by David Barton
Some 200 years ago, signer of the Declaration John Witherspoon clearly described the intent of this tactic:
It is of no consequence to an infidel to make it appear that there are some … bad men. His great business is to transfer the faults of particulars to the whole order and to insinuate that “priests of all religions are the same.”20
Notice how this strategy was employed by MacDonald: invoke Jefferson, Franklin, and Paine (the least overtly religious Founders) and then imply that all of the other Founders held similar convictions. Recall that there were some 200+ Founders; why not invoke Benjamin Rush, John Jay, Samuel Adams, Roger Sherman, Abraham Baldwin, Rufus King – and scores of other strongly religious Founders – and then claim accurately that they were much more representative of the collective group?
Note this use of overly-broad generalizations by Charles and Mary Beard in their Rise of American Civilization:
And the First Amendment, added by the radicals in 1791, declared that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”21 (emphasis added)
The inference is that those who wanted to protect religious liberties (Patrick Henry, George Mason, Samuel Adams, etc.) were “radicals”; on this basis they were not representative of the more “mainstream” Founders. The societal implication intended from this charge is that those who today seek protections for public religious expression are also “radicals.”
If revisionists can persuade the public that all of the Founders were deists, then they will have recast the Founders’ religious beliefs, thus concocting a historical precedent for today’s unpopular court decisions which limit public religious expressions. The use of overly broad generalizations induces erroneous impressions and wrong conclusions; therefore, any public policy built on these mistaken foundations will be inherently flawed.
3. The Use of Omission
Omission (the deletion of certain sections of text) is another effective tool of revisionists and can also completely transform the tone of a work. An excellent example of the use of omission is seen in the following quotes from a recent bestselling book on American history by Kenneth Davis:
Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? … I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!22 PATRICK HENRY, 1775
We whose names are under-written … do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine our selves together into a civil body politick, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid.23 MAYFLOWER COMPACT, 1620
The ellipses (“ … ”) indicate that a portion of the text was omitted. When used correctly, such deletions shorten the text but do not change its context; not so in this case. Notice (inserted in bold) what Davis deleted:
Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death?24
We whose names are under-written having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith and honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colonie in the Northern parts of Virginia do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid.25
By omitting these definitive portions, the revisionist changes the message from a God-centered to a secular tone.
Notice also the manner in which a popular library reference book presents the 1783 peace treaty which ended the American Revolution:
… ART. I. – His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz. New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, to be free, sovereign and independent States, &c.26
What was omitted by the editors at the beginning of the treaty? The section in which John Adams, John Jay, and Benjamin Franklin officially declared:
In the name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity. It having pleased the Divine Providence to dispose the hearts …27
In another library reference book, the charter of Pennsylvania is presented in these words:
Charles the Second [&c.] … Know ye … that we, favoring the petition and good purpose of the said William Penn …28
What is omitted from the charter? The section describing Penn’s religious motivation for forming Pennsylvania:
Whereas our trusty and well beloved subject, William Penn, Esquire, son and heir of Sir William Penn, deceased, out of a commendable desire to enlarge our English Empire and promote such useful commodities as may be of benefit to us and our dominions, as also to reduce the savage natives by gentle and just manners to the love of civil society and Christian religion, hath humbly besought leave of us to transport an ample colony unto a certain country hereinafter describe in the parts of America not yet cultivated and planted …29
Another example of the secularizing of history through omission is seen in the current reprint of Alexis de Tocqueville’s classic 1835 work Democracy in America. The new edition (Richard D. Heffner, editor), touted as being “Specially Edited and Abridged for the Modern Reader,”30 contains less than half the content of the original. What has been omitted? Most of de Tocqueville’s comments on the family, morality, and religion. Notice some of his observations deleted from the “modern” condensation:
There is certainly no country in the world where the tie of marriage is more respected than in America or where conjugal happiness is more highly or worthily appreciated.31
Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more did I perceive the great political consequences resulting from this state of things to which I was unaccustomed. In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other; but in America, I found they were intimately united and they reigned in common over the same country.32
The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other.33
Apparently, the “modern” reader doesn’t need to know about the influence of Christianity on American government and family.
Other similar examples of religious omissions from history texts were documented by researchers funded through the U. S. Department of Education. For example, at the elementary level they discovered:
One social studies book has thirty pages on the Pilgrims, including the first Thanksgiving. But there is not one word (or image) that referred to religion as even a part of the Pilgrims’ life.34
Other examples of the washing out of religion are such explanations as, “Pilgrims are people who make long trips”…. [T]he Pilgrims are described entirely without any reference to religion; thus at the end of their first year they “wanted to give thanks for all they had” so they had the first Thanksgiving. But no mention is made of the fact that it was God they were thanking.35
At the high-school level, one national textbook listed eighty-three important dates in American history, and only one (the first Thanksgiving in 1621) was religious;36 revisionists would have us believe that there have been no religious events of historical importance since 1621.
Another national text listed 642 events. While only six referred to religion, the following “important” dates were among those listed: 1893, Yale introduces ice hockey; 1897, first subway completed in Boston; 1920, United States wins first place in Olympic Games; 1930, Irish Sweepstakes becomes popular; 1960, Pittsburgh Pirates win World Series; 1962, Twist – a popular dance craze.37
; Again, the revisionists would have us believe that such trivia are vital components in our nation’s development. The researchers document that the texts regularly omit positive references to religion, the family, marriage, free-enterprise economics, traditional values, entrepreneurialism, and other foundational American virtues. Certainly, the failure to acknowledge religion and its effect on America (or any of these other virtues) cannot be blamed on a lack of historical material.38
Educators in earlier generations believed that to omit such aspects – especially the religious elements and a Providential view of history – was to deprive students of a truthful portrayal of America. As Charles Coffin (a popular author of student history texts in the 1870s) explained:
There is still one other point [to the teaching of history]: you will notice that while the oppressors have carried out their plans and had things their own way, there were other forces silently at work which in time undermined their plans, as if a Divine hand were directing the counter-plan. Whoever peruses the “Story of Liberty” without recognizing this feature will fail of fully comprehending the meaning of history. There must be a meaning to history or else existence is an incomprehensible enigma [complete riddle].39
Omission is an effective tool used to indoctrinate readers with a secular, religion-free view of American history. The goal of the revisionists’ use of this tool is to continually expose readers to a truncated treatment of history. The intended effect is for students to grow up striving to “protect” the supposed religion-free atmosphere which they would have us believe made America great.
4. The Use of Insinuations and Innuendos
Because of the human tendency to couple a message with the messenger, one need only discredit the messenger if he wishes to attempt to discredit a message. This tactic has been employed for centuries.
For example, 2,000 years ago when large crowds were following Jesus, opponents of his teachings began to circulate the untruth that Jesus was “a winebibber and a glutton” (MATTHEW 11:19). The expected effect was that many would cease to follow Him, for who needs the teachings of a drunkard?
Such rumors may be termed “insinuations” (a hint or covert suggestion against someone) or “innuendos” (a derogatory allusion). The use of insinuations and innuendos have proven very effective, especially in the political arena. Notice, for example, this absurd application:
George Smathers unseated incumbent Claude Pepper in Florida’s 1950 Senate primary by the clever use of innuendo when speaking to unsophisticated audiences. In mock horror, Smathers would ask voters if they were aware that Pepper was a “shameless extrovert” who had “practiced celibacy” as a young man. To shock his listeners utterly, he would confide that Pepper’s sister living in New York was a “known thespian” [in other words, Pepper was friendly, outgoing, and morally pure as a young man, and his sister was a dramatic actress].40
The use of insinuation and innuendo has been so effective in politics that it continues today – evidenced by recent statewide elections in Virginia where:
In the 1st House of Delegates District, residents were asked whether they would vote for Terry Kilgore if they knew he had taken $4,000 from a client; the caller didn’t mention that the money was payment for a legal fee. Pollsters asked 8th District residents if they were aware that Republican Morgan Griffith once defended a child molester – but apparently failed to mention that Griffith had been appointed by the court to do so.41
This strategy is called a “whisper campaign”; its effects are illustrated by a children’s game:
Somebody whispers a story in someone’s ear, and that someone whispers it in somebody else’s ear, and so on and so forth – until the last person whispered to tells the story. Which, if the game’s going well, will be so different from the original that everybody laughs like crazy.42
Insinuations and innuendos distort a message and are very effective when applied to historical figures. Notice the utilization of this tactic by W. E. Woodward:
The colonial forefathers were hard, cold, cruel and realistic. The idea that they were kindly and leisurely is a sentimental notion, and it is not true…. The conversation among prosperous folk at dinner was about land, money and religion; generally it was about the making of money by getting the better of somebody else. There is where religion helped. A deeply religious person could, of course, make more money than others not so religious because his transactions were under the cloak of sanctity and were not subject to criticism.43
Woodward implied that the Founders were manipulative, self-centered, and greedy; they used religion only to acquire wealth. He also charged:
Washington had the inestimable faculty of being able to say nothing. He said nothing about religion – nothing very definite – and was willing to let people think whatever they pleased. Jefferson, on the contrary, talked a great deal about religion. His intellect was expansive, prolific, full of ideas. He was a deist, like Washington, and he wanted to convince others.44
Again, Woodward leads the readers to believe that the Founders never spoke of religion positively and, in fact, only spoke of it when trying to turn others from it.
Fairfax Downey, in his work Our Lusty Forefathers (the title is itself an insinuation), charged:
All the men [of the Founding era] went wooing widows. They were most assiduous [diligent] in their courtship of a “warm” widow, as they termed a rich one…. The wealthy Widow Custis brought George Washington a marriage portion which included a fortune of fifteen thousand pounds sterling and one hundred and fifty slaves. Franklin, Jefferson, and Madison married widows.45
The insinuation is twofold: first, the Founders were selfish, greedy men, seeking wealth at any cost; and second, Washington sought slaves in his pursuit of wealth. The truth is that George Washington was already wealthy before he married Martha (he owned 8,000 acres at the time of his marriage), and he sought neither to promote nor to prolong slavery.
Even though the issue of slavery is often raised as a discrediting charge against the Founding Fathers, the historical fact is that slavery was not the product of, nor was it an evil introduced by, the Founding Fathers; slavery had been introduced to America nearly two centuries before the Founders. As President of Congress Henry Laurens explained:
I abhor slavery. I was born in a country where slavery had been established by British Kings and Parliaments as well as by the laws of the country ages before my existence…. In former days there was no combatting the prejudices of men supported by interest; the day, I hope, is approaching when, from principles of gratitude as well as justice, every man will strive to be foremost in showing his readiness to comply with the Golden Rule [“do unto others as you would have them do unto you” MATTHEW 7:12].46
In fact, prior to the time of the Founding Fathers, there had been few serious efforts to dismantle the institution of slavery. John Jay identified the point at which the change in attitude toward slavery began:
Prior to the great Revolution, the great majority … of our people had been so long accustomed to the practice and convenience of having slaves that very few among them even doubted the propriety and rectitude of it.47
The Revolution was the turning point in the national attitude – and it was the Founding Fathers who contributed greatly to that change. In fact, many of the Founders vigorously complained against the fact that Great Britain had forcefully imposed upon the Colonies the evil of slavery. For example, Thomas Jefferson heavily criticized that British policy:
He [King George III] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither…. Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce [that is, he has opposed efforts to prohibit the slave tra
de].48
Benjamin Franklin, in a 1773 letter to Dean Woodward, confirmed that whenever the Americans had attempted to end slavery, the British government had indeed thwarted those attempts. Franklin explained that …
… a disposition to abolish slavery prevails in North America, that many of Pennsylvanians have set their slaves at liberty, and that even the Virginia Assembly have petitioned the King for permission to make a law for preventing the importation of more into that colony. This request, however, will probably not be granted as their former laws of that kind have always been repealed.49
Further confirmation that even the Virginia Founders were not responsible for slavery, but actually tried to dismantle the institution, was provided by John Quincy Adams (known as the “hell-hound of abolition” for his extensive efforts against the evil of slavery). Adams explained:
The inconsistency of the institution of domestic slavery with the principles of the Declaration of Independence was seen and lamented by all the southern patriots of the Revolution; by no one with deeper and more unalterable conviction than by the author of the Declaration himself [Jefferson]. No charge of insincerity or hypocrisy can be fairly laid to their charge. Never from their lips was heard one syllable of attempt to justify the institution of slavery. They universally considered it as a reproach fastened upon them by the unnatural step-mother country [Great Britain] and they saw that before the principles of the Declaration of Independence, slavery, in common with every other mode of oppression, was destined sooner or later to be banished from the earth. Such was the undoubting conviction of Jefferson to his dying day. In the Memoir of His Life, written at the age of seventy-seven, he gave to his countrymen the solemn and emphatic warning that the day was not distant when they must hear and adopt the general emancipation of their slaves.50