The Constitutional Foundations of the American Republic: From Proxy Voting to Revolutionary Principles

What happens when constitutional principles collide with modern convenience? We dive deep into the controversial issue of proxy voting in Congress that recently divided Republican lawmakers. The Constitution never anticipated representatives would claim their job without showing up, yet a recent dispute over allowing proxy voting for personal circumstances threatened to change centuries of precedent. 

The stark contrast is unmistakable—we prosecute citizens for voter fraud while considering letting representatives cast multiple votes. As one congressman noted, "proxy voting for regular citizens on Election Day would never be acceptable, so why change the rules for those with even greater responsibility?"

We also explore a fascinating historical parallel: only about 14% of Americans actively participated in the Revolutionary War. This small remnant, guided by biblical principles, managed to defeat the world's strongest military power against overwhelming odds. Could a similar minority influence American culture today? The cultural divide in modern America presents unique challenges compared to the relative consensus of the founding era, particularly on fundamental issues where worldviews have dramatically diverged.

For those struggling to understand our founding documents, we unpack John Locke's challenging Two Treatises of Government—a cornerstone text that profoundly influenced the Declaration of Independence. With sentences sometimes exceeding 200 words written at what would be considered a 78th-grade reading level today, Locke's work requires persistence. Yet understanding his biblical arguments against monarchical divine right reveals how thoroughly Scripture informed America's founding principles.

As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, reconnecting with these foundational texts and principles becomes increasingly vital for anyone who cherishes constitutional government and liberty.

Chapters

• 0:08 Foundations of Freedom Thursday
• 2:40 Is Proxy Voting Constitutional?
• 10:30 The Value of Physical Presence
• 16:49 14% Won the Revolution
• 19:45 The Remnant's Power Through History
• 23:03 Decoding John Locke's Treatises

Transcript

Rick Green [00:00:07] This is the intersection of faith and culture is the WallBuilders Show It's Thursday. So we call that foundations of freedom Thursday around here at WallBuilders meaning that we're going to talk about foundational questions regarding the constitution or the declaration or history or the Bible or whatever foundational question you might have. Send it into us at radio@wallbuilders.com that's radio@wallbuilder.com Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. Let's jump in guys. Lots of great questions coming from the audience today first one is a hot topic. You know, I usually say that the beginning of the program, I forgot to say it, you're covering hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. You talk about a hot topic. It basically shut down Congress last week, at least for what we saw in the in the news and the reports. So Elizabeth Brackett sent this question and she said, Is it unconstitutional to remove vote by proxy in Congress? Apparently, Republicans joined Democrats to vote down a bill that would have done away with proxy voting. What does the Constitution say? So, first of all, guys, I think the question is actually backwards. I think that the bill was to create proxy voting or to allow for proxy voting, you know, which hadn't been done until recently with COVID and all that, but in Nancy Pelosi, but anyway, so I think the real question is, is proxy voting constitutional or not? 

David Barton [00:01:19] So there's a couple of ways to answer that. And it's interesting today, I talked to several congressmen on this topic and I didn't bring it up, they did. And they had some interesting, I guess inside reports on what was in the news last week. But then we also had some interesting constitutional discussions. And so let's just take proxy voting for a bit. It's for me, if you're in Congress, I think proxy voting should be wrong 100% of the time, all the way around. You were elected to do a job, go do the job. That's why they sent you, and this nonsense that Pelosi did under COVID where that one congressman can vote for 10 other congressmen, so each congressman could have 11 votes, instead of having 435 in Congress, you got maybe 40 guys that show up and vote for, that's just wrong. That's not why people elected you and sent you. You take that job serious, and I think there's a moral obligation to do that. Now, there's nothing constitutional about that. The constitution, I don't think ever thought they would come to a point where that members wouldn't show up and vote because the state legislatures elsewhere, you have to be there. You can't vote if you're not there. So I don' think it ever crossed their mind that we would get to the point where we would say, Hey, this job is owed to me and I don't have to show up if I don's want to. I mean, that's just, that's crazy. So having having started with that kind of tone, what it's down to is, all right, is there historical precedent for this? And when this blew up last week with Mike Johnson, the caucus wanna, the Democrats had this and Republicans hated it and they wanted it gone. And then I don't know the full details of the story and the lady, but the Republican female congresswoman has just had a baby recently and wants to be able to have proxy voting because she needs to take care of the kid. And I, you know, I don't want to be callous here, but my goodness, look, you took a job, you, you need to show up at that job and I don't think we changed the whole rules of Congress for 200 and something years because you suddenly had a child and, and that's what they were looking at. And there were some others, two or three others. So really, I think there was only like half a dozen Republicans that ended up supporting some type of proxy on this and the others didn't want to go there, they, they wanted it gone. So Mike Johnson said, well, 

Tim Barton [00:03:37] Hey, and dad, let's point out that we are not suggesting that she should not be a mother and take care of her child. We 100% support her doing that, but you don't change the whole structure of Congress because you had a child is your point, not that it's a bad thing. Like genuinely, if you had choice between being a mother raising your child or being a congresswoman, you probably should choose being a Mother and raise your child. You know, grand scheme of eternity. That's pretty significant. That's great. We love it. We support it, but we have gotten to a place where there's a lot of push to change things off an emotional level or off a convenience level, and that's not why the structure of the constitution was framed the way it was. It was not to make things more convenient. In fact, part of the idea of the Founding Fathers is when you come to a point that you're like, you know what? This isn't really working for me right now. I'm George Washington. I want to go home to Mount Vernon. Let me go ahead and resign. Washington could have been president until he died. He didn't have to give up after two terms. He did it because he said, you know what? I'd rather be somewhere else doing something else. I've given so much for my nation. Let's go a different direction now. That was the idea from the Foundings Fathers. Not that you make this your life career and then you change the rules so that you can continue to make it your career, even though your life circumstances have changed. I think, Dad, which is your point, is you don't change the whole structure just because your life's circumstances have change and not that it's bad. Again, like reiterate, we think there ought to be more women getting married, having kids, helping raise families. We think that's one of the best solutions for the problems we see in the nation is we need. more people that that love and serve God, spouses that love and serve each other that want to raise kids that love and serve god in their communities, etc. This, this is an answer we need having more parents raising kids, but you don't change the whole structure of government because your life circumstances are now different. 

David Barton [00:05:36] Yeah, well said, Tim, that's exactly right, because I don't want to communicate that what what she has with her family and child is not an important thing, but it's just a choice. And you know, let me let me throw it another way. What do we think about proxy voting on election day for the average voter? 

Rick Green [00:05:55] Oh, David, I was going to say the same thing when, when you were talking about this, it's like, you know, this is like absentee balloting to the nth degree in the most important place where you should be there to vote.

David Barton [00:06:06] I mean even Wisconsin just got done passing a voter ID for for Wisconsin which is you know not red state by any means purple state somewhat and occasionally red but so many states have voter ID no one person one vote that's that's what we do we'll prosecute you and throw you in jail if one person casts more than one vote or we'll fine you maybe or maybe you're in jail but you're gonna get in trouble. And we're going to let our congressmen do the same thing, but it's okay for them when it's not okay for the average citizen. No, no, that's got a higher responsibility. My goodness, they're even getting paid to do it. And they chose to do it, I mean, that was something that they took on. And when you take on a job, you need to know what the responsibilities are. So this thing is now, you know, Mike was trying to help them through some of the debates and they got pretty vicious at times. Mike Johnson was saying well that there was a historical precedent in the early 1800s where they had what was called pairing, where that if you were really trying to get there and your horse broke a leg or whatever and you couldn't get there, for a single vote or something, they might let you, let one of your fellows cast that boat if they knew what was happening. But it had to be a really big emergency kind of thing. And so pairing, so maybe there is a little historical precedent that they did that, but it didn't become a practice. And it was not something that was universal. And we could even discuss whether maybe that was the best solution or not. Who knows, but certainly the whole concept of proxy voting to me is anathema for voters and for members elected to be there. That's their job. Be there for your job. And for voters, don't cheat. Vote one time. One person, one man, one vote was the old line. 

Rick Green [00:07:48] Yeah, guys, I, you know, I appreciate the family thing, like you said, but, you know, what if your spouse is dying of cancer? What if your parents, you know, are ill, what, there's life, there is life, right? And things that are important and valuable, but you cannot change how Congress operates and it is so important. How many times have we said on this program, how much we want to see civil discourse, how we want to see people reason and discuss. And you just can't do those things when you're sending people proxy votes. You're not there for the debate. You're there for discussion. It's a valuable, valuable part of a constitutional Republic and how the system works. So I couldn't agree more. I was watching this thing unfold going, how is this even being discussed? I mean, we were so angry whenever Nancy Pelosi implemented this thing and you could manipulate the process if you've got, like you said, David, Oh, I'm carrying 10 votes. Well, how you going to get a hold of those 10 people when there's an amendment to the amendment to the amendment. I mean, I remember as a legislator how important it was. Why do you think we have quorum? I mean you guys remember when the Democrats left town back, you know, right about the time I was right after I was out of the legislature. Then they did it again a couple of years ago to break quorum. Quorum is important. Being there in person is important, alright? I'm sorry to get I just I just did not. I did not appreciate the way this thing went down, and I especially did appreciate the fact that that it was pushed to the point of delaying the Trump agenda, trying to change how Congress works. It just seemed narcissistic to me 

David Barton [00:09:16] Well, I'm going to do a shout out here because Tim's congressman is Roger Williams. And last year, Roger Williams, his wife, Patty, had serious medical stuff and died.  And he had to work out going back and being by her side and coming back for key votes and going back to being by herself. I mean, it was a tough thing on him, but to his credit, he made all the sacrifices and did the stuff he committed to do and, and Roger Williams good for him. Great job on that. Cause it was a tough situation. He loved his wife. They were very close. It was a very rough situation for her health wise. But one of the congressmen pointed that out to me today. He says, Hey proxy, look at Roger. He worked out the really tough stuff. And I think that's, as you said, Rick life happens and it's just just stuff you got to do and you just have to work it out. 

Rick Green [00:10:07] Well, it's uh it's it's I'm glad they're resolving it. It sounds complicated the way they're doing that pairing thing. I don't know if I can you know, I don' like that kind of confusion, right? You want it to be simple. Hey, do you have the votes or do you not have the vote? Oh, we have the but it was a one vote difference and so and so was paired with so and so from the other. Oh, I'm just I'm not sure I'm a fan of that that solution but you know you gotta you gotta get there as well.  Guys ready to move on for the next one? All right, this one's about the book, American Story, which by the way, folks, if you haven't read that, you got to get it. There's two volumes out now, volume three coming soon. But this person, Steve, said, I just finished your book, The American Story. Where you note that only 14 percent of Americans actually participated in the Revolutionary War, would it be accurate to say that the worldview of Judeo-Christian worldview was persuasive enough to make that small percentage carry the day? Would 14 percent today have the same degree of influence? Thank you. I've been meaning to ask you for verification on this because I've always said six or seven percent of the fourteen percent I guess includes, you know people that were in legislatures and maybe you know donated to the cause somehow or that sort of thing where does that number come from and what do you think about that biblically in terms of you know? Basically a remnant moving the culture one way or the other 

Tim Barton [00:11:20] Well, to identify that source is worth starting with and then what does it look like for America today? Bible remnant, there's a lot of, I think, really fun thoughts you can add into that. But finding that source, it is actually very challenging because there's lot of historical dispute over what that specific number was. Was it 9%, was it 7%, was at 14%. We actually think it very likely could have been less than 14%. We were trying to find sources that we could identify and have something to cite. And sometimes when we are doing things like this, we will choose the larger number in some extent to not make it seem like, you know, if we said it was only 7% and then it was actually 9%. Well, now you've overstated. It's easier in this situation to say it was more because it's more impressive if it was less. And so probably, I think realistically looking at overall involvement in how we include involvement might be, it's nuanced details now, right? Like if somebody gave somebody a meal one time, were they involved? You fed a soldier one time. Were you part of the process? So even the way you include who was involved is a little skewed, but the bottom line is that from the 25 to 30 whatever percent that were supportive. in philosophy, in theory, to the cause of the Patriots, it was a very small percentage that actually engaged in the process, especially for the overall nation and not dissimilar from noted Bible stories, right? When you have Gideon and he has more than 30,000 men, 33,000, I think is what he starts with. And God says, you know what? That's a little too many. Let's just, if anybody's scared, tell them to go on home. And then he's left with 10,000 and God says, that's still too many. Let's say if, you know, let's have him go drink water and whoever drinks a certain way, we're gonna send them back, only keep this small number. He only has 300. Now going from 33,000 to 300, that's a very, very small percentage. But one of the things that's very clear from scripture is that God does not need the numerical advantage to win. And this is, realized over and over and over historically where there are so many examples of, people being in a minority to some extent, not having the numbers and God at times giving them the victory of the overall battle or on the battlefield. And that's certainly the case when it comes to America, that even the majority of Americans did not support the cause of liberty, there were as many Americans, maybe more that were against the Patriots that that were on the loyalist side, then there were supporting it. And then you had Great Britain, the greatest military, the number one military in the world that is opposing you. And somehow God takes a small remnant and they're able to secure victory. This is something that historically, again, that that number is a little hard to, to pin down, um, because they didn't have a roll call for every community, right, for, for every individual that contributed. 

Rick Green [00:14:23] Hey, Tim, you said you can't just go back and watch a video of everybody that lined up and count heads and figure out who, uh, we don't have those kinds of records from the 17 seventies. Come on, man. 

Tim Barton [00:14:32] So, it makes it a little challenging to have really accurate numbers. So a lot of it's speculation and again, this is where it's kind of hard even documenting some of this, where there's disparity in some of the numbers, but what's universally agreed is it was a very small percentage of Americans. It was a 25% to 33% kind of notion that supported the cause of liberty, but then of those that actually participated, I think it's probably fair to say it was single digits, where some historians think it was more than 12 to 14 percent, and let's, okay, let's say it is. Even 12 or 14 percent, they're still significantly outnumbered. They're outmatched, etc. It was only by God's intervention, by God grace, that the revolution went the way it did and certainly we have seen God do those kinds of miracles consistently throughout scripture and even in the course of the rest of world history, certainly American history. And so Rick, I think to your point, that's part of where we see, you know, that the remnant to some extent that God preserves a remnant and, and God at times does quite miraculous things to help decide that he is promoting forward to win in some of these victories. And I certainly think we're even seeing some of that in America today where as Christians, on the conservative, Biblical worldview side, we are absolutely in the minority even today, even though people might say, well, there's more Christians than conservatives. Now, hang on. There might be more people fighting on our side on some level, but there's no way you're calling Joe Rogan or Elon Musk, right? A theological conservative, a Christian, whatever else. there's more people supporting some of the cause of the conservative movement, but not that's ideologically aligned to it, which is part of what happened in the American Revolution. As God began bringing them friends and allies along the way, they weren't all ideologically aligned, but they were all serving for a common goal and a common good. And that's part of how victory even came in the revolution. And I think we're seeing that to some extent even today. 

David Barton [00:16:29] And kind of jumping into that second part of the question a little bit, because you had Steve asking, well, the worldview Judeo-Christian then was persuasive enough to make that small percentage carried today, would it have the same influence today? So let, let me just take a couple of examples. If you had the entirety of America lined up back then, and you said to them, we believe that there are only two genders, I don't know that you find a single person disagree. Right. If you have that. Line up today you might get sixty percent that agree so you're already looking at a whole bunch of people not gonna support you at all and that doesn't include who steps up to take action and then if you get into the thing where thirty two thirty three states bag before burger felt said hey we think that marriage should be sexual relations combined to a man and a woman you don't even gonna find that today much less the genders. So it's it's such a different world view now from what it was then but as Tim pointed out you know we we kind of went with the larger number back then which is still really small but today you would have such a difficult time getting the populace to line up behind you and support you they may not go out and do anything but would they even support you and that's a whole different question for today we we have a cultural divide that we have never had in American history because we stopped teaching education and the church has not been the strong leader should have been in those areas and because of that we've allowed ... as Jesus talked in his parable the tears to come in and and take over the good grass in the field and now we got a real problem with weeds growing all through the pasture that used to be really good and clean 

Rick Green [00:18:13] Well, and it's such an encouragement when you see the split like you're talking about David, or people think we gotta have everybody just to know, whether it's three, or it's six, or 14, or even 20% of the country, the fact that you can move the country in the right direction, and God can still do things with a remnant, and we're certainly seeing the remnant grow right now in the country. But always very encouraging to hear those things. All right, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:19:44] Welcome back to the WallBuilders show. Thanks for staying with us. It's foundations of freedom Thursday. And this was from Joe in Kokomo, Indiana, which I thought was in Hawaii, but apparently it's in Indiana. All right, Joe from Kokomo. He said, since, since John Locke played a pivotal role in the founding of our nation, I decided to read the two treatises of government. To be honest, I'm struggling. It's written in English, but for the most part, I have no idea what he's saying I am up to section four titled Adam's title to sovereignty by donation, which begins on page 18 in my book. It seems to me he's taken a lot of time and words to say some guy who he refers to as 'A' whatever that means wrote a treaty of his own claiming that Adam was the king of the world By what by that he reasons that we are to have monarchs and we are all subjects. Am I correct? I am surprised. It's been this hard for me to understand what he's saying any help would be appreciated You guys are awesome. Thank you for what you do Joe. Welcome to my world brother I feel the same way about all these writings and when I whine about it Then David just reminds me, hey, you know, average upstate New York farmer could understand it. What's your problem, Green? So yes, I feel your pain, Joe. 

David Barton [00:20:48] I tell you right now, everybody's joined in the standing ovation for Joe. The fact that he is getting into Locke's two treatises ago, but that is the best news I have heard in a long time. This is absolutely phenomenal. And Joe, I feel your pain, brother. I'm going to go back. The first time I started reading founding fathers, and I'll tell you the founding fathers are easier to read than John Locke is. First time I started writing founding fathers. I bought an old two-volume set of some founding father's writings. I don't remember who it was, but it was 600 pages between the two volumes. And I remember very clearly, I was on about page 450 when I started figuring out what he was saying. It took me that long to get into his style of reading and the length of the sentence about three times longer than our sentences are. And they have words that are 15, 18 letters long. I mean, everything was different. And I fought that, and it took me halfway through the second volume before I started, oh, I'm starting to get it now. So what you're asking, the A with a long dash, what happened is John Locke did a response to another guy who wrote a book. And that guy wrote a books saying, God intends that everybody have kings and queens and monarchs and we're not supposed to rule ourself. And that other guy's name was A. And so rather than call him by name, he does the letter A with long dash. And the guy's last name, I don't even remember it now, but it is an A. And so what he's doing is he's saying this other guy, the book he's rebutting, this other guys says this, but here's what the Bible says. And he did say Adam was king of the world, and Adam had no other king except God. And so Adam, as a citizen, as an individual himself, Adam himself, God gave him authority over the earth. He didn't give it to a king to give to Adam. He gave it, and so he argues for that viewpoint. Now he doesn't say kings are wrong because he's got a king at that time and he's not saying that but he's saying that it is wrong to think that kings are the only way that you rule God gave authority to Adam as an individual and Adam ruled over everything around him And so he goes into to a long thing on Adam and I'm going to tell you Joe I I have got a version of the two treatises of government that I went back through I did not change the wording in them I simply changed the punctuation and it made all the difference and I mean give you an example there is a sentence in John Locke, as I recall, it was over 200 words long, the one sentence was over two hundred words long. Now, we are generally into five, six, seven, eight word sentences a day, it's over 200 word. And he puts commas, he puts colons, he puts semicolons, he has the greatest run on sentence. I think the apostle Paul had one of those in Ephesians. I think there's one sentence in Ephesus that goes seven verses long. And that's what John Lockey did. So I took that sentence. and I put it in the computer and test it on the flyer scale, which is what tells you the grade level. That sentence came back at a 78 grade level is what John Locke was writing that sentence in. So I'll feel your pain, brother. You just got to get in there and fight and struggle. But if you'll turn those semicolons and commas into periods, it'll help you shorten those sentences. It makes a lot more sense. 

Tim Barton [00:23:58] Well, and dad, I think it was Sir Robert Filmer, something like that, that John Locke was writing his rebuttal to. So I think A was just kind of a stand-in for it. But one of the things worth noting as Filmer was writing in defense of the kings and the divine right of kings and kings are God's representatives and we should all do what they say because they speak for God. And so he was gonna show that in the Bible, it's very clear God always had kings. From the beginning, Adam was the first king of the world and he goes through and clearly, it's like the worst biblical exegesis ever, which is why John Locke gets into it. And one of the things that as we were working on the potential reprint of that John Lock work, trying to put new punctuation, even modernize a few of the words to make it easier to understand, but trying to keep truth, the integrity of the original as much as possible. One of the thing we wanted to do is identify John Lock in his rebuttal, He just starts in the Bible. And he starts in Genesis and starts going through and quotes verse after verse after verse of why Sir Filmer is wrong. And as he goes through, I mean, I think between the verses that he is, he's saying he said this in the Bible, but here's what the Bible actually says, not even including the verses, that he identified that he was rebutting the bad interpretation just the once he quoted, I don't think it's over a thousand verses that he gets into. And this is one of the things that was so impressive is. one of the most significant political treatises, especially for American history period, the two treatises of government and so significant for the founding fathers, especially during the revolutionary period. It literally was a Bible debate where John Locke is explaining the proper role of government from the Bible and citing more than a thousand verses as he does it. So it's such a remarkable read and kudos for anybody willing to pick it up and try to go it. It's not easy, but such an interesting context that the founding fathers and what shaped them was a guy having a debate about what the Bible actually said about the proper role of government. 

Rick Green [00:25:59] And what great timing, guys, because here we are getting ready to begin the preparation for the 250th of the Declaration of Independence a little over a year from now. And so many of the founders talked about that it was Locke's influence from the Two Treatises of Government that had so much influence on the Declaration Of Independence. Jefferson, Adams, and others talked about that kind of thing. So the fact that Joe's reading that in order to get inside the minds of the founding fathers, very much like what you were talking about, David, the more you read them, the more you kind of get inside their rhythm of how they were thinking and what they were writing. What a great time for Joe to be doing that with Locke as we get ready to study the declaration more and more over the next year. So really great question, Joe. Thank you for sending it in. We'll have more on that in future weeks, I'm sure. Don't miss Good News Friday tomorrow. Have a great day, everybody. You've been listening to The WallBuilder Show.