Founders Under Fire

The Founding Fathers are quoted constantly and understood rarely, and that gap is where bad history thrives. We dig into the real human cost behind the Declaration’s pledge of “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor” and share standout stories from our new book, Lives, Fortunes, and Sacred Honor. You’ll hear what it meant for John Hart to spend a year on the run after signing, and why Francis Lewis’s family story, including Elizabeth Lewis’s imprisonment and failing health, puts teeth into the word “sacrifice.” We also talk honestly about complexity, including William Whipple’s connection to the slave trade and the significance of his decision to free Prince Whipple and publicly oppose slavery. 

Then we shift gears into a surprisingly fun piece of American history: sports and athletic life at the White House. From Teddy Roosevelt’s boxing and jujitsu to Taft and Wilson’s golf, to Coolidge’s infamous mechanical horse workouts and Hoover’s invention of Hooverball, we trace how presidents have always interacted with popular culture. That context helps when modern headlines spark outrage, because it reminds us that “new” controversies often have older roots than we think. 

We close with a direct answer to concerns about growing Muslim political participation in local elections. The takeaway is practical and constitutional: many races are uncontested and turnout is low, so the community that organizes wins. If you want better outcomes, recruit better candidates, contest every seat, and actually show up to vote. Subscribe, share this with a friend who cares about local government, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

Foundation Thursday Setup And Inbox

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Welcome to the intersection of Faith and Culture. This is the Wall Builder Show. My name is Tim Barton. I am joined by my dad, David Barton. And normally our third amigo, Rick Green, is with us. He is on the road right now doing a uh Patriot Academy leadership congress event. And he was actually going to be with us and his flight got delayed. And we're not going to single out the airline. But even though we are proud to be American, sometimes the Proud to Be American Airlines doesn't always get you there on time. Just anecdotal experience, not to digress. Today is Thursday, which means it is Foundation of Freedom Thursday, which means we are diving in to your questions today. If you have questions, you can send them to radio at wallbuilders.show. And we would love to be able to try to help answer questions that you have regarding things in the nation. Usually we try to look at things from the constitutional, biblical, and historic perspective, trying to help you analyze things and maybe gain a good perspective with things that we can show again from a Bible thought, from a historic thought, and especially from a constitutional perspective. So, Dad, normally Rick would be here to read the questions. Today, I am gonna be the one reading

Founders’ Sacrifices From The New Book

SPEAKER_02 1:30

some questions for you.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Well, I want to I don't want to start with one first. I got one uh that you didn't get maybe. This is from uh says it's from Ricardo Verdi. And so Ricardo Verdi, um, I don't know, if you speak Spanish, I think that means Rick Green, but it's from Ricardo Verdi. So this this question from Ricardo Verdi was yesterday, I got to tell you some of the stories, some of my fun stories out of the new book, Lies, Fortunes, Sacred Honor, but you didn't get an opportunity to do that. So Ricardo Verdi wants to know what are your favorite stories? What are some stories that stand out to you from the the new book, Live, Fortunes, Sacred Honor?

SPEAKER_02 2:09

Well, I would like to thank Ricardo Verde for his very uh generous question, allowing me to tell part of some of the stories that we highlight in our new book, Lives, Fortunes, Zagre and Honors. And a quick plug. This is a book that Dad, you and I have worked on for quite a while. We had our incredible team at wall builders uh had has helped us do so much of the research, uh, the fact finding, the details, helping us go through and get all these stories put together and uh really the all of the publishing for this book. We have an incredible team of wall builders, but this is our take going back to try to reintroduce people to the founding fathers. Most people know names and they don't know the stories. And when you know the story, we we took the last line from the declaration where they said we mutually pledged to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. And we go through showing part of what their story was, where so many of them actually did sacrifice, whether it was their lives or their fortunes, and all of them committed their sacred honor for the cause. And and we highlight the sacrifices so many of them made, where uh there's guys like John Hart, who uh when he signs a declaration, he has neighbors that are loyalists, and they get a mob more or less together to come try to get him. He has friends that come and say, bro, they're just down the road. You got to get out of here. His wife was on her in essence deathbed. She was in bed sick. Um, he wanted to be there with her. He has to flee. He flees, and he actually is on the run for the next year, uh, not sleeping anywhere uh in the same bed or the same place twice. And bed is actually a mischaracterization because he really didn't sleep in beds. He was sleeping out in the open woods and fields and in trees, and literally in trees, uh, and under uh hollowed-out logs and all kinds of craziness. When he finally makes it back home, it's like a year later, his wife's already passed away. Uh there's founding fathers that didn't just have to miss the passing of their wife. There are guys like Francis Lewis and his wife, Elizabeth Lewis, is the one who, when the British came to his house, he was gone. Uh, he was at Continental Congress, but the British come up the sailing up the river. Their house is by the river, and troops get off the ship. They're coming up the house, but in the ship, they go ahead and open fire on the house. They shoot a cannon up of the house, and she's standing on the front porch looking down at the river, sees this boat. The cannonball comes and blows out boards between her legs. One of the servants comes, says, Man, we gotta go. She says, No, we're fine. There's no way they're gonna hit us. Uh, that they can't even hit the same spot twice. It's no problem. When the troops finally arrive, uh, they they come, she's wearing some brass buttons. She has brass buckles on her shoes. They uh that the specifically, there was a British soldier who ripped the buckles off her shoes. Historians uh kind of agree. They think that probably he mistook it for gold because of the color, uh, and it was shiny, it was pretty. And Elizabeth Lewis tells them that her quip became very famous that not everything that shines is made of gold, not everything that glimmers is of gold. And she ends up getting arrested, taken to a prisoner ship. One of the things that is is kind of worth noting is there were more Americans that died in prisoner of war ships uh than actually died on the battlefield. It was brutal conditions in these prisoner of war ships. Um, often they neglected to give food and water. And when you were fed or when you got something, it was food and water. She was literally starving. She got really sick. People were trying to smuggle her food. Word got back to the founding fathers, what it was happening. Uh, they sent word to Washington, hey, you go capture somebody, do a prisoner of war exchange. And so he went and captured two of the loyalist wives and said, We're gonna treat them the way you're treating Elizabeth Lewis until you release her. Well, within 24 hours, virtually, she's released. But her health was so broken, she was so sick, she never recovered and died. And so Francis has to watch his wife die of this sickness from being a prisoner of war. And I'm saying this because Josh Hart, Francis Lewis, both of them went through incredible hardship and they never recanted. They they never backed down, they were committed to the cause. But one of one of the stories that I think is really great for kind of the cultural context, there's a signer of the declaration named William Whipple, and his family were were ship tradesmen. Uh that they had multiple ships, did a lot of trading uh uh all over Europe. And one of the things, which I'm saying this because you actually can uh go back, historians have documented that there's actually some trade records from some of the ships where it identifies some of what the cargo was. And there was more than a hundred voyages that these ships took in in trade, but there's like I don't remember the numbers, 10 or 12, something like that, maybe up to 15. Uh, but it was a a small percentage of the number that included some slaves. And so his family was involved in the slave trade. I I think if people said, well, they were slave traders, I think the instant assumption is that, well, that was all they did, and that was their primary focus. And the reality for this family is that they partook in the slave trade. It was part of what they did, but it wasn't the majority of what they did. And this is not to like defend them recognizing this was a great evil, but I say this because William did recognize this was a great evil. He grew up with his family having participated in this, but he has anti-slavery sentiments that that's growing in him. His father gives him a slave, and the the slave was known as Prince Whipple. And back then it was not uncommon. Uh, there are multiple slaves that had the name, the first name Prince. That was a fairly common first name that a lot of these male slaves had. And then it was not uncommon to ascribe the last name of the slave owners, and so he he was known as Prince Whipple. Well, when William Whipple, as the revolution unfolds, William Whipple goes to to fight in the revolution and he brings Prince with him. And uh, as he was encouraging Prince at one point, said, Hey, make sure like you courageous stand strong. And Prince tells him, Well, I think I would fight a lot more fervently, a lot more dedicated, have a lot more passion if I was fighting as a free man. And at this point, William looks at him and says, Oh, well, well, then you're free. And and acknowledges that he is free on the spot. Now, historians would identify, and it's true, that there was a legal process they had to go through at the end of the revolution to actually confirm and authorize what the state required for him to be free. But the the reason I bring this up is because William Whipple was a guy who his family was involved in the slave trade. He begins to embrace abolition sentiments. He actually ends up freeing Prince, he ends up stopping the family slave trade business. He then becomes an advocate, an open advocate against slavery and against the slave trade. And the reason I point this out is he's one of many great examples that if people looked at him, they might see one part of the story and go, oh, well, clearly this was one of the really racist, evil founding fathers. But if you read a little further in the story, you realize, wait a second, that that that's not the defining characteristic of his story or his life. What's far more significant is that he actually changed his position, leads an effort against it, stops the family participating in it, freed his slave, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So there's a lot of fun stories to me like that. Uh and all 56 of these guys, we tried to find some really fun parts of their story, whatever that might be. And we try to be honest about them too. Some of them that absolutely ended up being abolitionists, that uh are very strong advocates against slavery in the slave trade. And then some of them that that never embraced that position, and we show that as well. We highlight for so many of them how they were so outspoken and bold in their faith. Uh, we we talk about some of their military endeavors, we talk about some of the sacrifice from them, the courage of them, uh, the internal fortitude they showed. So, so many great things from this book. And as I'm saying all of this, this the book, Lives, Fortunes, and Sacred Honor, the Signers of the Declaration, it's available this week. Uh, it's uh pre-sale at Amazon. If you want to go to Amazon and pre-order, but next week, June 23rd, uh, it actually will be available for sale. We already have the books in the house, but June 23rd is when it goes live. The sale is live, and you can go to wallbrothers.com and you can order one there. So we would highly encourage you if if you want to know more than just their names, if you want to begin to learn their stories, and part of again, why that matters is if you know their stories, then you would realize a lot of the nonsense being said about them and about America is patently false. But when you don't know the truth, sometimes it's hard to identify the error or identify the lie. And so we wanted to help reintroduce Americans to the 56 signer. So I would like to say to Ricardo Verde, thank you for your question. Uh, I really appreciate that submission. So, Dad, uh, I I feel like I have talked a long time. Let me let me shift to some of the questions that we have, and let me see if we can get a question in before we go to break.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Actually, I've got a couple of ideas, some things I want to bounce off to you uh based on some of the conversation we had yesterday. So let's go to break. We'll come back, and I've got something to ask you.

Break And Patriot Academy Spotlight

SPEAKER_02 11:25

All right. You heard it from the boss man himself, David Barton. We are taking a quick break. We'll be right back in just a moment here on the Wall Builder Show.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

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SPEAKER_02 12:38

Welcome back to the Ball Brothers Show. This is Foundation of Freedom Thursday, where we are answering your questions. Uh, at least that's the goal. Uh, the first part of the program, we answered a question from Ricardo Verde, uh, which I think in English is Rick Green. Uh, and and so it's not really your questions, but uh we we do want to get to some of those questions. I do have a stack of questions in front of me, but Dad, you said before the break that you had something that you wanted to talk about. We we discussed a little bit yesterday, and so you wanted to come back and talk about it some today. So I defer to you. What is the question or what is the topic you want to talk about?

SPEAKER_01 13:15

So I'm I'm gonna play like I'm a legislator and I'm gonna make this a point of personal privilege. So I'm gonna kind of deviate from the legislative schedule or what we normally do and go in for an individual point here.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

Now, to clarify, are you a Republican or Democrat legislator? Is this like the Senate filibuster? Or like what what what kind of personal privilege are you taking here?

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Well, you'll have to judge a tree by its fruits after I get done, sin figure out whether it's Democrat, Republican, or otherwise. Okay, so we're gonna pass the bill and then find out what's in it. I'm ready, let's go for it. See, I I learned from these guys. I learned a lot of stuff

Presidents As Athletes At The White House

SPEAKER_01 13:52

from these guys. So you guys were talking yesterday about the MMA event at the White House, what was happening there with it, and it was, man, uh what they have, a hundred thousand people on the grounds watching on the big screens there around the arena. It was massive, and then the the way it was streamed across the nation, just no telling how many millions, tens of millions watched it. But it got me thinking about athletic events of the White House. As much as we do with history, I was trying to think back to Arn, have there been other athletic events of the White House? And that got me thinking about have there been athletes in the White House? Have any of the presidents been athletes? And I started doing a little look in, and it turns out that Gerald Ford, um, when he was president, he had been uh on two national championships. Oh, football.

SPEAKER_02 14:35

Yeah. I mean, I feel like at this point, why don't you tell me the president and let me see if I know the athletic activity they were part of? All right, let's let's start with Gerald Ford. What did he do? What was his what was his support? I I I identified he was a football player. Um I did not know he was on national championship teams, but I did know he was a football player.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Yeah, he was he was two two times national championship team, and he was offered all sorts of contracts by uh the the NFL. So he had NFL opportunities charted down because he wanted to go to law school. So there was one. What sport was Barack Obama involved in?

SPEAKER_02 15:13

Well, I feel like this is a little bit of a trick question um because he did invite some uh uh college basketball teams like UNC to the White House. He played basketball with them. I feel like he probably was a tennis player, um, but I I don't know. Uh I just I I that's not usually the vision I have of Barack Obama of being like this incredible athlete. Um, and I'm not saying that disrespectfully. I just uh as a community organizer, it's not the way I view him. So I have no idea what did he do.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

So he was on the state championship basketball team in high school. So he was a high school basketball athlete on the state championship team. So he has a little little creds there on sports. So those were two I was unaware of. And so I started looking, and I'm just gonna hit some some 20th century kind of guys, and and what was some of this is not necessarily the sport they did earlier, but while they were in the White House, they adopted sports and made it part of the White House and created um sporting entities at the White House, created sporting areas at the White House, added things to the White House to allow them to practice their sport. So if I start with Teddy Roosevelt, uh what did he do? What was his favorite sport at the White House? What did he do as an athlete at the White House?

SPEAKER_02 16:31

Well, I I it seems, I mean, that I feel like that's a trick question. I feel like he might have said like hunting, but I I do know that he had some boxing matches um at the White House. So that would be my guess.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

It was. It was boxing matches, and he was a serious boxer and boxing a much younger army captain while he was president. He uh he took a real hit to the head that gave him a detached retina. So the detached retina, he had blurry vision for the rest of his life because of the medicine back then. They did not, they were not able to reattach that. And so he took up jujitsu instead. So here's the president who gave up boxing to go for jujitsu, and he's the president who built the tennis courts at the White House. He liked playing tennis. So he was an outdoor outdoorsman, but he was a good athlete. And so I, you know, I just have never thought about the athletic sport abilities of various presidents. Uh if you go to William Howard Taft, who is the very large president, about 400 pounds, what would be his sport?

SPEAKER_02 17:34

I don't know. I was only thinking of joke sports that he could have played. Um it seems like he should have been a lineman for somebody, uh, but I I have no idea what sport he played.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Of all things, it was golf. He he's the one who got golf really into the White House and started doing that as a big deal there and made part of the White House uh where he could play some golf around it.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

So Which doesn't seem to support the narrative when people talk about golf's a real sport, you have to be a real athlete. Well, if he's the one playing golf, there might be some questions, not to uh digress, like you have the Tiger Woods, historic, amazing, there's some incredible athletes, but uh okay, so a golfer, because I do know, and this might be on your list, Woodrow Wilson was the guy who loved to play golf, but he would use, uh, and and this is gonna sound a little odd, um, but during the winter when there was snow on the ground, he would use black golf balls and uh so that he could identify them. Now, I say that might sound a little odd because those that know Woodrow Wilson know he was an incredible racist, uh, and that under his presidential leadership, there was the rebirth of the KKK uh in D.C. They had open marches in DC. Um, so uh I I don't want to make further connections with his uh golfing with black golf balls in the White House. However, uh there have been many presidents that participated in golf uh at the White House, and that is one more that I do remember.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

Yep, and it and he was the successor to William Howard Taft. He's the president came after Taft, and so he was doing golf too. Now, interestingly Teddy Roosevelt finally got um finally got William Howard Taft to stop playing golf. He convinced him that the people see that as an elitist sport, and you're not an elitist, and you don't want people to think of you that way, so that he gave up he gave up golf at the White House. Let's go to Calvin Coolidge. So, what did Calvin Coolidge do for physical exercise at the White House?

SPEAKER_02 19:31

I I I have no idea, but for some reason I want to say swimming, but I have no idea.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

All right, I I'm gonna I'm gonna pull in a name, Kellogg Cereals, John Kellogg, the guy who did Kellogg's and and all the shirt. He had the president had John Kellogg build him a mechanical horse, and he installed a mechanical horse, it's like a bucking horse kind of a thing, and and put that at the White House, and he would work out on that mechanical horse that would throw him around. He did that three times a day, and that was that was his activity in sports because riding a mechanical horse that would throw them all around.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

Yeah, it was probably hard to get a real horse to come in, so that totally makes sense. Uh not at all in my mind, but that's uh maybe maybe safer somehow. Uh I've never heard that. That's fascinating.

Hooverball And The MMA Comparison

SPEAKER_01 20:21

So here's one that I uh this is one I'd never heard, but Herbert Hoover actually created a sport in the White House that is still played today. It's called Hoover Ball. So Hooverball was created by Herbert Hoover. Do you know what the sport is? Do you know anything about it?

SPEAKER_02 20:39

Uh you have a vacuum and you try to suck the ball to you.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

No, it's not the Hoover vacuum cleaner. Um Herbert Hoover was overweight, and so his doctor said you need to lose some weight. You got too much stress going on, lose some weight. So the doctor helped him create a game. And the best I can t tell you is take a volleyball court and put up a volleyball net and then have five players on each side and then play volleyball with a six-pound medicine ball.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

Oh, yeah. That's that's that's something that athletes still do uh conditioning uh on sand uh volleyball courts. Uh that that that's still a real thing. I had no idea that he's the guy that helped originate this. Um, Dad, all of this to say, because I want to land this plane because there is a question I really want us to get to uh before we end the program, but all of this to say, it sounds like then that the idea of doing an athletic sporting event at the White House is not as crazy, maybe, as people think. Now, certainly this idea of people fighting there might seem extreme. You mentioned Teddy Roosevelt, but they would have boxing matches. Uh, and and and back then, probably there were people saying the exact same thing they were today is well, that's that's not civilized, two men standing there and beating each other up. I I'm sure there's always been people. People that have been frustrated and bothered by that. But the one thing I would reiterate that just happened at this last event is that it was something that maybe you don't like the UFC, and I can appreciate that. But it was certainly something that was very pro-America. And we identified uh yesterday so many of the fighters were very pro-faith in what they did as well. Uh, and so ultimately, when you have an event that is uh encouraging patriotism and faith, uh, I'm gonna generally be supportive of that event. Uh so overall, I see a lot of good connections.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Anything else you want to add? No, but it's just I was fascinated how much sporting activities have gone on at the White House, including some pretty unusual sports. So, yeah, yesterday was maybe the first in that genre of sport, but how sporting activities of the White House, nothing new.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

Okay, well, we we are limited in time, so we're gonna have to answer this one as quickly as we can.

Local Elections And Muslim Political Growth

SPEAKER_02 22:53

So I'm gonna summarize it a little bit. This is from Adia Mercer. And in the essence of her question, she identifies, uh, and this is I'm I'm reading part of her email, she says that there have been, as of June 2026, 38 Muslim candidates have won elections, uh, 76 Muslim candidates have run for office nationwide. She goes through a lot of kind of this detail and breakdown. And then her question she finishes with is with the increase of Muslim political participation compared to previous years, um, there's a growing trend of engagement where they're trying to win more and more elections. How do we stop the takeover? Because that's what they are trying to do. So the the question is maybe how how do we stop what some have described as the Islamification of America? And we've seen this in school boards and city councils, we've seen this now in mayors, we've seen this uh Muslims running for state legislation. And and this is not at all any kind of what some people might describe as islamophobic. No, it's recognizing that a lot of the ideals that are being promoted in Islam are things that are contrary to the constitution and that are obviously contrary to Christianity. And so a lot of Christians, a lot of conservatives, a lot of those that believe in the constitution, that there's a a valid reason for concern. So, Dad, in like a minute and a half, what is what is something that can be done for those that are concerned?

SPEAKER_01 24:20

I talked to a political consultant today. This political consultant today told me he has 200 candidates that he's running the races for 200 candidates. Of those 200 candidates, only 40 of them are contested races. So if you're looking at like 160, they're running for city council, running for whatever position, and there's no contest in that. And that's what many of these Muslims are. They're running in places where they don't have competition. You can't fault them for running. You can fault people for not stepping up to run against them. And I was thinking of these cities where you have that, he's got 199 candidates, and only about 40 of them are really contested elections. Uh, you know, what does that say about citizen participation, citizens stepping up and doing their own responsibility? So I don't blame Muslims at all for having that number elected. Uh, it should be concerning, but you know what's more concerning is them not having competition in some of those races and us not spending the time to go recruit people. If you have a really good neighbor and you think, man, he ought to be in office, start getting your other neighbors to go to him and say, or go to her and say, you really need to run for whatever it is, for mayor, for school board, for city council, for tax adjuster, for whatever. That's how you stop that kind of stuff, is you recruit better candidates. If you recruit better candidates, that's the way to get around it. And that's what I'm really disappointed with. I'm actually meeting with some uh state leaders of political parties in various states to start saying, you guys are not doing a recruiting job. You're just waiting to see who walks up to the door. And if they don't walk up to the door, you're not finding people. And Muslims, to their credit, they're just using the system that everybody's got access to. They're just using it better than we are.

SPEAKER_02 25:58

And one thing, too, Dad, we've talked a lot about is that oftentimes the voter turnout in so many of these races is so low. But for so many in the Muslim community, they will vote as a block. And so if there's only, you know, there's only, let's say, 15,000 people that voted in a local election, and there's only 7,000 Muslims in the community. Well, probably all 7,000 Muslims eligible to vote voted. And so it really does make a difference that that people that care about this. If you're a Christian constitutional conservative, you need to make sure that you are recruiting people to show up to vote and you need to show up

Recruiting Candidates And Closing

SPEAKER_02 26:32

to vote. Well, guys, we are out of time for today, but tomorrow we are gonna have good news Friday where we only cover good news stories from around the nation. We want to encourage you tomorrow, so make sure you tune into tomorrow. Thanks for listening to the Well Brother Show.