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Take it away, Ken. Baked into the bread that are the colonies, the English colonies, are these ideas of virtue and of the nature of citizenship. In the 18th century, in particular, following upon the Enlightenment, you have in England very much an emphasis upon this notion of the educated, well-educated leader, well-educated governors, and more importantly, particularly in the states like Massachusetts and elsewhere, well-educated citizens. This is going to become more and more part of the culture throughout the colonies, this notion of the well-educated citizen. When you look at the colonies, you have to start with Virginia.
And what you see in Virginia is already they are very much using the sources that everybody's going to use. And that is the classical world, the Greek and Roman world, and also the biblical ancient past, where education really is most profound in the colony of Virginia, really is in the leadership and the upper level, upper class, the landowners of Virginia. It's more rooted in England and English society, English leadership. You don't see this as much among the small landowners, and certainly they don't allow most of the slaves to be educated. Where the Virginia elite get their source of education really is in the classical world, not only Aristotle and the philosophy of Aristotle, but with the study of Euclid and geometry. This is where they are rooted. They have a very strong understanding of the virtues, particularly the virtues of the Greek and Roman world, but also the virtues of Scripture, the theological virtues, faith, hope, and love.
These things are very much a part of the culture of Virginia. It's not commonly understood that the Puritans were among the best educated of all the colonials. Many of their leading men studied at Cambridge University in England. Harvard University, the first university in the English colonies, was located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In fact, Harvard was meant to be a place where men would be trained to be pastors, to be ministers, to be great orators, expositors of Scripture.
Now, what were they reading? They were certainly reading Scripture, and of course the Puritans are famous for really establishing a culture, establishing a society, a government that was to be rooted in Scripture. The Old Testament and the Old Testament guidelines for government and law, the capital punishments of Massachusetts and in New England were all rooted in the Old Testament all there. But they also understood, of course, understood themselves to be members of Christ's kingdom of heaven, and they were an expression of that kingdom. And what they wanted to do was to be that city on a hill, as George Whitefield put it, to be that community or set of communities that best expressed biblical values.
They were the city on the hill. And indeed, that was very much a part of what they wanted to be, was to be a great representation of what a Christian community could look like for the Christians in England, but also for Christians around the world. Now, the Puritans were also, it's very important to understand, interested in the Greek and Roman classical world, just as the people in Virginia were.
These are important models for them. You do have some outliers within the colonies. In Pennsylvania, for instance, the education system and the approach to education was decidedly classical and biblical.
You have that in urban centers like in Philadelphia. But you have to understand too that the Quakers who founded the colony of Pennsylvania had a very, very strong commitment to what they would consider to be practical work. And what is often called the illiberal arts or the arts of the craftsmen, of the tradesmen, of the farmer. The Quakers were rooted in the classical world, Greco-Roman world, in the biblical world. But they also, as part of their education, believed very much in the training of young people in the trades, in farming, etc.
Not that that wasn't part of the Puritans or wasn't part of those in Virginia, but among the Quakers and those in Pennsylvania, much, much more emphasized. Now, what are some of the ideals? What are some of the virtues that they're most interested in? Beginning with the land, there's a deep regard for farming, for agriculture, and for getting your hands dirty and being part of the land.
That is very much a part of everybody's perspective. You find this among the founders like George Washington. John Adams, very much a farmer.
Thomas Jefferson having a large plantation. And you find that in the Greco-Roman world, in the Greco-Roman literature. You also find that in Scripture, the man casting the seed as a story symbolizing the establishment of faith. They're using this in their own ways, in their own particular communities. We find in some of these places that there is a tension that emerges from this because, for instance, those who are farmers, those who are agrarians in the American context, kind of take the side of the person like Essiad or Cato the elder. But then there's also throughout the colonies a great deal of shipping and overseas business and merchant activity, which is often seen in agrarian societies in the ancient world as being almost akin to prostitution, as kind of not a great way to earn your pay.
It's too easy. All the money that's coming in with this trade and merchant activity. Among the merchants, there is this notion, too, that emerges of citizenship, of good hard work, of earning your pay, of becoming part of this American culture that puts an emphasis upon these kinds of ideals.
Perhaps one who is best expressing this is Benjamin Franklin, who will talk a great deal about the joys and the good practices of business, of merchant activity, and what earning money and creating wealth can mean for a person and a community. Beyond that are also the political ideas that we find in classical world, in the classical culture, beginning with the idea among the Israelites, among the Hebrews, that you live without a king, that God is your king. And then they surrender that whole idea in 1 Samuel 8 and establish themselves a king. That idea of kingship or monarchy being held with a kind of suspicion is certainly present in the colonies. They are all under the King of England and they're all under the Parliament, but there is still this notion, which is an English notion, but also now an American English notion, that human government has its limits. And human government should be kept in some sort of, not suspicion, but certainly within boundaries, that there is a higher power that is God.
These are a lot of the foundations. Through it all, the idea of virtue, of honesty, of telling the truth, of being a good citizen, a good man, all of these things are part of the lessons that they're learning from particular and specific texts. And really lays the foundation for American society, American culture, and ultimately for the American Revolution. And you're listening to Dr. Kenneth Calvert tell the story of the connection between the founding of America and the classical world. That, of course, is Greco-Roman and, of course, the Bible, the foundations of American civilization and Western civilization, actually. The underlying feature, the underlying dimension, of course, is character and it is virtue, and including the fact that we learn early here in this story that Harvard, our great universities, were once divinity schools and training up pastors.
And now, well, things are so much different. When we continue, the story of the connection between the founding of America and the classical world here on Our American Stories. Every day, we are driven to get the facts, find the sources, listen to the voices, and tell the stories that illuminate what matters. Democracy dies in darkness.
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Here's Ken. As things were becoming more and more difficult and really from the founders perspective, it was George III and Parliament who were changing the rules of the game. They were becoming more intrusive in American life and were becoming more intrusive in the development of dividing up the colonies as royal provinces and becoming more intrusive in everyday life for the colonies. This was not something that the colonies were very happy about particularly because the government was not following its own rules. So that is the rules that the colonies, the colonials as Englishmen have the right to represent themselves to the king and to the parliament when taxes are created, when laws are passed. And so this idea of taxation without representation, this whole notion of representation is important.
In none of the counties of England would they have put up with what the government was asking the Americans to put up with. And so the Americans began to basically fight back. It's important to understand that they had a high degree of respect for the rule of law. There is a description in Thucydides of a revolution, a revolution on an island called Corcyra. And in the revolution of Corcyra, Thucydides talks about a context in which a revolution is started by Athens against the Corcyrans ruling class, against the allies of Corinth. And this revolution dissolves into absolute anarchy, chaos, bloodshed. And so the founders, when they're talking about revolution, what they want to do is to avoid that kind of chaotic bloody revolution that is going to bring just nothing but suffering. And this is where the American revolution takes on a tone that is very, very different from the French revolution that's going to happen in the late 18th century, the Bolshevik revolution in the 20th century, the Maoist revolution in the 20th century. Those revolutions include a great deal of bloodshed and chaos.
The founders understood from reading their classical literature, particularly Thucydides, that this idea of a revolution is one that has to be taken very, very carefully, because it can easily devolve into just absolute chaos and anarchy. You know, you find this in instances like, for instance, when John Adams defends the soldiers who shot the Americans at the Boston Massacre. Why is he doing that? He's doing that because the rule of law must be maintained. England might be abusing the American rights. The Americans are not going to do that. The Americans are going to be more true to the traditions of England and of what they had learned from the Greco-Roman world. The Roman Republic ended to a great extent. You find this in Livy and you find in the descriptions of the end of the Roman Republic that it was really a revolutionary dissolution of the republic into chaos and bloodshed. That's what ended the Roman Republic. And so the American founders looked to models in the Greco-Roman world to help them establish the philosophy and, to a great extent, the theology of the American Revolution, of this throwing off of George III and of Parliament. You know, we have to remember on the theological side, you know, there's a great argument going on here as to whether or not rebellion against established authority was godly. You look at Romans 11 or you look at the writing of St. Peter, and there is this idea that you honor the government because God has established the government. There were those who were loyalists who preached that to overthrow the government was a bad thing, right?
It was ungodly. But then those who were in favor of the revolution also drew upon the book of Daniel in the Old Testament, that Daniel opposes the rule, the bad rule, a bad law from a bad king, Nebuchadnezzar, and is righteous for that. And so this argument has to go on among the colonials as well. And what the leaders of the colonies want to do is to give a good, reasonable, rational argument on behalf of this revolution. Now, one place we find this is in the Declaration of Independence. Now, the Declaration of Independence, its most famous phrase is that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, among them being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Why are they talking about philosophy? Why are they talking about this idea of rights?
Well, what they're wanting to show before they talk about the abuses of king and parliament, what they want to show is that there is good rational reason to seek independence from England, and that England, by breaking the rules, which they're about to show how the rules are broken, by breaking the rules has really upset not only an idea of a social contract that we might talk about, but also just reasonable government, rational government. I want to focus just for a moment on that word happiness. That word happiness is very important.
It's not some emotional idea. The word happiness is inserted there. It's an extension of Aristotelian thought, of Epicurean thought. The idea that happiness is not an emotional concept, it is a philosophical idea, and it is the seeking of the highest good and virtue.
It is the seeking of excellence. And what they're saying in using this word happiness is that if a government does not promote happiness among its citizens in a way that helps them to become the best that they could be, to seek that excellence, if that government is not promoting that but is standing in the way of that, then that is a bad government. And so the Declaration of Independence itself is rooted in Greek philosophical ideas, Roman philosophical ideas, as it's heading towards a discussion of the various specific acts that the government has promoted and done in order to bring about this revolution. Another part of the Declaration is that it talks about God as a creator and God giving these rights. So this notion that God has given rights, not the government.
And this is a throwback decidedly rooted in biblical ideas, that there is a nature to human being, a worthiness of human beings that is rooted in scripture, in the Bible. And they want to affirm that. And of course, the final statements within the Declaration of Independence really focus on this idea that they're going to stand for one another and support one another through God's providence. And each one of these men signs the Declaration of Independence, which frankly, in and of itself, is a suicide pact.
Because if they lose, they're going to all die, especially Washington. He'll be drawn and quartered. And you've been listening to Dr. Kenneth Calvert tell the story of our founding in the way that, well, we haven't told it before. Through our values, through classical education, through who we were as people, what we stood for, what we cared about, that story about the Boston Massacre trial, John Adams risked everything to defend those redcoats. He was not a rich man.
He had a burgeoning law practice. It had just started. And boy, folks just wanted to string those redcoats up. But there was John Adams saying, we're different.
We want to live up to the ideals that the British are not living up to. Rule of law. These guys deserve a trial. He was able to acquit a bunch of them because they were defending themselves from mobs.
And then those that shot men in the back, well, they were found guilty of manslaughter, not premeditated murder. The story of the founding of our country and its connection to the classical world and, of course, the biblical world. That story continues here on Our American Stories. Every day we are driven to get the facts, find the sources, listen to the voices and tell the stories that illuminate what matters. Democracy dies in darkness.
That's where we come in. The Washington Post. Switch on. Subscribe today at washingtonpost.com slash iHeart. Roku has what you need to make your college home away from home feel more like your own. Make your dorm the place to be with Roku TV or bring a Roku streaming stick to easily access all your favorite free and premium content like iHeartRadio. Stream your favorite playlist with the Roku vibe setting smart light strips to sync your music to millions of colors and make your dorm feel more like you. Make your dorm the place to be with Roku TV, streaming players and smart lights.
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Let's pick up where we last left off. They all very much respected a man named Cato the Younger. This is the adopted great grandson of Cato the Elder who they also loved as an agrarian.
But here Cato the Younger. Cato the Younger stood up to Julius Caesar who was a tyrant. Julius Caesar who helped to end the Republic.
None of the founding fathers understood Julius Caesar to be a good guy. Cato the Younger was an old school Republican, small r. And what Cato the Younger did was to not only fight against Julius Caesar politically but also militarily. When the civil wars broke out between Caesar and the Senate with Pompey involved and all of that. Cato the Younger did everything in his abilities to try and stop Julius Caesar. But Julius Caesar ultimately cornered Cato the Younger at Utica in North Africa and defeated his military forces. And so Cato the Younger, he knew that Julius Caesar was going to try to use him as a pawn in what happened at the end of these civil wars.
And so Cato the Younger commits suicide. Now when Julius Caesar had his triumphal march through Rome he put on display on these floats as they did during triumphs all of his victories. And in one of them he showed his conquest over Cato the Younger. Now the people of Rome loved Julius Caesar. But when it came to his display of Cato the Younger as being defeated, that's when Julius Caesar began to lose Rome, began to lose the crowd. Because here's a man who stood up for the principles of the Republic and stood up for what was good in the Roman Republic. And this is why our founding fathers loved Cato the Younger.
They loved him because he was willing to risk everything for the principles of virtue and of republicanism. He was willing to oppose Julius Caesar to the very end and even commit suicide rather than to give in to Julius Caesar. Now in 1712 there was a play written about Cato the Younger. It was titled Cato a Tragedy written by Joseph Addison. And what you have here in this play is a display of what great Roman virtue was all about in the minds of 18th century Englishmen. All of the American founders had read it and they all loved Cato for his principled stand against tyranny and his willingness to commit suicide in the face of it. And so what you have here is the founding fathers actually memorizing many lines in this play. One of the most famous moments in which this was used is in Nathan Hale's execution at the hands of the British. Nathan Hale the spy on Long Island. He was caught and he was hung and he said, I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.
Those are the last words of Cato the Younger in the play by Joseph Addison, Cato the Tragedy. And so these ideas, these biblical and classical ideas very much a part of the revolution and of what they want to do there. And why the revolution is not the bloody mess that other revolutions are going to be. They wanted to make it virtuous, law abiding, virtuous not only in a classical sense but also in a biblical sense to make sure that they honor God. All of this is part of the American Revolution. So the final part of this as the founders look back to the classical and biblical world.
I want to just really talk about some of the ideals and some of the people, some of the models that they're looking to. For instance our notion of a government that includes the legislative, the executive and the judicial. Kind of a balance of powers there that the founders produce in creating this new government, creating this Constitution.
This is not really something that they made up off the top of their head. You find this in Athenian democracy, you find this expressed in Aristotle's writings on the politics. You see that our founders have been reading a good dose of Aristotle. I want to point out though the very interesting description that the Greek historian Polybius gives about the Roman Republic. Now whether or not he's entirely correct, there is a very interesting approach that he takes to describing the Roman Republic that you can definitely see influencing the American founders. And what he does, he talks about the three parts of the Roman Republic. The consuls which he equates to a kind of monarchy, the Senate which he equates to a kind of aristocracy, and then the people who are the democratic aspect of the Roman government. And all of these pieces according to Polybius work in a kind of balance of powers to make the government work. And indeed it was a brilliant government, the Roman Republic. Now the Romans understood and the Greeks understood that democracy is inherently chaotic and emotional. So it needs to be balanced by a more wise and certain and established institution like the Senate.
And so that is what the Romans shoot for. And when you look at our own government, the American government, that's exactly what the founders are shooting for. You know, you have in the House of Representatives and representatives who served for two years a constant kind of chaotic emotional expression of the people. And it's constantly overturning and there are 400 plus of them. And they're always producing all kinds of new legislation. And it's for the Senate and senators sit for six years who are there more long term, there to be more considered, more wise, more judicious, more rational to balance out that democratic aspect that is so noisy.
But both sides are expressed. And where do the founders get that well? From studying the Roman Republic. The Roman Republic, in fact, was something that they looked to constantly.
Not without some skepticism, because there are things they didn't like. Jefferson did not like the aristocratic element of the Roman Senate and Roman republicanism that way. And so he wanted really an aristocracy of merit, not an aristocracy by birth.
And so there were things they didn't like about the Roman Republic, but they did look to the Republic for this. And in fact, the presidency of the United States has certain powers for foreign affairs, certain powers for the military. The presidency also has tribunition power. He has the ability to veto legislation, which is what tribunes did in the Roman Republic.
He could say veto or I forbid it. And so, you know, you have kind of baked into this form of government, the American Constitution, an expression of all of these balances that you find. Greek understanding and conversation of the best form of government and in the Republican, Roman Republican form of government.
So this is very much what our founders are looking to. Another thing that they're looking to as well is religious freedom. It's absolutely crucial that they create this notion that there would be no state church because of how much the state controlled religion, whether in the Greek world or in the Roman world or in the medieval world, the medieval Germanic kings controlling the church. You have Henry VIII and the Church of England also in their minds.
And this idea that religion should be freely expressed, very much a part of kind of the early Christian ideal of religious expression, also very much baked into this government and this political atmosphere that was being created. And so this is the classical and to a great extent the biblical foundations of who we are as Americans in our colonies of the revolution and in our Democratic Republic. And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling by Meghan Pidcock. And she's a product of Hillsdale College.
Also a product of Hillsdale College is our storyteller, Dr. Kenneth Calvert. And he teaches history at the college. And what a story he's told us about the foundations of our country, the founding ideals, the founding principles and purposes. And one of them was to avoid the chaos that traditional revolutions left behind and to leave something different, something better. And that this was not done for anarchy's sake or for rebellion's sake, but to make the country closer to and more representative of the ideals of a virtuous society, many of it coming from England itself, England itself being the source of so much. As we learned, ancient Rome and more looking for the best answers that would produce a good and virtuous society. And with God at the center and this whole idea of kingship and gods.
And of course, we heard a little bit about Daniel from the Bible, the story of America, the story of classical education and the classics and how it related to our founding here on Our American Stories. Roku has what you need to make your college home away from home feel more like your own. Make your dorm the place to be with Roku TV or bring a Roku streaming stick to easily access all your favorite free and premium content like iHeartRadio. Stream your favorite playlist with the Roku vibe setting smart light strips to sync your music to millions of colors and make your dorm feel more like you. Make your dorm the place to be with Roku TV, streaming players and smart lights. Head to roku.com or your favorite retailer to deck out your dorm.
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