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Transcript
Rick Green
This is the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s WallBuilders. Thanks for joining us today. I’m Rick Green America’s constitution coach here with David Barton, America’s premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders. Tim Barton, of course, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. You can learn more about all three of us at WallBuilders.com . And also go to WallBuildersLive.com for some archives of the program if you missed any of the recent programs, especially yesterday, because we started a three part series with Bob McEwen. Speaking at the ProFamily Legislators Conference. We’ll be jumping back into that later in the program, today. But first, let’s get our hero of history for the day. Tim, who’s our hero of history today?
Tim Barton
Well, Rick, today is one of our favorite stories. For those who have followed WallBuilders or really heard some of our presentations. If you’ve heard me or my dad on the road. This is a guy we’ve talked about for really years. His name is Harry Hosier, and he’s really credited as being the namesake for Indiana as the Hoosier State. And as I’m already saying this, I know there’s people out there who are skeptics and critical and they’ll say, wait a second, right, Indiana, being the Hoosier state. They’re not named after Harry Hosier. As a side note, Harry Hosier was a black evangelist from the early days of the Second Great Awakening. But people say no, that Indiana did not get their name after him. In fact, if you look up online right now, where did Indiana get its name? What you will find is nobody knows. There is not a definitive source, because there’s not an actual footnote where Indiana said, this is where we got our name. But you can certainly look back historically and see influences and even on Indiana State University or the Indiana State website, they will say some options for where the name came from. They’ll say well, back then, it’s possible people had really thick accents and somebody knocks on the door and the person would say, who’s there? But maybe their accent was so thick, it sounded like huge-air. And so right maybe that’s where the word hoosier came from, or there was an Indian word for corn name, hosie, and maybe like the derivative of it was hosie-air. And so maybe hoosier came from like this Indian word for corn, or when Indiana was a territory, allegedly, like legend has it, there was a big drunken brawl. And during the brawl, somebody’s ear got torn off. And so at the end of the drunken brawl, somebody sees the ear on the ground, they pick it up and say, hey, who’s ear? And so maybe hoosier came from who’s ear, or one of the other possibilities that people suggest is there was a black evangelist from the Second Great Awakening, he was known as Black Harry or Black Harry Hosier. And, he’s very well documented. We know he existed, historically. We can point to many things that even highlight the significance of his ministry. So it’s known that he was a minister. He was very influential. It is known that some of the converts under his ministry were then called Hosiers as if they are the followers of Harry Hosier, the followers of his teachings. So, those were Hoosiers. And it’s documented that many of the people he influenced moved into the Indiana territory. And they were called Hoosiers when they went to the Indiana territory. And so it’s possible the name Hoosier came from those converts under Harry Hosier. So it’s possible the name came from his black evangelists. But what they’ll tell you online is but we don’t really know where the name came from. Now, it’s possible you might not really know where it came from. But there is only one option that makes very much sense. And that really is the hero we want to highlight today. So the name is Harry Hosier. I’ve already kind of given away some of the story. He was an evangelist at the beginning of the Second Great Awakening and some of his background, he was a slave in North Carolina, he was able to gain his freedom at the end of the American war for independence, which during that era of the American Revolution, there were a lot of Americans, including founding fathers who even talked about, they had identified there was a level of hypocrisy when they were fighting for freedom for themselves while they were enslaving others. John Jay has a couple of very interesting letters about that. Those are things we actually have on the website or if you have this PDF or this printed-off pamphlet, this page and a half on Harry Hosier, we have one of those quotes from John Jay in there footnoted. You can go look it up and read it. But there was a revelation for so many Americans as they’re fighting for their freedom that slavery really is a bad institution. And if we say that today a lot of people would feel skeptical that how dare, you know us, pretend like these guys were moral, and ethical when they had slaves. And this is not to say slavery is not an evil institution. Of course it was. But if you’re looking at a time in world history, when every nation of the world had slaves, in fact, anybody who had any level of prominence any political leaders, anybody of affluence, every one of them had slaves. This was the way the world was, and I’m saying it to point out that America, at this time of the American Revolution, America wasn’t uniquely evil for having slaves. America was normal with every other nation of the world for having slaves, but America Did something nobody else was doing. America’s political leaders began a movement to abolish slavery to abolish a slave trade. And this is where Harry Hosier was able to find his freedom. He ends up being a convert to Christianity and one of the very cool things is one of the guys he travels with early on, one of the guys he… is mentored by, was Francis Asbury. Now Dad, we’ve talked about this a little bit off air, Rick, we’ve talked some as well. But there’s… the name Asbury might be something that people are recognizing a little bit today because there’s a revival going on at Asbury College right now we’ll Asbury college, Asbury University, Asbury Seminary. Those were named after Francis Asbury. And Dad I’ve heard you talk about Francis Asbury many times. He was a very significant evangelist in the early days of the Second Great Awakening.
David Barton
Yeah, he was an evangelical evangelist. And I say that in the sense that evangelicals, if you look back to the 1700s, 1600s, the Evangelicals would have been the Congregationalists, which are the pilgrims and the Puritans. As you move into the late 1700s and the 1800s, the evangelicals are the Methodists. They were the circuit riding preachers. They preach like Whitfield did all over the place. And Whitfield was, himself, a Methodist. So Asbury, like Whitfield, traveled all over America preaching to every group he could find he went to every community, he could think of. The guy in his years of preaching, he preached 20,000 sermons, and he rode 300,000 miles on horseback. That’s like riding a horse around the world 12 times. So these are the guys that went to everyone. Jesus talked about going out into the highways and the byways and telling everybody that gospel, these guys did it. And Harry traveled with Francis Asbury and other great Methodist leaders. He was one of those traveling preachers.
Tim Barton
well, and what’s also cool is so many of those Methodist ministers are on a record as identifying how good Harry was as a minister. He was one of the best spoken he was one of the most intelligent. And as we’re saying this, right, this is when… when you begin to see the influence that Harry Hosier had, it actually did make sense that his people are converting under his ministry and some of these bishops he traveled with they were talking about that Harry would draw larger crowds than they would. Well Harry has these huge crowds. These people are converting to Christianity. They… they’re following the teachings of Harry Hosier on the Bible. They moved to Indiana. This is the only thing that actually makes sense. And even though, I get, there’s no definitive proof of this, it is what makes the most sense. But what is unquestionable is one of the incredible pastors, ministers and the early days the Second Great Awakening was a black minister named Harry Hosier. To find out more you need to go to WallBuilders.com . Learn more of this guy. Such a unique minister from American history.
Rick Green
Alright folks, quick break, we’ll be right back with Bob McEwen speaking at the ProFamily Legislators Conference. You are listening to WallBuilders.
Tim Barton
This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. America is a special and unique nation. The average length for a constitution in other countries is only 17 years, but we’ve had ours for over two centuries. And our 4% of the world’s population produces 24% of the world’s gross domestic product. And every year we produce more inventions and technology than the other 96% of the world combined. In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville of France, came to America, travelled the country, and in his famous book Democracy in America reported, the position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional. And it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. This is the origin of the phrase American Exceptionalism, and affirms that America is unique because of the distinctive ideas on which we’ve been based, including inalienable rights, individualism, limited government, and the importance of religion and morality. For more information about American exceptionalism, go to WallBuilders.com .
Rick Green
Welcome back to WallBuilders. We’re going to dive back in where we left off yesterday. At the end of the program, we were right in the middle of Bob McEwen’s presentation at the ProFamily Legislators conference, we’re going to… jump right back in right now and get most of that, today. And then the final close on that presentation will be tomorrow. So it’s a three-part series here on WallBuilders Live, this presentation, Bob McEwen speaking at the ProFamily Legislators Conference just a few months back. Here’s Bob.
Bob McEwen
Any politician who will not protect life will not hesitate to take your liberty. And so it’s the first thing, is easily, you’re going to ask and Dennis Prager says, if you can only ask the person two questions, ask him, where do they stand on life? Then you know, how are they stand on domestic policy. Ask them where they stand on Israel, and you know where they stand on foreign policy, just from… So Donald Trump… I was at a dinner table with him, when he turned to Leonard Leo, who was doing the research, and he said, you know, how we coming on those. He said, well, we got 40 more names ready for you for next week. He said, well stay on them, stay on them. And I thought, he has set out his criteria. You want them to be pro life. Now if they’re pro life, then 90% of this other thing is going to take care of itself. And then he actually appointed them to the Supreme Court and the ramifications that we’ve seen in one decision, that Lemon decision, I went to University of Miami, which was overwhelmingly Jewish at the time, and at Christmas time all of my friends where other than celebrate Christmas, they would get contracts with New York law firm, so they would drive throughout the south and they would take pictures of little towns that have “keep Christ in Christmas or whatever.” And they would then send it back to the law firm in New York. New York would then send a letter threatening this little city councilman making $50 a week that… charging him with $5 million lawsuit. And we just collapsed all those things all during the 70’s, and we just gave them away. And it wasn’t until Alliance Defense Fund was the first one formed in 93. And now we have these other folks who begin to push back a little bit. And now we understand that all of that stuff that we gave away, we can now have back again, this is a reason… If you ever want to get too discouraged, try to find a Planned Parenthood convention. And if you will just go and sit in the back of a Planned Parenthood event, you will be so excited, because they… “Those Christians are winning everything.” They’re winning everything on the courts, they’re taking over the city councils, they’re taking over school boards they’re… And you’ll be much encouraged because the truth of the matter is, we are making tremendous, tremendous headways. So three more examples of where the country was dependent upon people such as you and I, and where it came through. Tim mentioned about Delaware. As you know, when they were crossing the Delaware, they were within days, within a week. The enlistments were up in January 1. And that’s when George Washington’s friend, Dr. Benjamin Rush came down and said, you know, you’ve got to have a success, otherwise, this thing… and George Washington’d already written a letter to his cousin at Mount Vernon. He said, I fear this thing is about up. Now, if you’re… if you have no country, and no money, and no arms, and you’re fighting the strongest power on earth, you would have reason to be discouraged. But, they didn’t. And as you know, they relied upon the Lord and went down and had that great victory which inspired them. We can continue on to the War of 1812. Well, first of all, let’s talk about what happened immediately thereafter. That is, that the Muslims who… the Barbary Pirates had… they would attack ships. And the way that you kept them from cutting your heads off, was that you gave them money. And so the British would give them money in order to bribe them, and function that way. But when the United States became independent, the Muslim murderers discovered that these folks are no longer protected by the tribute that we’re getting from the British. And so they decided to attack America and begin to attack our ships. We didn’t have any defense for that. And so, they went out and bought three ships and started started a navy. But the interesting thing about that was the Brock Obama in his first speech abroad, in which he went to Cairo to speak to the radical Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo. In the course of it, and when he talked about all the great accomplishments of the Muslim faith, he said, in fact, it was the Muslims that first recognize the independence of the United States. And if you go back and you watch the speech, and everybody laughs, because they knew what he was saying. When they recognize America’s independence, because they went out and killed Americans is what they did, they attack the ships, and we had to spend a lot of money to them. And a third of the budget under John Adams was going to try to bribe them. And that’s when Thomas Jefferson said, he came in, and they said, millions for defense, not a dime for tribute. And we went ahead and went to war. And we went… they captured the Philadelphia, we went to retrieve it. And what… do Muslims do when you fight them, they cut your head off, as you know, they’re big into doing that. So the soldiers took the straps off of the ship and wrapped them around their necks, and the first battle of the Marines, and they’re called Leathernecks, to this day, because they were going to have… they were protecting the leather on their necks. And from the halls of Montezuma, which we won, shortly thereafter. The British are having a battle with France. And what do you do? And this is my point, what do you do when you’re the strongest nation on earth? You do anything you want. And so Britain wanted more ships, and they wanted more sailors. So what they do? They went out and took them. But there happened to be seven and a half million people [who] called themselves Americans, and they didn’t like that. And so America declared war. And the British said this shouldn’t be a whole lot of a problem. And so they came, as you know, I say, sailed up the Potomac and James Madison, his wife, Dolley, the First Lady to ever be called the First Lady was preparing lunch for the last president to command troops in the field. And when a messenger came running in and told Dolley that President Madison was not coming to lunch, but the British were. And with that, they grabbed the picture of George Washington off the wall, a picture of herself and a silver tea set leftover from John and Abigail Adams. They grabbed them and ran out the door, and the British came in the backdoor, ate the lunch, and then that evening set, the entire city include… beginning with the White House and burned everything to the ground. We have no archives prior to that time. All… we used to, when a bill was enrolled, it was tied with a red ribbon, from which we get the term red tape. All of those things were all burned, the Library of Congress was burned, the only thing that was left were for stone walls of the White House. And for stone walls of the Capitol. Everything else was destroyed. Now having done that, now we’ve wiped out the government. The next thing is the fact that… there’s an army left. A little Army. It’s up there in Baltimore, the fourth largest harbor and the largest military port. We’re going to take that out, And… when we do that, then there will be no United States of America. And so they marched up from up through Upper Marlboro, and Americans. Not soldiers or sail… just God fearing freedom loving Americans came out to communicate to them, their disaffection for their marching through their town. And rather than kill them all, they just… army always uses, needs a medic, and so they sold their doctor, Dr. Beanes, and they went out to prepare an order to attack the fort that was protecting Baltimore, Fort McHenry. The commander, who, at age 29 knew that if they were going to have a success, they’d have to come through him. And so Mr. Armistead, the grandfather of the soldier in, at Gettysburg, he went out and purchased a flag. There were 15 states, so there were 15 Stripes. And each stripe was two feet that makes 30 feet high and 42 feet long and two foot stars, and he purchased it in anticipation of the fact when the battle would come to them. Well, the people of Upper Marlboro wanted to have their doctor back. So they went down and hired a lawyer by the name of Francis Scott Key, who was living in a little house there where the Key Bridge is now in Georgetown, he and his 14 children. And they said, I’ll take the case as best we can. So they went out to where James and Dolley Madison were living out in Virginia. And they said they had already written a law that said that you can’t negotiate with individuals. And so he said, You take Colonel Skinner here, and good luck. And so they rode out to the… in the Tonnant, the command ship there in Baltimore, and said, we’d like to have our doctor back. And after a day of negotiations, finally, the commander said, fine, you can have him and quite frankly, we don’t care. Because tomorrow, you’re not going to have a country anyway. So you get to sit here and watch. And then after that, you all can do whatever you want to do. So with that, they began to attack. And here’s the significant point.
Rick Green
Alright friends, one more break today. Stay with us. We’ll be right back with Bob McEwen on WallBuilders.
Tim Barton
Hey, this is Tim Barton with WallBuilders. And as you’ve had the opportunity to listen to WallBuilders Live, you’ve probably heard the wealth of information about our nation, about our spiritual heritage, about the religious liberties, about all the things that makes America exceptional. And you might be thinking as incredible as this information is, I wish there was a way that I could get one of the WallBuilders guys to come to my area, and share with my group, whether it be a church, whether it be a Christian school, or public school, or some political event or activity. If you’re interested in having a WallBuilders speaker come to your area, you can get on our website www.WallBuilders.com . And there’s a tab for scheduling. And if you’ll click on that tab, you’ll notice there’s a list of information from speakers bios, to events that are already going on. And there’s a section where you can request an event. To bring this information about who we are, where we came from, our religious liberties and freedoms. Go to the WallBuilders website and bring a speaker to your area.
Rick Green
Welcome back to WallBuilders. We’re going to jump right back in with Congressman McEwan over at the ProFamily Legislators conference.
Yesterday, today and tomorrow. And tomorrow we’ll get the conclusion. Sure appreciate you listening. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders.
Episode Links
Send In Your Questions!
The Founders Bible
The Founders Bible App
Constitution Alive
First Liberty
The Courageous Leaders Collection
Heroes of History
Quotations of the Founders Books
Alliance Defending Freedom
Liberty Counsel
Patriot Academy
High Point Leadership Camp
WallBuilders’ YouTube
Wallbuilders Summer Leadership Training Program