On this episode of the War Room, Steve and Larry discuss the role of the pilgrims and the Puritans in shaping the American character that we see today, and the role they played in the founding of the modern American political system.
00:01:42.000That the relationship with God was a bottom up relationship.
00:01:47.000It could not be dictated by bishops or popes or viziers or anybody else.
00:01:54.000And that your organizations that worship God had to be from the people.
00:02:01.000And that, as we went out and saw numerous new denominations appear, especially in the early 1800s, like the Methodists, for example,
00:02:13.000that this became the common approach to almost everything.
00:02:17.000Most of these were were, in fact, grassroots.
00:02:20.000There were there were a few like the American Presbyterian Church that were still top down.
00:02:25.000But this is really a a democratic church to go with a common law, which was a democratic government.
00:02:33.000And those two things made us a feisty people.
00:02:37.000I'm convinced it's a difference between what we have.
00:02:41.000And, you know, Steve, you and I and others have talked about how easy it was for Canada and Australia and so-called democracies to just lock down.
00:03:06.000And they do what we tell them, not not the reverse.
00:03:09.000Now, sometimes they get away with it for a little while, but not for very long.
00:03:13.000And you think that's the just the natural, I don't say cussedness, but really belief in oneself and one's relationship to God.
00:03:26.000And that's a one on one relationship from you to to him or it or however you describe it.
00:03:32.000But that is what brings us not just individuality because it's not really libertarian at the end of the day has a strong sense of community.
00:03:41.000But that kind of that that that that cussedness roles.
00:03:54.000Is that that is this the burning embers that I know I don't want to politicize things too much on a on a Thanksgiving morning.
00:04:02.000But is that is that what this fight is about today that would that would the pilgrims brought here and is about individualism and standing up for oneself and what one thinks is morally right to stand up that you think that's what you thought, whether it's the mass mandates or the shutdowns or the lockdowns or the vaccine mandates.
00:04:26.000This kind of the orneriness and what the mainstream media and the elite absolutely hate is the the non sheep or the non sheep nature of this kind of populist Trump movement.
00:04:38.000Well, you know, let me start with you mentioned the revolution and this this feeling this permeated the whole revolution that that your relationship to God was critical and that your right to freely choose.
00:04:58.000And one thing that people forget, it's easily overlooked, is that in the so called intolerable acts after the Boston Tea Party, when they locked down Boston, one of the big acts that almost never gets any mention or press was that it moved America, the colonies of America under the organizational supervision of Quebec.
00:05:22.000Now, the reason that was doubly bad was that, first of all, it was a foreign source in charge of American operations, not American colonies.
00:05:33.900But second of all, Quebec was a Catholic colony at the time.
00:05:39.040And many of these people, not all of them, because we had Catholic Maryland, but it's very interesting, Steve, even in Catholic Maryland, they had a very bottom up structure in their churches.
00:05:50.000And they did not take direct orders from the Pope the way others in Europe would.
00:05:58.480And it didn't take long before Maryland had so few Catholics that Protestants dominated the community anyway.
00:06:05.740So the point is that there was this this order that all of a sudden puts this vast number of American Protestants under the Catholic Church.
00:07:10.780And one analysis I saw of this is that today there is a very definite division caused in large part by COVID.
00:07:22.840And that was those in America who think that the government exists to keep them safe and to protect their lives.
00:07:29.460And those who think the government exists to keep them free and let them make their own decisions.
00:07:35.280And I think that's very clear in how people voted to keep in such what I think are horrible politicians like Gretchen Whitler.
00:07:43.960What, before we move to Lincoln and move the story forward, the Norman Rockwell concept of Thanksgiving from the greeting cards and all the, you know, everything feels like Stockbridge, Massachusetts with the beautiful leaves and the full bountiful, you know, from the Norman Rockwell paintings.
00:08:10.860The bountiful tables with Turkey and everybody getting ready to eat the cranberry sauce.
00:08:18.400How much of that, how did that evolve over time to be the modern concept of looking back of what Thanksgiving was for the pilgrims?
00:08:25.380Because clearly it wasn't like that for the pilgrims themselves, although they had a surplus.
00:08:30.460They were still, you know, they were still somewhat, what it says, subsistence farmers, right?
00:09:16.740They hate Norman Rockwell because he never pulled punches and he didn't abstain from pointing out injustice as he did with the picture of the black school girl with the marshals.
00:09:30.180But nevertheless, he always saw the best in America.
00:09:34.280And this drives people crazy when they want to highlight the dark side, the Andy Warhol kind of side of America.
00:10:00.660And and so it's all become a part of this kind of national mystique that you don't see in any other country.
00:10:09.220No other country has a day that they just dedicate to God to thank him for getting them out of the wilderness.
00:10:17.280That had really, although it took place in the Plymouth colonies, the story cuts ahead till what is it, Lincoln?
00:10:25.860It was it was during the Civil War that it started to become really a national holiday or really a thing.
00:10:32.180Up until that time, it was in it was in our civic memory, but maybe not as annual occurrence.
00:10:41.080Tell us how it got onto the calendar and how it became something that it is the holiday that we see today.
00:10:46.200Well, it comes down to Gettysburg again.
00:10:49.840You know, in Lincoln's life, Gettysburg proved so pivotal in so many ways.
00:10:55.160And I want to talk in just a minute when we get done with this about how it changed Lincoln personally in terms of his Christian experience.
00:11:03.380But after Gettysburg, Lincoln was so profoundly moved by the cost that was being paid to keep the union together.
00:11:12.220And again, this was his only goal, keep the union together.
00:11:16.280And so in October of 1863, he decided that the nation should have a day of Thanksgiving in November that he designated Thursday in November that we today now celebrate as Thanksgiving.
00:11:30.780And it was as much in honor of the fallen at Gettysburg as it was in in honor of any particular other Thanksgiving in the nation.
00:11:43.420So it's kind of interesting how he tied the two together, the Civil War and America's founding.
00:11:56.560How did he how did he come up with the idea?
00:11:58.920Did they because it was going to be a day of national Thanksgiving?
00:12:01.820Did they actually hearken back even at that time to the founding of the to the founding of the nation?
00:12:07.380And that tie did that inform the Gettysburg address, which basically took place the week before is on the 19th, I believe, of November when he went to the actual he went to the actual cemetery himself.
00:12:19.820It's really important to understand the greatness of Lincoln.
00:12:25.280I know there's a lot of libertarians that don't like Lincoln because of his war administration and and how quasi dictatorial he was.
00:12:35.340And his answer to that was always my goal is to keep the union together.
00:12:39.660And if the people don't like it, they can vote me out.
00:12:42.200But at the Gettysburg address, Lincoln did something that virtually no other president had done.
00:12:51.760And that was he tied together explicitly the Declaration and the Constitution.
00:13:00.000And that is he said that the Constitution had to be dedicated to a proposition.
00:13:06.640The Constitution is no good if it's not dedicated to a proposition.
00:13:12.680This is why so many written constitutions around the world are useless.
00:13:16.860They're not dedicated to any proposition.
00:13:19.140But ours was dedicated to the proposition that that our creator made man with certain unalienable rights.
00:13:27.440And among these were the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
00:13:30.960That is the purpose for which the Constitution exists, to guarantee those founding rights in the Declaration.
00:13:41.220So, in a sense, Lincoln is passing that forward.
00:13:46.960And he's saying, all right, so we're going back to the Revolution and then we're going back to the Constitution.
00:13:52.140And now with this great war we have, we're going to pay tribute forward with Thanksgiving for all those things that we've gotten up to this time.
00:13:59.660It's pretty genius the way he tied all these together.
00:17:24.540And he had the Gettysburg Address at, I think the week before, it was on the 19th.
00:17:29.980And, of course, the battle was the first, what, the second, the first, second, and third of July.
00:17:42.200It's interesting, you talk about divisions in the country, and I've said this, I think, once in the show and a couple times in speeches.
00:17:47.520You talk about divisions in the country and how divided the country was, you know, and they're, obviously, they're fighting a great civil war.
00:17:56.280And by 1863, they knew they were into it, that this thing was not going to end quickly, and it was not going to end without a lot of blood.
00:18:04.040But even the divisions within Washington and the divisions in the government and the divisions between the military and the government and factions in the military, people were at each other's throats.
00:18:20.440When they relieved Hooker after Chancellorsville and Lincoln had just had enough, and he relieved Hooker, they had a huge debate about who was going to take the command.
00:18:34.040And they finally made a decision after a late-night discussion, and they selected George Gordon Meade and Gordon to take over the Army of the Potomac.
00:18:42.720This time, Lee's already coming up, you know, through Maryland into Pennsylvania, and they're swinging around.
00:18:49.320What they're trying to do is hit Philadelphia and cause chaos in New York City and Philadelphia and surround Washington, D.C., Baltimore.
00:18:56.780And they're heading to the Susquehanna River and Harrisburg, the capital.
00:19:00.260And their advance guards, I think, Jubal Early and other units are already well ahead, well past Gettysburg.
00:19:11.760And Meade is a corps commander, and he's in his tent.
00:19:14.660I think it's 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning.
00:19:16.300And he wrote a memoir that he put a letter in that he'd written his wife the day after he assumed command or a couple days after he assumed command.
00:19:28.460And when the adjutant came to his tent at 1 in the morning and kind of, you know, knocked on it and pulled back the thing to wake Meade up, and Meade, I think, was only – the first corps was only, I think, 30 or 40 miles from the town of Gettysburg, the crossroads right there.
00:19:49.640As he got out of bed and put his feet on the floor, he told his wife the very first thought that went through his mind is that he was being placed under arrest.
00:20:01.340That he was going to be placed under arrest.
00:20:25.620Basically, Lincoln signed it and it was an order.
00:20:28.080It wasn't asking you, hey, come to Washington.
00:20:30.160Let's have a meeting and talk about it.
00:20:32.000They basically gave him the command right there and gave him a command to say, hey, there's an invasion going on, and you have to stop it.
00:20:37.460But it shows you that was less than six months.
00:20:44.920It's five and a half months until a day of national Thanksgiving on this great victory.
00:20:50.660And I think that that speech and the reason, remember the speech, you had the famous orator who really, at Gettysburg, the vacation, he was there.
00:21:02.160I think it was Everett, was one of the great orators of the day.
00:21:06.380His speech at Gettysburg was almost three hours long, I think it was, two hours long.
00:21:13.240And he based his upon Pericles' speech to the Athenians about the Athenian war dead.
00:21:23.560In fact, where Everett went through the entire battle and tied it back.
00:21:27.180And if you read Everett's speech, it's very powerful.
00:21:29.560Now, it's very long for current sensibilities, but he takes a very classic structure of probably the most famous speech or one of the most famous speeches in the Judeo-Christian West, and particularly in our tradition of liberty and democracy and freedom, this great speech that Pericles gave about the Athenian war dead and what they had died to defend.
00:21:56.520In fact, he was scribbling, he stayed at the hotel right there in the square, but he was scribbling up to the, on the train on the way up, kind of his thoughts on it.
00:22:03.940He had thought about it a lot, reflected, but I think his speech, correct me if I'm wrong, is less than three minutes long.
00:22:08.880And it captures not just the entire concept of the war, but really ties the nation back to its founding, and founding really the pilgrims, and obviously the revolution and all the great documents.
00:22:24.040But that is, and then he decides right before then, you should have a national day of Thanksgiving.
00:22:30.880Is that Thanksgiving, did that, obviously only a northern tradition, a northern tradition at the time, was that embraced by people immediately thereafter?
00:22:41.220Is that we have to have a day of, a continual day of Thanksgiving to give Thanksgiving to God, to thank God?
00:22:46.720It was a little tougher in the South, you know, the story that in the Spanish-American War, they had to appoint Governor General Wheeler, who was really quite old at the time, and was a Confederate general, in order to kind of unify the nation behind the war.
00:23:05.700And it was a great shock to everybody when the U.S. troops on trains were going through the South to get down to Tampa to depart from the Spanish-American War in Cuba, that the people were coming out cheering them.
00:23:24.400These were people who had hated the Yankee soldiers just a few years earlier.
00:23:29.560But I want to take this a slightly different direction.
00:23:33.380You know, Lincoln captures, he's going through these changes, and with the Gettysburg Address, he captures a change in the national thrust, the direction.
00:23:52.380Because at that time, despite the fact that we had had an incredible victory, the Union had an incredible victory at Gettysburg and at Vicksburg the following day, July 4th, Lee got away, and his army got away.
00:24:10.480And, you know, I thought you were going to say something to the effect of, look at how many generals Lincoln went through.
00:24:17.460Because he goes through five or six generals, and it was very political, and he's constantly fighting against all these congressmen and other military guys who want the job.
00:24:28.000Or, you've got to put my guy in charge.
00:24:29.700It reminded me a lot of Trump and how President Trump was backstabbed constantly.
00:24:35.320But it happened in Lincoln's time, too.
00:24:56.500He had him pinned against the river, and a storm came in and made it impassable for them.
00:25:01.840All he had to do is move in, and he would have finished them off.
00:25:04.840But the point I wanted to make is that Lincoln was also going through a personal growth during this time, spiritually.
00:25:15.020And he had been quite a believer in his youth.
00:25:20.500As you know, he studied the Bible when he would plow fields and things.
00:25:23.740And no president has ever written using more biblical phrases and biblical phraseology than Abraham Lincoln has.
00:25:31.080But in his 20s, early 20s, mid-20s, he not only departed, he became quite hostile to the Christian faith to the point that he was saying that they were a bunch of charlatans and so on and so forth.
00:25:46.360What happens is that by the time the Civil War arrives, he's starting to move back to the Christian faith.
00:25:52.480And while all this turmoil is going on, he's wondering, are we the Union going to win this war?
00:26:40.360So Lincoln not only was going through national political turmoil at that time, he was going through personal spiritual turmoil where he was wrestling with, am I going to surrender to my life?
00:26:54.800Larry, hang on for a second because I've never – give me that one again.
00:27:01.500I pride myself in knowing a lot about Lincoln, being from Richmond, Virginia, that, you know, Lincoln is – Lincoln and Lee are so giants when you're growing up.
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00:29:52.320And I think really Lincoln didn't know how things were going to turn out then.
00:29:56.400People forget that a year after Gettysburg, some of the worst bloodletting in the entire Civil War occurred with Battle of the Crater and and some of the other attacks around the trench works at Richmond.
00:30:13.460Just horrific bloodshed and Cold Harbor, for example.
00:30:19.700So it was another year of solid combat before what really the the the Overland campaign with Grant had started right, you know, just heading down Route one or today, 95, you go from Spotsylvania to really where they had refought so many times.
00:30:36.700And finally, a cold harbor, you know, they had a mutiny, you know, they didn't let the press there.
00:30:41.880I think the seventh charge, it was in 17 minutes, they lost 7000 men or something in the seventh wave would not get out of the trenches.
00:30:49.800They were just getting slaughtered so badly and they suppressed that from the press.
00:30:53.800You know, Grant just was grinding it out, was going to break Lee's army, you know, in front of Richmond.
00:31:00.040And then that siege, if it had not been for the fall of Atlanta.
00:31:03.520Remember, Lincoln actually wrote up the remember the famous memo where he said, hey, it looks like we're going to be voted out of office.
00:31:10.900And they talk about Trump and the insurrection.
00:31:14.660Lincoln, you know, I think wrote the memo to the cabinet, say, hey, look, it looks pretty grim.
00:31:19.800This is, I think, in August before Atlanta fell over on September 1st with Sherman.
00:31:25.760That and I think he put the cabinet on notice to say, if we're voted out of office, you know, I've got to bring this thing to a conclusion.
00:31:35.460And I think it was kind of open end about what he was when he was talking.
00:31:52.820And remember, he didn't want to fight what Sherman and these guys told you, that the South, the Southern people had so much pride and so much toughness.
00:32:01.240Even the people that were not involved in slavery at all, that Sherman told him, you're going to have to burn the Confederacy to the ground.
00:32:07.420You're not going to, you're not going to be, you're not going to defeat armies and beat these people.
00:32:11.380You're going to have to burn it to the ground.
00:32:12.920And it ended up burning Columbia, South Carolina and Charleston and, of course, Atlanta and Richmond.
00:32:18.880And they basically had to take the torch to the enemy to kind of break it.
00:32:24.740But that's why I think the spiritual times of the Civil War are the greatest times in our history.
00:32:38.540But every day is just a heroic struggle to even survive on this foothold, this little teeny part of the coast, right, with this whole vast continent in front of it.
00:32:51.260And a vast continent filled with a lot, you know, folks that were here and fighting each other all the time.
00:32:56.760You know, the Indians in these different alliances and different constant wars they had going on, Tom, against each other, wars of conquest.
00:33:03.360And then you look at the Civil War, the massive struggle of the Civil War.
00:33:07.380And the Thanksgiving holiday really comes out.
00:33:09.980This Thanksgiving is really, I think, embodied with the sense of American struggle and the thanks that comes on the other side of it.
00:33:20.040Well, I don't I think this is important.
00:33:21.860I don't think Lincoln was giving thanks for victory.
00:33:24.500I think he was giving thanks for the nation and basically saying to God, you have your way with this nation.
00:33:33.480If anything, and I kind of never thought about this before, but if anything, I think it was on that Thanksgiving that Lincoln basically handed the country over to God and say, it's in your hands from here on out.
00:35:58.240With all of our abundance in technology and obviously agricultural abundance and all that,
00:36:03.540and obviously in time of inflation and in a very bad economic times for people,
00:36:08.760have we lost touch with Lincoln and the in our forefathers in the Civil War and the pilgrims in this post-industrial and let's call it what it is,
00:36:22.820a post-Christian or what the mainstream media calls a post-Christian nation.
00:38:25.820I mean, I came out of the world of mergers and acquisitions and hostile takeovers, where eventually you got to get in a room and try to put a deal together.
00:38:32.940And you always have to overlap those deals because they always kind of come apart.
00:38:36.400So you always, you know, this is unbridgeable.
00:38:39.960It's been unbridgeable before in American history.
00:40:17.680Make sure you go to a couple of things are going to happen on December 17th through the 20th in Metro Phoenix.
00:40:24.040There's going to be a gathering called America Fest put on by Turning Point USA.
00:40:28.320You can go to tpusa.com slash war room to get your ticket.
00:40:33.260Also, you can get Charlie Kirk's book, Half Price, The College Scam.
00:40:39.200It talks about the cartel that is the college industry, about how, you know, before you're sending your kid and running up in debt, because remember, you're not a social justice warrior.
00:40:48.520So they're not going to be taking your debt, although they did say that was unconstitutional.
00:42:19.180And that change starts with you and your wallet.
00:42:22.100That's why I'm proud to partner with Public SQ, the largest network of patriotic, freedom-loving businesses and consumers our nation has ever seen.
00:42:30.320Public SQ is the first app to connect freedom-loving Americans with their local community and the businesses that share their values.
00:42:38.300Whether you want to support a restaurant that only buys from local farms, a coffee shop that took a stand against COVID mandates, or a bank that can never cancel you for your political views,
00:44:10.200I really want to thank everybody for being a part of this.
00:44:13.120Larry Zweikert, tell us, any new books coming out, anything you're working on before we wrap up here?
00:44:19.960I've started a Patriot's History of Globalism, its rise and decline, and that's proving pretty interesting.
00:44:29.980I also have – this will probably be free.
00:44:34.180I've been working on America in the 21st century, which will be an extension of Patriot's History since they haven't decided to publish a new edition.
00:44:45.260So, I don't want to leave people hanging.
00:44:48.600So, I'm going to just put this out on my website.
00:44:50.740The Patriot's History of the Modern World ends when?
00:46:59.720Make sure you have a fantastic Thanksgiving with family, friends, or however you celebrate it and honor it.
00:47:08.120And I want to thank everybody in the team here that helps put together Real America's Voice, of course, our tremendous production team at the War Room.
00:47:15.360And for all of our audiences there for us and our sponsors, I want to thank everybody that helps make this show so special.
00:47:22.540Particularly, I have always loved, I think the last couple of years, I don't know if it was Dan Fluitt, a senior producer or myself.
00:47:28.860I'll take credit that I found the Johnny Cash song.
00:47:57.520We'll get into all of it and pick things back up where he left off.
00:48:00.960Until then, thank you very much for joining us on our Thanksgiving special.
00:48:04.760And we're going to end with Johnny Cash's Thanksgiving song.
00:48:08.140We've come to the time and the season when family and friends gather near.
00:48:22.120To offer a prayer of thanksgiving for blessings we've known through the years.
00:48:31.720To join hands and thank the Creator now when thanksgiving is due.
00:48:41.220And this year when I count my blessings, I'm thanking the Lord He made you.
00:48:50.820And this year when I count my blessings, I'm thanking the Lord He made you.
00:49:00.100I'm grateful for the laughter of children, the sun and the wind and the rain, the color of blue in your sweet eyes,
00:49:18.240The sight of a high ball and the rain, the moon rise over a prairie, and oh love that you've made new.
00:49:30.840And this year when I count my blessings, I'm thanking the Lord He made you.
00:49:40.140And this year when I count my blessings, I'm thanking the Lord He made you.
00:49:49.880And when the time comes to be going, you won't be in sorrow and tears.
00:50:04.680I'll kiss you goodbye and I'll go on my way, grateful for all of the years.
00:50:13.980I'm thankful for all that you gave me, for teaching me what love can do.
00:50:23.280And thanksgiving day for the rest of my life, I'm thanking the Lord He made you.
00:50:32.280And thanksgiving day for the rest of my life, I'm thanking the Lord He made you.
00:50:42.280And thanksgiving day for the rest of my life, I'm thanking the Lord He made you.
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