bad. It's going to get worse. Just wait, it's
going to get worse. It doesn't matter what's going on
this things are going to get worse. Just wait and see,
just watch take my word for it. And so if
you look at seventeen sixty five and the Stamp Act

(15:51):
and the response to that, it actually works. I mean,
the colonists figured out that if they could go after
the British and the Parliament in their wallet, it was
going to help. And so the response was either mullification
or non importation. They set up ways to hurt the
empire economically, but of course by seventeen sixty seven the
Parliament is doubling down. And then by seventeen seventy you

(16:14):
see things get pretty bad, right, I mean, it's you
have your five years away from the ultimate break. But
you had a period of law between seventeen seventy and
seventeen seventy two when there wasn't a whole lot going on.
But by seventeen seventy three, again you see these bills
by parliament ramping up. And this is the North Parliament.
I mean, they certainly believed that the colonies were their

(16:36):
subjects and they needed to be to pay their fair
share and do what the Parliament told them. And you know,
you look at things like the Intallible Acts, which eventually
came about because of the Tea Act and the response
to that. One thing we missed about the Tact, by
the way, let me just say this is that it
wasn't really a tax on tea that the colonists were
concerned about. It was establishing the monopoly only certain partners

(16:59):
could trade that bridge. She's India tea, and so they
thought that was a violation of good economic sense. And
of course the creating a royal monopoly in the colonies,
and so that's why they resisted it. But when you
look at the intolerable acts, I mean shutting down the
Massachusetts government saying that you're going to be essentially part
of Canada, which at that time was where they're where

(17:19):
they're linking them in. That was Catholic, and so you
had this religious resistance there as well. But that was
the real issue. It was taking away those colonial charters
essentially and saying you're going to be under us, directly
under our thumb. That was the point when I think
everyone realized, Okay, this is going to get really bad,
and if we're willing to accept this now, there's no

(17:41):
turning back. I mean, they're going to say to us
that they can abolish our legislatures. They can they can
do whatever they want to us. You had in Virginia
right that the Groyl governor shut down the legislature of
the House of Burgesses, and so they went and met
in the tavern and said, Okay, we're going to beat
in Raleigh tavern. We're going to legislate anyways, because you
can't annihilate our legislature. So that was the real point

(18:02):
when you had these intolerable acts. Even though they were
directed only at Massachusetts, the other colonies reacted to it
and saying, well, if it's going to happen there, it's
going to happen here. And of course Sam Adams has
proven correct. He said, just wait, this is all going
to get bad and eventually, and eventually it did.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
Well, I've got a lot of people saying that about
where we are today too, but we'll get to that
in a little bit. You know, how important were things
like the Boston Tea Party, obviously a massive fu to
the British government and just spurring that public sentiment of
rilling people up to being like, you know what it's on, right?

Speaker 2 (18:36):
I mean, the Boston Tea Party in terms of propaganda
was very important. You had, of course Paul Revere and
you know, involved in creating images of this thing. But
when you look at the actual massacre itself, the term massacre,
I mean it was it was it wasn't really a
massacre with the loss of life, but the the the

(18:57):
way that they could sell this to the public was
and of course the colonists were somewhat responsible for this.
I mean they're harassing the British soldiers or throwing ice
at him, and there was a lot of question about
whether you know, there was even an order given to
fire by the British or if this was somebody staying
in the shadows yelling fire. Of course, there's also a
fire and actual physical fire in Boston at that point,

(19:18):
and so maybe somebody got a little itchy trigger finger
and they fired. But the important part about it too
was the response by John Adams, who thought that these
soldiers needed a fair trial because if they didn't get
a fair trial, then the Parliament could look at him
and say, well, I mean we're gonna we're gonna ship
you back over to London to stand trial, so for
anything else. So he wanted to ensure that these soldiers

(19:40):
got a fair trial, and they did. He actually was
able to get several of them acquitted. So that response
to is interesting. Adams did that to great expense of
his of his career at least at that point, but
in terms of propaganda, it's huge because now you have
dead people in the streets, and there were other there
was another event in New York City where you had
a similar kind of you know riot. There was some

(20:00):
there was some bloodshed there too, so that I mean
that part of that period of time, that little bit
of violence. But again things calmed down after that for
a couple of years, and then it was it ramped
back up again leading into seventeen seventy five.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
Well, and you also had, you know, other public acts
of rebellion like the Boston Tea Party as well.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
Absolutely, I mean the Boston Tea There are many tea parties.
That's that's a fun part of this too. The Boston
Tea Party where the most conspicuous where they threw the
tea into the harbor. But you actually had tea parties
in Maryland. You had so you had one there where
the citizens of Maryland took all the tea off the
ship and then burned it. And of course the funny

(20:40):
thing about that is they sold it, right, They didn't
just throw it in the harbor. They took it and
they sold it and they used the money to finance
their activities against the crown. So that was the more
wise thing to do than just throwing it in the harbor.
But this, the response of it to the Tea Act,
was not just in Boston. It was it was again
across the colony. So these public resistance to these unco
constitution or in toable acts was something very important in

(21:03):
leading up to the war. And again when we think
about today, we had the tea Party movement for a
little while and people you can thrown little tea bags
into the water. I mean, that's that's funny. But I
don't know if Americans are as committed today as as
the founding generation was, as standing up for things that
they considered to be their liberties if but I am
encouraged by what happened with COVID and people finally saying enough,

(21:26):
we're just not gonna wear the masks. We're not going
to do this. We're not gonna We're not going to
abide by your stupid edicts. These things are illegal, they're unconstitutional.
I think that's that was encouraging, and also the response
from various states and saying, you know, federal government, you're
really want to have this power. We're going to do
what we want to do in Florida, for example, in
Ronda Santis. So that was the spirit of independence and

(21:48):
I think that's something again that's lacking throughout most of America,
but it is still there in many parts of the
United States. And that's a good thing to see.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
And also I think I'm acron helped too, because basically
all these people who think they thought they could hide
in their basements for two years got COVID and then
they're like, Okay, well I don't care anymore. It's sort
of like deprogrammed these crazy people.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
So right, as more and more people got it and
they figured out it was a bad cold, and of course,
you know, you can't minimize it. Initially it was. It
was pretty rough on a lot of people, and a
lot of elderly people in particular. But you know, our
response to it, the government's response to it was very
much a British type response initially, and I think that's
that's something we miss in all this, and of course

(22:28):
not everyone did, but it's a yeah, you're right. As
people started seeing this is not something that we should fear,
and they got back in and so forget it. We're
just going to live our lives. And I think that
was another great part of the whole thing at the
end of the day.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
But to your point, you know, thank god for people
like Governor DeSantis fighting against the federal government and saying
we're just not going to do this year. This makes
no sense and having the guts and you know, the
fortitude to do that. So you know, you got the
Continental Congress starts meeting in seventeen seventy four, and then
we've got the declaration, the signing of the Declaration in
Dependence on July fourth, seventeen seventy six, ratified by the

(23:03):
Second Continental Congress. Between the first and then this second
Continental Congress, what sort of because my understanding is like
the first one that not everyone was really it was
more of just kind of like setting a message saying, look,
this is sort of what we want. It wasn't really
at that point of saying, you know, we're we're full throttle,
we're you know, we're all in on declaring independence. So

(23:24):
what kind of well, first of all, you know, correct
me if I'm wrong. Secondly, what sort of transpired between
that first one and then declaring independence? That sort of
just you know, for the people kind of hanging out,
hanging on the side saying I don't know, brought them
over the edge.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
Right, Well, you're exactly right about the first kindent of
Congress and John Adams complained they weren't going to do anything,
and so you have they get together in Philadelphia and
they say, all right, well look, let's let's talk about
what's happening here. And then of course they did adopt
became the Suffolk Resolves, which were, as I mentioned before,
a nullification process. We're going to nullify any unconstitutional life.

(24:00):
But they weren't willing to break at that point. And
I think that's because, I mean, as Patrick Henry point
pointed out, and has give me liberty to give me
death speech. I mean, this was this was something we
were more inclined to do. People are inclined to suffer.
Weoll evils are sufferable. I mean, so they were generally
willing to accept. American people were generally willing to accept

(24:21):
these unconstitutional invasions while they could tolerate them. Right. So
this this was something that I think in seventeen seventy
four they weren't so committed to independence. Yet certainly there
were people that were. I mean again, Patrick Henry Lardy
was he considered Virginia independent much much earlier than this,
I mean this early as seventeen sixty five, but in

(24:43):
Sam Adams. But I think for the most part you
had in the founding generation they were still willing to
put the brakes On, and I think the real change
came when the king rejected their pleas for an olive branch.
This was John Dickinson. He writes the olive branch petition,
and of course George the Third gets this. At the
same time he gets some male intercepted mail where John

(25:03):
Adams says, well, nobody really believes this thing anyways, and
so George was not willing at that point to accept
any type of compromise. And then, of course you get
seventeen seventy five and you get the invasion of Lexington
and Concord, and I think that's what really turned people around.
They said, okay, well, if they're going to actually march
in and try to seize our arms, which is what
they were doing, that was the point that there's no

(25:27):
turning back. And so you get that was almost a
year before the declaration, so by seventeen seventy six it
was a full break and you still even had people
in Dickinson wasn't going to support independence. Even in seventeen
seventy six, you're still have people that weren't on board
with it yet. But in realizing that, I think most

(25:47):
people realized when there was an armed conflict in Massachusetts,
and then of course you had other events before seventeen
before the declaration as well. This was it. We can't
turn back, we can't say oop, sorry, we're going to
We're just going to say we're going to stay in
the empire. There was no way that was going to
happen because the Parliament was going to do everything they
could to force the colonies to bend to their will,

(26:09):
and the king was not going to support them. And
so I think they believed by that point they really
had no choice by seventeen seventy six except independence.

Speaker 1 (26:16):
So like for the folks like Dickerson that you just mentioned,
was it loyalty, was it fear? Sort of what was
holding them back from, you know, being completely on board
with a revolution.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
Well, I think it was a mix of both. I
mean John Dickinson was a very wealthy man in Delaware,
in Pennsylvania. He had he had a number of houses,
of course, all of which were burned except his plantation
in Delaware, and they were they were loyal to the crown.
I mean this is it'd be no different than any
of us sitting here today and saying my gosh, I
mean that would be a big decision for any of us,
do we want independence? We've been American citizens for all

(26:49):
these years, however old you are, and we've been you know,
pro the United States for all this time. And that's
a big decision for people to make, and it's not
one to be taken lightly. And I think that was
the issue for many of them. They weren't certain if
they wanted that to take that step, And of course
there was some fear too. They knew that if they
signed their name to that declaration or voted for it,

(27:11):
that could be construed as treason and so that you
could forfeit your life and your property in that case.
So this is a big decision to make, and it's
we take this now very light law. We have July fourth,
and everyone shoots off fireworks, we have hot dogs and
ball games. But when that decision was made in Philadelphia
on July second, in fact, and they sat there and

(27:34):
stunned silence. Do we really just do this? Did all
of these people just vote by state for independence? And
there was not a big cheer and this is going
to be a big party. This was, oh my gosh,
what did we just do? And it was a heavy
decision for all the reasons you mentioned, but I think
that they realized the gravity of the situation and what

(27:56):
was going to happen and what could potentially happen if
they lost that the pushbur independence.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
Of course, it's really heady what they just did, right,
I mean, I mean they're declaring war. I mean, they're
they're they're going to go to war. They're they're sending
their family members, their neighbors, the people they love to war.
I mean that's a huge, huge thing.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
Absolutely, it's not something to take lightly. And and you know,
when you look at the costs. When they when they
said in the declaration they pledge their lives, their fortunes,
and their sacred honor to this, they really meant it.
I think that's not something that we can we can
just flippantly disregard. So many men sacrificed everything for that.
And you know, I at often talked about the Minutemen.
You know, they're in Massachusetts at Lexington and Concord. Imagine

(28:35):
you're in your you're in your bed, it's middle of
the night, and you hear a rider coming down the
road and the regulars are coming out and you have
to get up, grab your grab your musket and head
out the door to go confront the regulars of the
British army, which is one of the best armies in
the world. I mean, maybe only the French were better.
It's it's it's questionable. At that point, they're both about

(28:56):
the same. So here you are a militiaman fighting against
a regular army, and that's something we don't really think about.
These men were not trained to be soldiers like the British.
And so when you think about the Battle of Bunker
Hill and and the the casualties that these militia inflicted
on the on the regulars there. But then you move

(29:16):
forward in time to the Battle of Long Island and
how the British and the Hessians just annihilated the American forces,
and what Washington had to he was crying, he was
weeping as he's watching his men just get plowed over
by the British. And I mean, this is this is
really difficult, a really difficult time, and a really difficult
time for for a lot of people, and a hard
decision to make. And so I don't think we can

(29:38):
ever say enough about these men who were willing to,
you know, walk and knee deep snow at the at
the at the Battle of Trenton to cross the Delaware
River and all the things, all the deprivations and Valley
Forge and in the South where you know, you had
and Charleston patriots executed by the British just because they
supported the clause. And I mean, this is this is

(30:00):
really hard stuff. And so this was not something that
these people took lightly, and we should we should really
celebrate them for this if we really valued independence.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
Do you think they would have won if France hadn't
gotten involved.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
Probably not. The French breaking the blockade and and of
course sending in some reinforcements there in late in the
war was certainly beneficial. And you know, Yorktown would not
have happened without the French. So I don't think that
there's any way the United States can win without it.
And of course they you know, they knew that. I

(30:35):
think they knew that if they didn't get some type
of international support, this war was going to be over
and they were going to lose. And all of these
men who signed a declaration, We're going to go down
as traders, and we would be looking an entirely different situation,
and we wouldn't have the United States today. So the
French were valuable, and of course what did they get
out of it, just a whole bunch of debt and
in their own revolutions. So the byproduct for the French,

(30:57):
the after and after the French was not what I
think they wanted, But of course it's what we wanted
at the end of the day.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
Well, and obviously, you know, we celebrate Independence Day, we
celebrate that Declaration of Independence. You know, what is the
significance of it from your perspective as a historian, Well, for.

Speaker 2 (31:15):
Me, it's the last paragraph. Everyone focuses on the second
in the you know, the line, all mented, we hold
these streets of weself evident, all men are created equal.
But for me, it's the last paragraph, which declared that
these were free and independent states, because that sets the
basis for the entire structure of the American government from
that point forward. You think about the Articles of Confederation,
well you had they said it the states were independent.

(31:36):
Even when you get to the Constitution, the way it
was sold to the states was that we have a
federal republic, and these states still have powers, all the
powers not delegated to the center. And so we have
this reserved powers idea that comes out of the Declaration.
And you have to understand Jefferson and the Declaration called
Great Britain a state, and so it was the state
of Great Britain, and you had thirteen independent states, and

(31:59):
each state could do all the acts and things which
independent states may have right to. He said it. And
so you had thirteen countries that were unified in their
opposition to British and we come together in a federal
union that was basically modeled after what they were living
under before. Right, the central authority could regulate commerce and defense,

(32:19):
international commerce and defense, and then with the constitution commerce
between the states, and that was it. I mean, everything
else is left to the states. All the things that
we talk about today that we wring our hands over
are really state issues at the end of the day.
And the problem is that we have people focus so
much on the center and we need one size fits
all government for everything. And that's again that's legislating for
us in all cases whatsoever. That's not what the founding

(32:42):
generation would have wanted. So for me, it's that principle
and that last paragraph that really matters moving forward in
American government.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Do you think that will happen naturally after COVID. I mean,
for instance, I left New York City because I wanted
to live freely as an American and move to Florida
for that very purpose. And we've I've seen a lot
of this migration. Red states are getting retter, like Florida's
officially a red state when you look at registered Republicans
in the state. Do you think that separation is sort

(33:09):
of underway in a way that it hasn't been recently.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
Yeah, absolutely, I think COVID did a lot to do that.
People are you know, I have people listeners all the
time on my show because this is the theme of
the show is think locally, act locally, right, instead of
think globally, act locally. You got to think locally in
act locally so you can change your life at the
local level. And it's it's something that people don't realize.
And you look at protests at the Supreme Court now

(33:33):
and if you whatever your position on those are, and
I know we're talking to conservatives, so it's people would
laugh at these protesters, But what kind of impact do
you think five ten people are going to have in
the Supreme Court steps? But if they went to their
state capital, that would be larger impact. Or if they
went to their if they went to their city council,
it'd be a larger impact. And so when we start
talking about this idea of decentralization and how important Rhonda

(33:57):
Santis is for the future of Florida, I think I
hope he states governor of Florida, and I know that
people want to be president, but we need fifty Ronda Santances.
That's what we really need, and that would make it
to where Joe Biden would virtually be irrelevant if we
had states that actually stood up and said, you know what,
you only have these powers and we're not going to

(34:18):
let you have any others. The government really doesn't have
the central government to really doesn't have the ability to
enforce all the things that they do, and people recognize that.
In the nineteenth century, it's the idea of non commandeering.
They can pass all the legislation they want, but they
don't have the resources to enforce all this stuff. The
states are going to have to do it all. So
if the states say forget it, we're just not doing it,
it changes the whole ballgame. And so I think people

(34:39):
are waking up to this, you know, and with the
mass mandates and all these other things that happened during COVID,
and the governor's saying, we're just not We're going to
keep our state open. We're just not going to do
those things. You can have whatever you want in California.
You can have whatever you want in Massachusetts or New York.
But we're going to do what we want to do
in Florida or Alabama or Montana or wherever it was. We're

(35:00):
going to take things differently. And so again that spirit
of this resistance to unconstitutional government, I think is starting
to manifest itself a little better, and people are voting
with their feet, as you said, go into different states.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
Quick break more on the founding generation on the other side,
fast forward to the Constitution so ratified in seventeen EDA,
in operation since seventeen eighty nine. So Democrats like to
say we have democracy, Republicans say we have a constitutional republic.
Why does that distinction matter? And sort of what do

(35:34):
you make of that debate that is always happening in
our country.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
Well, I mean the term democracy is a loaded term.
What kind of democracy? Do we have a representative democracy?
Do we have a direct democracy. I mean, what do
we really have. The founding generation was committed to democracy,
but it was always with a check, right. They didn't
really trust mass popular democracy because they didn't think that
people had enough information or were well educated enough to

(35:58):
make these decisions. Oftentimes, that's why you see in the
Constitution itself there's only one really democratic part of the Constitution,
and that is the House of Representatives. Otherwise, the Senate
was designed to be the state check on the entire system.
The States chose the senators, and of course through the
legislatures themselves, but the states did that originally. And then
of course the president is elected by the electoral college,

(36:20):
not direct vote. You've got the federal court system, which
is all appointed. So there's a whole lot of anti
democratic stuff in the Constitution because they just didn't really
believe that majoritarian rule was always the best thing. And
they even said it. After the Constitution was written and
it was going through ratification, there was a lot of
discussion about democracy and how this was going to be

(36:40):
a check on rampant democracy. They thought democracy was ruining
the states. They thought it was the bane of good government.
So these distinctions to make, you know, don't we don't
have a democracy, but I think the best term is
a federal republic with representative government, not direct democracy. And
there were others that were concerned about what majoritarian rule

(37:02):
could do. Right, if it's fifty people here, one hundred
people or one hundred and one people, and fifty one
people get to rule the other fifty, is that really
good government or is that tyranny? I mean, because those
fifty people can be abused by fifty one people, and
that's I mean, we don't really think about these things nowadays,
but certainly they did. They understood that you could have
a bad government even with democracy, and so you had

(37:23):
to have some checks on that, which.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
Is why we have things like the electoral college exactly.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
Right, I mean it's the electoral college kept the states
in the system. It allowed for another layer from the
popular vote. We didn't count the popular vote until until
the eighteen twenties, right, I mean, no, we even knew
what it was. It didn't matter. It only mattered what
the electoral college voted. And that was certainly there to
ensure that there was some more educated person, so to speak,

(37:51):
making a decision about who is going to be president
in the United States. But if the presidency was actually
we here to that the way it was actually designed,
the president would almost be irrelevant here for foreign policy
to receive ambassadors, to make appointments, to make recommendations. But
Congress had all the power, and that's something that Congress
wants to hide. Today. We have executive government because Congress

(38:12):
allows it to happen. So you need to be talking
about Congress and what Congress needs to do and take
their own power back from the executive. It's very difficult
to do, but it's something that I think needs to
be done in the future. Moving forward.

Speaker 1 (38:25):
Now that makes a ton of sense. We're talking about
the founding generation, and we sort of touched on it
throughout the conversation, but just get into how far are
we today from what America was supposed to be.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
I think almost one hundred and eighty degrees when you
look at seventeen eighty nine, when the US Congress meets
for the first time and we have the Constitution and
the way that was sold to the states. I use
that term because it was a ratification process where they
actually had to sell this thing. We had this new constitution.
Not everyone was on board where we're going to do,
how is this thing going to work? And the opponents
of the document we're talking about, we're going to have

(39:00):
a government that was going to be oppressive, it was
going to abuse the states, it was going to do
all kinds of illegal things what ultimately would be illegal things.
And those who supported the proponents of the document insisted, no,
well just look and you can only do these things
and then everything else is left to the state. So
if you just take that ratification process and then look
at where we are and everything is centralized, everything is Washington, DC, everything,

(39:24):
all the things the general government does that are completely unconstitutional,
I think they would be the opponents would feel like
they're vindicated, Well we told you so, and the proponents
would have, you know, egg on their face because this
is not the constitution that they sold during the ratification process,
but it's what we ultimately got. And so I think

(39:45):
that the so called anti federalists were prescient in what
was going to happen. And I mean, we are not
anywhere near what was sold to the states in seventeen
eighty seven and seventeen eighty eight.

Speaker 1 (39:56):
Well, I think one thing that the Trump administration really
opened a lot. I mean, I guess we saw it
a little bit during the Obama administration with like the
IRS targeting conservatives and things of that nature, or just
like spying on the Senate Intel Committee and reporters and
the things like that. But we really saw it come
to a head during the Trump administration sort of this
administrative state, this deep state, these bureaucrats sort of subverting
the will of the American people. How do you scale

(40:20):
back government at this point? Is is it too late
when you look at something.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
Like that, Well, I mean, the set, I don't think
you can reform Washington DC, but again there's certainly cracks
and what it can do. And you can even look
at things the left does, for example, sanctuary cities, which
is something that you know, when we talk about immigration,
a lot of these sanctuary city laws written in the
nineteen eighties, and it was, you know what we're going
to do here. We're not going to enforce the federal

(40:47):
government coming in and rounding up aliens. They can come
in all they want and do it, but we're just
not going to use state resources or local resources to
do it. And you know what happened. They didn't have
the resources that go do it, and so they just
the state just said we're just not going to do
these things. And I think that is the key moving forward.
We have to think about bottom up, not top down.

(41:07):
Washington is lost. It doesn't matter if we elect Ronda
Santis or Donald Trump or take your pick of Republican.
It doesn't matter if the Republicans control Congress because we
know that they don't overdo. I mean, look, they're impotent oftentimes,
and what they even they don't follow through on anything
they say they're going to do most of the time.
So reforming Washington DC is lost. But you can look

(41:29):
at Ronda Santis and everything. I mean, if you're in
Florida right now, which you say you're in Florida, he's
doing amazing things there and pushing back against the cancel
culture in the culture War and everything else. It's amazing
what ron De Santis is doing. And so that is
the key moving forward. I think if we want to
take things back in America, if we want to make

(41:51):
America great again, it has to come from the bottom up.
That's the only way it's going to happen. And the
states have all the authority and all the power to
do it. It's just a matter if they're willing to
do it.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
And your point about governmentor Desanta's, I mean, it's not
only our own government, like and people within it trying
to subvert the will of the American people. We also
now corporations that have come to the party who are
sort of aligning themselves with d C and enforcing their
will on you know, Americans and enforcing like the government's
will on Americans. You know, how do you sort of
what's your take on that? Like we saw the recent

(42:21):
fight with Disney and things of that nature, big tech,
you know, all these different things.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
Well, again, I think the states can regulate that kind
of thing. You know, the Santas is going after Disney.
Well okay, if you want all these state kickbacks, well
then you're going to have to do you have to
toe the line. And corporations the idea of a corporate
person I mean that corporate personhood is the problem there.
But the other thing average Americans can do, of course,
if you don't like what Coca Cola or Disney or
you know, the NFL, or what, take your pick of

(42:47):
some corporation you don't like we was do, We'll just
stop buying their products. This is exactly what the founding generation,
they were going to boycott your stuff, and the left
does this pretty effectively at times. Conservatives tend not to
follow through where they get kicked off for a little
while and then they just keep going what they're doing.
But that economic bustle, I think is something that needs
to needs to be said and it needs to be done.

(43:09):
We saw it with with Disney here in this new movie,
the light Year movie. Apparently it bombed the box office
because people said, we're just not going to tolerate this,
and we're not going to bring our kids to this.
It's not something we want to do. So there is
a pushback that can happen with finances if you really
want to. And then of course also the state's getting
involved in saying if you want to incorporate in our state,

(43:30):
then you're not going to do X, Y and Z,
and I think that's also a key to reigning in
some of these corporations as well.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
You know, obviously there's a conversation happening in the country
right now about the Second Amendment. What's the role of
the Second Amendment? Our amendment in our lives. A lot
of dispute about what the meaning of the Second Amendment
was with the purpose was from a historical perspective, what
was the purpose of the Second Amendment and does that
still hold true today?

Speaker 2 (43:53):
Well, of course, the purpose of the Second Amendment was
to ensure that the United States had a militiam right,
I mean. And so when you think about the Constitution,
it says very clearly in the Constitution without the Second Amendment,
that the central government can arm the militia. Well, of course,
the theory was that they could arm the militia, then
they could disarm the militia, and the militia was every
able body citizen between eighteen and forty five, and so

(44:16):
when there was a discussion of a Bill of rights,
it was okay, well, look, if they we need to
ensure that they can't disarm us and make us impotent,
and so that the state can come in or the
central authority can come in and simply run rough shot
over us. So the states controlled the militia, and of
course the states controlled the essentially the arming of citizens.

(44:38):
And so now it's interesting about that when when the
First Congress met, they actually passed the Militia Law that
established the fact that every male had to be armed.
They had to have a certain had to have a firearm,
they had a certain amount of powder, a certain amount
of ammunition. So they could arm the militia, but they
could not disarm them. And so the Second Amendment is
vital to our understanding of what an armed civilian population

(45:00):
is therefore, which is to prevent centralized tyranny. And I
think there's there's no other way around it. Certainly states
can do more than the central government can. But I've
always maintained any gun control legislation from the central authority
is illegal the states. There's a lot more wiggle room there,
depending on the state constitutions. But certainly this is something
that the left is politicized again looking at things from

(45:22):
present status instead of thinking about it the way that
it's just a natural right to self defense.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
Well, and I mean the Battle of Lexigon Concord, didn't
I mean they were coming for guns exactly right.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
I mean that's they were. They were trying to disarm
the militia, and that was that was what was happening
in seventeen seventy five. So they were they had a
central armory there, and but that was the ide me
you have those in the United States. Now you have
National Guard armory. So imagine the US government coming in
and saying, we're going to take this away from you.
And of course the National Guard is a whole other monster,

(45:55):
and what that means is changing the nature of the
militia there. But this is what was happening in seventeen
seventy five. So the idea is, we're going to disarm
you and we're going to take away your firearms so
you cannot resist any of our unconstitutional laws. And I
think at the end of the day, that's something we
have to recognize and realize was one of the main
parts of this American warfare independence.

Speaker 1 (46:15):
And I think what's really important about this conversation with
you is I think, you know, look, I was a
little bit naive before COVID to be I mean, I
always saw that the government was a bad actor. You know,
We've seen numerous examples, and the governments pretty much always
lie to us our entire lives. But I think for
whatever reason, I still was naive to the fact that
tyranny could get reborn here in America, right like we

(46:36):
were somewhat immune to tyranny, despite you know, Reagan and
beautiful quotes that he's made about freedom being one generation
away from extinction, and COVID just really opened my eyes,
and I think it opened a lot of people's eyes
to the fact that like, tyranny is here, the threat
is real, and you know, we have to fight for
liberty in America.

Speaker 2 (46:54):
Absolutely, And I think if you look at when this
process really began was in the middle of the twentieth
century and basically the Truman administration, we created this deep
state that we have, and at the end of World
War Two, we didn't demobilize. We just kept all the
programs in place from the New Deal and then also
everything that was used to fight the war, and we've

(47:15):
just kept that in place. And all that deep state
apparatus and creation of the politicized CIA and a militarized
CIA and the FBI and everything that happens there, all
of that is a byproduct of extreme centralization during World
War Two and it's always been there. It's just that
people haven't really recognized that they've lived their lives and

(47:36):
they just think the FBI just hurts everybody else, or
the CIA hurts everybody else, or the central government hurts
everybody else, but not me. But now with COVID, they
saw well. I mean, if they can do these things
of these people, they can do it to us too.
And so I think that's really where this deep state
apparatus was in place, and it was there just to use,

(47:56):
and we saw it during twenty twenty and twenty twenty one.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
Man, I could honestly talk to you for hours. This
is one of the more fascinating conversations I've had. But
you know, in the interest of time, is there anything
else you'd like to leave us with before we go?

Speaker 2 (48:09):
Well, again, I think it's important to understand that the
Founding Generation was committed to independence, committed to decentralization, they
were committed to local government, and they were committed to
running their own lives. And if we can do any
if we can live anyway like the Founding Generation, it
would be that think locally, act locally. Idea, make sure
you're going to your city council meetings, make sure you're
paying attention to your state legislatures. Make sure you're paying

(48:31):
attention to your governors. That's more important than anything else.
Vote in those local elections, get people in those local elections,
and in your we've seen you Texas GOP their platforms.
It's now national news because they're thinking about decentralization. They're
thinking about what can the local do to ensure that
we have the liberties and freedoms we want in the
state of Texas. So this is important. It's you just

(48:53):
don't focus on Donald Trump or Joe Biden or whoever's
in Congress. Think about these people at the state and
local level and get people on an office there. You
do it yourself that want to are committed and want
to pursue these ideas of independence and decentralization. That at
the end of the day is what we can type
away from the founding generation.

Speaker 1 (49:11):
Where can people find your work?

Speaker 2 (49:13):
You can go to brianmclanna hand dot com as brionmplaning
hand dot com and you can find everything that I
do there, my podcast, my academy, all the stuff that
I do. So it's I appreciate any of your listeners
going out there and checking me out.

Speaker 1 (49:24):
Thank you, sir. I appreciate your time. This has been
fascinating and I think a really important conversation. So I
really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
So that was loss up. I hope you guys at
home listen to that about the importance of independence, the
importance of liberty, what our founding generation believed, and why
we should still care about those principles today as we
celebrate Independence Day, as we go out and spend time
with friends and family. Liberty is the most important and

(50:02):
if we lose it, we lose our country. So I
really appreciated his time. I thought he was an amazing guest.
Definitely we'll have him back on the show for sure.
You guys should go check out his work. And thank
you all for listening at home. I really appreciate you
tuning in every Monday and Thursday to the show. Also,
we want to make my teammate, my producer, John Cassio,
for working so hard to bring this show to you

(50:22):
and for us. So thanks so much for listening. Guys.
Happy fourth of July, Happy Independence Day.