Categories: Articles

Bob Barr Crosses the Line

Bob Barr Crosses the Line
In a July 8th debate, Congressional candidate Bob Barr accused his opponent, Barry Loudermilk, of a most serious offense. Barr claimed that Loudermilk had accepted the endorsement of a man who’s been “roundly and uniformly criticized, with facts, for taking positions that are anti-Semitic.” That same evening, Barr sent out a tweet calling Loudermilk’s endorser an “anti- Israel anti-Semitic radical.”

In most cases, such accusations should set off alarm bells in the Jewish community. But not so this time. Barr’s charges are not only false, they’re entirely backwards. This alleged hater of Israel and the Jews, David Barton, is actually one of Israel’s most important allies in America today.

The Republican Party continues to be dominated by two overlapping voting blocs: Christian conservatives and tea party conservatives. Among these groups, there are few leaders who are as influential and respected as Barton. Thus as some national figures have endeavored to turn these conservative voters against Israel, Israel’s supporters have turned to Barton for help. It is no exaggeration to say that Barton has played a pivotal role in ensuring that conservatives continue to be among the most pro-Israel voters in America.

My appreciation for David Barton comes not only from what I’ve read about him, but from long hours working with him on behalf of a strong U.S.-Israel relationship. Barton has invited me to his conferences to teach rising conservative leaders about the importance of supporting Israel. And when I’ve needed help organizing leadership missions to Israel, Barton has not only provided me with valuable contacts; he’s volunteered to join me in leading the trips.

I have traveled across Israel multiple times with David Barton. I have seen his joy at the sites of Israel’s triumphs. I’ve seen his resolve in discussions of Israel’s challenges. I’ve seen his tears at Yad Vashem. This man’s support for Israel and the Jewish people is not merely academic, it is visceral. No matter how bad things get for Israel or Jews around the world, I know that David Barton will continue to stand by our side. I wish I could say the same for other prominent leaders I’ve known.

Despite his years of hard work on behalf of Israel, Barton stands accused of anti-Semitism because back in 1991, he spoke at two events – one hosted by Scriptures for America and the other by Kingdom Covenant College – which were allegedly organized by individuals affiliated with the “Christian Identity Movement.” The Anti-Defamation League has accused the Christian Identity Movement of racism and anti-Semitism.

Barton speaks to hundreds of groups across the country every year. He had no knowledge that some involved in these two events were accused of beliefs which he so deeply abhors. Thus his appearance at these events was, at worst, a vetting failure. We should remember, however, that in the pre-Internet days of 1991 such vetting was far more difficult to do, especially with reference to a movement that is typically described as “loosely affiliated” and “shadowy.”

Such guilt by association simply doesn’t work when the nexus is so tenuous. This is exactly why earlier this month Barton won a defamation lawsuit against two Texas politicians who made a claim almost identical to Barr’s. Even Right Wing Watch – a devoted critic of Barton’s Constitutional analysis – has had the decency to note that “We have listened to literally thousands of hours of Barton’s programs and presentations and he can be justifiably criticized for a lot of things, but being anti-Semitic … should not be among them.”

Of course if anyone should be wary of guilt by association, it’s Bob Barr. In 1998 – when there was an internet for easy vetting — Barr himself spoke to a group called the Council of Conservative Citizens. The ADL has accused the CCC of having a “racist agenda.” When the Anti-Defamation league criticized Barr for this appearance, Barr apologized and claimed that he was unaware of these allegations.

While Bob Barr is spreading distortion, David Barton has been teaching truths. Barton has taught me things about the Jewish contributions to America and the American Revolution that I had never known. In fact, Barton was the one who introduced me to one of my favorite quotes from an American Founder.

On July 4, 1788 a parade was held in Philadelphia to celebrate the ratification of the Constitution. Founding father Benjamin Rush attended the parade, and he reported that a diverse group of clergy played a prominent role in its lead. In particular, Rush noted that:

Pains were taken to connect ministers of the most dissimilar religious principles together…. The rabbi of the Jews locked in the arms of two ministers of the Gospel was a most delightful sight. There could not have been a more happy emblem.

This vision of America which David Barton taught me is one to which he has dedicated his life. It is a vision which all Americans should hold sacred. As he flails for traction, Bob Barr should be careful to do no violence to so lofty an ideal.

The Founding Fathers and 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 combating 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].1

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.2

The War for Independence 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 trade].3

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.4

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 that evil). 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.5

While Jefferson himself had introduced a bill designed to end slavery,6 not all of the southern Founders were opposed to slavery. According to the testimony of Virginians James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, it was the Founders from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia who most strongly favored slavery.7

Yet, despite the support for slavery in those States, the clear majority of the Founders opposed this evil. For instance, when some of the southern pro-slavery advocates invoked the Bible in support of slavery, Elias Boudinot, President of the Continental Congress, responded:

[E]ven the sacred Scriptures had been quoted to justify this iniquitous traffic. It is true that the Egyptians held the Israelites in bondage for four hundred years, . . . but . . . gentlemen cannot forget the consequences that followed: they were delivered by a strong hand and stretched-out arm and it ought to be remembered that the Almighty Power that accomplished their deliverance is the same yesterday, today, and for ever.8

Many of the Founding Fathers who had owned slaves as British citizens released them in the years following America’s separation from Great Britain (e.g., George Washington, John Dickinson, Caesar Rodney, William Livingston, George Wythe, John Randolph of Roanoke, and others). Furthermore, many of the Founders had never owned any slaves. For example, John Adams proclaimed, “[M]y opinion against it [slavery] has always been known . . . [N]ever in my life did I own a slave.”9

Notice a few additional examples of the strong anti-slavery sentiments held by great numbers of the Founders:

[N]ever in my life did I own a slave.10 John Adams, Signer of the Declaration, one of only two signers of the Bill of Rights, U. S. President

But to the eye of reason, what can be more clear than that all men have an equal right to happiness? Nature made no other distinction than that of higher or lower degrees of power of mind and body. . . . Were the talents and virtues which Heaven has bestowed on men given merely to make them more obedient drudges? . . . No! In the judgment of heaven there is no other superiority among men than a superiority of wisdom and virtue.11 Samuel Adams, Signer of the Declaration, “Father of the American Revolution”

[W]hy keep alive the question of slavery? It is admitted by all to be a great evil.12 Charles Carroll, Signer of the Declaration

As Congress is now to legislate for our extensive territory lately acquired, I pray to Heaven that they may build up the system of the government on the broad, strong, and sound principles of freedom. Curse not the inhabitants of those regions, and of the United States in general, with a permission to introduce bondage [slavery].13 John Dickinson, Signer of the Constitution; Governor of Pennsylvania

I am glad to hear that the disposition against keeping negroes grows more general in North America. Several pieces have been lately printed here against the practice, and I hope in time it will be taken into consideration and suppressed by the legislature.14 Benjamin Franklin, Signer of the Declaration, Signer of the Constitution, President of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society

That mankind are all formed by the same Almighty Being, alike objects of his care, and equally designed for the enjoyment of happiness, the Christian religion teaches us to believe, and the political creed of Americans fully coincides with the position. . . . [We] earnestly entreat your serious attention to the subject of slavery – that you will be pleased to countenance the restoration of liberty to those unhappy men who alone in this land of freedom are degraded into perpetual bondage and who . . . are groaning in servile subjection.15 Benjamin Franklin, Signer of the Declaration, Signer of the Constitution, President of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society

That men should pray and fight for their own freedom and yet keep others in slavery is certainly acting a very inconsistent, as well as unjust and perhaps impious, part.16 John Jay, President of Continental Congress, Original Chief Justice U. S. Supreme Court

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. . . . And with what execration [curse] should the statesman be loaded, who permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other. . . . And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.17 Thomas Jefferson

Christianity, by introducing into Europe the truest principles of humanity, universal benevolence, and brotherly love, had happily abolished civil slavery. Let us who profess the same religion practice its precepts . . . by agreeing to this duty.18 Richard Henry Lee, President of Continental Congress; Signer of the Declaration

I have seen it observed by a great writer that Christianity, by introducing into Europe the truest principles of humanity, universal benevolence, and brotherly love, had happily abolished civil slavery. Let us, who profess the same religion practice its precepts, and by agreeing to this duty convince the world that we know and practice our truest interests, and that we pay a proper regard to the dictates of justice and humanity!19 Richard Henry Lee, Signer of the Declaration, Framer of the Bill of Rights

I hope we shall at last, and if it so please God I hope it may be during my life time, see this cursed thing [slavery] taken out. . . . For my part, whether in a public station or a private capacity, I shall always be prompt to contribute my assistance towards effecting so desirable an event.20 William Livingston, Signer of the Constitution; Governor of New Jersey

[I]t ought to be considered that national crimes can only be and frequently are punished in this world by national punishments; and that the continuance of the slave-trade, and thus giving it a national sanction and encouragement, ought to be considered as justly exposing us to the displeasure and vengeance of Him who is equally Lord of all and who views with equal eye the poor African slave and his American master.21 Luther Martin, Delegate at Constitution Convention

As much as I value a union of all the States, I would not admit the Southern States into the Union unless they agree to the discontinuance of this disgraceful trade [slavery].22 George Mason, Delegate at Constitutional Convention

Honored will that State be in the annals of history which shall first abolish this violation of the rights of mankind.23 Joseph Reed, Revolutionary Officer; Governor of Pennsylvania

Domestic slavery is repugnant to the principles of Christianity. . . . It is rebellion against the authority of a common Father. It is a practical denial of the extent and efficacy of the death of a common Savior. It is an usurpation of the prerogative of the great Sovereign of the universe who has solemnly claimed an exclusive property in the souls of men.24 Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration

The commerce in African slaves has breathed its last in Pennsylvania. I shall send you a copy of our late law respecting that trade as soon as it is published. I am encouraged by the success that has finally attended the exertions of the friends of universal freedom and justice.25 Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration, Founder of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, President of the National Abolition Movement

Justice and humanity require it [the end of slavery]–Christianity commands it. Let every benevolent . . . pray for the glorious period when the last slave who fights for freedom shall be restored to the possession of that inestimable right.26 Noah Webster, Responsible for Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution

Slavery, or an absolute and unlimited power in the master over the life and fortune of the slave, is unauthorized by the common law. . . . The reasons which we sometimes see assigned for the origin and the continuance of slavery appear, when examined to the bottom, to be built upon a false foundation. In the enjoyment of their persons and of their property, the common law protects all.27 James Wilson, Signer of the Constitution; U. S. Supreme Court Justice

[I]t is certainly unlawful to make inroads upon others . . . and take away their liberty by no better means than superior power.28 John Witherspoon, Signer of the Declaration

For many of the Founders, their feelings against slavery went beyond words. For example, in 1774, Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush founded America’s first anti-slavery society; John Jay was president of a similar society in New York. In fact, when signer of the Constitution William Livingston heard of the New York society, he, as Governor of New Jersey, wrote them, offering:

I would most ardently wish to become a member of it [the society in New York] and . . . I can safely promise them that neither my tongue, nor my pen, nor purse shall be wanting to promote the abolition of what to me appears so inconsistent with humanity and Christianity. . . . May the great and the equal Father of the human race, who has expressly declared His abhorrence of oppression, and that He is no respecter of persons, succeed a design so laudably calculated to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke.29

Other prominent Founding Fathers who were members of societies for ending slavery included Richard Bassett, James Madison, James Monroe, Bushrod Washington, Charles Carroll, William Few, John Marshall, Richard Stockton, Zephaniah Swift, and many more. In fact, based in part on the efforts of these Founders, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts began abolishing slavery in 1780;30 Connecticut and Rhode Island did so in 1784;31 Vermont in 1786;32 New Hampshire in 1792;33 New York in 1799;34 and New Jersey did so in 1804.35

Additionally, the reason that Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa all prohibited slavery was a Congressional act, authored by Constitution signer Rufus King36 and signed into law by President George Washington,37 which prohibited slavery in those territories.38 It is not surprising that Washington would sign such a law, for it was he who had declared:

I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it [slavery].39

The truth is that it was the Founding Fathers who were responsible for planting and nurturing the first seeds for the recognition of black equality and for the eventual end of slavery. This was a fact made clear by Richard Allen.

Allen had been a slave in Pennsylvania but was freed after he converted his master to Christianity. Allen, a close friend of Benjamin Rush and several other Founding Fathers, went on to become the founder of the A.M.E. Church in America. In an early address “To the People of Color,” he explained:

Many of the white people have been instruments in the hands of God for our good, even such as have held us in captivity, [and] are now pleading our cause with earnestness and zeal.40

While much progress was made by the Founders to end the institution of slavery, unfortunately what they began was not fully achieved until generations later. Yet, despite the strenuous effort of many Founders to recognize in practice that “all men are created equal,” charges persist to the opposite. In fact, revisionists even claim that the Constitution demonstrates that the Founders considered one who was black to be only three-fifths of a person.41 This charge is yet another falsehood. The three-fifths clause was not a measurement of human worth; rather, it was an anti-slavery provision to limit the political power of slavery’s proponents. By including only three-fifths of the total number of slaves in the congressional calculations, Southern States were actually being denied additional pro-slavery representatives in Congress.

Based on the clear records of the Constitutional Convention, two prominent professors explain the meaning of the three-fifths clause:

While much progress was made by the Founders to end the institution of slavery, unfortunately what they began was not fully achieved until generations later. Yet, despite the strenuous effort of many Founders to recognize in practice that “all men are created equal,” charges persist to the opposite. In fact, revisionists even claim that the Constitution demonstrates that the Founders considered one who was black to be only three-fifths of a person. This charge is yet another falsehood. The three-fifths clause was not a measurement of human worth; rather, it was an anti-slavery provision to limit the political power of slavery’s proponents. By including only three-fifths of the total number of slaves in the congressional calculations, Southern States were actually being denied additional pro-slavery representatives in Congress.

It was slavery’s opponents who succeeded in restricting the political power of the South by allowing them to count only three-fifths of their slave population in determining the number of congressional representatives. The three-fifths of a vote provision applied only to slaves, not to free blacks in either the North or South.42 Walter Williams

Why do revisionists so often abuse and misportray the three-fifths clause? Professor Walter Williams (himself an African-American) suggested:

Politicians, news media, college professors and leftists of other stripes are selling us lies and propaganda. To lay the groundwork for their increasingly successful attack on our Constitution, they must demean and criticize its authors. As Senator Joe Biden demonstrated during the Clarence Thomas hearings, the framers’ ideas about natural law must be trivialized or they must be seen as racists.43

While this has been only a cursory examination of the Founders and slavery, it is nonetheless sufficient to demonstrate the absurdity of the insinuation that the Founders were a collective group of racists.

Endnotes

1 Henry Laurens to John Laurens on August 14, 1776, Frank Moore, Materials for History Printed From Original Manuscripts, the Correspondence of Henry Laurens of South Carolina (New York: Zenger Club, 1861), 20.

2 John Jay to the English Anti-Slavery Society, June 1788, The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, ed. Henry P. Johnston (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1891), III:342.

3 Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Albert Ellery Bergh (Washington, D. C.: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1903), I:34.

4 Benjamin Franklin to Rev. Dean Woodward, April 10, 1773, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Jared Sparks (Boston: Tappan, Whittemore, and Mason, 1839), VIII:42.

5 John Quincy Adams, An Oration Delivered Before the Inhabitants of the Town of Newburyport at Their Request on the Sixty-First Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1837 (Newburyport: Charles Whipple, 1837), 50.

6 Jefferson, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Bergh (1903), I:4.

7 Jefferson, “Autobiography,” Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Bergh (1903), I:28. See also James Madison, The Papers of James Madison (Washington: Langtree and O’Sullivan, 1840), III:1395; James Madison to Robert Walsh, November 27, 1819, The Writings of James Madison, ed. Gaillard Hunt (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1910), IX:2.

8 The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (Washington, D. C.: Gales and Seaton, 1834), 1st Congress, 2nd Session, 1518. See also George Adams Boyd, Elias Boudinot, Patriot and Statesman (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1952), 182.

9 John Adams to George Churchman and Jacob Lindley, January 24, 1801, The Works of John Adams, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1854), IX:92-93.

10 John Adams to George Churchman and Jacob Lindley, January 24, 1801, Works of John Adams, ed. Adams (1854) IX:92.

11 Samuel Adams, An Oration Delivered at the State House, in Philadelphia, to a Very Numerous audience; on Thursday the 1st of August, 1776 (London: E. Johnson, 1776), 4-6.

12 Charles Carroll to Robert Goodloe Harper, April 23, 1820, Kate Mason Rowland, Life and Correspondence of Charles Carroll of Carrollton (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1898), II:321.

13 John Dickinson to George Logan, January 30, 1804, Charles J. Stille, The Life and Times of John Dickinson(Philadelphia: J. P. Lippincott Company, 1891), 324.

14 Franklin to Mr. Anthony Benezet, August 22, 1772, Works of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Bigelow (1904), 5:356.

15 Memorial from the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, February 3, 1790, Annals of Congress, ed. Joseph Gales, Sr. (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1834), 1:1239-1240.

16 John Jay to the Rev. Dr. Richard Price, September 27, 1785, The Life and Times of John Jay, ed. William Jay (New York: J. & S. Harper, 1833), II:174.

17 Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia(Philadelphia: Matthew Carey, 1794), 236-237.

18 Richard Henry Lee (Grandson), Memoir of the Life of Richard Henry Lee (Philadelphia: H. C. Carey and I. Lea, 1825), I:19.

19 Richard H. Lee (Grandson), Memoir of Richard Henry Lee (1825), 1:17-19.

20 William Livingston to James Pemberton, October 20, 1788, The Papers of William Livingston, ed. Carl E. Prince (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1988), V:358.

21 Luther Martin, The Genuine Information Delivered to the Legislature of the State of Maryland Relative to the Proceedings of the General Convention Lately Held at Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Eleazor Oswald, 1788), 57; Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, ed. Jonathan Elliot (Washington, D. C.: 1836), I:374.

22 George Mason, June 15, 1788, Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, ed. Jonathan Elliot (Washington, D. C.: 1836), III:452-454.

23 William Armor, Lives of the Governors of Pennsylvania (Norwich, CT: T. H. Davis & Co., 1874), 223.

24 Benjamin Rush, Minutes of the Proceedings of a Convention of Delegates from the Abolition Societies Established in Different Parts of the United States Assembled at Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Zachariah Poulson, 1794), 24.

25 Benjamin Rush to Richard Price, October 15, 1785, Letters of Benjamin Rush, ed. L. H. Butterfield (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1951), 1:371.

26 Noah Webster, Effect of Slavery on Morals and Industry (Hartford: Hudson and Goodwin, 1793), 48.

27 James Wilson, The Works of the Honorable James Wilson, ed. Bird Wilson (Philadelphia: Lorenzo Press, 1804), II:488.

28 John Witherspoon, The Works of John Witherspoon (Edinburgh: J. Ogle, 1815), VII:81.

29 William Livingston to the New York Manumission Society, June 26, 1786, The Papers of William Livingston, ed. Carl E. Prince (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1988), V:255.

30 A Constitution or Frame of Government Agreed Upon by the Delegates of the People of the State of Massachusetts-Bay (Boston: Benjamin Edes and Sons, 1780), 7; An Abridgement of the Laws of Pennsylvania, ed. Collinson Read (Philadelphia: 1801), 264-266.

31 The Public Statue Laws of the State of Connecticut (Hartford: Hudson and Goodwin, 1808), I:623-625; Rhode Island Session Laws (Providence: Wheeler, 1784), 7-8.

32 The Constitutions of the Sixteen States (Boston: Manning and Loring, 1797), 249, Vermont, 1786.

33 Constitutions of the Sixteen State (1797), 50, New Hampshire, 1792.

34 Laws of the State of New York, Passed at the Twenty-Second Session, Second Meeting of the Legislature (Albany: Loring Andrew, 1798), 721-723.

35 Laws of the State of New Jersey, Compiled and Published Under the Authority of the Legislature, ed. Joseph Bloomfield (Trenton: James J. Wilson, 1811), 103-105.

36 Rufus King, The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, ed. Charles King (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1894), I:288-289.

37 August 7, 1789, Acts Passed at a Congress of the United States of America (Hartford: Hudson and Goodwin, 1791), 104.

38 “An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States Northwest of the River Ohio,” Article VI, The Constitutions of the United States (Trenton: Moore and Lake, 1813), 366.

39 George Washington to Robert Morris, April 12, 1786, The Writings of George Washington, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1932), XXVIII:407-408.

40 Richard Allen, “Address to the People of Color in the United States,” The Life Experience and Gospel Labors of the Right Rev. Richard Allen (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1983), 73.

41 Thomas G. West, “Was the American Founding Unjust? The Case of Slavery,” Principles: A Quarterly Review for Teachers of History and Social Science (Claremont, CA: The Claremont Institute Spring/Summer, 1992), 5.

42 Walter E. Williams, “Some Fathers Fought Slavery,” Creators Syndicate, Inc. (May 26, 1993).

43 Walter E. Williams, “Some Fathers Fought Slavery,” Creators Syndicate, Inc. (May 26, 1993).

An Article V Convention of the States

By David Barton

Article V of the Constitution provides the means whereby a so-called “Constitutional Convention” can be convened to amend the Constitution of the United States:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution; or on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which in either case shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of this Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof.

If thirty-four (that is, two-thirds) of the states issue a formal call for a convention to propose an amendment(s) to the Constitution, then such a Convention must be assembled. (Any such Convention is not led or supervised by Congress, but rather by delegates selected by the state legislatures.) Some 10,000 amendments to the Constitution have been proposed in Congress,1 but in two centuries, two-thirds of the states have never requested the same amendment. But that began to change in 1957.

History

Under the growing economic difficulties of the 1940s following World War II and the widespread implementation of Progressive economic policies under President Franklin Roosevelt, Indiana sought to curb uncontrolled congressional spending and growing national debt by issuing the first call for a Balanced-Budget Amendment to the federal Constitution. As federal economic problems only increased across subsequent decades, other states joined the call,2 and eventually thirty-four – the required two-thirds – did request such a Convention, but apparently the threshold was not met, for during that same time, some states had rescinded their call for an amendment.3

Some conservatives had begun to loudly warn that if a gathering to write a Balanced Budget Amendment were ever convened, it could result in a “runaway convention.” As proof, they pointed to the original Constitutional Convention, claiming that it had met only for the purpose of repairing the Articles of Confederation but ended up writing a new Constitution instead. It was therefore argued that if a gathering was convened to write a Balanced Budget Amendment, that the entire Constitution could be set aside and replaced with an entirely new one – and that liberals had already written a substitute and were awaiting an opportunity to implement it. (Of course, subsequent experience has proven that Progressives don’t write a new constitution; they simply ignore the old one and have their judges rewrite it through activist decisions.)

I had heard these arguments for years and even repeated them to express my opposition to an Article V “Constitutional Convention,” but I now support such a Convention. Why? Because I personally researched the documents related to Article V and discovered that the portrayal of history I had been told was wrong – and it is a proven lesson that if you get your history wrong, then public policy positions based on that bad history will also be wrong.

The US Constitution

As a point in fact, the 1787 gathering to write the U. S. Constitution was definitely not a runaway convention – the delegates did not ignore their state’s instructions about revising the Articles of Confederation and then come up with a renegade Constitution. This is affirmed by the fact that the states ratified the Constitution after it was written – they supported what occurred at the Convention. Furthermore, history also shows that throughout the construction of American government, the states had full control over their delegates.

For instance, during the Second Continental Congress (which, like the Constitutional Convention, was a gathering outside the normal governmental bodies of the time), Pennsylvania instructed its delegates not to support any separation from Great Britain,4 and their delegates followed those instructions. But Pennsylvania later changed its instructions and authorized their delegates to vote with the other states,5 and thus for the Declaration of Independence. When several of their delegates ignored those instructions and voted against the Declaration, Pennsylvania recalled them and replaced them with new ones.6 Clearly, the states had control of their delegates and could stop any runaway convention.

(There are many excellent resources available to bring an accurate historical perspective to any examination of Article V. See, for example, the historical information at www.conventionofstates.com, particularly under “Convention of States Handbook” and “Opposition Response.”)

Support for a Convention?

So both history and the explicit language of the Constitution make four points evident:

1. The original Constitutional Convention was not a runaway convention

2. The current proposed gathering is not a “Constitutional Convention,” for it is not a gathering to write a constitution; rather, it is a “Convention of the States” convened for the purpose of suggesting a specific constitutional amendment(s) to limit the federal government

3. The Constitution itself specifically stipulates that any such Convention can only “propose Amendments to this Constitution,” not produce a new one

4. The states have extensive authority to control their delegates and prevent them from going afield from the purpose for which they were sent to the convention

One other crucial point that conservative opponents of an Article V Convention have failed to acknowledge is that it does not endanger the Constitution to use the Constitution. The Founders specifically placed Article V into the Constitution as a tool whereby states could enforce federalism and limit federal overreach, and to not use this part of the Constitution for fear of losing the Constitution is like not using the First Amendment for fear of losing the First Amendment, or not using the Second Amendment for fear of losing the Second Amendment, or not using Trial by Jury for fear of losing Trial by Jury. If something is in the Constitution, then conservatives can’t be like Progressives and pick and choose which parts they embrace.

Furthermore, it is time to change our mindset about using the Constitution. Long ago, Founding Father John Jay, an author of the Federalist Papers and the original Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, wisely advised:

Every member of the State ought diligently to read and to study the constitution of his country, and teach the rising generation to be free. By knowing their rights, they will sooner perceive when they are violated and be the better prepared to defend and assert them.7

We have been defending the Constitution. It is now time to assert it.

Assert the Constitution

Significantly, the National War College in Washington, D. C., teaches the brightest American military officers both the philosophy and the tactics necessary not just to engage in war but to win that war. A course central to that training is “The Nine Principles of War,” and offense is one of those key doctrines of war, but defense is not. In fact, defense is only considered a temporary condition during which assets are reorganized in order to go back onto offense. Going on offense, and then sustaining a strong offense, is the key to ultimate victory. It is time for states to go on the offensive to limit the overreach of the federal government.

Bad history not only engenders bad policy, it also produces straw-men arguments that inflame the emotions and limit offensive aggressiveness by raising fears of what MIGHT happen – that if an Article V gathering is convened, it MIGHT turn into a runaway convention, and it MIGHT replace the Constitution with a new one (and it is alleged that George Soros is currently funding such efforts). But we also MIGHT be wiped out by a falling meteor tomorrow afternoon at 3PM; or Hawaii MIGHT experience a blizzard on July 18th; or in the last two years of his presidency, Barack Obama MIGHT become the greatest constitutional conservative in American history. There are too many “MIGHTS” – too much fear – and fear keeps citizens on defense rather than offense. Because of what MIGHT happen, then nothing is done.

By the way, suppose for a moment that all of history and the explicit language of the Constitution is wrong, and that the critics’ worst fears do come to pass, and that the Convention does write an entirely new Constitution. What then? The new document could take effect only after it was ratified by BOTH bodies of the legislature in three-fourths, or 38 of the states. Thus, it takes only one legislative body in thirteen different states – either the house or the senate – to stop such any such new document.

There are 99 state legislative chambers in America (Nebraska has a unicameral legislature with only one body), so then this means that 87 of the 99 legislative bodies would have to vote to dump the current Constitution before a new one could be implemented. No Progressive – no matter how optimistic – can identify anywhere close to 87 state legislative bodies that would support such a plan. Similarly, no conservative – no matter how pessimistic – should have any trouble naming 13 States in which either the House or Senate would refuse to ratify and thereby put that state in the “no” column. Again, only 13 States saying “no” would stop such a plan. But it will not come to this, for the Constitution explicitly stipulates that an Article V gathering can only propose amendments to the Constitution, not replace it.

Statement

These are some of the many reasons why I support an Article V Convention of the States. It is time to reject straw-men arguments, relearn our history, and embrace what the Constitution authorizes. It is time to act on the Constitution and limit the federal government before it becomes so large and intrusive that it can no longer be restrained.

I was recently asked to provide a letter of support for a state legislature that was voting on a call for an Article V Convention of the States. Here are my comments to that body:

Fellow Patriots,

It is exciting to see such a renewed interest in basic constitutional principles. Liberty lovers across America are studying their past in order to find ways to stop our federal government’s explosive growth and sprint towards socialism.

Fortunately, our Founding Fathers, with their thorough understanding of human nature, created constitutional means to restrain the federal government when it exceeded its jurisdiction. One specific means was the Constitution’s Article V amendment process by means of a Convention of the States. This is a proper solution.

We have not come to this conclusion lightly. Like many of our conservative friends, we initially avoided this constitutionally-specified process due to a fear of what might occur, or what could happen. But after years of research and studying the Founders’ original intent for this amendment process – and after years of witnessing an unconstitutional reshaping of our federal government – we are confident that this is the correct course of action.

The Federalist Papers declare that the Constitution specifically furnishes each part of government “with constitutional arms” for its own “effectual powers of self-defense.” One such arm of self-defense that the Constitution gives to the states is an Article V Convention of States. For states to refuse to use this tool would be like going into a street fight, but refusing to use one of your biggest and most effective weapons. And it is illogical to consider the use of any constitutional provision as a threat to the Constitution. It makes as much sense as violating the free-market system to save it, or breaking health care to fix it.

We urge you to support all of the Constitution, and thus the efforts of the Convention of States to pass their extremely well-thought-out and strategic legislation in your home state and thus join us in a call to restore our constitutional republic.

David Barton

Founder and President, WallBuilders

Endnotes

1 “Measures Proposed to Amend the Constitution,” Senate.gov (accessed on June 5, 2014).

2 Russell Caplan, Constitutional Brinkmanship: Amending the Constitution by National Convention (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 78-89. So far, 34 states have issued such a call, including Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wyoming, Michigan, and Ohio.

3 “List of Rescissions of Article V Convention Applications,” Wikipedia (accessed on June 5, 2014). Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, North Dakota, and Georgia have resubmitted calls for convention starting in 2011. The rescinded states include Alabama (rescinded 1988; new call 2011); Arizona (rescinded 2003); Florida (rescinded 1988 ; new call issued 2010, renewed in 2014 with 2 other provisos); Georgia (rescinded 2004; new call issued 2014); Idaho (rescinded 1999); Louisiana (rescinded 1990; new call issued 2008; renewed in 2011 and 2014); New Hampshire (rescinded 2010; new call issued 2012); North Dakota (rescinded 2001; new call issued 2011); Oklahoma (rescinded 2009); Oregon (rescinded 1999); South Carolina (rescinded 2004); South Dakota (rescinded 2010); Tennessee (rescinded 2010; new call issued 2014); Utah (rescinded 2001); Virginia (rescinded 2004); and Wyoming (rescinded 2009).

4 Peter Force, American Archives: Four Series. Containing a Documentary History of the English Colonies in North America, from the King’s Message to Parliament of March 7, 1774, to the Declaration of Independence (Washington: M. St Clair Clarke & Peter Force, 1840), III:1792-1793, instructions to the Delegates from the Province [of Pennsylvania] in Congress, November 9, 1775.

5 Force, American Archives (1840), VI:862-863, instructions to the Delegates [of Pennsylvania] in Congress, June 14, 1776.

6 Thomas F. Gordon, The History of Pennsylvania from Its Discovery by Europeans to the Declaration of Independence in 1776 (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, & Carey, 1829), 537-538. See also Force, American Archives (1848), I:1586, Pennsylvania’s appointment of new delegates, July 20, 1776.

7 John Jay, The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, ed. Henry P. Johnston (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890), I:163-164, Charge to the Grand Jury of Ulster County, September 9, 1777.

Letter to Pastors about Welfare Comment on Beck Radio Show

Background

Immediately following the U. S. Supreme Court’s decisions on homosexual marriage in June 2013, David Barton was a guest on a popular national radio program. He pointed out that by the striking down of DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) and thus the federal definition of what constitutes a marriage, there would be three immediate repercussions.

The first would be in the military, for even when there still was a definition of marriage, chaplains were being pressured to violate their own religious conscience and perform homosexual marriages; that would only increase with the removal of DOMA.

The second would be in the State Department, for even when the definition of marriage was still in place, it was pressuring foreign nations to accept homosexual marriage in order to receive U. S. foreign aid; that would only increase following the Court’s decision.

The third would be in those states that had already legalized homosexual marriage. Already in those state, citizens who because of their religious beliefs had refused to participate in activities associated with homosexual marriages (e.g., photograph the wedding, provide the cake or flowers, make available a religious wedding chapel, etc.) were already being legally persecuted by those states, including the revoking of their tax-exempt statuses.

The radio host then asked David when pastors were going to stand up and walk away from their government-granted tax exemptions and simply stand for Biblical truth. In the course of explaining that many pastors were doing that, but most were not, David mentioned that some pastors were simply on church welfare. A few pastors took objection to that phrase, so David wrote the piece below to clarify his use of that term.

❋    ❋    ❋    ❋    ❋

Statement by David Barton

It was brought to my attention that there were some issues with statements I recently made on a national radio program. I regret any misunderstanding that may have occurred over my reference to “welfare” as associated with pastors. There are multiple meanings of the word, and some may have assumed it to be used in the context of laziness, which certainly was not my intent. Others may have made other assumptions unrelated to the way that I was using the word “welfare.” While the Godly pastors that I know are incredibly hard working in a very difficult job, I used the term “church welfare” to refer to an entirely different phenomenon: those pastors who neither believe in nor stand up for Biblical principles but nevertheless receive a check for not fulfilling their Biblical responsibilities as a pastor.

I meant it in the historic European sense of the term – such as with Anglican pastors in England who received their salary and would not jeopardize it by making anyone uncomfortable by teaching what the Bible said; the same with many of the Scandinavian nations, not to mention (as confirmed by Martin Niemoller and Dietrich Bonheoffer) even Nazi Germany. These pastors received their checks but did not hold forth Biblical teachings and did nothing to challenge or help move people or the culture in a Biblical direction.

Sadly, from a statistical standpoint, almost 90 percent of current American pastors do NOT believe that the Bible is God’s infallible Word, or that it applies to every aspect of life, or even that Jesus is Divine (see documentation below). We now have entire denominations of millions that endorse homosexual marriage, oppose Israel’s right to exist and defend itself, don’t oppose and in fact even support abortion, assert that God’s Word is not inspired, teach that one’s own effort can get him to heaven, etc. In fact, national polling affirms that in more than seventy categories, pollsters now find no statistical difference in the moral behavior of professed Christians and that of non-believers. Indisputably, much of this can be attributed to the teachings that Christians receive – or rather, don’t receive – at church. Nevertheless, these pastors receive a salary for teaching millions of people the exact opposite of what God’s Word says in so many areas – or in their efforts to not offend anyone, they water it down until it is no longer a clear and unequivocal message.

My objection therefore occurs when the concern for one’s salary alters the clarity or strength of message, or when someone takes a salary but does not hold forth even the most basic tenets of the Bible (which is the indisputable statistical condition of most of the Christian church in America today). However, I definitely do not include the ten percent of Biblical churches and pastors in the category of “church welfare.”

Finally, let me point out that I know the scope and demographics of the audience that listens to the program on which I appeared and who heard my interview; I appear on that program and network regularly. That audience knows my full body of work – how highly supportive of Biblical pastors that I have consistently been, and how that for nearly two decades, including some five years on that specific program, I have championed not only the role but also the important position of Biblical pastors, and they therefore understood my intent.

I hope that this clears up any confusion, but please be aware that currently, ministers who believe in and teach the full Bible are in the extreme minority right now in America. We need pastors to get back to the Acts 4:19-20 model of boldly proclaiming the truth of God’s Word without fear of man, their congregation, or their paycheck.

Again, my apologies for any misunderstanding with my use of the phrase “church welfare.” May God continue to prosper you and your endeavors for Him!
David Barton

P. S. Please check out the pledge we encourage pastors to sign on our Black Robe Regiment website (brr.wallbuilders.com), where we also provide tools to help pastors take a bold and informed stand for Biblical principles as related to every facet of culture.

P. S. S. By the way, if anyone wonders about the statement above that “almost 90 percent of current American pastors do NOT believe . . .”, here is some information on the documentation for that statistic.
Consider information from the Center for the Study of American Culture and Faith.1 This organization identifies churches that are considered to be a “culturally-impacting church” – that is, churches that:

  1. Believe the Bible is God’s holy infallible Word
  2. Preach and teach the Bible
  3. Believe life is sacred
  4. Believe marriage is only between one man and one woman
  5. Encourage the congregation to vote Biblical values
  6. Believe that prayer is key
  7. Believe that the church is responsible to be actively engaged in helping the community

Significantly, each day the Center individually contacts some 500 of America’s more than 350,000 churches to identify those which hold these seven beliefs. Of the tens of thousands of churches they have thus far contacted, only about ten percent embrace these positions. Having currently identified over 6,000 of these Biblically-conservative churches, noted national pollster George Barna conducts surveys solely among this group. Consider recent findings:

  • 97% of theologically conservative pastors believe that the Bible provides principles that relate to the morality of abortion
  • 95% say the Scriptures offer moral principles related to same-sex marriage
  • 92% argue that the Bible describes principles regarding the morality of environmental care
  • 71% say that there are moral principles related to immigration policy in God’s Word2

Nevertheless:
In 2012 – an ideologically-charged election year in which the four issues in question were in the forefront of political discussions – none of those four issues was preached on by even half of the theologically-conservative pastors.3

So even though these pastors strongly believed that the Bible speaks to these issues, they themselves refused to publicly speak about those issues. In fact:

The survey found that, of the four issues, abortion was most often the subject of a sermon in a theologically-conservative church in 2012. Overall, 42% of the surveyed pastors preached about abortion, which was higher than the numbers who preached about same-sex marriage (36%), environmental care (21%), or immigration issues (10%). In 2013, even fewer pastors plan to preach on these four issues. While 42% of those pastors preached on abortion in 2012, pastors’ responses suggest that the figure is likely to drop to 34% in 2013. Same-sex marriage was taught about from 36% of these pulpits in 2012, but will likely drop to 26% in 2013. The frequency of preaching about environmental care is expected to drop almost by half (from 21% to 12%). Only immigration is anticipated to hold steady (10% in 2012, 10% planned in 2013).4

So, only around ten percent of America’s churches believe that the Bible is true and provides guidance on such issues, but only about one-third of that ten percent – or only about 3-4 percent of total churches nationally – will speak publicly about these issues. The CEO of the Center conducting the polling accurately observed, “Without such guidance [from pastors], the mass media takes the lead on providing the worldview that shapes cultural choices, producing lowest common denominator lifestyles and spineless leadership.”5

Endnotes

1 “Center for the Study of American Culture and Faith,” culturefaith.com.
2 “Survey Says: Conservative Pastors Don’t Always Preach What They Practice,” culturefaith.com, June 10, 2013.
3 “Survey Says: Conservative Pastors Don’t Always Preach What They Practice,” culturefaith.com, June 10, 2013.
4 “Survey Says: Conservative Pastors Don’t Always Preach What They Practice,” culturefaith.com, June 10, 2013.
5 “Survey Says: Conservative Pastors Don’t Always Preach What They Practice,” culturefaith.com, June 10, 2013.

* This article concerns a historical issue and may not have updated information.

Guns, Kids and Critics

Shortly after the December 2012 mass shooting of children and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, many began calling for severe limitations on private gun ownership and even a complete repeal of the Second Amendment, with its constitutional guarantee for citizens to “keep and bear arms.” David Barton was invited on a one-hour national television program to provide an historical perspective on the issue of gun ownership and gun control. In that one hour show, he presented colonial laws, early state constitutional provisions, statements from the Founding Fathers, positions of various presidents, and court decisions on the issue from both past and present.

In one part of the program, David specifically noted that even in the aftermath of the shootings of Presidents Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, John Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan, there were not calls for gun control – that even Reagan (while lying in the hospital recovering from the wound) voiced opposition to such efforts.1 None of these shootings was used as a reason to immediately call for increased regulation of guns, as was done by President Obama in the aftermath of Sandy Hook (thus applying Rahm Emanuel’s axiom to never let a crisis go to waste). But several of David’s obsessive critics, being more concerned with opportunism than truth or context, quickly took to websites and blogs claiming that his statement concerning Reagan was erroneous – that Reagan did support gun control.2 But David’s statement was completely accurate, for it was ten years after Reagan was shot, and three years after he left office before he declared support for the Brady gun control bill. David had made very clear that his context was presidential responses in the aftermath of shootings; and President Reagan, unlike President Obama, had not used an emotional national crisis to call for gun control.

In another part of the program, David pointed out the Founding Fathers’ emphasis on young people being taught the use of guns from an early age, believing that early training increased gun safety and decreased gun accidents and injuries. This view was clearly articulated by John Quincy Adams.

When he was dispatched by President James Madison as America’s official Minister to Russia, he left his three sons in the care of his younger brother, Thomas. Arriving in St. Petersburg, Adams wrote with specific instructions regarding the education and training of his boys (George, age 9; John, age 7; and Charles, age 3), telling his brother:

One of the things which I wish to have them taught – and which no man can teach better than you – is the use and management of firearms. This must undoubtedly be done with great caution, but it is customary among us – particularly when children are under the direction of ladies – to withhold it too much and too long from boys. The accidents which happen among children arise more frequently from their ignorance than from their misuse of weapons which they know to be dangerous.3

Expressing similar views, Founding Father Richard Henry Lee, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a framer of the Bill of Rights, declared:

[T]o preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.4

Thomas Jefferson likewise advised his young fifteen year-old nephew:

In order to assure a certain progress in this reading, consider what hours you have free from the school and the exercises of the school. Give about two of them, every day, to exercise; for health must not be sacrificed to learning. A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives a moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks.5

Having established the early American view of training children with the use and handling of guns, David explained that this practice continued for generations thereafter, even citing an example of students in the Old West who drew their guns at a school house in order to protect their teacher from a potential shooter. But David’s critics, being unfamiliar with that story and finding it inconceivable that previous generations could possibly think different about guns than they themselves do today, once against took to websites and blogs, claiming that David had made up this story, or that it was completely fictional.6 They were again wrong.

The account comes from noted western historian, Louis L’Amour, one of the most famous writers of both historical western fiction and non-fiction. L’Amour amassed a personal library of as many as 17,000 rare books/diaries/journals/documents7 particularly focusing on the American west, including numerous handwritten journals of frontier pioneers and settlers. Additionally, he personally interviewed many personalities who had lived in the waning days of the Old West, including gunfighters, cowboys, lawmen, outlaws, and many others.8 For his outstanding body of work across his lifetime, he received the Congressional Gold Medal and then the Medal of Freedom from President Ronald Reagan.9

Later in life, L’Amour recorded a number of interviews, relating interesting practices and incidents he had found in his research. In one such interview, he related the specific account (what he called “a true incident”)10 that David cited – a real-life story that he also included in one of his historical novels11 (he regularly included numerous true stories and anecdotes from the Old West throughout his stories). So not only did David not make up the anecdote, it actually came from one of America’s most celebrated western historians, who personally attested to its authenticity.

Proverbs 18:17 reminds us that one side sounds right until the other side is presented. The critics presented their side; David presented the truth. Proverbs 18:2 states that “A fool has no delight in understanding, but in expressing his own heart,” and several of David’s fixated critics have certainly done this, raising objections and expressing the hate in their heart without adequately researching their claims. For this reason, we always encourage folks to be thorough in their research and get the rest of the story before reaching a conclusion.

Incidentally, for those interested, L’Amour’s interview that includes the account of the students with guns at school follows below.

Interview with Louis L’Amour
Audio CD: South of Deadwood

“Deadwood, South Dakota was a wild boom camp that opened up in the Black Hills after the Indians were pushed out. There’s a lot of dispute about the Black Hills now about who they belonged to, but as a matter of fact, it’s very doubtful whether the Indian tribe had much of a claim on them. The Kiowa’s had them for a while and the Sioux drove the Kiowa’s out and the Sioux now claim that they were pushed out by the white man and want to be paid for it. But why not the Kiowas the Sioux drove out? And the Kiowas drove somebody else out; this was the way of things.

But Deadwood was a boom camp that started there. Some of Custer’s men, they were exploring the Black Hills found gold; and they found gold in several places. But Deadwood was where they found most of it. It started around a group of mines or a mine in particular and it did sprawl on the whole side of the canyon there, and there was a lot of dead wood up on the inside of the other and knocked down by, I imagine by wind (that will do it occasionally). I know a place in Colorado where there was a whole forest lining the side of a hill that a sudden wind blew the trees down. But anyway, Deadwood was very, very famous for that.

And Deadwood burst into growth out of nowhere. Buildings and tent houses and everything sprang up along the street and then the people began to come in: the gamblers and the women and the men who were doing the mining and the men who were trying to take the money away from those who brought it out of the ground. And Deadwood was rough and tough. That was where Hitchcock was killed sometime later, shot in the back. There was a sheriff round there for a while named Seth Bullock; he was quite a well-known man, he was a merchant later in Montana. But he was not a gun fighter at all, just a stern quiet man who knew his business and went about it and was very highly respected.

Calamity Jane was around there for a while, but Calamity Jane was really nobody in the West. The only thing she’s remembered for is because she had that tricky name. She was a prostitute of a particular low order and not good looking enough to do much business in town, so she did her business out on the road with traveling wagon trains.

But it was wild and rough and at one time or another nearly all the gunfighters showed up there. There was a very well-known gunfighter at that time who’s been forgotten pretty much since named Boone May. He was a police officer there, deputy sheriff I should say, and probably as good with a gun as any of the others that you’ve heard about. But he didn’t acquire the reputation.

It was a wild, rough town. There’s a very good book written about it by a woman named Estelle Bennett, whose father was a judge there, who had a quite fine library. And he handled a lot of the cases there in town, and Estelle Bennett was a little girl growing up there when all this was going on. She tells a good account of it.

See, sometimes people wonder how we know about what happened in the West. They think you have to have a good imagination. You don’t. Because there were people there at the time who were writing down what happened, you don’t have to imagine; you know. There are diaries every place, and nearly every town had its newspaper (some had two), that were recording the facts right at the time. You know all about these people; you can check everything right from beginning to end.

What you have to understand is that there were generally two sections in any western town. There was the people on the wrong side of the tracks you might say – the saloons and the red light district and all that, and that’s where most of the rough stuff went on. At the same time this was happening, at the same time that gunfights were going on and everything, on the other side of the track there were churches and schools and people going on and carrying on their lives the way any normal people would. And sometimes all they knew about the gunfights was the sound of the gunfire. They didn’t know who was shooting who until they heard it later. But among the rougher crowd, and among the cowboys in the neighborhood, gunfighters were treated about like baseball stars or football stars now. People talked about their various abilities and what would happen if two of them came together and who would be better than who, you know? And this was a discussion that went on quite often, and it was rough; very rough.

And the saloons in those days were not just a place where you went to drink. They were clearing houses for information. Many of the men who went to saloons didn’t drink at all. But you would go in there, and there at the bar or at the card tables you could get information on any part of the country or anybody you wanted to know. If you wanted to know about the marshal in a certain town, you could ask somebody; they would always know. Or they’d always know where a trail was. And if you happened to be a little bit careful about it, and listen a lot, and ask questions very discreetly, you could find out where the outlaw hideouts were, cause there was always somebody around who knew.

And you see, actually, the West was a relatively small place. It was huge in area, but there weren’t many people. And when a cattle drive, for example, started in Texas to go north to Dodge City or Abilene or Oklahoma or Nebraska or wherever they were going, a man would sit down and draw a trail for them in the dust or the clay, or maybe on a piece of paper in a barroom, and show them where they had to go. And usually he would tell them also about the town marshal in those various towns, he’d tell them about Wild Bill Hickok, or Mysterious Dave Mathers, somebody like that, and how they had to be careful of this man, he was dangerous. So, it was relatively a small world and there was really no place to hide in the West. Once you got out there and people knew you by some name or another, they never asked you what your name was. If you told them a name – and you could say “I’m Shorty” – that was all they ever recognized you by. Or if you said your name was “Mr. John B. Ellison,” they just accepted that. They didn’t ask what your background was, or where you came from, or who you were, or where you went to school – anything. They just took you at your own word. If you came round a ranch and stopped by for some food or something (what they used to call “riding the grub line”), you could stop at any ranch, and any ranch would feed you. So nobody asked you your name or anything; if you wanted to volunteer it, that was up to you. If you had some distinction, they might refer to you by that; they might call you “Red,” or “Shorty,” or “Slim.” I was on a circus briefly where there were about five or six “Shorty’s” and seven or eight “Slim’s,” so they got to designating them as “Overland Slim” and “Red Slim” and that sort of thing.

All kinds of people came west, some of them with pretty bad records behind them. The West was a natural magnet for any adventurer, any drifter, anybody who was at loose ends. So men came there from all over the world, not just from America, but from other countries as well. They came there from Australia, from France, from England. We had a man up in North Dakota, called Marquis de Morès, who built a chateau out on the western plains and ran cattle out there. A very handsome man. He even got in a couple of gun battles. But he was a friend of Teddy Roosevelt also, or at least they were acquainted. And there were others that came. For example, a little-known fact is that five of the men who died with Custer at the Little Bighorn had been members of the Vatican Guard. You never knew who you were talking to in the West.

Once up, I think it was in Idaho, there were some miners sitting round a table and one of them had brought a newspaper into the area. Now newspapers were very rare and hard to come by. So he was reading the paper aloud to all these miners while they’re eating. He was reading everything to them because it was all news to them. And he came to an account of the rowing match between Cambridge and Oxford on the Thames River. And one man sitting down at the end of the table looked up and said, “I used to row on that team.” And he had. You see, you never knew who you were talking to.

There were people out there who were titled men. For example, we have a senator in Washington right now who is the descendant of a titled man: Senator Wallop. Oliver Wallop came over here from England and ranched in the plains of Wyoming for thirty years. And then went back and took a seat in the House of Lords. So you never knew who you were talking to.

But Texas, due to the kind of country it was, developing very rapidly, and with men who were fiercely proud and fiercely independent, naturally gravitated toward the use of guns. There were outlaws, there were Indians, so everybody had to carry the gun from necessity. Even children going to school did. Actually, many of the gunfighters were very young. If a man lived to be, say, thirty-five years old as a gunfighter, usually he lived forever, or for a long, long time. But the fellows who were in most of the gunfights were anywhere from seventeen to twenty-five. After that they began to realize that they were vulnerable too, and they began to be more careful about their gun battles. But they were mostly young. There was no such thing, really as a juvenile delinquent in those days. A boy went right from being a boy in knee pants to being a man. And that’s what he wanted to be more than anything else in the world. He wanted to be a man, and be accepted as a man, and welcomed as a man, and do a man’s work; and that was the important thing for him. So as soon as he got to that point, he’d established himself to a degree, and he was very proud of the fact that he had. But some of them went overboard, and some of them became killers and became very vicious. And if you were old enough to carry a gun, you were old enough to get shot. It was your problem.

There’s a case I use in one of my stories; I use it in the story called Bendigo Shafter. All the kids coming to school used to hang their guns up in the cloakroom because they were miles from home sometimes, and it was dangerous to ride out without a gun. And this is taken from an actually true incident. (emphasis added) I use it in my story and tell the story, but it really happened. Now a man came to kill the teacher. It was a man. And he came with a gun, and all the kids liked the teacher, so they came out and ranged around him with their guns. That stopped it. But kids twelve and thirteen used to carry guns to school regularly.”

Endnotes

1 “Gun Control: Reagan’s Conversion,” Time Magazine, April 8, 1991.

2 Warren Throckmorton, “Did Ronald Reagan oppose James Brady on gun control? No, David Barton, Reagan favored the Brady Bill,” Warren Throckmorton, January 16, 2013.

3 John Quincy Adams, Writings of John Quincy Adams, ed. Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1914), III:497, to Thomas Boylston Adams on September 8, 1810.

4 Richard Henry Lee, An Additional Number Of Letters From The Federal Farmer To The Republican (New York: 1788), 170, Letter XVIII, January, 25, 1788.

<5 Thomas Jefferson, Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, ed. Thomas Jefferson Randolph (Charlottesville: F. Carr, and Co., 1829), I:287, to Peter Carr on August 19, 1785.

6 Chris Rodda, “Is David Barton Now Getting His ‘History’ from Louis L’Amour Novels?” Huffington Post, February 4, 2013; Warren Throckmorton, “What’s the source for David Barton’s Kids with Guns Sotry?” Warren Throckmorton, February 4, 2013.

7 “America’s Favorite Storyteller,” The Louis L’Amour Collection (accessed on February 14, 2013). See also “A Brief biography of Louis L’Amour,” The Official Louis L’Amour Website (accessed on February 14, 2013); Donald Dale Jackson, “World’s fasted literary gun: Louis L’Amour,” Smithsonian Magazine, 1987.

8 Donald Dale Jackson, “World’s fasted literary gun: Louis L’Amour,” Smithsonian Magazine, 1987.

9 “Louis L’Amour Biography,” Bio. True Story (accessed on February 14, 2013).

10 Louis L’Amour, South of Deadwood (New York: Random House Audio, 1986).

11 Louis L’Amour, Bendigo Shafter (New York: Bantam Books, 1979), 164.

Political Parties and Racial Equality

No, Salon, It is Democrats, not Republicans, Who Need to
“hide” When it Comes to Promoting Racial Equality

by Dr. David Barton

Dr. Paul Escott, professor of history at Wake Forest University, wrote a book entitled Lincoln’s Dilemma: Blair, Sumner, and the Republican Struggle over Racism and Equality in the Civil War Era (2014). The website Salon published a part of this work as an essay entitled “Republicans hide behind ‘the party of Lincoln’ to deflect racism charges. The party’s history is more complicated.”1

Much of Escott’s article accurately demonstrates that Lincoln opposed slavery and that the Republican Party was founded to combat this vile institution. But the essay’s title suggests otherwise. Whether it was professor Escott who wrote the title, or an over-eager editor at Salon, it is profoundly misleading, as are parts of the essay.

For instance, Escott asserts that Lincoln engaged in racist acts as a young politician. As evidence, he writes:

As a young politician, Lincoln engaged in the race-baiting and racist rhetoric that was common among Illinois politicians. While his party’s newspaper, the Sangamo Journal, accused a Democratic presidential nominee of “love for free negroes,” the young Lincoln charged that his “very trail might be followed by scattered bunches of Nigger wool.”2

Escott seems to believe that this 1840 quotation is a “smoking gun” that proves Lincoln to be a racist. But these were not Lincoln’s words.

The event that gave rise to this specific quote was an April 17, 1840 story in the State Register, where a pro-slavery Democrat sought to sully the reputation of the Whig Abraham Lincoln by claiming he was descended from blacks – that he was “from outward appearance originally from Liberia.”3 Since Democrats at this time generally saw blacks as subhuman,4 this was intended to denigrate Lincoln. But Lincoln replied ably to the attack.5

Three weeks later, on May 8, 1840, J. A. Chestnut wrote a response in the Sangamo Journal, defending Lincoln from the attack in the State Register.6 He openly ridiculed Lincoln’s attacker and, like the attacker, used insultingly racist language. In Chestnut’s opinion, Lincoln had “showed in his speech” that the head of his opponent’s party was “clothed with the sable furs of Guinea – whose breath smells rank with devotion to the cause of Africa’s sons – and whose very trail might be followed by scattered bunches of Nigger wool.”7 These are offensive words, but they belong to Chestnut, not Lincoln. Although he was purporting to describe a speech by Lincoln speech, even Chestnut does not pretend that Lincoln said these specific words.

Escott, in his attempt to “complicate” history, misattributes Chestnut’s words to Lincoln. At best, this is a significant error. At worst, it is dishonest revisionism.

Ironically, most of Escott’s article supports the idea that Lincoln was not a racist and that the Republican Party was founded to combat slavery and racism. This view can easily be supported with additional evidence. For example:

  • The national party platforms of 1856, 1860, and 1864 (the presidential elections leading up to and during Lincoln’s administration) show the Democrats as open and proud racists and Republicans as ardent civil rights proponents.8 In fact, the Republican platform of 1856 had only nine planks, and seven of them directly addressed achieving racial equality and civil rights.9
  • When the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery was voted on by Congress in 1865, only 19 of the 82 (that is, 23 percent of) House Democrats voted to end slavery, but all 118 of the Republicans voted to end slavery.10
  • A similar voting pattern is visible in the passage of the other two racial Civil Rights Amendments (the Fourteenth Amendment of 1868, and the Fifteenth Amendment of 1870)11 as well as the first two dozen civil rights laws passed in Congress.12 In fact, in the 1875 anti-Klan bill, not a single Democrat in Congress voted either to outlaw or punish the Ku Klux Klan.13
  • All of the notorious Jim Crow laws and onerous Black Codes were enacted by Democrat legislatures and signed into law by Democrat governors.14
  • It was not until 1944 that the U. S. Supreme Court struck down the Democrat Party’s long-standing official policy of white-only primaries.15
  • Blacks from the south were not elected to Congress as Democrats until 1974, and then only after the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that the Democrat Party must stop drawing election lines to prevent blacks from being elected.16

Without a doubt some early Republicans were racists, and it would be shocking indeed if Lincoln never made a racist comment. But that is no excuse to misattribute Chestnut’s words to him and by any measure, the Democratic Party has been far more racist than has the Republican Party. So there is no need for contemporary Republicans to “hide” behind the Party of Lincoln. Instead, they should – and do – proudly embrace the Party’s long history of fighting for racial equality,17 despite what Salon wrongly claims.

Endnotes

1 “Racism the founding of the GOP: Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War and the real history of the Republican Party,” Salon, September 13, 2014.

2 “Racism the founding of the GOP: Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War and the real history of the Republican Party,” Salon, September 13, 2014.

3 Herbert Mitang, Abraham Lincoln: A Press Portrait (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971), 18-20, quoting from J. A. Chestnut as published in the Sangamo Journal of May 8, 1840.

4 Indications of this belief by Democrats were expressed in many ways over the two decades preceding this incident. For example, in 1820 the Democrat-controlled Congress passed the Missouri Compromise (Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States, 2555-2559, 16th Congress, 1st Session, “An act to authorize the people of Missouri Territory to form a constitution and state government,” approved March 6, 1820). It was the first federal act that expanded rather than reduced slavery in America. It repealed the 1789 law signed by President George Washington that forbid slavery in any federal territory (Acts Passed at a Congress of the United States of America Begun and Held at the City of New-York, on Wednesday the Fourth of March, in the Year 1789 (Hartford: Hudson & Goodwin, 1791), 104, August 7, 1789), which at that time included what became Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. But as a result of the law passed by Democrats, slavery would no longer by banned in all federal territories but would now be permitted in certain ones. Consequently states began to enter the Union in pairs – one slave state and one free state together (“Missouri Compromise,” Library of Congress (accessed on September 7, 2016)) and slavery began to expand nationally with direct Democrat assistance. Later, the Democrat Platform of 1840 offered a strong defense of slavery, stating that “that all efforts by Abolitionists or others made to induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences, and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people and endanger the stability and permanence of the Union,” thus expressing the amazing Democrat belief that efforts to end slavery in America reduced the happiness of the people. Subsequent Democrat platforms took even stronger positions for slavery and against blacks. (See, for example, Thomas Hudson McKee, The National Conventions and Platforms of All Political Parties, 1789-1905 (reprinted New York: Burt Franklin, 1971), 41-42, 48, 60, and passim.)

5 Herbert Mitang, Abraham Lincoln: A Press Portrait (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971), 18-20, quoting from J. A. Chestnut as published in the Sangamo Journal of May 8, 1840.

6 Herbert Mitang, Abraham Lincoln: A Press Portrait (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971), 18, quoting from J. A. Chestnut as published in the Sangamo Journal of May 8, 1840; Richard Lawrence Miller, Lincoln and His World: Prairie Politician, 1834-1842 (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2008), 382.

7 Herbert Mitang, Abraham Lincoln: A Press Portrait (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971), 18-20, quoting from J. A. Chestnut as published in the Sangamo Journal of May 8, 1840.

8 See, for example, Republican Campaign Edition for the Million (Boston: John Jewett & Co., 1856), 3-8; Thomas Hudson McKee, The National Conventions and Platforms of All Political Parties, 1789-1905 (New York: Burt Franklin, 1971), 91, 97-99, 108-109, 113-116, 125; an original 1864 broadside of the Republican Party Platform in our possession.

9 Republican Campaign Edition for the Million (Boston: John Jewett & Co., 1856), 3-8; Thomas Hudson McKee, The National Conventions and Platforms of All Political Parties, 1789-1905 (New York: Burt Franklin, 1971), 97-99.

10 Journal of the House of Representatives, 38th Congress, 2nd Session (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1865), pp. 168-171, January 31, 1865; Journal of the Senate, 38th Congress, 1st Session (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1863), 313, April 11, 1864.

11 Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States of America (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1866), Vol. 63, pp. 833-834, “June 13, 1866”; Journal of the Senate of the United States of America (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1865), 58:505, “June 8, 1866”; Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1869), 449-450, 40th Congress, 3rd Session, February 25, 1869; Journal of the Senate of the United States (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1869), 361, 40th Congress, 3rd Session, February 25, 1869.

12 Statutes . . . from December, 1865, to March, 1867, 14:27-30, 39th Congress, 1st Session, Chapter 31, April 9, 1866, “An Act to protect all Persons in the United States in their Civil Rights”; Statutes . . . from December, 1865, to March, 1867,  14,:50, 39th Congress, 1st Session, Chapter 86, May 21, 1866, “An Act to prevent and punish Kidnapping”; p. 236, Chapter 240, July 25, 1866, “An Act legalizing Marriages and for other Purposes in the District of Columbia”; Statutes . . . from December, 1865, to March, 1867, 14:375-376, 39th Congress, 2nd Session, Chapter 6, January 8, 1867, “An Act to regulate the elective Franchise in the District of Columbia”; 379-380, Chapter 15, January 25, 1867, An Act to regulate the elective Franchise in the Territories of the United States”; 391-392, Chapter 36, February 9, 1867, “An Act for the Admission of the State of Nebraska Into the Union”; 428-430, Chapter 153, March 2, 1867, “An Act to provide for the more efficient Government of the Rebel States”; 546, Chapter 187, March 2, 1867, “An Act to abolish and forever prohibit the System of Peonage”; Statutes . . . from December, 1867, to March, 1869, 15:72-73, 40th Congress, 2nd Session, Chapter 69, June 22, 1868, “An Act to admit the State of Arkansas to Representation in Congress”; 73-74, Chapter 70, June 25, 1868, “An Act to admit the States of North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida to Representation in Congress.” Statutes . . . from December 1869 to March 1871, 16:3, 41st Congress, 1st Session, Chapter 3, March 18, 1869, “An Act for further Security of equal Rights in the District of Columbia.” Statutes . . . from December 1869 to March 1871, 16:62-63, 41st Congress, 2nd Session, Chapter 10, January 26, 1870, “An Act to admit the State of Virginia to Representation”; 67-68, Chapter 19, February 28, 1870, “An Act to admit the State of Mississippi to Representation”; 80-81, Chapter 39, March 30, 1870, “An Act to admit the State of Texas to Representation”; 140-146, Chapter 114, May 31, 1870, “An Act to enforce the Right of Citizens of the United States to vote.” Statutes . . . from December 1869 to March 1871, 16:433-440, 41st Congress, 3rd Session, Chapter 99, February 28, 1871, “An Act to amend ‘An Act to enforce the Right of Citizens of the United States to vote’”; 17:13-15, 42nd Congress, 1st Session, Chapter 22, April 20, 1871, “An Act to enforce the Provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.” Statutes at Large and Proclamations of the United States of America, from March 1871 to March 1873, George P. Sanger, editor (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1873), 17:601, 42nd Congress, 3rd Session, Chapter 262, March 3, 1873, “An Act to place colored Persons who enlisted in the Army on the same Footing as other Soldiers.” Statutes at Large, from December, 1873, to March, 1875 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1875), 18:335-337, 43rd Congress, 2nd Session, Chapter 114, March 1, 1875, “An act to protect all citizens in their civil and legal rights.”

13 Congressional Globe (Appendix), 808, April 19, 1871; 831, April 20, 1871.

14 W. E. B. DuBois, Black Reconstruction In America (New York: The Free Press, 1962), 173, 177; Dictionary Of American History, s. v. “Black Codes”; African-American History online, “The Black Codes of 1865”; The Handbook of Texas Online, “Black Codes”; Brayton, Election Law of South Carolina, 16.

15 Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649, 658 (1944).

16 The Handbook of Texas Online, “African Americans and Politics”; South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 311 (1966); Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339, 346-348 (1960).

17 See, for example, David Barton, Setting the Record Straight: American History in Black & White (Aledo, TX: WallBuilder Press, 2013).

Election Resources and Information

Christians and Voting

Should Christians vote? What should they consider when voting? Find out in these videos!

Why Your Vote Matters

Five things to remember

Elections with David & Tim Barton (USB Thumb Drive)

Register to Vote

Are you registered to vote? If you’re not, click here and click on your state to register and make your voice heard this year.

Know the Candidates and Issues

So, how do we elect righteous leaders?

Obtain a sample ballot from your county. Many times they are available on the county’s election website.

Pray and ask God to give you wisdom. Recognize that there are no perfect humans, therefore no perfect candidate, but God can use even imperfect people to perform His will.

Examine the candidates to see where they stand on the issues compared to what the Bible says about those same issues. (Valuing what God values even in voting reveals priorities. God created 613 laws in the Old Testament, but specifically gave Moses His “Top Ten” list in Exodus 20. Issues surrounding life, marriage, and property are found in God’s “Top Ten” list. You can also find political/governmental matters regarding religious freedom, self-defense, taxes, etc. throughout the Old and New Testaments.)

Prioritize God’s values when voting. Consider the candidates’ positions compared to God’s “Top Ten” list. Thus, protecting unborn life and preserving Biblical gender standards are more important than problems like taxes or highway construction. Whether a candidate is running for school board or President of the United States, look for his or her record on Biblical morality and religious liberty issues as the best indicator of how each will act on every other issue.

Research candidates to know what they believe. You can learn about what candidates believe in many ways: check their websites about key issues or simply call their campaigns and ask and check with your politically-active Christian neighbors or friends about certain candidates and their beliefs. A candidate’s endorsements may also tell you a lot. For example, are they being endorsed by National Right to Life or Reproductive Freedom for All? Additionally, you can check out ChristianVoterGuide.com to find voter guides on many candidates and issues.

Vote Biblical values, not personal preference!

Click here to track Federal legislation and find out how your Congressman and Senators are voting.

Sites like On The Issues provide a wealth of non-partisan information on voting and candidates (including biographies, issue positions, voting records, campaign finances and interest group ratings). Another way to access voter information for your state is to use a search engine (i.e., google, bing, or yahoo) and type in “voter guide” or “voter information” along with key words like “pro-family” or “Christian” and the name of your state. Also check out our article on Steps for Viewing Candidates Scorecards!

Voting Guides

Visit ChristianVoterGuide.com for information on elections in specific states!

Resources for Pastors & Churches

This article and this article from the IRS lists activities that are and are not permissible for 501(c)(3) incorporated churches.

Liberty Counsel provides this very useful chart regarding what pastors and churches can do politically. (For more information from Liberty Counsel see this link and these resources.)

First Liberty has the following resources:

A Christian Voter Intimidation Letter from Americans United for Separation of Church and State is an example of efforts to intimidate Christians and churches from being involved in the election process. This article examines a letter regularly sent to pastors and churches, which attempts to intimidate them. WallBuilders takes this letter and crosses out the factually incorrect editorial comments designed to intimidate and leaves only the verified information intact.

WallBuilders Election Resources

Collection of the Founding Fathers’ quotes on voting here.

The Role of Pastors & Christians in Civil Government documents the historic role people of faith played in our government.

The 2024 Election Survey includes Christian voting statistics prior to the 2024 general election.

Additional Videos

Voter Responsibilities

Why Vote?

Christians Vote

How Does Jeremiah 17:9 Relate to the Constitutional Separation of Powers?

In their public presentations, our WallBuilders speakers frequently provide historical examples of how specific Bible verses impacted particular aspects of American culture. For example, the story of Matthew Maury and his geographical discoveries involves Psalm 8 and Ecclesiastes 1:6; James Kent (“A Father of American Jurisprudence”) cites 1 Samuel 7:15-16 with the formation of circuit courts; Isaiah 33:22 is associated with the three branches of government; and other such examples. 1

Many audience members, intrigued by how specific Bible verses directly shaped American practices, look up the Bible references that we routinely mention and are immediately impressed with their specificity and obvious applicability. But almost universally when they check John Adams’ mention of Jeremiah 17:92 as the basis of the constitutional separation of powers, they are perplexed and often conclude that our speaker must have used the wrong reference. It doesn’t seem that Jeremiah 17:9 relates to constitutional separation of powers, but it actually does. Allow us to explain, but first let’s lay some groundwork.

When Progressives grasped the reins of common education in the early 1900s, they introduced profound systemic changes, including age-graded education (previously, students were grouped according to knowledge level rather than age level), compulsory education (school attendance had been generally voluntary), extended school years (school was often three months a year, but Progressives made it most of the year), and twelve years of government education (prior to the Progressives, virtually no one went past eight-grade learning levels, after which they would enter college or some trade or profession). 3

These changes were not because previous educational practices had been unsuccessful, for it had been just the opposite. In fact, few college graduates today can master the eighth-grade exit exam given in the early 1900s by most states, 4 when school only lasted for a few months a year and for only eight years.

Perhaps the most significant transformation imposed by Progressives was that students were no longer taught how to think, but rather how to learn. Instead of being trained to reason sequentially and study and confirm independent sources, students were now required to listen to what the teacher said and then repeat it back. Thus, true/false, multiple choice, and fill-in-the-blank tests were introduced, 5 for they did not require a mastery of subject-matter knowledge but rather only a mastery of whatever the teacher had said.

By this change, the teacher became the small end of the funnel of knowledge – everything flowed through the teacher to the student. To invoke an old proverb, no longer did the student learn how to fish, but rather the teacher now gave them the fish. Because students were no longer trained in critical thinking, widespread indoctrination became the result – whatever the teacher believed was what was communicated to students, which they also came to believe. The warning by Jesus in Luke 6:40 had become reality: “Every student, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher.”

Progressivism, liberalism, secularism, relativism, socialism, and other isms were now freely communicated to students by academia, and these beliefs have now thoroughly permeated the culture as those students become adults and filled various professions.

One teaching common among Progressives (and now widely believed even by many Christians) is that man is innately good but sometimes does bad things.6 But the Bible teaches just the opposite – that man is innately bad but sometimes does good things; and that is only when man’s wicked heart is remade by God.

Under the Progressive belief, if man shoots someone, the problem is with the gun; since man is instinctively good, it can’t be his fault that something bad happened, so we need to regulate the gun, not the man. Or if someone gets drunk and abuses his spouse, it is because man has a medical disease beyond his control – it’s not his fault, for he is inherently good. Or if someone fathers a dozen children out of wedlock, it is because he was not given enough condoms in school. In short, under Progressivism, if man does something bad, there was some outside cause for it, for man is inherently good.

But the Bible says just the opposite. Notice a few verses on this:

  • Mark 7:21-23 – For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within. (Matthew 5:19)
  • Genesis 6:5 & 8:21 – The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
  • Romans 3:9 – It is written: “None is righteous, no, not one.” (c.f. Psalm 14:1-3, 53:1-3)
  • Ecclesiastes 9:3 – The hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts.
  • Galatians 5:19-21 – Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like.
  • Psalm 5:9 – For there is no truth in their mouth; their inmost self is destruction; their throat is an open grave; they flatter with their tongue.

According to the Bible, man will only begin to do what is good when God changes his heart (see, for example Romans 6:6,16-17,19-20, 2 Corinthians 5:17, etc.). Without a life changed by God, mankind is naturally inclined to do what is wrong.

The Founders firmly held this Biblical view. They therefore constructed government fully expecting the worst – expecting that the people leading all three branches would become corrupt. Fifty-five hundred years of recorded history prior to the Founding Fathers had demonstrated that as the pattern of every human government that had ever existed. Understanding this, the Founders made specific plans to help limit the inherent corruption of man and they sought ways to prevent all three branches from becoming wicked at the same time. They wanted a fail-safe so that if one did, then perhaps the other branches could restrain it or drag it back to its limited function. The result was the various clauses providing and enforcing Separation of Powers.

The following excerpt is from the Founders’ Bible and it explains how the truth inherent in Jeremiah 17:9 helped produce the constitutional separation of powers.

Jeremiah 17:9 – The Constitutional Separation of Powers

“The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?”

The separation of powers and reciprocal checks and balances incorporated throughout the Constitution has been heralded as one of the most important features of American government, enabling it not only to survive but to thrive for over two centuries. History was filled with examples showing that when government power was centralized in one body or leader, that government always became a danger to the rights of individuals and brought that nation to ruin. But the Founding Fathers had not only the examples of history to guide them but especially the teachings of the Bible.

A well-known verse addressing this subject was Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?” This verse encapsulated what Calvinistic ministers and theologians termed the “depravity of man” or “total depravity” 7 (that the natural heart of man easily embraced moral and civil degradation), and it was a frequent topic for sermons in the Founding Era. The Founding Fathers understood the import of this verse and openly cited it – as when John Adams reminded Americans:

Let me conclude by advising all men to look into their own hearts, which they will find to be ‘deceitful above all things and desperately wicked’ [Jeremiah 17:9].8

The Biblically illiterate believe in the innate goodness of man – that man will naturally do what is right, but experience regularly affirms the opposite: without a heart regenerated by the power of God, man will routinely do what is wrong. Adams specifically rejected any notion of the innate goodness of man, especially when it came to government:

To expect self-denial from men when they have a majority in their favor, and consequently power to gratify themselves, is to disbelieve all history and universal experience – it is to disbelieve revelation and the Word of God, which informs us ‘the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked’ [Jeremiah 17:9]. . . . There is no man so blind as not to see that to talk of founding a government upon a supposition that nations and great bodies of men left to themselves will practice a course of self-denial is either to babble like a newborn infant or to deceive like an unprincipled impostor.9

And even those who had experienced a regenerated heart through the power of God in Christ and who did not embrace Calvinism nevertheless knew enough about the truth of this verse and the tendencies of the heart to not even fully trust themselves to be above its corrupting influence. As John Quincy Adams explained:

I believe myself sincere; but the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked [Jeremiah 17:9]. I do not believe the total depravity of man, but I am deeply conscious of the frailty of my own nature.10

Understanding this principle from Jeremiah 17 – a principle that was accepted by all sides of the theological spectrum – the Founders knew that government would be much safer if all power did not repose in the same authority. Making practical application of this Biblical truth, they therefore divided and checked power between branches so that if one leader or branch went wicked, the other two might still check and stop it. As George Washington explained:

A just estimate of that love of power and proneness to abuse it which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power by dividing and distributing it into different depositories . . . has been evinced [demonstrated] by experiments ancient and modern, some of them in our country and under our own eyes.11

This remarkable feature of American government – the separation of powers and reciprocal checks and balances – can be attributed to the Founders’ understanding of Jeremiah 17:9.

Endnotes

1 For more information, see The Founders’ Bible (Shiloh Road Publishers, 2012).

2 John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851), Vol. III, p. 443, “On Private Revenge III,” published in the Boston Gazette, September 5, 1763; John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (London: John Stockdale, 1794), Vol. III, p. 289, “Letter VI. The Right Constitution of a Commonwealth, examined.”

3 For more information, see “A Short History of United States’ Education 1900 to 2006,” historyliteracy.org (accessed on September 7, 2016); “10 Things You Should Know About the American Founding,” The Catholic World Report, July 3, 2012; “A campus shared by the College, the Academy and the Charity School,” Penn University Archives & Records Center (accessed on September 7, 2016); “John Dewey,” Biography (accessed on September 7, 2016).

4 See some examples of 8th grade exit exams in: B. A. Hathaway, 1001 Test Examples in Arithmetic with Answers (Cleveland, OH: Burrows Brothers Company, 1890); Warp’s Review Books (Minden, NE: Warp Publishing Company, 1928), on various subjects; Colorado State Eighth Grade Examination Question Book (Lincoln, NE: Lincoln Supply Co., 1927).

5 See, for example, Colorado State Eighth Grade Examination Question Book (Nebraska: 1927), pp. 4, 10, 12, questions from a 1927 Agriculture, Arithmetic, and Civics test; “true-false test,” Merriam-Webster (accessed on September 7, 2016); “multiple-choice,” Merriam-Webster (accessed on September 7, 2016).

6 See an example of this philosophy in Theodore Roosevelt, “Who is a Progressive?” Teaching American History, April 1912.

7 See, for example, “total depravity,” Merriam-Webster (accessed on September 6, 2016); Herman Hanko, The Five Points of Calvinism (1976), “Chapter 1: Total Depravity.”

8 John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851), Vol. III, p. 443, “On Private Revenge III,” published in the Boston Gazette, September 5, 1763.

9 John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (London: John Stockdale, 1794), Vol. III, p. 289, “Letter VI. The Right Constitution of a Commonwealth, examined.”

10 John Quincy Adams, Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co, 1876), Vol. XI, p. 270, November 16, 1842.

11 George Washington, Address of George Washington, President of the United States, and Late Commander in Chief of the American Army, to the People of the United States, Preparatory to His Declination (Baltimore: Christopher Jackson, 1796), p. 22.

No Professor Fea, The Founders Did Not Want Ministers to Stay out of Politics

by Dr. David Barton

Dr. John Fea is a professor of history at Messiah College in Pennsylvania. He has been an outspoken critic of those who believe that America had a Christian founding or think ministers should be active in politics.1 In addition to being an historian, he writes political columns praising those on the political left. For example, he called President Barack Obama “the most explicitly Christian president in American history,” and asserted that his “piety, use of the Bible, and references to Christian faith and theology put most other American presidents to shame.”2 Given Professor Fea’s political disposition, it is perhaps not surprising that his blog posts and opinion pieces on political issues are regularly critical of religious conservatives.

For instance, Dr. Fea strongly objected when 700 pastors gathered to hear from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. The candidate addressed issues of immediate concern to some pastors, notably the Johnson Amendment – a 1954 law that many believe unconstitutionally prohibits churches from addressing or speaking about political issues or candidates. (In my view, whether or not churches should address issues of public policy or endorse candidates is a question that should be decided solely by individual churches, not the federal government.)

Fea seems particularly upset by the idea that these 700 ministers might exercise their rights as American citizens to be involved in politics. Misusing historical arguments to bolster his own personal views, he writes:

The founders who crafted the original state governments – those governments celebrated by today’s conservative politicians as the most important source of democratic life – thought it was a good idea for ministers to stay out of politics [emphasis added]. The state constitutions of North Carolina (1776), New York (1777), Georgia (1777), South Carolina (1778), Delaware (1792), Tennessee (1796), Maryland (1799), and Kentucky (1799) all banned clergymen from running for office. The 1776 North Carolina Constitution states “that no clergyman, or preacher of the gospel of any denomination, shall be capable of being a member of either the Senate, House of Commons, or Council of State, while he continues in the exercise of the pastoral function.” The 1777 New York Constitution uses similar language: “And whereas the ministers of the gospels are, by their profession, dedicated to the service of God and the care of souls, and ought not to be diverted from the great duties of their function; therefore, no minister of the gospel, or priest of any denomination whatsoever, shall, at any time hereafter, under any pretense of description whatever, be eligible to, or capable of holding, any civil or military office or place within this State.”3

It is true that some state constitutions prohibited clergy from holding office. It is important to note that one reason they did so was because their framers had such a high view of the ministry that they did not want clergy to be distracted by “worldly” concerns. Yet only a small minority of states4 ever attempted to exclude ministers from public office, and most states that did eventually decided these restrictions were inappropriate and voluntarily removed them. In 1978, the United States Supreme Court declared the few remaining disqualifications to be unconstitutional.5

But it is not just states that changed their minds. Consider the views of Thomas Jefferson, often presented as one of the least religious of the Founding Fathers. The 1776 Virginia constitution contained a clergy-exclusion clause6 that Jefferson originally supported, explaining:

The clergy are excluded because if admitted into the legislature at all, the probability is that they would form its majority, for they are dispersed through every county in the state; they have influence with the people and great opportunities of persuading them to elect them into the legislature. This body, though shattered, is still formidable, still forms a corps, and is still actuated by the esprit de corps. The nature of that spirit has been severely felt by mankind, and has filled the history of ten or twelve centuries with too many atrocities not to merit a proscription from meddling with government.7

This was the early constitution of a state that, like many of the other states that excluded clergy from holding public office, had formally established the Church of England (that is, Anglicanism) as the colony’s official religion. Under these establishments the free exercise of religion was severely restricted for Quakers, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and other non-Anglicans, who were sometimes beaten, imprisoned, or fined by civic authorities joined to the state-established church.8 Moreover, clergy from these established churches were far more likely to be Loyalists (that is supportive of Great Britain and opposed to American independence) than clergy from other denominations. Clergy-exclusion clauses generally were not enacted in states with a history of republican or patriotic ministers, such as Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

Jefferson, being from Anglican Virginia, feared that the religious persecution that had occurred earlier in his state might return in the newly independent Virginia. He wanted that possibility precluded and thus supported the constitutional provision. He may have also been concerned about the loyalty of these Anglican clergy. But later, when the power of the state-established church in Virginia had been fully broken and a proven record of all Christian denominations being treated equally under the law had been thoroughly demonstrated, Jefferson no longer supported that clause, explaining in 1800 to the Rev. Jeremiah Moore:

I observe . . . an abridgment of the right of being elected, which after 17 years more of experience and reflection, I do not approve: it is the incapacitation of a clergyman from being elected. . . . Even in 1783, we doubted the stability of our recent measures for reducing them [the clergy] to the footing of other useful callings [but i]t now appears that our means were effectual. The clergy here seem to have relinquished all pretension to privilege and to stand on a footing with lawyers, physicians &c. They ought therefore to possess the same rights.9

Not only did Jefferson think clergy should be able to run for office, there are even times when he encouraged them to do so. For instance, when he learned that his friend the Rev. Charles Clay was a candidate for Congress, he wrote him a letter wherein he wished him “every prosperity in this and in all your other undertakings.”10 And he personally recruited the Rev. William Woods, a local Baptist pastor, to run for a seat in the state legislature.11

As in Virginia, Georgia’s first state constitution contained a clause declaring: “No clergyman of any denomination shall be allowed a seat in the legislature.”12 When Presbyterian minister and signer of the Declaration John Witherspoon learned of this provision, he was livid. He had invested much of his adult life in securing not only civil but also religious liberties for every individual, including ministers, and he was not about to see a reduction of those liberties. He therefore sent off a fiery public letter, pointedly asking Georgia’s lawmakers:

Now suffer me to ask this question: Before any man among us was ordained a minister, was he not a citizen of the United States, and if being in Georgia, a citizen of the state of Georgia? Had he not then a right to be elected a member of the assembly, if qualified in point of property? How then has he lost, or why is he deprived of this right? Is it by offence or disqualification? Is it a sin against the public to become a minister? Does it merit that the person who is guilty of it should be immediately deprived of one of his most important rights as a citizen? Is not this inflicting a penalty, which always supposes an offence? Is a minister then disqualified for the office of a senator or representative? Does this calling and profession render him stupid or ignorant?13

Witherspoon then raised additional questions Georgia legislators apparently had not considered when drafting this clause. For example, what is it that makes a man a minister? Does he have to be ordained by the Pope? Or is it because his denomination or even local church considers him a minister? Or what if he simply declares himself a minister, with no confirmation by anyone else? Furthermore, how long is a person a minister? If he is retired, is he still disqualified from running? And what if he is bi-vocational – what if he also runs a business, or also teaches science and math? Is he a mathematician or a minister? Ironically, there was no disqualification against a corrupt individual running for office, or a known criminal, but there was a disqualification against a preacher? Having pointed out absurdities in their policy, Witherspoon sarcastically concluded:

I cannot help thinking that these difficulties are very considerable, and may occasion much litigation if the article of the constitution stands in the loose, ambiguous form in which it now appears; and therefore I would recommend the following alterations, which I think will make everything definite and unexceptionable:

“No clergyman of any denomination shall be capable of being elected a member of the Senate or House of Representatives because {here insert the grounds of offensive disqualification, which I have not been able to discover}. Provided always – and it is the true intent and meaning of this part of the constitution – that if at any time he shall be completely deprived of the clerical character by those by whom he was invested with it [that is, he is defrocked], as by deposition for cursing and swearing, drunkenness or uncleanness, he shall then be fully restored to all the privileges of a free citizen; his offence [of being a minister] shall no more be remembered against him; but he may be chosen either to the Senate or House of Representatives, and shall be treated with all the respect due to his brethren, the other members of Assembly.”14

Witherspoon’s critique must have struck a chord. When Georgia re-wrote its constitution in 1798, the clause prohibiting ministers from state office was deleted and a strong declaration of the rights of religious persons was inserted15 – a vast reversal from its first constitution.

It is not clear if Fea, in opposition to Jefferson, Witherspoon, and the United States Supreme Court, thinks it is appropriate to exclude clergy from holding public office. But he indisputably states that America’s Founders “thought it was a good idea for ministers to stay out of politics,”16 a position he endorses. He couldn’t be more mistaken.

Throughout American history clergy have played a key role in American politics, some while holding office and others without doing so. Consider, for instance, those brave ministers who led the fight against slavery, opposed Indian removal, and advocated for civil rights. One strongly suspects that Fea would support the political activities of these ministers.

Fea, like many on the political left, is guilty of embracing a double standard. If a member of the clergy supports a policy he favors, that is a good thing. But if a minister takes a political stand of which he does not approve, that cannot be tolerated. In this case, it is noteworthy that he is opposing clergy listening to a speech by Donald Trump, a candidate whom Fea has publicly criticized.17

This sort of hypocrisy is nothing new. John Adams observed this same behavior toward the patriotic preachers of his day, noting that:

It is curious to observe the conduct of the Tories [those who opposed the patriots] towards this sacred body. If a clergyman preaches against the principles of the Revolution and tells the people that upon pain of damnation they must submit to an established government of whatever character, the Tories cry him up as an excellent man and a wonderful preacher, invite him to their tables, procure him missions from the society and chaplainships to the navy, and flatter him with the hopes of lawn sleeves [i.e., a special church appointment]. But if a clergyman preaches Christianity, and tells the magistrates that they were not distinguished from their brethren for their private emolument [personal economic benefit] but for the good of the people – that the people are bound in conscience to obey a good government but are not bound to submit to one that aims at destroying all the ends of government – Oh, sedition! Treason!18

Significantly, Adams goes on to specifically reject Fea’s position, declaring:

It is the duty of the clergy to accommodate their discourses to the times – to preach against such sins as are most prevalent and recommend such virtues as are most wanted [lacking]. For example, if exorbitant ambition and venality [public corruption and bribery] are predominant, ought they not to warn their hearers against these vices? If public spirit is much wanted [lacking], should they not inculcate this great virtue? If the rights and duties of Christian magistrates [public officials] and subjects are disputed, should they not explain them, show their nature, ends, limitations, and restrictions, how much soever it may move the gall [anger the critics] . . .19

Adams rejoiced that concerning civil issues, “the pulpits have thundered”;20 but today Fea would apparently have the pulpits (or at least those pulpits promoting views to which he is opposed) be silent.

As Fea must know, there are a host of books by historians that attest to the important role both office-holding and non-office holding clergy played in the War for Independence and the creation of the new national government.21 Consider a few additional historical facts that Fea ignores:

  • Numerous individuals who served in formal ministry at some point in their lives also served in the Continental and Confederation Congresses, including John Witherspoon, Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, Benjamin Contee, Abiel Foster, James Manning, Joseph Montgomery, Jesse Root, Hugh Williamson, Robert Treat Paine, Lyman Hall, Paine Wingate, and John Zubly.22
  • The Rev. Jacob Green of New Jersey was chairman of the committee that drafted the state’s original constitution in 1776;23 the Rev. Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg helped draft Pennsylvania’s 1776 constitution;24 the Revs. Samuel Stillman, Robert Treat Paine, and Gad Hitchcock helped write Massachusetts’ 1780 constitution;25 the Revs. John Bailey, David Rice, George Stovall Smith, Benedict Swope, Caleb Wallace, and James Crawford helped draft Kentucky’s original constitution of 1792;26 the Rev. John Smith helped frame Ohio’s original constitution of 1802;27 and the Rev. Amasa Learned helped write Connecticut’s first constitution following the Revolution.28
  • Christian ministers were also at the forefront of the movement for a federal constitution. The Revs. Jeremy Belknap and Samuel Stanhope Smith became leaders in pointing out the defects of the Articles of Confederation,29 joining their voices with those of the Rev. Dr. Witherspoon and the Rev. James Manning, both of whom had personally experienced its shortcomings while operating under it as members of Congress.30
  • Several delegates at the Constitutional Convention were trained in ministry or theology, including Abraham Baldwin, James Wilson, Hugh Williamson, and Oliver Ellsworth.31
  • When the federal Constitution was submitted to the states for ratification, nearly four dozen clergymen were elected as ratifying delegates,32 and many of them played key roles in securing its adoption. For example, in Massachusetts, it appeared that the Constitution would be rejected until the efforts of the Rev. Samuel West33 and the Rev. Samuel Stillman helped carry the day in support of the Constitution.34 Benjamin Lincoln (one of George Washington’s most trusted generals during the final campaigns of the War for Independence) reported to his former Commander-in-Chief: “It is very fortunate for us that the clergy are pretty generally with us . . .”35
  • In addition to ministers holding office, active Christian leaders and laymen also played a key role. According to the historian Stephen Marini, “Literally hundreds of [delegates to the U. S. Constitution ratification conventions] were Anglican vestrymen, Congregational deacons, and Presbyterian ruling elders. These were the highest offices available to laymen, empowering them to maintain the financial health of the parish, to enforce the moral norms of the church, and often to choose the minister of the congregation. Many hundreds more of the delegates were loyal parishioners who held lesser church offices: trustees, wardens, tithingmen, assessors, teachers, moderators, commissioners, and committeemen.”36

So ministers were not only vital in helping secure America’s independence and its form of government but they were also at the forefront of celebrating the new federal Constitution. During the ratification parade in Philadelphia, signer of the Declaration Benjamin Rush happily reported:

The clergy formed a very agreeable part of the procession. They manifested by their attendance their sense of the connection between religion and good government. They amounted to seventeen in number. Four and five of them marched arm in arm with each other to exemplify the Union. Pains were taken to connect ministers of the most dissimilar religious principles together, thereby to show the influence of a free government in promoting Christian charity. The rabbi of the Jews locked in the arms of two ministers of the Gospel was a most delightful sight. There could not have been a more happy emblem.37

When the first federal Congress convened, its members numbered several ministers, both active and inactive, including the Revs. Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, Abiel Foster, Benjamin Contee, Abraham Baldwin, Hugh Williamson, and Paine Wingate. In fact, the first Speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives was the Rev. Frederick Muhlenberg; and his is one of only two signatures appearing at the bottom of the Bill of Rights – which was intended to secure the right of every citizen – including ministers – to participate in the political process. This includes the First Amendment rights that protect the ability of ministers to publicly criticize the government, to speak freely about what is occurring in the civil arena, to join with other ministers and Christians to do the same, to express their personal religious convictions about any public policy issue, and to serve in public office!

And just as history does not demand the exclusion of ministers, neither does the Bible. Consider how often God sent His ministers to publicly confront civil leaders or expose their wicked policies:

  • Elijah confronted civil leaders Ahab and Queen Jezebel over issues such as their unjust use of eminent domain, religious persecution, and subornation of perjury (1 Kings 21:1-24, 1 Kings 18:18).
  • Isaiah confronted civil ruler Hezekiah over national security failures and issues related to the treasury (1 Chronicles 32:27-31, 2 Kings 20:12-19)
  • Nathan confronted civil leader David over his wicked moral policies and practices (2 Samuel 12),
  • Eliezer and Jehu confronted King Jehoshaphat over his blunders in foreign relations and ill-advised foreign alliances (2 Chronicles 19:1-2, 2 Chronicles 20:35-37)
  • John the Baptist confronted civil leaders for their hypocrisy (Matthew 3:7)
  • Jeremiah confronted King Zedekiah over numerous of his wicked public policies (Jeremiah 34)
  • John the Baptist confronted King Herod over his divorce and marriage practices (Luke 13:32. Matthew 12:23, 23:33, 23:27)
  • Samuel confronted King Saul over not fulfilling his assigned responsibilities (1 Samuel 13:1-14, I Samuel 15)
  • Micaiah regularly confronted King Ahab over his wicked public policies (1 Kings 22:7-18)
  • Gad confronted King David over wrong-headed public policies stemming from his own pride and arrogance (2 Samuel 24)
  • Jesus refused to be intimidated by Herod (Luke 13:31-32) and confronted the teachers of the law (Matthew 23)
  • Daniel confronted Nebuchadnezzar over his pride and arrogance (Daniel 4:1-27), and Belshazzar over his moral debauchery (Daniel 5:17-28)
  • Azariah (along with eighty other priests) confronted King Uzziah for usurping religious practices through an improper expansion of government powers (2 Chronicles 26:16-21)

And God’s ministers not only called out bad civil leaders and pointed out unBiblical public policies, they also frequently partnered with civil leaders in constructing good public policies and offering sound guidance. For example:

  • Elisha provided the King of Israel counsel and advice regarding military intelligence and policy (2 Kings 6)
  • Nathan provided guidance to David on architectural issues (2 Samuel 7:1-13)
  • Ezra gave strong counsel on marriage policy (Ezra 9-10), and Governor Nehemiah implemented that counsel into public policy (Nehemiah 8:1-6, 13:23-27
  • Paul provided civil leaders with guidance during times of impending disaster and natural calamity (Acts 27:9-12)
  • Jeremiah provided military guidance to King Zedekiah (Jeremiah 21:1-10)
  • King Joash pursued good policies as long as the priest Jehoiada provided him counsel, but when Joash lost that Godly input, his policies became wicked (2 Chronicles 24:1-2, 15-19)
  • Isaiah provided guidance on national security issues and foreign policy to King Hezekiah (Isaiah 37)

The Bible is loaded – and almost overflowing – with such examples. But Dr. Fea holds an opposite view. In fact, in lamenting how unhistorical it was that 700 ministers should hear from a presidential candidate and consider becoming involved in politics in different ways, he condescendingly quipped:

There’s an old Baptist saying that goes something like this: “If you mix horse manure and ice cream it doesn’t do much to the manure, but it sure does ruin the ice cream. ” . . . For all those concerned about the witness of the Christian church in the world, let’s remember that the founders thought it was a bad idea to mix horse manure and ice cream.38

The real horse manure is Dr. Fea’s claim that either the Founders or the Bible opposed the active participation of ministers in the civil arena.

Endnotes

1 See various of his articles criticizing those who hold such beliefs, including David Lane (“Why the Founding Fathers wanted to keep ministers from public office,” Religion News Service, August 15, 2016; David Barton; Mike Huckabee (“Why Huckabee May Have a Shot at the GOP Nomination,” philipvickersfithian.com, January 23, 2015; Focus on the Family (“Is America a Christian Nation? What Focus on the Family Gets Wrong,” philipvickersfithian.com, November 4, 2012; Eric Metaxas (“Burkholder on Metaxas,” philvickersfithian.com, September 26, 2012; and Peter Marshall (“Houston Chronicle Op-Ed,” philipvickersfithian.com, August 15, 2009.

2 “Would you vote for this man?” Patheos, February 15, 2012.

3 “Why the Founding Fathers wanted to keep ministers from public office,” Religion News Service, August 15, 2016.

4 According to Francis Thorpe’s 1909 collection of state constitutions (The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, and the Organic Laws of the State, Territories, and Colonies; Now or Heretofore Forming the United States of America, ed. Francis Newton Thorpe (Washington, D.C. 1909), of the 46 states in the United States at that time, only 14 ever had a clergy-exclusion clause, and most of those were voluntarily repealed. Those 14 states: Delaware (1776, 1792, 1831), Florida (1838), Georgia (1777, 1789), Kentucky (1792, 1799, 1850), Louisiana (1812, 1845, 1864), Maryland (1776, 1851, 1867), Missouri (1820, 1865), Mississippi (1817), New York (1777, 1821), North Carolina (1776), South Carolina (1778,1790, 1865), Tennessee (1834, 1870), Texas (1836, 1845, 1866), and Virginia (1850, 1864).

5 McDaniel v. Paty, 435 U.S. 618 (1978).

6 The Constitution of the Sixteen States (Boston: Manning and Loring, 1797), 212, “The Constitution of Virginia” July 5, 1776, “…all ministers of the gospel, of every denomination, be incapable of being elected members…”

7 Thomas Jefferson to Chelier de Chastellux, September 2, 1785, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953), 8:470.

8 This type of Virginia persecution occurred from Anglicans against non-Anglicans. For an example of what Baptists suffered in Virginia, see: William Cathcart, Baptist Patriots in the American Revolution (Philadelphia: S. A. George & Co., 1876), 12-18; Isaac Backus, A History of New England, With Particular Reference to the Denomination of Christians Called Baptists (Newton, MA: Backus Historical Society, 1871), II:97-98; George Bancroft, A History of the United States of America (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1858), 1:449-450; Sanford Hoadley Cobb, The Rise of Religious Liberty in America Republicanism in Jefferson’s Virginia (New York: MacMillan, 1902), 112; Bruce Gourley, “An outline of Baptist Persecution in America,” The Baptist Index (accessed August 17, 2016); Lewis Peyton Little, Imprisoned Preachers and Religious Liberty in Virginia (Lynchburg, VA: J. P. Bell Co., Inc., 1938), xiii; etc.

9 Thomas Jefferson to Jeremiah Moore on August 14, 1800, The Works of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Paul Leicester Ford (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1905), IX:143.

10 Thomas Jefferson to Rev. Charles Clay, January 27, 1790, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Andrew A. Lipscomb (Washington, D. C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1903), VIII:3-4.

11 Rev. John B. Turpin, A Brief History of the Albemarle Baptist Association (Richmond, VA: The Virginia Baptist Historical Society, 1891), 30-31.

12 The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charter, and Other Organic Laws, ed. Francis Newton Thorpe (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1909), II:785, “Constitution of Georgia – 1777,” Art. LXII.

13 John Witherspoon, The Works of John Witherspoon (Edinburgh: J. Ogle, Parliament-Square, 1815), IX:220-223, “On the Georgia Constitution.”

14 Witherspoon, Works of Witherspoon (1815), IX:220-223, “On the Georgia Constitution.”

15 Federal and State Constitutions, ed. Thorpe (1909), II:800-801, “Constitution of Georgia – 1798,” Art. IV, Sec. 10.

16 “Why the Founding Fathers wanted to keep ministers from public office,” Religion News Service, August 15, 2016.

17 “Historians Against Trump,” The Way of Improvements Leads Home, July 12, 2016.

18 John Adams, The Works of John Adams, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851), IV:55, “Novanglus: No. IV.”

19 Adams, Works of Adams, ed. Adams (1851), IV:56, “Novanglus: No. IV.”

20 Adams, Works of Adams, ed. Adams (1851), III:476, “The Earl of Clarendon to William Pym,” January 20, 1766.

21 For example, Alice M. Baldwin, The New England Clergy and the American Revolution (1928; reprint, New York: Frederick Ungar, 1958); Keith L. Griffin, Revolution and Religion: American Revolutionary War and the Reformed Clergy (New York: Paragon House, 1994). See also the excellent collection of political sermons from this era edited by Ellis Sandoz, Political Sermons of the American Founding Era 1730-1805 (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund Press, 1991).

22 See, John Sanderson, Biography of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence (Philadelphia: R. W. Pomeroy, 1823), V:102-104; Charles A. Goodrich, Lives of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence (New York: Thomas Mather, 1837), 113; Hubert Bruce Fuller, The Speakers of the House (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1909), 22-23; William B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1850), V:488; The National Cyclopedia of American Biography (New York: James T. White & Company, 1897)), VII:148; Memoir of the Rev. James Manning (Boston: Perkins & Marvin, 1839), 4-5; James H. Marshall, The United States Manual of Biography and History (Philadelphia: Leary & Getz, 1857), 182; Biographical Directory of the United States Congress: 177-Present for Lyman Hall, Joseph Montgomery, Jesse Root, Paine Wingate, and John Zubly.

23 B.F. Morris, Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States, Developed in the Official and Historical Annals of the Republic (Philadelphia: George W. Childs, 1864), 366.

24 William Warren Sweet, The Story of Religion in America (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1950), 182.

25 Frank Moore, The Patriot Preachers of the American Revolution (New York: Charles T. Evans, 1862), 260; Appletons’ Cyclopedia of American Biography (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1888), IV, s.v. “Robert Treat Paine”; Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit (1865), Unitarian Congregational: VIII:29.

26 Mrs. William Preston Drake, Samuel M. Wilson, Mrs. William Breckenridge Ardery, Kentucky in Retrospect: Noteworthy Personages and Events in Kentucky History: 1792-1942 (Commonwealth of Kentucky: Sesquicentennial Commission, 1942), 141-142, 151, 153, 179-180.

27 “John Smith,” Ohio History Central, accessed August 17, 2016.

28 “Learned, Amasa (1750-1825),” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, accessed August 17, 2016.

29 James Hutchinson Smylie, American Clergymen and the Constitution of the United States of America (New Jersey: Princeton Theological Seminary, doctoral dissertation, 1958), 127-129.

30 Smylie, American Clergymen and the Constitution (1958), 139, 143.

31 Biographical Directory of the United States Congress: 177-Present for Abraham Baldwin and Hugh Williamson; “James Wilson,” University of St. Andrews, accessed on August 24, 2016); William Garrott Brown, The Life of Oliver Ellsworth (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1905), 20-21.

32 John Eidsmoe, Christianity and the Constitution (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1987), 352, n.15.

33 Smylie, American Clergymen and the Constitution (1958), 185-186; Baldwin, New England Clergy (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1958), 145.

34 Frank Moore, The Patriot Preachers of the American Revolution (New York: Charles T. Evans, 1862), 260.

35 Benjamin Lincoln to George Washington, February 9, 1788, The Papers of George Washington, ed. Dorothy Twohig (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1997), 6:104-105.

36 Stephen A. Marini, “Religion, Politics, and Ratification,” in Religion in a Revolutionary Age, ed. Ronald Hoffman and Peter Albert (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1994), 189.

37 Benjamin Rush to Elias Boudinot, July 9, 1788, Letters of Benjamin Rush, ed. L. H. Butterfield (Princeton: American Philosophical Society, 1951), I:474.

38 “Why the Founding Fathers wanted to keep ministers from public office,” Religion News Service, August 15, 2016.

How to Respond to “Separation of Church and State”

We’ve all heard the phrase “separation of Church and State.” It is one of the best-known but least understood phrases in America today. It expresses the belief that there should be a wall of separation between one’s personal faith and any display of that faith in public. In America we advocate freedom of religion, yet if a teacher places a Bible on her desk,1 if a student bows his head to pray in school,2 or cheerleaders display Bible verses on their posters,3 they are accused of violating separation of church and state – of “subjecting” those around them to their faith.

As Christians, we must know how to respond. Do we know the history behind the phrase? Do we know our rights? Do we know our Founding Fathers’ intentions with the phrase?

Here are some simple ways we can respond so that we do not fall prey to the silencing of freedom of religion in the public square.

1. Where does the phrase “Separation of Church and State” originate?4

The concept of separation of Church and state actually originates in the Bible, where God created three institutions. In Genesis, God established the institution of family by creating male and female and placing them together in a lifelong union. Next came the institution of civil government to address our relationship with our fellow man. The final institution addressed our relationship with God, and was the creation of the temple, or the Church.

When God’s people left Egypt, God had them establish their own nation. At that time, God placed Moses over government and civil affairs and Aaron over spiritual ones, thus separating those two roles and jurisdictions. Neither excluded God from its operation, but each was to be headed and run by a different individual and not the same person. Later in the Bible when King Uzziah tried to combine the two institutions and serve as both a King and a Priest, God sovereignly weighed in and made clear that He did not want the same individual running both institutions together.

But in 391 AD, Emperor Theodosius combined both Church and State, and for the next twelve centuries, the State was in charge of the Church. The government decided what the official Church doctrines would be, and it punished violators who disagreed with those positions, not allowing them to practice their faith. There was a state-established Church, with the Church becoming an official arm of the State and with it being run by church officials appointed by the government. In the 1500s during the Reformation, those who followed the Bible began to call for a return to a Biblical separation of Church and State so that the government would no longer control or prohibit religious activities.

The early colonists who came to America brought this view with them, and in America they made sure that the government, or the State, could not control or limit religious beliefs or activities. This was their understanding of the separation of Church and State.

The phrase “separation of Church and State” cannot be found in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. In fact, it is not found in any of our nation’s founding documents. Related to government, the phrase first appeared in a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut in 1801.5

Thomas Jefferson had worked very hard to separate the Anglican Church from the government in his home state of Virginia so that all other denominations could practice their faith without government penalty or persecution. Jefferson contributed to ending government-run religion in his state, so when he became president of the United States, the Baptists and those from other denominations were his strong supporters because he had fought for their freedom of religion – for their right to be free from state control in matters of faith.

The Danbury Baptists wrote Thomas Jefferson expressing their concern that the government might try to regulate their religious expression. In response, Jefferson wrote his now famous letter, using the phrase “Separation of Church and State” to reassure the Danbury Baptists that the First Amendment prohibited the government from trying to control religious expression. In short, the First Amendment was intended to keep government out of regulating religion, but it did not keep religion out of government or the public square.

2. What Does the Constitution Actually Say?

Today, people believe that “separation of Church and State” is in the First Amendment of the Constitution. But in the First Amendment the Constitution says, “Congress shall make no law…”


First Amendment:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

The famous separation phrase appears nowhere in that Amendment, or in the Constitution.

So we must ask the question: How does a student praying over his lunch mean the same thing as Congress making a law? The answer: it doesn’t. The First Amendment meant Congress is limited from setting up a national denomination and Congress is limited from prohibiting the free exercise of religion. The First Amendment does not limit faith or the people, only the government.

The First Amendment was created by America’s Founders because of their desire to avoid something like the government-run Church of England. In fact, it was not just the government of England they longed to be different from, but they were also striving to be different from the way that churches and government had operated across most of Europe for the previous thousand years, for most nations at that time had state-established and state-controlled churches.

The Pilgrims, Puritans, and others who settled America wanted to return to God’s original plan of separating the church from government control. That long-standing American desire and practice of freedom of religion was specifically written in the First Amendment.

Here is one of the Bibles (dated 1590) that the Pilgrims and Puritan brought to America with them.6

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The notes in this Bible actually discuss having a separation between government and the church. The Pilgrims therefore set up a system where they would have separate elections for both state leaders and church leaders so that the leaders would be different, rather than the same, as was the practice in England.

3. Faith has been part of American public Society for over 180 years.

Students had been praying over their lunches for over 180 years under the Constitution with no problem, as well as doing other religious activities that were always constitutional.

In fact, we actually have several original sermons from a church that Thomas Jefferson helped facilitate. It was a church that met inside the U.S. Capitol,7 where services were held in the House Chamber every Sunday. Both as Vice President and as President of the United States, Jefferson faithfully attended those church services inside the US Capitol and saw no constitutional problem with them, for Congress was not controlling religion for the entire nation but rather was only allowing religious expressions to occur, which was their constitutional role.

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These are sermons preached at the Church that met inside the U.S. Capitol. The first one is on “The Public Worship of God,” and the second is on “The Imperishable and Saving Words of Christ.” Both sermons were preached in the Chamber of the U. S. House of Representatives.

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It has only been in recent years that faith has been excluded from public schools, governmental venues, and the public square. Did we just invent separation of church and state? No, the phrase has existed since centuries before Jefferson, but today its meaning has been taken out of context and twisted to mean something entirely different.

This first happened in 1947 when the Supreme Court quoted only one phrase from Jefferson’s short 1801 letter to the Danbury Baptists. The Court claimed that there was to be “a wall of separation between Church and State” and that religious activities could no longer occur in the public square.8 They took the intent and clear purpose of Jefferson’s letter completely out of context. They did not show his short letter of only three paragraphs and 233 words which contained all the context and explanation but rather lifted a 8-word phrase out of it and remained silent on the rest.

Next time you hear someone claim religion has no place in public because of the “wall of separation,” I hope you’ll remember a few of the key pieces of history that many today have forgotten.

Endnotes

1 See, for example Roberts v. Madigan, 702 F. Supp. 1505 (D. Colo. 1989), aff’d, 921 F.2d 1047 (10th Cir. 1990).

2 See, for example, Broadus v. Saratoga Springs City School District, 02-cv-0136 (N.D.N.Y. 2002).

3 See, for example, Kountze Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Matthews, No. 09-13- 00251 (Tex. App.— Beaumont 2014).

4 See an article on the history of the phrase “Separation of Church and State” here.

5 See the text of the Danbury Baptists 1801 letter to Thomas Jefferson, and Jefferson’s 1802 reply here.

6 A Geneva Bible from the WallBuilders library, belonging to the Arthur Upton family.

7 See David Barton’s article “Church in the U.S. Capitol” for more information.

8 Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947).