Welcome to the Hillsdale College online courses podcast. I'm Jeremiah Regan.

And I'm Juan Darlalos. We're back with Constitution 101, the meaning and history of the Constitution.

We're on to lecture number two today,

Natural Rights and the American Revolution. And in lecture two, we have Tom West teaching us about the political theory and the moral foundations behind the revolution.

Jeremiah, I think both you and I have taken courses here at Hillsdale in our graduate studies

with Tom West. He's probably one of

the best scholars in the country on the American founding and understanding that period of time

and what they believed. And I think what we're going to experience in this lecture is really a deep

dive into the American founding and some of the most important things about the American

political thought, which is this idea of natural rights. Yeah, and one of the things that

distinguishes Dr. West is his clarity on the most important and fundamental points. So you're

right. Our listeners will get a deep dive into natural rights and the justification

for the revolution and the basis for the Constitution. But Dr. West will put these things

in terms that are very clear, common sense, easy to understand. He'll make the point that

the standard of nature of natural rights means the most important factor in this is that it is a standard

outside of human opinion. The founders are appealing to an authority beyond men. They're

appealing to the authority of God, and that means that their government is based, at least in

theory, on an impartial judge. And that's why I think the first principles approach, the way that Hillsdale approaches

studying the Constitution and studying American political thought is so crucial,

it's because it looks at that standard outside of man.

What is it outside of man?

What is the way that God created the world

...