David Barton: The American Story - The Beginnings (Zechariah 4:10)
Channel: King of Kings Worship Center
Date: 2023-10-21

David Barton: The American Story - The Beginnings (Zechariah 4:10)
David spoke at King of Kings Worship Center on 5/25/2022. Zechariah 4:10 says, "Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel’s hand.” America was founded on small beginnings and miraculous victories over formidable opposition. We pray God's favor remains on our country.

Be blessed! You’ve been “blessed to be a blessing.” (Genesis 12:2) Pay it forward!
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David is the founder of WallBuilders, an organization dedicated to presenting America's forgotten history and heroes, with an emphasis on our moral, religious, and constitutional heritage. David is author of numerous best-selling works and a national award-winning historian who brings a fresh perspective to history. WallBuilders is a name taken from the Old Testament writings of Nehemiah, who led a grassroots movement to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and restore its strength and honor.

We have 5,800 years of recorded history.
In those 5,800 years, thousands of nations existed.
When you look at the average of history...
What is the average length of a Constitution in the history of the world?
Cornell University Law School said, "We'll check that."
They went through, and they said, "The average length of a Constitution
in the history of the world runs 17 years."
Last September 17th on Constitution Day we had 234 years.
That's nowhere close to average. By the way, the average nation
not only has a new Constitution every 17 years,
they have a violent revolution every generation.
So we look at what's going on in Ukraine and we say,
"Man, that's tragic." It is tragic, but it's actually average. It's normal, it's what goes on.
They had one back in 1992 and they've got one now.
Seven years ago, when Putin tried, when he went after Crimea,
I was asked to go to Ukraine, and help them write a new Constitution
because they said, "Our last one was in 1992. It's really old, we need something new."
That was seven years ago. So what we have,
most people in America don't recognize how special this is.
But when you look at what we have, [you should ask]
"Where did those ideas come from?"
Because every other nation has had access to the same set of ideas.
It's not like we came up with something brand new. Now we certainly used things
other nations had not been using, but they weren't new ideas.
The Bible tells us that there's nothing new under the sun.
Same ideas have been out there for generations for millennia.
So where did our founding fathers who wrote our documents, get these ideas?
That was a question that was asked by political science professors
at the University of Houston. They looked and they said,
"The guys who wrote our Declaration our Constitution, this has made us really unique.
This has made us really different from other nations. Where they'd get those ideas?"
And they said, "We think that if we could go back
into the Founding Era and read writings, represented writings from the Founding Era,
see who they quote we'll know where they got their ideas." Which is a brilliant idea.
If I followed you around all day with a smart device, and recorded everything you said,
at the end of the day I would say who you quoted, I'd know who's important to you.
And so what they did was they took 15,000 writings out of the Founding Era.
And by the way, they published their results in this book,
"The Origins of American Constitutionalism." They took 15,000 writings out the Founding Era.
They went through and found all the quotes,
and they found a total of 3,154 direct quotes, they said,
"Now let's find out where those quotes came from."
And it took them 10 years to do so, but at the end of 10 years,
they had documented the most frequently cited sources in American founding.
The number one cited most individual, the most cited individual was this man.
This is Baron Charles Montesquieu. He's a French Christian, he's a writer.
He wrote "The Spirit of the Laws" in 1750.
This is where we learned a lot about separation of powers, which is really important.
The second most cited individual in the Founding Era was Judge William Blackstone.
Judge William Blackstone wrote a four volume set
called "Commentaries on the Laws." Thomas Jefferson said,
American attorneys studied "Commentaries on the Laws"
the same way Muslims studied the Quran. I mean, we were into that book.
It's the second most cited source, most cited individual in the American founding.
The third most cited individual is John Locke.
John Locke wrote the "Two Treatises of Government."