Season 3, Episode 3 | The Folk Origins of Freedom: How Ordinary Americans Shaped the Declaration

Have you ever wondered where America’s revolutionary ideas really came from? Was it the genius of the Founders? What if the story of the Constitution didn’t begin in Philadelphia in 1776, but in colonial homes, small-town churches, and the stubborn belief that no one has the right to rule another?

In this episode of This Constitution, Savannah Eccles Johnston and Matthew Brogdon trace the folk origins of American self-government. Through the voices of farmers, ministers, and everyday colonists, they uncover how the principles of liberty and equality were not imported from Europe’s philosophers but born from generations of lived experience.

From the self-written laws of the early colonies to the fiery courage of men like Captain Levi Preston, who famously said, “We always had governed ourselves, and we always meant to,” this conversation reveals that America’s Revolution was not just a political one. It was deeply personal.

If you think the Declaration of Independence was the start of freedom’s story, think again. This episode examines how the American spirit of self-rule was already alive, thriving, and waiting to be documented.

In This Episode

• (00:18) Introduction to discussion topic
• (00:55) Captain Levi Preston and folk origins
• (02:13) Colonial self-government traditions
• (04:53) 150 years of self-government
• (06:14) Cultural and political ties to Britain
• (07:16) Influence of American colonies on Britain
• (08:58) Speculation on the empire’s future
• (09:39) Radical ideas: No man has a right to rule another
• (10:32) Sam Whittemore’s story and individual action
• (11:26) “A man can stand up” – Johnny Tremain reference
• (13:41) The principle of equality and self-government
• (14:48) Folk origins and pervasiveness of the idea
• (15:26) Contradictions: Slavery and self-government
• (17:28) Revolutionary spread of equality
• (18:10) Inherited and revolutionary aspects
• (19:25) Washington’s change and sentiment revolution
• (20:27) Twin dynamics: Inheritance and improvement
• (22:20) Is self-government core to American identity?
• (22:28) Tocqueville: Freedom and religion
• (24:19) Pragmatic wisdom in the Declaration
• (24:33) Recap and folk origins summary

Notable Quotes

• (01:43) “What we meant in going for those redcoats was this. We always had governed ourselves and we always meant to. They didn’t mean we should.” — Captain Levi Preston
• (01:57) “The folk origin of the Declaration, if you will, is to preserve the traditional way of life, which is just to govern yourself, just to be in charge of yourself.” — Savannah Eccles Johnston
• (05:41) “It’s tempting to think of revolution as we start off as British colonies and we gradually become American. Actually, the colonies were very distant, very separate, and very independent from Great Britain in the 17th century.” — Matthew Brogdon
• (06:57) “It’s kind of like you’ve been ignored by your parents and now you’re 17 and suddenly they want to be your parents again, and now you’re ready to be independent.” — Savannah 
• (11:19) “No man has a right to rule another. And you actually brought this up before the podcast, this idea of a man’s right to stand up.” — Savannah Eccles Johnston
• (12:34) “We’re fighting so that a man can stand up.” — Matthew Brogdon quoting James Otis
• (22:30) “The distinctive thing that Americans did, that no one had done in republican societies before us, was we combined the spirit of freedom and the spirit of religion.” — Matthew Brogdon
• (24:40) “The idea of self-government is not new with the Declaration. You said earlier that people didn’t read the Declaration and go, oh really? That’s good to know. No, they already knew this.” — Savannah Eccles Johnston

Transcript

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:00:05 - 00:00:13]

We the people, do ordain and establish this Constitution. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:00:13 - 00:00:16]

Welcome to This Constitution. My name is Savannah Eccles Johnston. 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:00:16 - 00:00:17]

And I'm Matthew Brogdon. 

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:00:17 - 00:01:49]

And this week we are going to speak about the folk origins of the Constitution. Last week we focused on the Black-Robed Regiment, or the role that the clergy played in preparing the minds of the American people for revolution. So Jefferson calls the ideas of the Declaration an expression of the American mind. And our goal today is to show just how pervasive the ideas in the Declaration were and how deeply American they were. So if it's okay, first I want to start with a vignette from Paul Revere's Ride, which was written by David Hackett Fisher. So I'm going to read it to you. Many years later, Captain Levi Preston of Danvers was asked why he went to war that day at the age of 91. His memory of the Lexington alarm was crystal clear and his understanding was very different from academic interpretations of this event. A historian asked him, Captain Preston, what made you go to the Concord fight? What did I go for? The old man replied, subtly rephrasing the historian's question to drain away his determinism. The interviewer tried again. Were you oppressed by the Stamp Act? He asked. I never saw any stamps and I always understood that none were ever sold. Well, what about the tea tax? Tea tax? I never drank a drop of the stuff. The boys threw it all overboard. But I suppose you have been reading Harrington, Sidney and Locke about the eternal principle of liberty. I never heard of these men. The only books we had were the Bible, the Catechism, Watts's Psalms and hymns and the almanacs. Well then what was the matter, young man? What we meant in going for those redcoats was this. We always had governed ourselves and we always meant to, they didn't mean we should. 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:01:51 - 00:01:53]

That's eloquent. It is. 

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:01:53 - 00:02:16]

There's something about this that's the point of revolution. The folk origin of the Declaration, if you will, is to preserve the traditional way of life, which is just to govern yourself, just to be in charge of yourself. And I think first we should introduce just how much of a long term experience this was for the colonists, this idea of governing themselves. This is a great colonial tradition. 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:02:16 - 00:04:12]

Yeah. When we talked about the clergy and the Black-Robed Regiment, we talked about Connecticut's founding way back in the 1630s and 40s, and then writing their own constitution. And that was not unique, like Connecticut was not unique in that they sat down, wrote themselves a form of government, had their own institutions, they didn't have to have folks sent over from Great Britain to sort of staff their courts and their legislatures and so forth. They did govern themselves and that was pervasive. Some of the colonies were what we call royal charter colonies where the crown sort of gave them authority to create them. Some of them were commercial in character, others were sort of spontaneous. I mean, the Plymouth Plantation really had no royal. They were supposed to be in Virginia, they landed in Massachusetts. They weren't supposed to be there. And everybody's familiar with the Mayflower compact for the Plymouth combination and Connecticut's a great example. But even Massachusetts Bay, which is authorized by the Crown, they still write themselves what they called the Massachusetts body of Liberties, which was this document which set out a set of institutions that determined what they called the General Court. It's what they called their legislature. It set out rights of the citizen. It set out capital crimes. They did not just assume that they carried all their laws with them from England. This was a very interesting thing. In fact, there were. The Massachusetts body of liberties is interesting because they actually pare down capital offenses. So for the Puritans in Massachusetts Bay, they would only define something as a capital offense if it had been defined as such in the Old Testament law. Now that may seem harsh by modern standards, but at this time in Great Britain there were hundreds of crimes that were punishable by death, some of them shockingly mundane. So it was actually a quite. They said, you know what, if the Bible didn't think it was punishable by death, we're not doing it. We don't care if England did or not. So there's some very important instances like this of the colonists going, we're in a new place, we're going to make our own laws, right? 

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:04:12 - 00:04:53]

So they have an expectation of being able to write their own laws. But from very early on, the British are concerned about this sense of self governance. For example, the Massachusetts colony begins as a self governing charter. This changes to a royal charter by the end of the 1600s, where Britain comes in and basically says, actually we're going to have a little bit more direct control. We're going to have a royal governor. We get to appoint him. That's different. By the time you get to the revolution. I think 8 of 13 of the original colonies are royal charters. I think 3 are proprietary at this point. And. And those mid Atlantic states, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware. And interestingly enough, those are the ones with the least revolutionary fervor because they're a little bit more detached. 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:04:53 - 00:06:38]

You got 150 years of history in American self government before the revolution, the 1620s, actually, but for Virginia, all the way back to the 1610s and teens. So you got 150 years. You go through seasons. It's not just uniform. And the colonies are governed differently. But the broad sweep is for the first 70 or 80 years of this experience, through much of the 18th of the 17th century, 1600s, you had benign neglect, right. The Crown more or less ignored what was going on in North America, and people crafted their own institutions and did their own thing. And this was part of the irony, because the 18th century actually drew Americans back into relationship with Great Britain. In a way, it was a reassertion of control. It's tempting to think of revolution as we start off as British colonies and we gradually become American. Actually, the colonies are very distant, very separate, very independent from Great Britain in the 17th century for the first 70 or 80 years of its existence. And then it actually comes under greater control politically and culturally. We had Jeremy Black on the show back this last season, the British historian, and we were talking a bit about the revolution. It was for the anniversary of Lakesman and Concord last year. And one of the things he pointed out was that in terms of culture, in terms of what we would now call pop culture, Americans actually became more British in the 18th century. So it's both political and it's cultural. There's a kind of globalization going on. Great Britain actually consolidates its control of the empire whenever we get closer to the American Revolution. So American self-government is complex, but it's longstanding. 

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:06:38 - 00:06:38]

Right? 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:06:38 - 00:06:43]

You got a century and a half of experience on this side of the Atlantic doing these things on your own. 

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:06:43 - 00:07:16]

But I think it's worth pointing out that though we get culturally closer, we don't get happily, politically closer. Great Britain certainly asserts more control, but it's. I use this analogy in class. I told you this before this recording. It's kind of like you've been ignored by your parents and now you're 17 and suddenly they want to be your parents again, and now you're ready to be independent. It's hard to come back in and govern those who you have neglected for so many years. So culturally, fine, but politically, this isn't going down among the colonists. 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:07:16 - 00:08:51]

And it runs in the other direction too. We can talk about John Locke. I mean, Locke's writing A Second Treatise of Government and all these foundational things gonna influence the founding in the late 17th century, around the 1690s, he's publishing this stuff. The thing was, Locke was in part looking at the Experience in America. He actually speaks of America. He speaks of American settlements in the Second Treatise on Government. Right. He helps Lord Shaftesbury, who's a benefactor, write a draft constitution for the colony of South Carolina. At one point, you can find this Shaftesbury was a shareholder. A lot of the southern colonies were commercial affairs. And that's emblematic of a broader trend. I mean, in British politics. British Whigs, the. Those who are attached to legislative government representation, something we'd look at as republicanism as opposed to the inherited forms of monarchy and so forth, actually draw a lot of inspiration from American colonies. I mean, it's clear that when, for example, some of the defenders of America in Parliament, like Burke, like one of the Pitts. Is it Pitt the Younger? I can't remember. Pitt the Younger, Pitt the Elder. When they're talking about American liberty, they're talking about American Whigs. They're actually looking with admiration at what Americans have done in terms of republican government and urging Great Britain to move in the direction of America. So it's not just that Britain's reasserting its control. The American colonies themselves have had an influence. So it's not just the parents coming back. It's that the parents are learning from the children. There's this immense influence. 

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:08:51 - 00:08:53]

You can imagine this being problematic for the Crown. 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:08:54 - 00:08:54]

Yeah. 

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:08:54 - 00:08:58]

What does this influence mean for his own subjects? 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:08:58 - 00:09:16]

Yeah. Some people speculated in, like the 1750s, that the British Crown would eventually move to North America, that the seat of British Empire would move across the Atlantic. That's where the greatest increase in wealth, territorial expansion, population growth is much more rapid. There's a lot of gravitational pull. 

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:09:16 - 00:09:20]

It was not too late. King Charles can move to Canada at any time. 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:09:20 - 00:09:21]

Oh, yeah, sure. Okay. 

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:09:21 - 00:09:36]

So. But this raises an interesting point, that you're fighting a revolution and making a declaration of independence to preserve the status quo, the political status quo. So in some way, this is a reactionary revolution. It's kind of a conservative revolution in ways. 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:09:36 - 00:09:39]

Mark Dimon called it the revolution of sober expectations. 

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:09:40 - 00:09:42]

Well, we don't often think of it like that. 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:09:42 - 00:09:42]

Yeah. 

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:09:42 - 00:10:33]

That it is a revolution to preserve what already has been. But then there's a deeper level to this as well, that we wanted to talk about, which was it's not just preserving the status quo that Great Britain leaves us alone. We get to govern ourselves. It's also this deeper idea of man being allowed to govern himself, period. That no man has a right to govern another person. That is radical. That is kind of a new thing that's bubbling and finding Itself politically expressed. So there's this great story of old man, old Sam Whittemore, who was a farmer in Concord, and he's 78 years old, and. And he goes out to fight the British on April 19th. This is 1775. This is an excellent story. Why is he doing this? Why is he getting his musket and his two pistols, standing behind his low brick wall and then shooting one with a musket, pulling out two pistols and shooting two more alone, by the way. 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:10:33 - 00:10:41]

He's not part of a militia regiment. He's in the field. He goes and retrieves his firearms and attacks a British regiment by himself. 

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:10:41 - 00:10:46]

And then he is shot in the face and stabbed over 12 times. 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:10:46 - 00:10:49]

He was bayoneted. Bayoneted 12 times, left in a pool of blood. Right. 

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:10:49 - 00:10:55]

And he survives. He lives to be 96 years old, which I didn't know that was possible in the 1700s, but there you go. 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:10:55 - 00:10:57]

He died in 1793. 

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:10:57 - 00:10:58]

Yes. 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:10:58 - 00:11:02]

So he got to see Washington become president and the Constitution and... 

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:11:02 - 00:11:29]

Right. So this man, why does he do this? He's not part of a militia, as you say. He's not a member of the Sons of Liberty. He's not helping Paul Revere or. Why stand outside your own house and start shooting at people who aren't shooting at you? Why do this? And I think it gets to this, like, really core idea that no man has a right to rule another. And you actually brought this up before the podcast, this idea of a man's right to stand up, that there's something happening here, and I think you should. 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:11:30 - 00:13:40]

...from a Newbery Award book, Johnny Tremain. A lot of listeners might have read Johnny Tremaine at some point. My kids read it. I didn't read it as a kid, but I read it whenever my kiddos read it for school. Esther Forbes wrote this book back in the 40s, and it's this kid who's living in Boston. Johnny is. He's an apprentice to a silversmith, a competitor of Paul Revere's. Actually, he's an apprentice. He winds up injuring himself, his hand, which ends his apprenticeship. But he winds up working with the Sons of Liberty and all the. But he's there through the whole occupation of Boston, the whole thing. And at one point he asks. I think it's James Otis in the book. He's asking him, why is it worth fighting against the British? I mean, he's got all this army sitting out on Boston Common. There's a Continental army across the river led by Washington. The siege of Boston and all that. And he says, why are we doing all this? And I think James Otis gives him this spiel about how they're to improve the lot of the common man. And Forbes puts this line in the mouth of Otis. He says, we're fighting so that a man can stand up. And he deliberately points the British soldiers out there on the common. Those common soldiers, they don't know it, but we're fighting so that in the next generation men like them can stand up, they can mind their own business. I have always loved, and I've probably said it too many times, Washington's summation of this concept, which is repeated use in the Old Testament of the idea that in a just society that lives at peace, every man sits under his own vine and fig tree and none shall make him afraid. It gets repeated in the Old Testament. Washington writes it repeatedly in letters to people as this sort of summary of what it means. And I think there is something visceral about that. Like I live at peace in a place that is my own. And yes, I have things in common with my neighbors. I have responsibilities to my community where self government doesn't just mean being by yourself, but there is something visceral about that, that there is a private space that's mine and a family that's mine. I have things that I can call min own and that I govern. 

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:13:40 - 00:13:57]

Right, and that you have some right by nature to do this. This is the whole point of the Declaration, right to this, that all men are born equal. It's just no one has a right to rule another. It's as simple as that. Because everyone is equal under the guidance of God, everyone has the right to rule themselves. 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:13:57 - 00:14:47]

It's a profound and counterintuitive thing because you say something like no man has a natural right to rule another. And then immediately, if you're a thinking person, like lots of examples of people ruling you that you never consented to come to mind, starting with your parents and any number of adults in your childhood who ruled over you and never asked your permission to do it. But in fact, though it is an important political truth and even those. I mean, it's important that even those natural relationships can be lost. A parent can lose their right to rule their child. They can abuse the authority that they receive. So even natural authority can be abused and lost. And then political authority has to be earned, has to be consented to. And that's. It's a simple concept. When you start trying to trace it out through human affairs, it's just profoundly complex. 

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:14:48 - 00:15:26]

I think what we're trying to get at in this episode is this kind of folk origin is everyone knew this, this is the expression, this is the core expression of the American mind, that no one has the right to rule another. And some farmer, 78 year old Sam Whittemore just knows this, he senses it and he goes out and starts shooting his musket because of it. That you see this with him, I think you kind of see this in the youthful spirit of the Sons of Liberty and the Boston Tea Party. Whatever you think of their actions, this idea that you don't actually have a right to rule us and so we're going to do something maybe isn't the best idea, but we're going to throw some tea into a harbor. But it permeates all of the colonies. 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:15:26 - 00:15:43]

Even the places that seem like exceptions. Because the, the other thing that anyone would be thinking right now is there are lots of people in this society that don't govern themselves and aren't ruled by consent. We hold people in enslavement and there are even people who are in exploitative situations like there are in the default in human societies is actually slavery and tyranny. 

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:15:43 - 00:15:48]

I think you've got 50% of the human population don't even own their own bodies. 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:15:48 - 00:17:28]

So there's an awful lot of what we would recognize as people being ruled without their consent or outside this principle. But Edmund Burke gives this speech in Parliament during the Revolution trying to explain to Parliament why they should not pick a fight with the Americans and should concede many of their demands and avoid a war. And one of the things that Burke says, he says, I know he's talking about the spirit of liberty. He says, I know you think that because many of them are slaveholders, they're not really attached to the Republican government. He said. But I need you to understand these are people who are themselves engaged in the act of self government. Virginians and Carolinians and Marylanders. Actually slavery was legal everywhere at the Revolution, so supplied everywhere. But even the most deeply slave holding parts of the Union. He said these people are governing themselves, that is those who are not enslaved and they live in the midst of a people who are completely oppressed. So that their appreciation of the stakes, what it means to be self governing is actually deeper than even people who live in entirely free societies can fully understand. Because they're terrified of not being self governing people. They witness what enslavement is every day. That is, Burke makes the case to his parliamentary colleagues, don't think that just because these people hold slaves. They're not attached to republican government. There's an argument that makes them even more attached to republican government because they see what's at stake and what the danger is in oppression. And you know, I think this is a profound fact. And sort of even the places you don't expect it, the attachment to self government and the whole principle of self government is pervasive. 

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:17:28 - 00:18:10]

So we've spoken about how in some ways the revolution is reactionary, preserving what once was. But this idea that men are created equal, no one has a right to rule another. Though it has always existed, it is deeply revolutionary. It could spread everywhere. And in fact, there's this deep concern that during the early revolution that people might be taking this too far. For example, women start participating in boycotts and speaking publicly on politics. And immediately there's like a, oh, wait, we didn't mean that. We meant every man has a right to rule himself. But we really meant to draw a line there. But this actually isn't a line that can be easily drawn. Once you let this out of the bag, it really will spread. And much of the story of American history is this spreading. 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:18:10 - 00:21:11]

Yeah, that's going to happen. And then you've won your last argument. Yeah, it is. It's a great point. And we shouldn't minimize. And that you're right. The extent to which this attachment to self government is inherited doesn't change how revolutionary it becomes. And so the debate in terms of historical literature is always between people who are, like I quoted Martin diamond, the revolution of sober expectations. This is just, this is not some revolutionary new democracy. This is just the principles of self government, republican government, that were already prevailing. And on the other side are people who know there's a pervasive change in political culture, in the state of mind, in social relations. And actually both of those things are true. I think in terms of governing forms, like thinking about what does self government mean for forms of government. It's not all just revolutionary. And in fact, you do get some momentary institutions of almost old Greek style, direct democracies in some cases. And then very quickly, a course correction, an adoption of what I would say older principles of constitutional self government taking shape in some new and innovative forms, federalism and various forms of separation of powers and the ways that we arrange the choice of our office holders. At the same time, people do undergo a revolution in sentiment. George Washington is emblematic of this. I know that we have had and will have some great conversations about slavery and the revolution, other things coming on the podcast, but Washington Undergoes a change of mind during the Revolution. In part because of his experience of leading the army. He becomes engaged with New Englanders. Slavery is not accepted. It's a much more democratic kind of society than when he's from. And he becomes a more democratic person and comes to his conviction that slavery is a moral evil, in fact, and a determination to do something with respect to his own human chattel during the course of his leadership of the army. So he learns from the revolution a certain sentiment. So I think it's a both and situation. We inherit these principles, but we also have to work out their implications. That's actually a great corollary for what we do now. Right. When we educate citizens and students about our constitutional inheritance, we're learning about something we inherited. We didn't make all this stuff up. We didn't build most of the things that bring benefits to us. In fact, we inherited those from previous generations that we owe a great debt of gratitude to. And thankfully we live in a society where we inherited good institutions and good principles. And at the same time we've got to engage in this whole effort of figuring out do we actually live in conformity with those principles? Is there a way we can better live in conformity with them? Are institutions really as good as they can be? Do they need to be adapted? And we do that work through self government too. So there's a twin. I think actually the twin dynamic of inheriting these principles and mindset and institutions and then engaging in the work of improving them, carrying them forward is just a dynamic that you're continually engaged in in a self governing republic. 

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:21:11 - 00:21:35]

And it provides a safety having both ideas in mind at once. But one thing we do have to admit is this change in sentiment, this acknowledgement of what already is, that no human has a right to rule another. It's revolutionary even for our systems of government. Yeah, right. It's not just keeping old forms of government as they were. It is reshaping those forms based on something that existed prior to them in some sense, though never acknowledged. 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:21:35 - 00:21:42]

Yeah, we did get rid of all hereditary institutions in our forms of government, which was not something republicanism had done. 

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:21:42 - 00:22:20]

And expanding the vote, for example. There are many ways that these forms of government are adapting to this principle. And so the last thing I want to talk about because again, Thomas Jefferson says the Declaration is an expression of the American mind. And we've kind of spoken how common this idea is, not just preserving institutions and this idea of self government, but how commonly held the belief is that no man has a right to rule another or give a man a chance to stand up. Is this core to the American identity? This isn't an exclusively American principle. The Declaration makes this clear. This is a universal principle. But is it core to the American identity? Is it what makes one an American? 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:22:20 - 00:23:37]

I think it is in some respects. I mean, it's not uniquely American, but it does help describe what Americans are and believe. Alexis de Tocqueville had a great way of putting this. He said the distinctive thing that Americans did, that no one had done in republican societies before us, was we combined the spirit of freedom and the spirit of religion. He said that was we managed to be both a free people that have free democratic institutions, a confidence and equality, and at the same time, we managed to be a pious or devout people. He said that's actually rare because most of the time pious and devout people want a very hierarchical and more authoritarian society. They want hierarchies, they want authority, they want an established religion. And Americans did something different in Europe. To move away from that hierarchical society was to abandon the spirit of religion for the spirit of freedom. Freedom and religion were at odds. He said it was in America, actually, where people could be both pious and free. So I think there's an attachment both to a kind of individual liberty, to a kind of emphasis on the dignity of the self governing individual and trying to carry that out in government. But that did not mean throwing off all the old forms of authority, that it meant throwing off religious authority. 

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:23:37 - 00:23:38]

Yeah. 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:23:38 - 00:24:05]

So that a refusal to submit to the natural authority of other human beings did not mean a similar refusal to submit to the authority of the divine or to submit oneself to higher principles. And Tocqueville thinks it's very important because he thinks it was very corrosive in the French Revolution that in order to be revolutionary and free, you had to cast off all inherited forms of authority, including religion. He thinks that left people unmoored, without foundation. 

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:24:05 - 00:24:06]

Right. 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:24:06 - 00:24:16]

So if I were going to describe. I do think self government is core to the American character, but it's not just the spirit of freedom. I think it's a much more complex political culture that combines it with other commitments. 

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:24:17 - 00:24:26]

Well, you see this in the Declaration as well, this deep pragmatic wisdom in the Declaration, that yes, you have a right to revolution, but really you should only exercise that right in extreme circumstances. Be careful. 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:24:26 - 00:24:33]

And we could just come out here, see our episode on the Black Robe Regiment. The pervasive influence of religion. 

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:24:33 - 00:25:15]

Exactly. So if we're to recap what are we hoping listeners will get from this it is that the idea of self government is not new with the Declaration. You said earlier that people didn't read the Declaration and go, oh really? That's good to know. No, they already knew this. It's common, it's in the air, you're learning it as we described last episode in the pews. But it's also just obvious. You don't need Locke to tell us this. Everyone is feeling this and it's simply being expressed politically, really, for the first time, or at least politically in such a way as to keep it as has been experienced earlier. So these are the folk origins of the Declaration of the Revolution in the Constitution. 

 Matthew Brogdon:

[00:25:17 - 00:25:58]

The Constitution is more than parchment under glass at the National Archives. It's a blueprint for American self government that shapes every part of our civic life, from the rights we cherish to the laws we live under. We explore the ongoing battle over the meaning and relevance of America's founding document. This Constitution will equip you to engage the most pressing political questions of our time. Join us every two weeks as we hash out constitutional questions together. This podcast is ordained and established by the Center for Constitutional Studies at Utah Valley University, the home of Utah's Civic Thought and Leadership Initiative.