Gutzman, Church – Algernon Sidney, Republican Martyr

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – “To the Dude Maker Hotline and Professor Dr. Kevin Gutzman, author of James Madison and the Making of America, Virginia’s American Revolution, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution, and, with co-author Tom Woods, Who Killed The Constitution?  Well, Kevin, of course it was Justice Elena Kagan who killed the Constitution.”  Check out today’s transcript for the rest…

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  To the Dude Maker Hotline and Professor Dr. Kevin Gutzman, author of James Madison and the Making of America, Virginia’s American Revolution, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution, and, with co-author Tom Woods, Who Killed The Constitution?  Well, Kevin, of course it was Justice Elena Kagan who killed the Constitution.  I want to play this clip for you.  This is from two years’ ago, Affordable Care Act hearing.  See if this one rings a bell.

[start audio clip]

Justice Elena Kagan: The federal government is here saying: We’re giving you a boatload of money. There is no matching-funds requirement. There are no extraneous conditions attached to it. It’s just a boatload of federal money for you to take and spend on poor people’s healthcare. It doesn’t sound coercive to me, I have to tell you.

[end audio clip]

Mike:  Does this sound coercive to you, Kevin?

Kevin Gutzman:  Well, I can’t figure out where the boatload of money clause is in the federal constitution.  I don’t think the federal government was given the authority by the Constitution to ladle out boatloads of money to whatever cause came to mind.  Scan it though I may, I can’t find anything in Article I, Section 8 about forcing people into health insurance pool they don’t want to be part of.  It seems to me that this is pretty obviously unconstitutional.  You may recall that when Solicitor General Kagan was testifying before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary about her nomination to the Supreme Court, she was asked: Can Congress order us all to eat broccoli three times a day?  Her response was to laugh and avoid answering the question, because clearly her belief is: Why yes, Congress can order us to eat broccoli three times a day.  It’s appalling to hear her every utterance about the Constitution, and there’s one example.

Mike:  If I’m ordered to eat something, I hope it’s asparagus, if it’s green, because I don’t like broccoli.  I’ll do asparagus if they make me.  Quickly, before we get into the meat and taters of our discussion today, Judge Spencer Roane took the name Algernon Sidney.  I’m trying to remember why he took the name Algernon Sidney.  The only reason I bring it up is because Bradley Birzer write a nice little essay about Algernon Sidney and a professor that was teaching him at Bryn Mawr University.  I just thought I’d ask you in passing, no pressure.

Gutzman:  Sidney, of course, was martyred because of his cause of republicanism in England in the 17^th Century.  Roane saw himself as successor to Patrick Henry, who was his father-in-law, in that regard.  I think the context was the criticism by Roane of Marshall’s opinion in McCulloch v. Maryland.  On the one hand you have Marshall taking that Hamiltonian position, and on the other hand you had Roane taking the position of martyr of republicanism.

Mike:  And this was all done under the auspices of the Richmond Junto, of which Thomas Jefferson was a silent member, but he was a member, I think.  You’re doing research on this.  You know more about it than I do.  Was he a member?

Gutzman:  No.

Mike:  He wasn’t?

Gutzman:  Well, that’s a really interesting question.  We don’t exactly have a roster of members.  There’s a famous article called “The Richmond Junto – The Secret All-Powerful Club—or Myth.”  I think it’s somewhere in between but we’re not exactly certain.  It’s kind of an informal grouping, I think, is a better way to put it.  Certainly Jefferson was sympathetic and sent Roane praise for his newspaper columns and so on.

End Mike Church Show Transcript

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