From the historic campus of Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, where the good, the true, and the beautiful are taught, nurtured, and honored, this is the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, bringing the activity and education of the

college to listeners across the country. Protecting our rights is a matter of exercising those

rights that we are granted. You will not get your rights if you don't stand up for them.

This is your host, Scott Bertrand. And that's Will Morrissey, Professor Emeritus of Politics

here at Hillsdale College, and author of the recent essay over at Real Clear Public Affairs,

Self-Government, the American Way. We talk at length with Dr. Morrissey about that piece

on this week's program. You can also find him online at willmorsayresey reviews.com for book reviews and more.

Dr. Morrissey, thanks for joining us.

Thanks for inviting me, Scott.

Glad to have you back.

We continue, in fact, with another piece that you wrote over at Real Clear Public Affairs as part of a series they're running there.

This one is called self-government,

the American way. Take us back a little to 1776. As the Americans, as the new Americans are

moving from governing as colonists to governing as an independent nation, what are some of those changes, what the differences that they're going through? What are they noticing?

Well, one of the main things that they want to do is to become a sovereign, that is to say, self-governing people rather than, as you say, just colonists of the British Empire.

And in order to do that, they have to do two things. One is that

they have to assert their rights and the other, which is what we normally associate with the

Declaration of Independence, assertions of rights. But they also very clearly outlined ten moral

responsibilities, ten duties that they undertake to honor.

How, what measures do they take to work to strengthen this new union that they've created?

Aside from the political and military measures that we're all pretty familiar with,

what they do is to declare

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