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Nuance is a podcast of The Collaborative helping Christians to faithfully live out their faith in their work. We recognize most of life is not lived in black and white but rather lived in the gray, lived in the nuance.
You can find more, including complementary spiritual exercises, at www.collaborativeorlando.com/nuance.
God works through people and nations are, you know, but people organized in a particular way. So God works through nations. There is no instrument on earth that either God makes or man makes that God isn't gonna use and nations are definitely one of them.
Speaker 2:Two hundred and fifty years ago, a small group of men in Philadelphia signed a document that changed the world. The Declaration of Independence is one of the most consequential political statements ever written. Its language shaped revolutions inspired abolitionists, informed civil rights movements, and still echoes through debates that we have here in 2026 about freedom, equality, rights, government, and human dignity. And yet many Americans and even Christians are not quite sure what the declaration actually is. Is it merely a a breakup letter with King George the third?
Speaker 2:Is it poetry with no legal force? Is it a statement of universal truths or is it something even more meaningful? A moral vision for ordered liberty grounded in the belief that human beings are created by God and therefore possess rights no government can manufacture or remove. Well friends, as Christ followers, we know these issues matter, especially as we bear witness to building the kingdom in our own corner of this wonderful, wonderful country. In concert now with America approaching its two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, I'm thrilled to be joined today by Giancarlo Canaparo to explore the enduring meaning of the Declaration of Independence.
Speaker 2:Giancarlo, welcome to Nuance.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me, Case.
Speaker 2:You know, I was thinking you are the first to fulfill a father son Nuance podcast guest category.
Speaker 1:I'm honored.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, you will want this said at your eulogy one day. So Giancarlo's father, Carl, has become a buddy and had him on a few months back. He's he's in the insurance industry and a great man of faith and so I really appreciated what he had to share. And let me tell you, he loves his son.
Speaker 2:He loves him. And so I've gotten to learn more about Giancarlo's career and work. And let me tell you, he is quite an accomplished man. And he is here today not because he's Carl's son, but because he has a lot to say. Well, friends, welcome to Nuance where we seek to be faithful in the public square, where we seek to help followers of Jesus live out their faith.
Speaker 2:I'm Case Thorpe and wanna invite you as listeners and viewers, hit the share button, leave a comment right now, just do it. This sort of activity helps us to reach even further. Well, Giancarlo Canaparo is a United States Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the Department of Justice. He previously served as a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, we're big fans of Heritage, Where part of his duties included cohosting the Heritage Foundation's SCOTUS one zero one podcast, which follows the Supreme Court's arguments and opinions. He is a graduate of UC Davis and Georgetown Law.
Speaker 2:His scholarship has appeared in law reviews at Harvard, Notre Dame, and Georgetown. His research has been cited by justice Neil Gorsuch and featured in The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. Well, honored to to have you here today. So Giancarlo, you know, we're gonna really dive deep now into declaration of independence about which I know you're an expert. But I want our listeners and viewers to get to know you a little bit more.
Speaker 2:Sure. So your scholarship leans in to constitutional structure and America's founding. What inspired you to get into these very topics?
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's a great question and I think about that too because every once in a while I look back at my career and think, gosh, how did I get here? And the further I get I guess away from the point at which at various inflection points, the fuzzier it becomes. But I have, you know, when I think about my love of America from which my choice to write about the constitution and to serve the country all flows, my earliest memories are my parents took me every July 4 in our little hometown, there would be these outdoor music events and fireworks displays.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:I know you had a couple 100 people on the local you know baseball court or whatever and you're sitting on the outfield and they erect a little lean to stage, right, and put up a big American flag banner and there's patriotic music and everyone's sitting on the grass on blankets and listening to patriotic music and at nine the fireworks should come up. And it was that, I think that is the earliest memory that I have of being introduced to love of my country. So chalk that up to another reason why my dad is a great man.
Speaker 2:Well, I hear you. And I worry that in this age of Christian nationalism, which is very problematic for the Christian, I believe, and for the American, I I think patriotism has gotten overlooked. Patriotism, absolutely, you should have love of country and be proud of it. And that's not compromising our faith. I mean, I have many friends in Madagascar.
Speaker 2:And when they love their country, that's a great thing. Christian nationalism, a whole another thing of placing country ahead of God or solely within God's purposes, that's a different thing. But I love I'm I'm I'm a lovely Greenwood and I'm proud to be American and I'll get all teary and fireworks and
Speaker 1:yeah. But you you know, you raise a good point which is that God God works through people and nations are but people organized in a particular way. So God works through nations. There is no instrument on earth that either God makes or man makes that God isn't gonna use and nations are definitely one of them. And so it's our duty I think as citizens of a particular nation to do our part to guide our nation towards the truths that God has revealed to us.
Speaker 2:Preach. Well, I would say most Americans and include myself know the the few famous lines from the declaration of independence, but far fewer of us have really processed this document more carefully. So when Jefferson says, all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. Take us through the mindset in 1776. What did they hear when they heard those words?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So one of the things that's worth pausing on first is to talk about Jefferson as author. We all know that Jefferson was the primary drafter of the actual document but Jefferson himself told told people, you know, this isn't my document. I think I think the words he used were it was in the air we breathe. He basically just pulled it out of the air.
Speaker 1:It stilled it from the air. In that sense, what the declaration is is not it is a statement of principles. It is a legal document. It is a separation. It is a call to a certain moral order of liberty.
Speaker 1:It's all those things, but it is also a description of the constitution of the American people. I don't mean like the written constitution. I mean like who the American people were in their hearts. And these are people who are first and foremost deeply Christian in in many ways. Mostly Protestant, a good segment of Catholics, but also, you know, a note a notable minority of Jewish people, deeply steeped in a Judeo Christian understanding of the world.
Speaker 1:They have a sense that man has a nature. That nature is fixed. God gave it to us. We can't change what we are. And there are certain things that flow from that.
Speaker 1:First of which Go ahead.
Speaker 2:What's your first?
Speaker 1:My first is that we're all made in the image of God.
Speaker 2:Well, okay. Good point. I was gonna say as a Presbyterian, we're kinda up we're kinda big on sin. I was gonna say, well, that nature is broken. But you're right.
Speaker 2:We're made in the image first. So Yes. Go ahead.
Speaker 1:Yes. But that's also true. And look, if you read say, you know, the Federalist Papers, James Madison, right? What's his big his big mission in setting up the system of government we now have is to deal with man's fallen nature, right? He says you can't build a government and hope that everyone's gonna behave like angels, we're not.
Speaker 1:Your goal with building a government is to constrain and direct and limit the consequences of our fallen nature and sort of encourage those better parts of our nature. But that's that's the constitution. The decoration first sort of sets it sort of sets in the mind describes the American vision of what it means to be good together in a political community. Mhmm. So that's it's sort of the the goal to which the constitution later aims.
Speaker 1:Abraham Lincoln says the declaration is an apple of gold and the constitution is a frame of silver. They work together. One is the operational operationalizing of the reformer.
Speaker 2:It's like the declaration I heard referred to is like our mission statement, our vision statement.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Now I'm jumping ahead, but this comes to mind. So this week I was watching a congressional hearing because I'm a nerd on these things like you. And somebody challenged actually, one of the congressmen was challenging a guest and challenged them, is the Declaration of Independence law? Because the constitution certainly is law and I I had never thought about that. Now, certainly, it's a favored document.
Speaker 2:It's a mission vision statement. But how does the Supreme Court understand and orient the declaration within the context of interpreting law?
Speaker 1:Yeah. This so this is one of this is just one of the sort of most fun and interesting questions in modern constitutional debates. Mhmm. There's a spectrum on the Supreme Court. I don't know that anyone on the Supreme Court would say that it is law in the in the same way that like a statute or even the constitution is law.
Speaker 1:You can't point to a particular clause in the declaration and say because the government has done something that violates that, that is illegal. However, the constitution again points to declaration. The constitution is how the founders tried to build a government that works towards those goals. Mhmm. So you So it is fair, think, some justices, Justice Thomas, Clarence Thomas for instance, will cite the declaration when when a particular constitutional problem presents itself and it's hard to figure out exactly what it is that the constitution means or says in a particular clause or what it Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Or what's enia. Mhmm. You can, he will for instance go back to the declaration and say well here's the underlying principle so let's figure out, you know, so the constitution is at least presumably trying to instantiate that principle into law. So I'll give you a good example. The fourteenth amendment is the amendment that basically says, you know, everyone is equal for the law.
Speaker 1:No more race discrimination. Segregation ends the the sort of caste system that the South had and that you've persisted in the North even before and during the civil war. And there's a debate about whether the fourteenth amendment just means that everybody is equal in the words of justice Harwin, dissent, and Plessy that the constitution is color blind and knows and we know neither caste nor nor nor and the law knows neither race nor caste Mhmm. Systemic sort of barriers between people. Or whether it just means that the government can't discriminate against black people but may discriminate against other people to give advantages to black people.
Speaker 1:So, you know, Clarence Thomas, of course, takes the first position. When the constitution says everyone's equal, it means everybody. Justice Jackson, Ketanji Brown Jackson takes the other view which is that no, the government, the fourteenth amendment does let you discriminate provided you discriminate to the benefit of black people who are the sort of special recipients of the fourteenth amendment's favor because of slavery. Justice now Justice Jackson to my knowledge does not cite the declaration. Justice Thomas does and he says, look, it says all men are created equal.
Speaker 1:It's quite obvious to him that the principle being articulated there is that the sort of arbitrary boundaries that we draw among skin color for instance are in fact immoral and the founders recognize them as immoral. And the drafters of the fourteenth amendment when they were what they were doing was trying to instantiate that principle into our law.
Speaker 2:Okay. Fascinating. Fascinating. Okay. So Giancarlo, to our Christian roots with the declaration of independence, you you point out the fact that we are made in the image of God, such a fundamental Judeo Christian concept.
Speaker 2:And I appreciate that the declaration clarifies that rights come from God, not from a government. Whereas in the French constitution, if I'm correct, or rights of man, the government acknowledges and or or not acknowledges, but gives rights. Am I correct in this?
Speaker 1:I I think that's right. I think we're unique. I mean, the the English might quibble with us. Right? But the English might say, well, yeah, sure.
Speaker 1:Rights come from God. But as a practical matter, the British have an unwritten constitution. Mhmm. And what that means really is that parliament gets to decide what the constitution is, what your rights are. And so maybe parliament would say, well we're recognizing a right but as a practical matter, parliament can wipe out your rights if it wants to.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:So as a practical matter, know, your rights come from government in England. But here, the declaration and the constitution say, uh-uh. There are just certain things the government cannot touch because they do come from God and are simply beyond the powers of government.
Speaker 2:I've always thought that strange that in Great Britain, they don't have a formal written constitution. But then and now so I find this even more strange. And and I count that up to the fact they've been around so long. We kinda innovated this way of organizing ourselves. But yet when Israel was constituted, they had a declaration in '46, and they don't have a constitution.
Speaker 2:They did a declaration, but yet they've continued to function sort of like The UK and a parliamentary system that doesn't have such a thing. Okay. So all men are created equal. Wow. I mean, there's the obvious contradiction of those words in 1776 with slavery.
Speaker 2:You've already quoted Lincoln in the apple of gold and said the frame of silver. I thought that that's just a beautiful way he puts that. I I appreciate when people say that the American project or experiment is still moving towards a more perfect union to see that all people are created equal. How do we think about that as a Christian?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So even before you get to the slavery question, there's a more obvious contradiction in that phrase, right? Because you know, in one sense all men are not created equal. Alexander Hamilton was very short, George Washington was very tall and unequal. You know, Alexander Hamilton was you know, a sort of once in a generation type of genius.
Speaker 1:Other people were not necessarily
Speaker 2:John Carlo has great hair and Keay Store never will. Right?
Speaker 1:Thank you. But but so like look, we're not equal in one way. The question is then in what way are we equal that that the constitution that the declaration is recognizing? Because it's obviously not not the way that we think of equal, not human equality. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And and I think the claim that the Declaration of of Independence is making is is a pretty modest one actually. It's not saying that what we can all seem to be true is not true. What it's saying is that we're created equal, we are equal in the eyes of God and we are endowed by God with the exact same fundamental rights. Mhmm. The right to think for yourself, to worship for yourself, to you know, earn the labor of your hands.
Speaker 1:These are the kind of rights they were thinking about. But the key is that nobody among us is given a special right that other people don't have which is the right to rule over other people. So the core claim and the core and I think relatively modest claim by today's standards, not modest by 1776 standards, quite modest by today's standards is that your right is to rule yourself and nobody else has the right to rule over you and that's the sense in which in which the declaration says that we're equal. But it but it doesn't go further to say, know, obviously, well, George Washington is actually just as tall or or Matt as Hamilton is just as tall as Washington, not true. You know, Joe Schmo is just as smart as Hamilton, not true.
Speaker 1:Doesn't deny that reality, but represents and defends a different one.
Speaker 2:Now help me understand that in tension with the fact that we are though in community and you do have the communal needs and laws that are shaped by representatives of the community that then exert rule over you as an individual.
Speaker 1:Yes. So this moves into sort of the next stage, next where the declaration goes from there, right, is into this expression of criticism of King George. Right? And the core well, ultimately, the core criticism is that we as Americans, we as British British subjects really because they they rely on what they call the rights the rights of the British of of Englishmen Mhmm. Is is to govern ourselves, to choose the laws that govern ourselves.
Speaker 1:Now, of course, in a in a in a country that was even as big then as America was and certainly as big as America is now, that doesn't mean you can have the sort of direct democracy that an ancient Greek city state could have where it had, you know, a couple thousand people. Mhmm. But the founders thought it is you do govern yourself when you get to choose the people who govern you. And so that leads eventually to a republican form of government which is what the constitution gives us. But that that's the core the core argument that flows from all men are created equal.
Speaker 1:That means that you get the government that you that you choose and your government, you know, is legitimate, wields legitimate authority over you only in so far as you have chosen it.
Speaker 2:There's that choosing but then the ones doing the choosing. So now to the citizen, I often quote the I believe it's the John Adams who famously wrote that the constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. Correct. And it it weighs heavy on my heart. In fact, that's what motivates a lot of my ministry and the work of the collaborative that we've got a lot of work to do to see that our fellow citizens are a moral and religious people.
Speaker 2:Certainly.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I would love to see more Christ followers out there. But short of that, I wanna help make sure that Christ followers are helping to build a good social fabric that can do such work. What do think the founders would think of the project experiment today?
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's a tough question.
Speaker 2:Or the product of our citizenship.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. It's a tough question because the the it's a big question and and big questions, you know, you wanna reach for a quick answer sometimes and the quick answer is either to be very pessimistic or very optimistic. The truth is something of a mixed bag, right? I think in many ways they would be deeply concerned about the character of the American people today.
Speaker 1:I think that they would be really quite shocked, not in a good way, at the quality of the education that we receive now about the the educational achievements of your average American citizen even say by the time, you know, he or she graduates from grade school. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Civics 60% are high school graduates. Yeah. Now look, not everybody needs to go to college. But I don't know that at least in my world, and I know I'm in a special little pocket and bubble, but we fully appreciate the extent to which the American populace are well educated.
Speaker 1:I don't think the founders would be concerned with educational credentials like we are today. You know, many of them would not have had degrees from universities like like we do today. But I think what they would be concerned about is the lack of an understanding of all the things which they would say were necessary to be a moral and well educated person capable of self governance. So they would expect that in a country that has now grown so wealthy and so powerful that we have a deep understanding of our nation's history, they would they would expect a deep understanding of British history because, of course, we come from the British tradition. They gave us both their spirit and their law, and in many ways really made us what we are.
Speaker 1:They would expect an understanding of the great works of the Western canon. I mean, all read Cicero. I mean, Cicero was so integral to them that they quoted Cicero the way we quote Star Wars, right? Like if somebody says in a fourth be with you, nobody says see, you know, Star Wars, Return of the Jedi or whatever. They would just quote Cicero without saying, you know, quoting Cicero because he was the air they breathe.
Speaker 1:They would also, you know, I think the most I heard this from Oz Guinness, the most quoted document in all of founding era correspondence is the book of Deuteronomy. Mhmm. Then Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws which comes in at number two. Mhmm. So they would expect a deep knowledge of the Bible as well.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah. I mean, even I think a lot of the issues in the church today can be traced to the lack of biblical literacy. I love this. This is so good. What what is today's why does the declaration of independence matter to Christians particularly, not just Americans, but Christ followers living in this country today?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, I think the reason is you hit on at the beginning, right, it it is a call to higher principles. We are fallen people, but you know, you have to have your eyes fixed on something above and better than you are, and better than you can be in the hopes that if for no other reason that you have a standard against which to judge yourself. And the question for Christians is does the standard that the declaration sets for this country, is it a good standard? Is it compatible with Christianity?
Speaker 1:Is it a set of noble principles that are worth living by and that when lived by, we can live well with God and with each other? Mhmm. I think the answer to that is is resoundingly yes.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:I think in large part because the founders were, if not not all of them were I'd say devout Christians, Christians, but all of them were deeply Christian in their worldviews Yeah. In the air they breathed. And so I think, you know, what they set up was in no way contrary to Christianity, and in many ways, deeply aligned with it.
Speaker 2:Okay. But Giancarlo, you know, the non believer listening to this might think, are you pushing theocracy?
Speaker 1:So I can see how somebody would say that. The answer is no. And I would say, you don't have to take my word for it. Actually, there's a very there's a great recent book by a British historian named Tom Holland, not the actor, but the
Speaker 2:Oh, dude. I know Tom Holland's Yeah.
Speaker 1:He writes a book called Dominion. Now if you're not willing to sort of take the word of two Christians on a podcast that the founding is not theocratic, take his word for it. He's not American, he's not a Christian actually.
Speaker 2:That's right. Wrote Like captivating. I mean, such a smart guy.
Speaker 1:Captivating book. Yeah. He he the the rest of the book is basically like Christianity suffuses just the Western world in in all sorts of ways we don't realize. It just shouldn't And our and he spends a great deal of the book, in fact, walking through the founders in early America and how Christianity suffused just the way they viewed the world. And also you don't have to take my word for it, you don't have to take Tom Holland's word for it.
Speaker 1:If you go back and read the founders themselves, James Wilson writes the truth on law. John Adams is James Wilson and John Adams are probably the two of our founders who are probably I think probably the most devout amongst sort of the big name founders.
Speaker 2:Mean, evangelical before the word was a word.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But like, they're deeply Christian, but what they're not trying to do with this with this the American experiment is create a theocracy. Right. It's not there in any of their writings. What they want is to set up a system by which people can self govern.
Speaker 1:Now as John Adams says, you recognized earlier on, the system of government that they create is only appropriate for a moral and religious people. Now that's not actually unique to the American experiment. Any system of government which requires self governance requires a good and moral people. Or you're not gonna govern yourself well if you're not a virtuous people. And frankly, that goes also for say a monarchy, what was the complaint against you know, King George, that he was not a good and moral ruler?
Speaker 2:Even though he's head of the church.
Speaker 1:Right. Any system of government is going to descend into some version of tyranny or anarchy if the people running the place, whether that's the king or the people themselves, are bad people. And Christianity to the founders supplied the only good moral framework in their view, the only complete understanding of the human person and human nature and sort of fulfillment of the classical virtues comes to the Christianity.
Speaker 2:Now might you say or might one say that's the only worldview that they knew or that they were conscious of. Now I would say, no no, they were so well educated especially for the classics. They understood fully the Christian worldview as opposed to others. Would you agree?
Speaker 1:Oh, sure. I mean, they make a great study of Rome. Right? Rome, they're constantly talking about Rome. They're constantly talking about the ancient Greek republics, right, because they're trying to set up a republic.
Speaker 1:Rome was a republic and fell to dictatorship. The Greek city states were republics and fell either to anarchy or conquest or Mhmm. Now they know very well what a non Christian republic looks like. They know what non Christian governments of all sorts look like. They're very well aware of those sorts of things, and they spend most of their time studying them because of course, if you wanted to study republics in the seventeen hundreds, you couldn't look anywhere but to the ancient pagan world.
Speaker 2:I'm curious. So here at the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, what part of the declaration do you most hope Americans recover?
Speaker 1:Yeah. You know, the first paragraph and the beginning of the second paragraph, you know, created equal, inalienable rights gets a lot of attention gets a lot of the attention. But I think the parts worth studying are Because those ones are so familiar, the parts we're studying are what comes after. There's a good discussion there at the second half or the second half of the first paragraph about the role that prudence plays in establishing a community of people governing itself.
Speaker 2:I love prudence.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I've recently written on how how many of our kids today are named prudence? Not many. And that concept has just disappeared. Yeah. Tell us what it means.
Speaker 1:I think yeah. Sure. I think actually, let me make a broader point, which is I think our understanding today of a lot of the virtues and the vices is crimped so that we have a much smaller view of what both the virtues and vices are and what than what our ancestors did and that really limits our ability to understand the world we're in and to react to it well. So prudence today, you you know, if we use it in casual conversation, what most people are probably referring to is a sort of caution, right? Be prudent.
Speaker 1:Don't look always before crossing the street.
Speaker 2:Or don't be a prude.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure, don't be a prude. A prudence person.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. But
Speaker 1:prudence in the sense that the founders understood it was sort of the highest of of the earthly virtues. It is the ability to look at the world around you, gather all of the data that's out there, how the world is behaving, how people are, what the noble principles are which you should aim, distill it all into a course of action that you follow right now. It is how you determine how to get from the circumstances you're in to the good noble goals that you're aiming for in the future. It's an immensely rich virtue. It's it's you know, sort of the anchor of all the others in the human life because the human life is not lived in the abstract.
Speaker 1:We don't live in the world of principles like angels do. We live in the messy world of today with fallen nature and random acts of the universe. And you have to figure out how to be a good person, how to live well in this swirling chaos and confusion with an imperfect mind and a sinful soul, and that's what prudence does for you.
Speaker 2:What do you think the modern understanding of how to live well is rooted in?
Speaker 1:Comfort. Yeah. Pleasure. We are obsessed with comfort. We want to minimize anything which may be perceived as a risk to comfort, and as a result, we have lost the ability to see the greater goods that are available to us.
Speaker 1:So for instance, think about the fact that the birth rate is plummeting throughout the Western world. Yeah. I think a lot of that is because people think in terms of comfort and they don't appreciate what an unmeasurable good a child is. They can't see the good. They're blind to the good because they're focused on much smaller things.
Speaker 1:And I think part of that is that our language of virtue has shrunk, and we're no longer capable of articulating the good in the world around us. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Raising kids is hard.
Speaker 1:I'm about to do it.
Speaker 2:I've heard. I've heard. When is your wife due? In three weeks.
Speaker 1:Dude. So we're on baby watch.
Speaker 2:It'll change your life. You know, before having a baby, you're just two single people with too much money living together within the bounds of covenant marriage. That's good. But man, when you have to get off your rear and go change that baby's diaper, you can't just put it off till later.
Speaker 1:But but who do you know, right, who would go back in time and trade that old comfort for not having kids now. Right?
Speaker 2:No doubt. Right. No doubt. It's it's joy, unbridled joy that grows through the the struggle. I always tell young dads when a baby's on the way, look, every time you change a diaper, pray and give thanks to God for that baby.
Speaker 2:But and do it, young Carla, because you're gonna be so sick and tired of poop. You know, I never dreamed before I got married that family life would be so full of nakedness and poop, like it's all the time everywhere. And yet, give thanks to God for every single one of those diapers and I'm telling you now that my three are grown in twenty one nineteen fourteen, thankfully, I'm not changing diapers anymore. But man, makes you grateful. So I'm I'm curious.
Speaker 2:What what are you gonna be thinking about in reflecting upon it during these these two fifty celebrations?
Speaker 1:Yeah. You know, I have to be perfectly honest. Part of me goes into these two fiftieth celebrations a little bit down. I feel like my sense is that the American character for self government is on the wane. And I am prayerful that there is something of a revival in the American desire for self government, the ability to see the good that's worth pursuing in common with other people.
Speaker 1:Sure. I think I, you know, frankly as a Christian, I think that the only way really that that comes about is through a a Christian revival. I just don't think that the world offers answers that are satisfying. They're not the sort of answers that are gonna get you out of your comfortable house and off your well curated YouTube list of videos and into the public square where through the mess of public service and debate and you know, turmoil and toil, you deliver, you are the participant in a much greater good which is not born very much by yourself at all, but in yours to everybody's benefit in total. And that good is a good that the founders saw profoundly.
Speaker 1:Mean, when they signed the declaration, we pledge our lives and our our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor. That is to say we will give up everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And we don't they didn't have the expectation of any advantage of the sort that we that, you know, we sort of expect today when we, you know, get a new job or, you know, give to charity for the tax credit. Right? They had everything to lose, their lives, their reputation, which were much more important to them than their lives, their wealth. They had everything to lose, nothing to gain except an immense good that was distributed to everybody else. And that is that's the vision that I pray for for America.
Speaker 2:Of those who signed the Declaration of Independence, five were captured, more than 12 homes were damaged or destroyed by the British, two of the signers lost sons or had sons in prison, nine died during the war years, one signer died from combat related wounds, many suffered major financial loss and displacement. Now not one was executed by the British but you better believe if we had lost, all 56 would have been strung up.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Without a doubt. And they knew it and they were prepared.
Speaker 2:Yeah. John Carlet, thank you. This has just been fantastic. We'll see you again next week and we're going to reflect more on the February fiftieth, but particular to what our government has come to be with the overbearing administrative state. Thank you for being here.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having me, Case.
Speaker 2:So you can follow Giancarlo's legal scholarship and public writing through a variety of published essays, lectures on constitutional government in the American founding. We're gonna place a number of links in our show notes. Giancarlo, a particular website you would point us to?
Speaker 1:You know, I I don't have one anymore, but I think a lot of my old publications are still on heritage.org and some of the if you're really interested, some of the longer legal scholarship is available on ssrn.com under my name.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. Well, friends, be sure to be sure to join us next week for the part two of this July 4 series. The collaborative creates content and unique experiences for Christ centered professionals in the public square. So visit our webpage, wecolabor.com, wecolabor.com to explore our work. Leave us your email, and I'll send you a copy of Zeitgeist, our journal on faith, work, and culture.
Speaker 2:Many thanks to today's episode sponsor, Michael and Shandy Kelly. I'm Case Thorpe, and god's blessings on you.