RUSH: Have you heard about — I saw this last week, and I didn\u2019t say anything about it. I\u2019ve been patiently waiting. It\u2019s one of the things where I had an initial reaction to it, but I wanted to wait and see if my instincts were borne out. And I can safely say today that my instincts were borne out.<\/p>\n
You may have only heard about it this week. Late last week a couple of researchers from Harvard discovered a long-lost copy of the Declaration of Independence in a records office in the U.K. It was a parchment copy. Nobody said that it was an original. Nobody said that it was anything other than a copy. But it does contain differences.<\/p>\n
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I saw “Harvard Researchers Discover.” And I thought this is a potential time bomb. I began to think, how many Americans, how many people living in this country know what the Declaration of Independence is anymore? I\u2019m not kidding. How many know what the Constitution is? Not know what it says; how many know what it is?<\/p>\n
So here\u2019s the Declaration of Independence, and a new copy has been found by a couple of people at Harvard. And my concern is, what if it\u2019s a little different, or what if it contains different structure? What if these people try to say that this copy of the Declaration dramatically changes what we thought we knew about the original Declaration and thus how this country actually came into existence.<\/p>\n
‘Cause you know as well as I do that there is an entire industry of anti-American activists, predominantly in the academy, college campuses, who are devoted to establishing the illegitimacy of the United States of America by virtue of its founding. “A bunch of dead white guys who owned slaves founded America,” they say. “How can it possibly be legitimate? A bunch of dead white slave owners and you\u2019re telling me I have to abide by that?” Which is a common refrain you hear in college classrooms today. So an effort is underway and it\u2019s been underway a long time, and it\u2019s intensifying, to delegitimize this country starting with the founding.<\/p>\n
Now, the Declaration is not a founding document in the sense that it does not contain any statutory law, does not contain any constitutional structure of the government. It simply declares our independence, and why, from the oppressors in the U.K., in England.<\/p>\n
So I\u2019ve been reading about it and it turns out my suspicions are somewhat justified. One of the Harvard researchers is trying to say, because of the way on this copy the signers\u2019 names are allocated — it\u2019s a horizontal copy, not vertical. And the signatures of the signers are on this document randomly. You might say, “Well, so? What\u2019s that got to do with anything?” Well, let me just tell you. Was the country founded by a unitary national people or by a collection of states?<\/p>\n
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See, the Declaration, the official Declaration of Independence has the signers grouped by state, and that implies that it was a state-by-state effort that was actually not signifying a national, whereas this copy has people randomly sign it with no indication at all that there is any purpose to it or any order, there\u2019s no mention of states from which they\u2019re from.<\/p>\n
So the researchers are now asking the question, “Was America founded by a unitary national people or by a collection of states?” Danielle Allen, professor of government at Harvard who discovered the document with a colleague named Emily Sneff says, “That is really the key riddle of the American system.”<\/p>\n
It is? We have a key riddle of the American system? We\u2019re still unsure what happened and why? You mean, there\u2019s still a chance we can find documented illegitimacy and maybe we can show that some of what we know should be discounted because of this copy that we found? I have to take a break. I\u2019ll continue with this.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: What is the riddle that has bedeviled American history? I\u2019ll bet this is gonna be the first time you\u2019ve heard of this riddle. One of the Harvard researchers is pointing out the differences in the second copy from the official Declaration. We\u2019re talking about a copy that is being given weight equal to the original, even though there are differences. This is the first thing that caught my eye of suspicion.<\/p>\n
Danielle Allen says that this copy where the signers are not grouped by state and are just applied randomly to the document illuminates the politics of the 1780s in a flash. Yes, you see, the list of signatories is not grouped by states. That supports the notion that the Declaration\u2019s authority rested on one united people, not a collection of states.<\/p>\n
Let me translate. The Harvard researcher is suggesting the second copy blows to hell the whole premise of federalism and establishes an all-powerful command-and-control one unitary central governing authority. And the states, to hell with \u2019em, all because in this copy the signers did not group themselves by state nor are the states from which they hail mentioned.<\/p>\n
She says, “This parchment manuscript eliminates in one stroke how the Federalists and the anti-Federalists debated the question of whether the new republic was founded on the authority of a single united, sovereign people or on the authority of 13 separate state governments.” You ever heard of the Constitution, Danielle? For crying out loud, it\u2019s a copy. Look what they\u2019re trying to do here. Where has this thing been, anyway? In some whaler\u2019s cabinet over on the coasts near the white cliffs of Dover in the U.K.? Well, what are we talking about here?<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Now, I just want to close the loop on this and try to answer any questions you might be asking relating to confusion. There is one man, one of six people who signed both the Declaration and the Constitution, his name is James Wilson. James Wilson was a lawyer in Pennsylvania, and at the 1787 constitutional convention, he was a huge advocate for nationalist government to come, the United States.<\/p>\n
And so he is a source that these two Harvard researchers are looking back to to try to translate the meaning of this copy of the Declaration where the signers\u2019 names are randomly placed with no mention of the states. And they are using Wilson as their evidence that there were serious arguments going back and forth over whether or not the United States was going to be a single national government with the states having no authority or power whatsoever. Or whether we were gonna be a union of 13 states with individual power and the federal government only doing those things that the states could not do, which is a fairly decent definition of federalism.<\/p>\n
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And the riddle, what was intended — I find it fascinating that a bunch of researchers here are trying to find the original intent. You let a judge do that in terms of the Constitution and they want to disbar the guy and throw him out of the courtroom. But these people are actually trying to find, if you ask me, what they\u2019re trying to find here is evidence that the Founders, the people that signed the Declaration and wrote it, actually intended there to be a giant one, big, humongous national government with no federalism whatsoever.<\/p>\n
And Ms. Allen, “I was on pins and needles. I thought we would turn it over and the back would say, ‘Ha, ha, we fooled you!'” She was looking for substantive differences in a copy, not the original. “I just kept staring at it. There was no discernible order,” in which the names of the signers were on this copy.<\/p>\n
“That random order, Ms. Allen and Ms. Sneff argue, was meant to send a political message: The signers pledged ‘to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor,\u2019 as the last line puts it, as individuals, not as representatives of states.” And that message, they argue, points back to this Wilson guy, James Wilson, big nationalist, one of six people to sign both the Constitution and the Declaration.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m telling you, folks, keep a sharp eye on this. This is something — it\u2019s not gonna have a whole lot of weight. It\u2019s gonna get thrown in in the ongoing, developing premise that the United States is illegitimate, that the founding of this country is illegitimate primarily because a bunch of dead white guy slave owners wrote the thing. There are other reasons for it. But this will get thrown into the mix, and all they want to do is create doubt.<\/p>\n
Remember what\u2019s going on here is a total lack of respect for the authority that is the Constitution on the part of the left in this country. It\u2019s not that they wish to have a debate about things. They\u2019re just refusing — the way they treat Trump — they\u2019re just refusing to accept the authority of elections, the authority of the Constitution.<\/p>\n
Now, in addition to the government shutdown here that\u2019s being dangled in front of our faces once again — and here\u2019s the story, by the way, from Reuters. “U.S. President Donald Trump indicated an openness on Monday to delaying his push to secure funds for his promised border wall with Mexico, potentially eliminating a sticking point as lawmakers worked to avoid a looming shutdown of the federal government.”<\/p>\n
The reason this bothers me is we\u2019re talking about a federal budget of over $3 trillion. This is one measly billion that Trump wants for the wall, and Democrats say, “No, no, we\u2019re not gonna do it, and we\u2019re gonna shut down the government and blame you for it.” Trump says, “Okay, okay, I\u2019ll move it. I\u2019ll think about moving it back to September.” And once the president indicates that he can be moved, that he can be taken off of his position with simply a threat of a government shutdown, they\u2019re gonna keep doing it.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Joel in San Diego, as we start on the phones. Welcome to the program, sir. Great to have you here.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Good afternoon, Mr. Rush. Just a quick comment for you.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Yeah.<\/p>\n
CALLER: About your Declaration of Independence story. To me, in the 1770s there were no copy machines so it makes complete sense for there to be multiple copies and I\u2019m surprised that there\u2019s actually not more. Each delegate potentially had to take a copy back to their state. There had to be copies sent to England for the king to see. So for there to be one new copy that has different signatures in a different order to me makes complete sense. There\u2019s no new story.<\/p>\n
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RUSH: Well, here\u2019s the thing. There is a project to find all the copies, and your instincts on this are right on the money. There were, so far, the database that houses the copies of the Declaration that have been found, there\u2019s 306, 306 copies that were made between July 4th, 1776 and 1800. The parchment original that\u2019s at the National Archives was signed in early August of 1776, nearly a month after Independence. So they\u2019re constantly searching for copies. This is just the most recent one that has been found. It\u2019s not the only copy that\u2019s been found. It\u2019s the most recent one, which is the point.<\/p>\n
I should have made mention, this copy was made 10 years after the original was signed in 1776, as best we can tell. So something that was copied 10 years later is now being given weight. Simply because of the way the signers appear on this copy is now being given weight that it might contain some deep meaning that might give us a further understanding of what the original intention of the founders for this country was.<\/p>\n
Look, you have a bunch of leftists searching everywhere they can for evidence that socialism and one giant, big government everywhere is the answer. And they would love it if they could find evidence or convince you that they have found evidence that even the Founders of the United States knew of the greatness and the potential of a single all-powerful government.<\/p>\n
You have to put this in context with everything happening today. We\u2019re in the midst of the country unraveling, folks. My friends, the left in this country is attempting to delegitimize everything about the United States. They are attempting, whatever you want to call it, a takeover or a delegitimization of the status quo, whatever, a peaceful overthrow, whatever you want to call it.<\/p>\n
This is more than just your standard, ordinary, everyday in-and-out political disagreements and debates and arguments. Because what\u2019s happening now — I\u2019ll get into this later in the program — the New York Times had an op-ed, not a news story, on page A-99. They had an op-ed, a sanctioned, therefore, opinion piece by a university professor actually advocating for the end to free speech.<\/p>\n
That the snowflakes on college campus are exactly right, they are way ahead of the game. The snowflakes on college campus know full well that there should be censorship of political speech. There should be censorship of speech that makes people feel uneasy and uncomfortable. It\u2019s the most outrageous thing you\u2019ve ever seen, but if you put it in context with what\u2019s going on, it makes perfect sense.<\/p>\n
Look, these people have always been there. This is a fundamental point to make. There\u2019s nothing new about these people. There\u2019s nothing new about America-firsters. There\u2019s nothing new about blame-America. There\u2019s nothing new about a significant population of the country hating it. That\u2019s not new. What\u2019s new is that the Democrat Party has totally embraced this movement.<\/p>\n
The Democrat Party is an obstructionist party. The Democrat Party has now become the home. These people used to just be a bunch of renegades who were members of the Communist Party USA or a radical labor union here or there. But now the Democrat Party, one of the two major political parties in America has totally embraced the current evolution of progressivism that says America is inherently flawed and needs to be, what, overthrown, disbanded, reconstituted, whatever you want to say.<\/p>\n
And one of the ways they\u2019re going about it is prohibiting any speech they think undermines their cause, which happens to be speech that would happen here on this show or on Fox News or in conservative magazines. We have the New York Times actually publishing an op-ed yesterday which explained this, justified this, made the case for the explicit censorship of political speech.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>Well, now, if you know anything at all about the First Amendment, it was political speech that was prohibited, any censorship prohibited. Political speech was what was referenced by the First Amendment\u2019s free speech clause. Now, that\u2019s being turned upside down. So in the midst of all of this, Black Lives Matter, Ferguson, Baltimore, the riots at universities, now you throw in a, “Guess what, we just found a second copy of the Declaration. You know what? We could make a case that this second copy actually shows that the Founders of this country really believed in an all-powerful, single, gigantic government.”<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Rush-Photos-SMALL-018.jpg\")
RUSH: Yeah.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/650-042517-Rush-Flag-Angry.jpg\")
And it\u2019s a long-term project. And as backup, you have this copy of the Declaration that was found, and it\u2019s always the source you go back to. “Well, look, the signers on this thing did not sign it like the original. They signed it with no mention of their states, and it\u2019s in random order, and what we think that means is that the signers actually intended that — they were signing as members of a giant, singular government, not representatives of states making up the union. And it just starts.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/81896489-233x300.jpg\")
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