Ep. 84 – What is a right?

Before we learn about the rights protected in the Bill of Rights, let's learn what rights really are!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello, and welcome back to theGrowing Patriot podcast American History for Kids.
I'm your host, Amelia Hamilton.Last week I told you a few fun
things to know about the Bill ofRights, and this week we're going to
find out a little bit more abouthow it came to be, why and
what it does. Those who havelistened to the podcast regularly will probably remember

(00:30):
our new our guests today Tony Williamsfrom the Bill of Rights Institute. Tony,
it's great to have you back.Yeah, thanks for having me.
Always a pleasure to come on andtalk about history and civics. Yeah.
So, all right, we aredigging into the Bill of Rights and we
are going to be going through everyamendment. But first I just want to
get a handle on, well,why we needed a Bill of rights,

(00:52):
why it matters, and most importantly, how can you tell if something is
a right? So let's start with, first of all, why we have
a Bill of rights? Right?Well, we have a Bill of rights.
I mean historically, it's very interestinghow it developed because in the wake
of the American Revolution and the Declarationof Independence, all the states wrote constitution

(01:15):
state constitutions, and most of themincluded a declaration of rights. Okay,
and those were really important, andit was tradition over the previous decade,
and really coming out of the Englishtradition like Magnakarta and the Petition of Rights
and so forth, John Locke andthe Anglo American tradition was that you write

(01:38):
these rights down to protect them andto limit governments, to set boundaries for
how much the government can impede uponyour rights. Right, very important principle,
and this idea was very important tothe American founders as they went into
the Constitutional Convention of seventeen eighty seven, and the whole purpose of the convention

(02:02):
was to write a stronger constitution toprotect rights. Okay. But during the
convention, actually right at the endof the convention, George Mason of Virginia,
who was the primary author of theVirginia Declaration of Rights, proposed to
the convention that they should sit down. It might take a few hours,

(02:23):
he said, to write a billof rights. And it's really interesting to
think and to learn that the conventionunanimously rejected the idea. I think practically
they wanted to go home. Theyhad been debating for several months and wanted

(02:44):
to return to their farms and theirfamilies. But they also knew that it
wouldn't take just a few hours.It would really take a lot of deliberation
to get it right, and soit was unanimously rejected. But during the
whole ratification debate, the anti federalistswho opposed the ratification, they kept arguing
for a bill of rights. Okay, and instantly enough, a lot of

(03:07):
Federalists, including James Madison, AlexanderHamilton, and a Pennsylvania named James Wilson,
actually argued against it. And it'svery interesting reasons why it can get
complex, but a few reasons whyvery simply that they rejected it. Is
one, they thought the states alreadyhad constitutions and bills of rights, so

(03:30):
it was unnecessary. But most importantly, they said that the Constitution itself was
a bill of rights. And Ithink that's something that we lose today,
the idea that a whole framework ofgovernment, the whole reason for having a
constitutional republic, is to protect thepeople's rights and liberties. Okay, However,

(03:52):
they made those arguments during the ratificationdebate, the federalists kind of caved
in and made some promises that theywould have have a bill of rights in
the first Congress, and so theConstitution is of course ratified, and the
first Congress meets and James Madison actuallychanged his mind and became the main proponent,

(04:14):
you might say, the father ofthe Bill of Rights. And he
proposes it during that June evid speech, and a lot of people don't seem
to care. One delia to Congressmanrepresentatives said that it was like a tub
to the whale, and what thatmeant was like in whaling there was it
was a distraction. It was likea little boat meant to send that to

(04:38):
distract a whale during this whale hunt, and said that we don't really have
time for it. It's really amere distraction. Let's just move on with
our business of setting up the government. Radison kept pressing. He eventually was
appointed to a committee. They drafted. Eventually many rights the Senate agreed to.

(05:01):
They passed seventeen of them. Eventuallythe entire Congress got together in past
twelve. They were sent to theStates, and the ten of this were
ratified by the States as the Billof Rights, as the first ten amendments
of the Constitution. So it's reallyimportant that we have that. In many
ways, you know, the Billof Rights enumerates certain rights, some of

(05:27):
them natural rights, most of themcivil rights, the basic essential rights of
the people of Americans. And it'sreally important to note that. However much
attention though we payed a Bill ofRights, which is really really important.
I mean, I worked for theBill of Rights Institute. I really take
this step seriously. We also needto remember that the constitution, the framework

(05:49):
of government are our republic, ourdemocracy really is a self of bill of
rights. The purpose of the governmentwas established to protect those rights, and
the government cannot violate those rights.Right, So the democratic government, by
nature, it provides for limited government, and we should never forget that because

(06:12):
as much as they're written down,you know, government can violate what James
Madison called a parchment barrier. It'sjust a paper barrier. Which more important
is that the government understands that it'slimited and does violate rights. Goodness,
Okay, so you talked about civilrights and natural rights, and I definitely
want to go back to that.So what is the difference. What do

(06:34):
those mean? No, it's reallyimportant. It's something that's not really understood
today. And and let's keep assimple right a natural right. We can
find them in the Declaration of Independence, right when Thomas Jefferson and the Congress
rights, we hold these truths tobe self evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowedby their creator with certain inable rights.

(06:59):
Right that among these are life flavortingin the pursuit of happiness. A natural
right is something you have by nature, by your human nature. It's embedded
into your human nature from a highersource. Right. In the Declaration,
it says we are endowed by themfrom a creator. Okay, so a
creator, higher source, God gaveus these natural rights, and they're you

(07:25):
know, they're the most basic essentialrights as a human being. Right.
And what it means to be unalienableor inalienable is that you can't be alienated
from them. In other words,you can't be separated from your rights.
No government can justly take them awaywithout your consent. Now, of course,

(07:46):
you know, we know there's boundaries. Right. No right is literally
unlimited. Right. If you commitsome terrible crime, you can lose your
liberty and go to jail. Okay, but the government has to follow certain
procedures to take that liberty away fromyou. Right needs to have a grand
jury and a fair trial, byjury. It needs to give you the

(08:09):
right to appeal and so forth.So it has to follow certain procedures in
order to guarantee you justice and tomake sure it doesn't violate those rights unjustly.
But they are rights that we have. My name is the most important
rights. Life liberty, property,your religious liberty, your freedom of conscience.
The founder saw that as a naturalright. They all agree upon that.

(08:33):
Now, that's very different from acivil right right. A civil right
is something that you get from beinga member of a political community, right
a political right or a civil right, or from being a citizen. So
in other words, just a coupleof examples. One is a right to
a trial by jury. Okay,that's really an essential right in the history

(08:56):
of England. In an America,but there's no natural right to a trial
by jury. In other words,you could have a judge rule justly on
these things. You don't have tohave a trial by jury. But Americans
and based upon the English model,saw as an important right, and so
now it's guaranteed in the Bill ofRights. Same thing with free speech right.

(09:20):
Free speech is really essential to givingconsent in a democracy. Representative government
is based upon that. Free speechwe like to express ourselves freely as individuals.
We want to be able to criticizegovernment. So there's a lot of
good reasons for free speech, butthere are also a lot of limits on
the speech too. Right, youcan't incite violence, or you can't yell

(09:43):
fire in a crowded theater, asa famous example from the Supreme Court.
So certain rights you have from beinga member of the political community or a
citizen living in America, and otherrights you just have from God, from
Nietzs your nature's God, um,And they're embedded in the fabric of your
human nature. So you can't beseparated from them very easily. And so

(10:09):
your natural right might be your mostimportant rights, and your civil rights are
are all of those rights we cantalk about by living in America, by
being citizens. Okay, that makessense, um, But how how can
we tell if something is a rightor just something that we wish everybody could
have? Well, well, that'svery common belief right in society, and

(10:35):
in a certain way. Uh,you know, we know that there are
certain rights, Okay, so let'sstart there. You know, we have
natural rights, some of them weneed to actually deliver it over and define
um. And other rights are writtennow, right, so there they're you
know, state builds of rights inthe in the National Bill of Rights,
in the Constitution of self has civilrights that are protected. Uh, there

(10:58):
are laws that protect our rights aswell. So now there are other things
which we would like to have,but they're not actually rights, or maybe
we think their rights and kind ofclaim them as rights, but they're really
not. But I think that that'sreally the genius of our democratic political system,

(11:18):
right, is that you know,the people may have certain expectations of
rights. And I actually think that'sa very good thing. Actually that even
in certain situations where maybe students don'thave free speech, or kids say to
their parents, I have our freespeech, will say what I want,
right, that kind of thing.I think that that sort of reflexive desire

(11:43):
for rights, if you all that, that claim on the rights that people
make all the time, I actuallythink that's a healthy thing because it shows
that even as we might be alittle ignorant about what exactly our rights are,
how far they extend. Uh,you know, we don't always understand

(12:03):
the limits or even what rights wehave. Sometimes we should, right,
we should educate ourselves looking at thevillow rights looking at the constitutions. That
is good that Americans want those rights. I think that's the great thing and
the beauty of our system is thatwe get to sit and debate about it
freely, and we get to deliberateor debate or have conversations with our lawmakers

(12:26):
and with our fellow citizens about whatrights we should have. And there are
huge debates about lots of rights outthere. A lot of them are going
on even as we speak. Sothat's healthy and that's good because if we
lived under you know, a morestrict government, we wouldn't have that ability
to make claims on rights and tosit here and talk about what rights we

(12:50):
should have. Yeah, that's agreat way to look at it, and
it really speaks to our freedom thatwe think we deserve a lot of rights.
So I looking at it that way. So then coming into the present
day, we talked about there's alot of conversations happening. Why why is
the Bill of Rights still important?That was, you know, more than
two hundred years ago. Does itstill matter now? You know? I

(13:13):
think it does, And I thinkthere's an unfortunate tendency in today's society and
our culture to say, well,you know, the Constitution, the Bill
of Rights, a declaration that wasreally good for an earlier rage. Right,
that was really good for seventeen seventysix or seventeen eighty seven, but

(13:35):
we've progressed so much farther than that, right. Or you know, we
live in a modern, complicated societywith lots of technology and instantaneous communication and
all these advances, and so thatthose conversations, those documents they're they're they're
old, right, they don't reallyapply today. But I would argue just

(13:58):
the opposite, Right, you know, the Declaration of Independence, for example,
like asserts our most fundamental rights ashuman beings, talks about the whole
purpose for having our government right,which and we still have that form of
government. So it's still really relevanttoday. And it's the Constitution. Right,
So the Constitution as it might betwo hundred and thirty or so years

(14:22):
old, but it's still very relevant. Right. The idea is that it's
been able to expand. Right.So for example, so just one example,
right, the government can regulate trade, okay, across state lines,

(14:43):
right or with other nations, whetherthat trade takes place in a wagon or
whether it takes place on an airplanedoesn't really matter, right, they wrote
it the genius I think of thefounding and of the framers of the constitutions
that they in such a way thatit really has endured because it's been able

(15:03):
to still be applied to today's changingworld. So it's still really relevant,
right. And that is the systemwe live under, right, And you
want to change that system, orthey want to get amendments to change it,
that's all fine. We can havethat conversation, but that is the
system we live under. And Ithink if we really thought about it,

(15:24):
we'd be grateful that we live undera constitutional system with the rule of law,
with limited government, with our rightsprotected. I think we all want
that, right, whether you're aliberal or conservative, more right, more
left, and Democrat Republican. That'sall fine. Right. We can have
those conversations and sometimes debates, butwe should all enjoy living under this system,

(15:48):
right, And there's a reason whya lot of people come to this
country to live because of those rights. And I think, you know,
the Bill of Rights, it's stillobviously very outful, you know. And
you can see in our debates though, although at times they can be pretty
rough and pretty contentious, again,it's because people care about their rights and

(16:12):
they want to define those rights,and different people from different perspectives are going
to look at them a little bitdifferently, and that's okay. And that's
okay because we want to really getin you know, free speech, you
know, religious freedom, you knowthe Second Amendment, and gun ownership,
you know, we you know,we argue about abortion, we argue about

(16:34):
all these big topics, and inmany ways, I think that that's a
reflection of how healthy our system is. Is that we want to define our
rights. We want to define thelimits of government right in terms of violating
those rights, and we want tosort of express as a people what we

(16:55):
hold dear, what we value interms of our rights. And so I
tend to look at those conversations ifthey're civil, right, if we're not
engaging in mean calling, but we'rereally trying to debate our viewpoints, then
I think that that's a very goodthing. Indeed. But you know,
all these documents, all these rights, all these principles let's say, limited

(17:21):
government, of self government, ofthe rule of law, all very very
important today. I don't think ifyou thought about the alternative, that anyone
would really want to live under adifferent system. Yeah. One thing I
love about our founding documents is thatit's something that unites us all. You
know, a lot of people thinkabout division these days, and they talk

(17:44):
about all the things that make usdifferent. But we can love all the
things that make us different and stillyou know, this shows that we're all
equal under the law and we allhave these same rights. And I love
that as a point that brings usall together. So that becomes more relevant
as we move forward and keep gettingmore diverse. Yeah, you know,
I think that that's true. Ithink it's very true. We embrace it
at the Bill of Rights Institute,I embrace it. I embrace it in

(18:07):
my books. That you know,even as we have all these debates as
Americans in our society about about policy, right, we're really arguing about laws
and policies. But if we canunite around those principles, and I'm not
sure actually we always do, butif we can unite around those ideals about
the principles about what it means tobe an American, I think that that

(18:32):
would be the foundation of a healthierconversation right over a coffee or over our
fence with our neighbor or so forthover the dinner table. I think we're
going to have healthier conversations and moremore meaningful conversations about what does it mean
to be an American? What areour rights? What are the limits of

(18:52):
government? These are important questions askingand frankly, we should not ever stop
asking them, right. We shouldn'trevere these documents so much that we just
think they're set in stone or marbleand can't talk about them, because we
should. We you know, wegive sort of meaning to these documents in

(19:15):
terms of how we deliberate, howwe debate, how we talk about these
things, and we do shape ourunderstanding of them over time. And so
I think that that conversation is alwaysgoing to be here, and I think
it should always be an important partof our democratic process. It definitely is,

(19:37):
and we appreciate you coming on tohave that conversation with us today and
explain a little bit about the Billof Rights. I think a great interview,
great questions, really important questions forfor our young people listening and also
citizens listening to to think about.Thanks so much for listening. What do

(20:03):
you learn about the Bill of Rightstoday? You can find us on Twitter
Facebook and Instagram at Growing Patriots orat growing patriots dot com. Can't wait
to see you next time when westart to dig into every single amendment,
starting of course, with the first