1950s-Now: Modern Archives - Page 12 of 63

Christmas With the Presidents

The White House observance of Christmas before the twentieth century was not an official event. First families decorated the house modestly with greens and privately celebrated the Yuletide with family and friends.

Christmas in Early America: the Pilgrims and Puritans of New England found no Biblical precedent for a public celebration of Christmas (recall that the goal of these groups was to simplify religious worship and to cut away all religious rituals and celebrations not specifically cited in the Bible); nothing in the Bible established any date for the birth of Christ; the holiday was instead established by Roman tradition, thus making it – in their view – one of the many “pagan” holidays that had been inculcated into the corrupt church that had persecuted them, and which they and other religious leaders wished to reform. Consequently, Christmas in New England remained a regular working day. In fact, Massachusetts passed an anti-Christmas law in 1659 declaring: “Whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas . . . shall pay for each offense five shillings as a fine to the country.” The law was repealed in 1681, but the holiday still was not celebrated by religious non-conformists or dissenters (i.e., the Puritans and Pilgrims); it usually was celebrated only by a few Anglicans (later Episcopalians), Catholics, and other more formal or high-church-tradition New England families. It was not until the 1830s and 1840s that Christmas celebrations were just beginning to be accepted in New England (primarily due to the influence of large-scale Christmas celebrations in cities such as New York) – although as late as 1870 in Boston public schools, a student missing school on Christmas Day could be punished or expelled. By the 1880s, however, Christmas celebrations had finally become as accepted in New England as they were in other parts of the country. ²

White House Tree History Christmas Tree Trivia

In 1889, the tradition of a placing an indoor decorated tree in the White House began on Christmas morning during the Presidency of Benjamin Harrison.
In 1895, First Lady Frances Cleveland created a “technology savvy” tree when she hung electric lights on the White House tree (electricity was introduced into the White House in 1891).
1901-1909, Teddy Roosevelt banned the Christmas tree from the White House for environmental reasons.
In 1923, President Calvin Coolidge started the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony now held every year on the White House lawn.
In 1929, First Lady Lou Henry Hoover established the custom of decorating an official (and not just a personal) tree in the White House – a tradition that has remained with the First Ladies.
In 1953, the Eisenhowers sought out Hallmark Cards to assist them in creating a presidential Christmas card – the beginning of the official White House Christmas card.
In 1954, the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony is named the Pageant of Peace. It is held each year in early December to light the National Christmas Tree and includes performances by popular entertainers before the lighting of the National Christmas Tree by the President. The National Christmas Tree remains lit through January 1.
In 1961, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy began the tradition of Christmas Tree themes when she decorated the Christmas tree in toy trimmings from the Nutcracker Suite ballet by Tchaikovsky.
In 1963, the first Christmas card to include an explicitly religious element was the Kennedy card featuring a photo of a Nativity Scene set up in the East Room of the White House. Jack and Jacqueline had signed 30 cards before their final trip to Dallas. None was ever mailed. The National Christmas Tree that year was not lit until December 22nd because of a national 30-day period of mourning following President Kennedy’s assassination.
In 1969, the Pageant of Peace was embroiled in legal controversy over the use of religious symbols, and in 1973, the nativity scene that had always been part of the pageant was no longer allowed.
In 1979, the National Christmas Tree was not lighted except for the top ornament. This was done in honor of the American hostages in Iran….
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan authorized the first official White House ornament, copies of which were made available for purchase.
In 1981, Barbara Bush took the first of twelve rides in a cherry-picker to hang the star at the top of the National Christmas Tree.
In 1984, the Nativity Scene was allowed to return to the Pageant of Peace, and when the National Christmas Tree was lit on December 13th, temperatures were in the 70s, making it one of the warmest tree lightings in history.
In 2001, the first White House Christmas card to contain a Scripture was chosen by Laura Bush. Quoting from Psalm 27, it said “Thy face, Lord, do I seek. I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living,” which is what Laura Bush believed would happen after the tragedy of September 11. She chose that Scripture on September 16 (only 5 days after 9/11) based on a sermon the chaplain had preached at Camp David. The Bushes regularly used Scriptures on their Christmas cards.

George & Martha Washington (1789-1797)

At a time when Christmas was still quite controversial in a new nation, Martha Washington’s holiday receptions were stiff and regal affairs, quite befitting the dignity of the office of President of the United States and invitations were much desired by the local gentry. A Christmas party was given by the Washington’s for members of Congress on Christmas Day, 1795, at which a bountiful feast was served to the guests – all men with the exception of the First Lady!

The festivities at the Mount Vernon plantation in Virginia would start at daybreak with a Christmas fox hunt. It was followed by a hearty mid-day feast that included “Christmas pie,” dancing, music, and visiting that sometimes did not end for a solid week.

Andrew & Rachel Jackson (1829-1837)

From the earliest times memorable parties have been held for the president’s children or grand-children. One of the most elaborate was President Andrew Jackson’s “frolic” for the children of his household in 1834. This party included games, dancing, a grand dinner, and ended with an indoor “snowball fight” with specially made cotton balls.

Abraham & Mary Todd Lincoln (1861-1865)

During the first Christmas of the war (1861), Mrs. Lincoln arranged flowers, read books, helped serve meals, talked with the staff, and cared for the wounded at Campbell’s and Douglas hospitals. She personally raised a thousand dollars for Christmas dinners and donated a similar amount for oranges and lemons when she heard that there was a threat of scurvy.

During the Christmas season of 1863, the Lincolns’ son, Tad, had accompanied his father on hospital visits and noticed the loneliness of the wounded soldiers. Deeply moved, the boy asked his father if he could send books and clothing to these men. The President agreed and packages signed “From Tad Lincoln” were sent to area hospitals that Christmas.

One Christmas Tad Lincoln befriended the turkey that was to become Christmas dinner. He interrupted a cabinet meeting to plead with his father to spare the bird. The President obliged by writing a formal pardon for the turkey named Jack.

Benjamin & Caroline Harrison (1889-1893)

In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison, his grandchildren, and extended family gathered around the first indoor White House Christmas tree.

Grover & Francis Cleveland (1885-1889; 1893-1897)

When Grover Cleveland first became President in 1885, there was no Christmas tree during the first Cleveland administration, but when daughters Ruth, Esther, and Marion were born, this changed in the second administration. In 1894, three years after electricity was introduced in the White House, the first electric lights on a family tree delighted the young daughters of President Grover Cleveland.

Mrs. Cleveland’s main Christmas activity, rather than entertaining and decorating, was her work with the Christmas Club of Washington to provide food, clothing, and toys to poor children in the D.C. area. She took the time to wrap and distribute gifts to the children and sat with them for a Punch and Judy show. Although Christmas Club charities in Washington date back to the 1820’s, no previous first lady had taken as prominent a role in these activities as Frances Cleveland, who helped set a tradition of good works carried on by many other First Ladies.

Theodore & Edith Roosevelt (1901-1909)

President Theodore Roosevelt, an avowed conservationist, did not approve of cutting trees for Christmas decorations. However, his son Archie smuggled in a small tree that was decorated and hidden in a closet in the upstairs sewing room.

The Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt family Christmas traditions were quite simple. On Christmas Eve, they would pile into the family sleigh (later the motor car) and travel to Christ Church in Oyster Bay, New York. Following the pastor’s sermon, TR would deliver one of his famous “sermonettes” on the meaning of the holiday. The service would close with one of his favorite hymns “Christmas By the Sea.” On Christmas morning, gifts would be opened and then the family would spend the day hiking, playing games, and going for sleigh rides.

For many years TR played Santa Claus at a school in Oyster Bay, New York, listening to the children and then giving them Christmas presents that he had selected himself.

Calvin & Grace Coolidge (1923-1929)

In 1923, President Calvin Coolidge touches a button and lights up the first national Christmas tree to grace the White House grounds. (Until 1923, holiday celebrations were local in nature.) It was the first to be decorated with electric lights – a strand of 2,500 red, white and green bulbs. While radio station WCAP broadcast the event to possibly a million Americans, the President gave no speech. The evening centered, instead, on Christmas carols and other festive music performed at the tree-lighting ceremony, including by the Epiphany Church choir and the U.S. Marine Band. Later that evening, President Coolidge and first lady Grace were treated to carols sung by members of Washington D.C.’s First Congregational Church.

That year, the erection of a National Christmas Tree was the first of several holiday practices instituted during the Coolidge Presidency that are still with us today. It was 1927 when President Coolidge issued a holiday message to the nation – and then only a brief one written by his own hand on White House stationery. Its text was carried in newspapers across the land on Christmas Day. Finally, in 1928, on his last Christmas Eve in office, the President delivered to the nation via radio the first tree-lighting speech. It was 49 words in length.

Herbert & Lou Hoover (1929-1933)

First Lady Lou Henry Hoover established the custom of decorating an official (and not just a personal) tree in the White House in 1929. Since that time, the honor of trimming a principal White House Christmas tree on the state floor has belonged to our first ladies.

Christmas 1929 was memorable for the Hoovers because an electrical fire broke out in the West Wing of the White House during a children’s party. The Oval Office was gutted, but Mrs. Hoover kept the party going. The Marine Band, meanwhile, played Christmas carols at a volume calculated to drown out the sound of the arriving fire engines.

The following year the same children were invited back for another party at which time each child was given a toy fire engine as a memento. The invitations to the 1930 party read as follows: “This is not like the Christmas parties you usually go to…for Santa Claus has sent word that he is not going to be able, by himself, to take care of all the little girls and boys he wants to this year, and he has asked other people to help him as much as possible. So if you bring some presents with you, we will send them all to him to distribute.” The party was an enormous success.

Hoover, December 25th, 1931

Your annual Christmas service . . . is a dramatic and inspiring event of national interest. It symbolizes and vivifies our greatest Christian festival with its eternal message of unselfishness, joy, and peace. ³

Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt (1933-1945)

Eleanor initiated Christmas planning each year. Her gift giving list included over 200 names. She began buying gifts in January and regularly put things away in her special “Christmas Closet.” Throughout the year she added new items – gifts for family, friends, and almost everyone on the White House Staff. Each October, she would take over a storage room on the third floor of the White House to wrap the gifts. On Christmas, Franklin would be so interested in the gifts for others that it might be three or four days after Christmas before he was persuaded to open his own.

For the President, Christmas was a time for family and close friends. The tree was set up on Christmas Eve and the President directed his grandchildren in the placement of every ornament. After the tree was decorated, FDR had the grandchildren gather around while he read Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” or recited it from memory. Following the reading, the children would race upstairs to the President’s bedroom where they would hang their stockings on his mantel.

FDR, December 24th, 1935

Around the Manger of the Babe of Bethlehem “all Nations and kindreds and tongues” [Revelation 7:9] find unity. . . . The spirit of Christmas breathes an eternal message of peace and good-will to all men. We pause, therefore, on this Holy Night and . . . rejoice that nineteen hundred years ago, heralded by angels, there came into the world One whose message was of peace, who gave to all mankind a new commandment of love. In that message of love and of peace we find the true meaning of Christmas. And so I greet you with the greeting of the Angels on that first Christmas at Bethlehem which, resounding through centuries, still rings out with its eternal message: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will to men.” ⁴

FDR, December 24th, 1939

In the happiness of this Eve of the most blessed day in the year, I give to all of my countrymen the old, old greeting – “Merry Christmas – Happy Christmas.” . . . Let us rather pray that we may be given strength to live for others – to live more closely to the words of the Sermon on the Mount and to pray that peoples in the nations which are at war may also read, learn and inwardly digest these deathless words. May their import reach into the hearts of all men and of all nations. I offer them as my Christmas message:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
“Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
“Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” ⁵

FDR, December 24th, 1941 (Following Pearl Harbor)

There are many men and women in America – sincere and faithful men and women – who are asking themselves this Christmas. . . . How can we meet and worship with love and with uplifted spirit and heart in a world at war, a world of fighting and suffering and death? . . . How can we put the world aside . . . to rejoice in the birth of Christ? . . . And even as we ask these questions, we know the answer. There is another preparation demanded of this Nation beyond and beside the preparation of weapons and materials of war. There is demanded also of us the preparation of our hearts – the arming of our hearts. And when we make ready our hearts for the labor and the suffering and the ultimate victory which lie ahead, then we observe Christmas Day – with all of its memories and all of its meanings – as we should. Looking into the days to come, I have set aside a day of prayer. ⁶

FDR, December 24th, 1944 (Following D-Day)

Here, at home, we will celebrate this Christmas Day in our traditional American way – because of its deep spiritual meaning to us; because the teachings of Christ are fundamental in our lives; and because we want our youngest generation to grow up knowing the significance of this tradition and the story of the coming of the immortal Prince of Peace and Good Will. [He then led in a prayer for the troops] We pray that with victory will come a new day of peace on earth in which all the Nations of the earth will join together for all time. That is the spirit of Christmas, the holy day. May that spirit live and grow throughout the world in all the years to come. ⁷

Harry & Bess Truman (1945-1953)

It became a tradition for the First Family to go home to Independence, Missouri, for Christmas. The Chief Executive, however, always remained in Washington until after the staff party on Christmas Eve.

Truman, December 24th, 1945

This is the Christmas that a war-weary world has prayed for through long and awful years. . . . We meet in the spirit of the first Christmas, when the midnight choir sang the hymn of joy: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” Let us not forget that the coming of the Savior brought a time of long peace to the Roman World. . . . From the manger of Bethlehem came a new appeal to the minds and hearts of men: “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another.” . . . Would that the world would accept that message in this time of its greatest need! . . . We must strive without ceasing to make real the prophecy of Isaiah: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” In this day, whether it be far or near, the Kingdoms of this world shall become indeed the Kingdom of God and He will reign forever and ever, Lord of Lords and King of Kings. ⁸

Truman, December 24th, 1949

Since returning home, I have been reading again in our family Bible some of the passages which foretold this night. . . . We miss the spirit of Christmas if we consider the Incarnation as an indistinct and doubtful, far-off event unrelated to our present problems. We miss the purport of Christ’s birth if we do not accept it as a living link which joins us together in spirit as children of the ever-living and true God. In love alone – the love of God and the love of man – will be found the solution of all the ills which afflict the world today. ⁹

Truman, December 24th, 1950 (During the Korean War)

At this Christmastime we should renew our faith in God. We celebrate the hour in which God came to man. It is fitting that we should turn to Him. . . . But all of us – at home, at war, wherever we may be – are within reach of God’s love and power. We all can pray. We all should pray. . . . We should pray for a peace which is the fruit of righteousness. The Nation already is in the midst of a Crusade of Prayer. On the last Sunday of the old year, there will be special services devoted to a revival of faith. I call upon all of you to enlist in this common cause. . . . We are all joined in the fight against the tyranny of communism. Communism is godless. Democracy is the harvest of faith – faith in one’s self, faith in one’s neighbors, faith in God. Democracy’s most powerful weapon is not a gun, tank, or bomb. It is faith. . . . Let us pray at this Christmastime for the wisdom, the humility, and the courage to carry on in this faith. ¹⁰

Truman, December 24th, 1952

Through Jesus Christ the world will yet be a better and a fairer place. This faith sustains us today as it has sustained mankind for centuries past. This is why the Christmas story, with the bright stars shining and the angels singing, moves us to wonder and stirs our hearts to praise. Now, my fellow countrymen, I wish for all of you a Christmas filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit, and many years of future happiness with the peace of God reigning upon this earth. ¹¹

Dwight & Mamie Eisenhower (1953-1961)

Unlike other Presidents who distinguished political from household staff, the Eisenhowers brought both together (more than 500 in all) for a Christmas party each year. For the White House staff, Mamie purchased gifts in area department stores, personally wrapping each one to save money.

President Eisenhower took a personal interest in the gifts and cards that were sent from the White House. Ike was an artist in his own right and allowed six of his own paintings to be used as Christmas gifts and cards during his administration. In eight years, Hallmark produced a prodigious 38 different Christmas cards and gift prints for the President and First Lady. No previous administration, nor any since Eisenhower’s, has sent such a variety of holiday greetings from the White House.

For the Christmas of 1958, Mamie pulled out all the stops in decorating the White House. She had 27 decorated trees, carols were piped into every room and greenery was wrapped around every column.

John & Jacqueline Kennedy (1961-1963)

In 1961, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy began the tradition of selecting a theme for the official White House Christmas tree. She decorated a tree placed in the oval Blue Room with ornamental toys, birds and angels modeled after Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite.

The first card to contain an explicitly religious element was in 1963, which featured a photo of a crèche set up in the East Room of the White House. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, had signed 30 cards before their final trip to Dallas where he was assassinated. None of these cards were ever mailed.

Lyndon & Ladybird Johnson (1963-1969)

Lyndon and Ladybird Johnson spent four of their six presidential Christmases in Texas rather than Washington. The Christmas of 1967 (the 7th) was special for the Johnsons because their daughter, Lynda, was married to Charles Robb in the White House on December 9th with 650 guests in attendance. The celebrating continued during Christmas and they spent that Christmas in Washington, the first in seven years.

The Johnsons final Christmas in the White House in 1968 was a time of reflection for them and the opportunity to say goodbye to their friends. On December 23rd, President Johnson sent Christmas greetings to the American troops in Southeast Asia, which included his two sons-in-law.

The First Lady committed herself to the beautification of America and the planting of trees. Except for their unplanned first Christmas in the Executive Mansion, all the cards and gift prints of later years were to feature trees.

LBJ, December 22nd, 1963

We were taught by Him whose birth we commemorate that after death there is life. . . . In these last 200 years we have guided the building of our Nation and our society by those principles and precepts brought to earth nearly 2,000 years ago on that first Christmas. ¹²

LBJ, December 15th, 1967

In a few days we shall all celebrate the birth of His Holiness on earth. . . . We shall acknowledge the Kingdom of a Child in a world of men. That Child – we should remember – grew into manhood Himself, preached and moved men in many walks of life, and died in agony. But His death – so the Christian faith tells us – was not the end. For Him, and for millions of men and women ever since, it marked a time of triumph – when the spirit of life triumphed over death. ¹³

Richard & Pat Nixon (1969-1974)

The Vietnam War was going strong when the Nixons entered the White House in 1969. Pat Nixon personally supervised an elaborate plan for decorating the White House. For the first time in a quarter century, wreaths were hung in every window. In the Great Hall stood a 19-foot fir tree with ornaments that featured the flowers of the fifty states. In response to the National Christmas Tree, war protestors set up their own tree and decorated it with soda pop cans and tin foil peace symbols.

Christmas celebrations during the following years were often filled with controversy and difficulty. In 1969, the Pageant of Peace was embroiled in legal controversy over the use of religious symbols, and in 1973, the nativity scene that had always been part of the pageant was no longer allowed.

Gerald & Betty Ford (1974-1977)

In 1975, to honor America’s upcoming bicentennial celebration, the National Christmas Tree was decorated with 4,600 red, white, and blue ornaments and 12,000 lights. On the top of the 45-foot blue spruce sat a 4-foot gold and green replica of the Liberty Bell. There were also 13 smaller trees representing the 13 colonies and 44 other trees placed in a row representing states and territories.

Ford, December 18th, 1975

As we gather here before our Nation’s Christmas tree, symbolic of the communion of Americans at Christmastime, we remind ourselves of the eternal truths by which we live. . . . In our 200 years, we Americans have always honored the spiritual testament of 2,000 years ago. We embrace the spirit of the Prince of Peace so that we might find peace in our own hearts and in our own land, and hopefully in the world as well. ¹⁴

Jimmy & Rosayln Carter (1977-1981)

One of the most interesting and controversial aspects of the Carters Presidential Christmases concerned greeting cards. In 1977, the Carters ordered and sent 60,000 Christmas cards, substantially more than any previous administration. In 1978, the number jumped to 100,000 and in 1979 when there were 105,000, President Carter finally established a White House committee to look into the problem of too many Christmas cards!

The hostage crisis in Iran dominated the holiday celebrations of 1979 and 1980. In 1979, the National Christmas Tree and fifty surrounding trees each showed a single light, one for each of the hostages. The President promised to turn on the other lights when the hostages were freed. Because the hostages were still in captivity, the following year the lights on the tree were turned on for 417 seconds on Christmas Eve – one second for each day they had been held.

Carter, December 15th, 1977

Christmas has a special meaning for those of us who are Christians, those of us who believe in Christ, those of us who know that almost 2,000 years ago, the Son of Peace was born to give us a vision of perfection, a vision of humility, a vision of unselfishness, a vision of compassion, a vision of love. ¹⁵

Carter, December 18th, 1980

In the first Christmas, the people who lived in the land of the Jews were hoping for a Messiah. They prayed God to send them that savior, and when the shepherds arrived at the place to see their prayers answered they didn’t find a king, they found a little baby. And I’m sure they were very disappointed to see that God had not answered their prayers properly, but we Christians know that the prayers had been answered in a very wonderful way. God knew how to answer prayer. ¹⁶

Ronald & Nancy Reagan (1981-1989)

In 1981, President Ronald Reagan began another custom by authorizing the first official White House ornament, copies of which were made available for purchase.

In 1984, the Nativity Scene was allowed to return to the Pageant of Peace.

Christmas in Illinois, where both Ronald and Nancy Reagan grew up, was a sharp contrast to their Christmases in Washington. The President has recalled that his family never had a really fancy Christmas. During the Depression, when they couldn’t afford a Christmas tree, his mother would decorate a table or make a cardboard fireplace out of a packing box.

Reagan, December 23rd, 1981 (click here to listen to this)

At this special time of year, we all renew our sense of wonder in recalling the story of the first Christmas in Bethlehem, nearly 2,000 year ago. Some celebrate Christmas as the birthday of a great and good philosopher and teacher. Others of us believe in the Divinity of the child born in Bethlehem, that He was and is the promised Prince of Peace. . . . Tonight, in millions of American homes, the glow of the Christmas tree is a reflection of the love Jesus taught us. . . . Christmas means so much because of one special child. ¹⁷

Reagan, December 16th, 1982

In this holiday season, we celebrate the birthday of One Who, for almost 2,000 years, has been a greater influence on humankind than all the rulers, all the scholars, all the armies and all the navies that ever marched or sailed, all put together. He brought to the world the simple message of peace on Earth, good will to all mankind. Some celebrate the day as marking the birth of a great and good man, a wise teacher and prophet, and they do so sincerely. But for many of us it’s also a holy day, the birthday of the Prince of Peace, a day when “God so loved the world” that He sent us His only begotten Son to assure forgiveness of our sins. ¹⁸

Reagan, December 15th, 1983

Many stories have been written about Christmas. Charles Dickens’ “Carol” is probably the most famous. Well, I’d like to read some lines from a favorite of mine called, “One Solitary Life,” which describes for me the meaning of Christmas. [He then read the full story.] . . . I have always believed that the message of Jesus is one of hope and joy. I know there are those who recognize Christmas Day as the birthday of a great and good man, a wise teacher who gave us principles to live by. And then there are others of us who believe that He was the Son of God, that He was Divine. If we live our lives for truth, for love, and for God, we never need be afraid. ¹⁹

Reagan, December 12th, 1985

We do not know the exact moment the Christ Child was born, only what we would have seen if we’d been standing there as we stand here now: Suddenly, a star from heaven shining in our eyes, shining with brilliant beauty across the skies, a star pointing toward eternity in the night, like a great ring of pure and endless light, and then all was calm, and all was bright. Such was the beginning of one solitary life that would shake the world as never before or since. When we speak of Jesus and of His life, we speak of a man revered as a prophet and teacher by people of all religions, and Christians speak of someone greater – a man Who was and is Divine. He brought forth a power that is infinite and a promise that is eternal, a power greater than all mankind’s military might, for His power is Godly love, love that can lift our hearts and soothe our sorrows and heal our wounds and drive away our fears. . . . If each of us could give but a fraction to one another of what He gave to the whole human family, how many hearts could heal, how much sorrow and pain could be driven away. ²⁰

George & Barbara Bush (1989-1993)

Mrs. Bush took particular pleasure in hosting a special party for homeless children from the Central Union Mission in Washington, DC. She distributed special Christmas bags filled with gifts and then read them Christmas stories. She sometimes would tell the stories in her own words, giving it her own personal touch.

The First Lady added her own special touches to the holiday with her annual cherry picker ride to hang the star at the top of the National Christmas Tree, a trip she took 12 times beginning in the Reagan Administration as the wife of the Vice President.

Bush, December 18th, 1989

During the beautiful and holy season of Christmas, our hearts are filled with the same wonder, gratitude, and joy that led the psalmist of old to ask, “When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained, What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that Thou visitest him?” At Christmas, we, too, rejoice in the mystery of God’s love for us – love revealed through the gift of Christ’s birth. Born into a family of a young carpenter and his wife, in a stable shared by beasts of the field, our Savior came to live among ordinary men. Yet, in time, the miraculous nature of this simple event became clear. Christ’s birth changed the course of history, bringing the light of hope to a world dwelling in the darkness of sin and death. Today, nearly 2,000 years later, the shining promise of that first Christmas continues to give our lives a sense of peace and purpose. Our words and deeds, when guided by the example of Christ’s life, can help others share in the joy of man’s Redemption. ²¹

Bill & Hillary Clinton (1993-2001)

Clinton, December 22nd, 1997

The beloved Christmas story itself is a story of light, for, as the Gospel of John tells us, Jesus came into the world as “the true Light” [John 1:9] that illumines all humankind. Almost 2,000 years later, that Light still shines amid the dark places of our world. ²²

Clinton, December 21st, 1999

Saint Matthew’s Gospel tells us that on the first Christmas 2000 years ago, a bright star shone vividly in the eastern sky, heralding the birth of Jesus and the beginning of His hallowed mission as teacher, healer, servant, and savior. . . . His luminous teachings have brought hope and joy to generations of believers. . . . His timeless message of God’s enduring and unconditional love for each and every person continues to strengthen and inspire us. . . . Love, peace, joy, hope – so many beautiful words are woven through our Christmas songs and prayers and traditions. ²³

George & Laura Bush (2001-2009)

George W. Bush is the first president to choose a Yule card with a Scripture. First lady Laura Bush supervises the card selection. She picked cards with Bible verses when her husband was governor and has continued to do so in the White House.

In 2001 George and Laura incorporated a scripture depicting their faith in post 9/11 times. It said “Thy face, Lord do I seek. I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living.” Psalm 27. Laura Bush believed that this is what really happened after the tragedy of September 11.

In 2004 George and Laura sent holiday cards with a Bible verse from Psalms (95:2): “Let us come before him with Thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.”

Bush, December 6th, 2001

Now once again, we celebrate Christmas in a time of testing, with American troops far from home. . . . It is worth recalling the words from a beautiful Christmas hymn. In the third verse of “Oh Holy Night” we sing, “His law is love, and His gospel is peace. Chains ye shall break, for the slave is our brother. And in His name all oppression shall cease. . . . We fight so that oppression may cease, and even in the midst of war, we pray for peace on Earth and good will to men. ²⁴

Bush, December 4th, 2003

Throughout the Christmas season our thoughts turn to a star in the east, seen 20 centuries ago, and to a light that can guide us still. . . . The story of Christmas is familiar to us all, and it still holds a sense of wonder and surprise. When the good news came first to a young woman from Nazareth, her response was understandable. She asked, “How can this be?” The news would bring difficulty to her family and suspicion upon herself. Yet, Mary gave her reply, “Be it unto me according to Thy word.” The wait for a new king had been long, and the manner of his arrival was not as many had expected. The king’s first cries were heard by shepherds and cattle. He was raised by a carpenter’s son. Yet this one humble life lifted the sights of humanity forever. And in His words we hear a voice like no other. . . . We don’t know all of God’s ways, yet the Christmas story promises that God’s purpose is justice and His plan is peace. At times this belief is tested. During the Civil War, Longfellow wrote a poem that later became a part of a Christmas carol, “Hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on Earth, good will to men.” That poem also reminds us that hate is not the final word: “Then pealed the bells more loud and deep, `God is not dead, nor doth He sleep, the wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on Earth, good will to men.”‘ ²⁵

Endnotes

¹. Much of the general information in this piece concerning the Christmas practices of the presidents is directly excerpted from the primary sources: “Background Info: Christmas at the White House,” White House Historical Association; “Christmas at the White House,” Herbert Hoover Presidential Library-Museum (at: https://hoover.archives.gov/exhibits/WHChristmas/index.html); and from the White House (at: https://www.whitehousechristmas.com/WHC/default.ASPX). The direct presidential quotes related to Christmas are each individually footnoted.

². The information on historic Christmas in early America is taken from Celebrate Liberty (2003), David Barton, editor, pp. 192-193, n, available at https://wallbuilders.com/store/product170.html.

³.Herbert Hoover, “Message to the Nation’s Christmas Trees Association,” The American Presidency Project, December 25, 1931, (at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=22957).

⁴. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Christmas Greeting to the Nation,” The American Presidency Project, December 24, 1935, (at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=15005).

⁵. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Radio Christmas Greeting to the Nation,” The American Presidency Project, December 24, 1939, (at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=15854).

⁶. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Christmas Eve Message to the Nation,” The American Presidency Project, December 24, 1941, (at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=16073).

⁷. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Address to the Nation,” The American Presidency Project, December 24, 1944, (at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=16485).

⁸. Harry S. Truman, “Address at the Lighting of the National Community Christmas Tree on the White House Grounds,” The American Presidency Project, December 24, 1945, (at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=12250).

⁹. Harry S. Truman, “Address in Connection With Lighting of the National Community Christmas Tree on the White House Grounds,” The American Presidency Project, December 24, 1949, Harry S. Truman’s Christmas Eve Broadcast, (at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=13373).

¹⁰. Harry S. Truman, “Address Recorded for Broadcast on the Occasion of the Lighting of the National Community Christmas Tree on the White House Grounds,” The American Presidency Project, December 24, 1950, (at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=13698).

¹¹. Harry S. Truman, “Remarks Upon Lighting the National Community Christmas Tree,” The American Presidency Project, December 24, 1952, Harry S. Truman’s Christmas Eve Broadcast, (at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=14368).

¹². Lyndon B. Johnson, “Remarks at the Lighting of the Nation’s Christmas Tree,” The American Presidency Project, December 22, 1963, Lyndon B. Johnson’s Christmas Eve Radio and T.V. Broadcast, (at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=26587).

¹³. Lyndon B. Johnson, “Remarks at the Lighting of the Nation’s Christmas Tree,” The American Presidency Project, December 15, 1967, (at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=28610).

¹⁴. Gerald R. Ford, “Remarks at the Lighting of the National Community Christmas Tree,” The American Presidency Project, December 18, 1975, (at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=5445).

¹⁵. Jimmy Carter, “Christmas Pageant of Peace Remarks on Lighting the National Community Christmas Tree,” The American Presidency Project, December 15, 1977, (at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=7019).

¹⁶.Jimmy Carter, “Christmas Pageant of Peace Remarks on Lighting the National Community Christmas Tree,” The American Presidency Project, December 18, 1980, (at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=44421).

¹⁷. Ronald Reagan, “Address to the Nation About Christmas and the Situation in Poland,” The American Presidency Project, December 23, 1981, Reagan’s Christmas Address from the Oval Office, (at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=43384).

¹⁸. Ronald Reagan, “Remarks on Lighting the National Community Christmas Tree,” The American Presidency Project, December 16, 1982, (at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=42123).

¹⁹. Ronald Reagan, “Remarks on Lighting the National Community Christmas Tree,” The American Presidency Project, December 15, 1983, (at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=40873).

²⁰. Ronald Reagan, “Remarks on Lighting the National Christmas Tree,” The American Presidency Project, December 12, 1985, (at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=38161).

²¹ George H. Bush, “Message on the Observance of Christmas,” The American Presidency Project, December 18. 1989, (at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=17953).

²². William J. Clinton, “Message on the Observance of Christmas,” The American Presidency Project, December 22, 1997, (at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=53733).

²³. William J. Clinton, “Message on the Observance of Christmas,” The American Presidency Project, December 21, 1999, (at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=57106).

²⁴. George W. Bush, “Remarks on Lighting the National Christmas Tree,” The American Presidency Project, December 6, 2001, (at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=73502).

²⁵. George W. Bush, “Remarks on Lighting the National Christmas Tree,” The American Presidency Project, December 4, 2003, (at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=63610).

Christmas-As Celebrated by the Presidents

Even though Christmas did not become a national holiday until 1870, it has a centuries old history in America. Interestingly, in colonial America, the southern regions that were more directly linked to High-Church traditions (e.g., Anglicans, Catholics, Episcopalians) celebrated Christmas; but the northern regions especially linked to Low-Church traditions (e.g., Congregationalists, Baptists, Quakers) did not. Those Low-Church colonists associated the pomp and grandeur of Christmas celebrations directly with the autocratic leaders and monarchs in Europe that they so opposed.

Massachusetts therefore passed an anti-Christmas law in 1659, and it was not until the 1830s and 1840s that Christmas celebrations became accepted in New England (although as late as 1870, a student missing school on Christmas Day in Boston public schools could be punished or expelled). But by the 1880s, Christmas celebrations were finally accepted across the country and began to appear at the White House. For example:

In 1889, the first indoor decorated tree was placed in the White House, and in 1895, electric lights were added.
In 1923, the first National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony was held. In 1954 it was named the Pageant of Peace but in 1969 it became embroiled in a legal controversy over the use of religious symbols. In 1973, the nativity scene that had always been part of the Pageant was no longer allowed, but in 1984, it returned.
In 1953, the first White House Christmas card was created by President Dwight Eisenhower. (Ike was an artist in his own right and allowed six of his own paintings to be used as Christmas gifts and cards.) President Kennedy’s 1963 Christmas card was the first to include an explicitly religious element, featuring a photo of a nativity scene. And in 2001, the first White House Christmas card to contain a Scripture was chosen by Laura Bush. It quoted Psalm 27: “Thy face, Lord, do I seek. I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living” – a Scripture she had chosen on September 16 (only 5 days after 9/11), based on a special sermon preached at Camp David.

Christmas was celebrated by our national leaders as a religious holiday, not the secular holiday it has become.

For example, every Christmas Eve, President Teddy Roosevelt and his family would pile into the family sleigh (later the motor car) and travel to a Christmas service at Christ Church in Oyster Bay, New York. Following the pastor’s sermon, Teddy would deliver one of his famous “sermonettes” on the true meaning of Christmas and then close the service with one of his favorite hymns, “Christmas By the Sea.”

President Franklin Roosevelt would set up and decorate a tree on Christmas Eve, gather the family round him, and either read Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” or recite it from memory. (The original story is quite different from the modern movies by that name and is well worth the read.) He would also deliver explicitly religious Christmas Eve messages to the nation. For example, in 1944 following D-Day, he said:

Here, at home, we will celebrate this Christmas Day in our traditional American way – because of its deep spiritual meaning to us; because the teachings of Christ are fundamental in our lives; and because we want our youngest generation to grow up knowing the significance of this tradition and the story of the coming of the immortal Prince of Peace and good will. . . . [FDR then prayed a prayer for the troops, and closed with:] We pray that with victory will come a new day of peace on earth in which all the Nations of the earth will join together for all time. That is the spirit of Christmas, the holy day. May that spirit live and grow throughout the world in all the years to come.

(I recommend you go online to the American Presidency Project and look up and especially read some Christ-centered Christmas messages from Presidents, such as that of Franklin Roosevelt in 1935, Harry Truman in 1949 or 1952, Ronald Reagan in 1982 or 1985, George W. Bush in 2003, and there are many additional examples. You should also watch President Reagan deliver one of his Christmas addresses.)

In recent years, there has been a relentless push from secularists and progressives to transform Christmas. Schools, government offices, and many commercial stores have replaced Merry Christmas with Happy Holidays to appease critics, not realizing that 93% of Americans celebrate Christmas, and 97% are not bothered by the use of the phrase “Merry Christmas.” Yet far too often, the 3% seems to drive public policy; Americans need to push back.

Gratefully, religious Jews have been some of the strongest advocates for keeping Christmas a religious celebration. For example, Burt Prelutsky, a Jewish columnist for a number of national publications, declares:

I never thought I’d live to see the day that Christmas would become a dirty word. . . . How is it, one well might ask, that in a Christian nation this is happening? . . . Speaking as a member of a minority group – and one of the smaller ones at that – I say it behooves those of us who don’t accept Jesus Christ as our savior to show some gratitude to those who do, and to start respecting the values and traditions of the overwhelming majority of our fellow citizens, just as we keep insisting that they respect ours. Merry Christmas, my friends!

Orthodox Jewish Rabbi Daniel Lapin agrees:

Secular fundamentalism has successfully injected into American culture the notion that the word “Christmas” is deeply offensive. . . . Anti-Christianism is unhealthy for all Americans; but I warn my brethren that it will prove particularly destructive for Jews. . . . Let us all go out of our way to wish our many wonderful Christian friends – a very merry Christmas. Just remember, America’s Bible belt is our safety belt.

So . . . Merry Christmas!!!

The 2010 Election: The News Inside the News

David BartonTraditional media coverage on Election Night provided a general overview of the most obvious political shifts but largely ignored the massive pro-life, pro-family, and conservative gains that occurred. This report will provide a general summary of the elections and will also report many results of particular interest to God-fearing conservative voters.

Federal Election Results: An Historic Shift

On the surface, Republicans did well, gaining more U. S. House seats than in any election for the past 72 years:¹

In 1938, Republicans picked up 80 seats in the House
In 1946, 56 seats
In 1966, 47
In 1994, 54

Republicans gained 63 seats – the most since 1938. But it would be a mistake to assume that voters simply chose Republicans in this election. To the contrary, like the four previous landmark elections cited above, voters decisively chose to reject the liberalism exuded by national Democrat leaders; Republicans were simply the beneficiaries:

In 1938, following six years of President Roosevelt’s “New Deal” expansionism, voters overwhelmingly rejected further growth of the federal government.
In 1946, they rejected the revival of the “New Deal” under President Harry Truman.
In 1966, following three years of President Johnson’s “Great Society” federal growth, voters halted any further expansion of government.
In 1994, they put a stop to President Bill Clinton’s attempt to expand the federal government through “Hillarycare,” also ending his radical social agenda (e.g., lifting the ban on homosexuals in the military, protecting partial-birth abortions, etc.).

Election 2010 was a similar voter repudiation of the explosive growth of federal government under national Democrat leaders (i.e., the takeover of health care and student loans, government bailouts of private businesses, “stimulus” spending bills, etc.); it was also a resounding affirmation of limited government and conservatism, both economic and social.

While some national pundits argued that the Republican victories were the result of an “enthusiasm gap” (that is, Republican voters were highly motivated to go to the polls but Democrat voters were not), such was definitely not the case. In this election, the numbers of voters from each side was exactly equal: 35% of voters were Republican, and 35% were Democrat.² (In recent elections, the comparative percentage of Democrat and Republican voters has remained relatively close.³) The difference in this election was not a greater turnout of Republicans or a suppressed turnout of Democrats but rather that non-affiliated independent voters overwhelmingly chose conservative candidates (running primarily as Republicans) and rejected liberal ones (represented primarily by Democrats)⁴ – a 37-point swing in their decision from only four years ago.⁵

Some additional interesting election statistics:

In every state in the nation, self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals; and in 25 of the states, conservatives outnumbered liberals 2 to 1.⁶
Overall, 42% of voters self-identified as conservative, and 20% as liberal⁷– a 22% gap. (In 2006 and 2008, it was only a 12% gap.⁸)
Tea Party supporters made up 41% of voters.⁹
Voter turnout was slightly higher in 2010 than in 2006, projected at 42% in this election (i.e., 90 million), which is 6.2 million more than voted in 2006 in the last mid-term election (83.8 million).¹⁰ (Mid-term elections are always smaller in turnout than presidential elections, so comparisons are best made of mid-term to mid-term, and presidential to presidential.)
Voter turnout increased in nine states, especially Florida, Minnesota, and Texas, but decreased in other states, such as Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Given the conservative nature of voters this election, it is not surprising that the average new freshman in the House and Senate is more conservative than the Member he replaced. In fact, in several states not traditionally conservative, numerous congressional seats switched from liberal to conservative, including Republicans gaining 6 congressional seats in New York; 5 each in Pennsylvania and Ohio; 3 in Illinois; and 2 each in Colorado, Michigan, and Wisconsin. They even gained ground in traditionally conservative states, including 4 more seats in Florida; 3 each in Virginia, Tennessee, and Texas; and 2 each in Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Mississippi, and New Hampshire. By the way, in traditionally liberal Wisconsin, not only did liberals lose 2 congressional seats, they also lost a U. S. Senate Seat, the Governorship, the State Senate, and the State House – the only state to lose control of so many levels of government in this election.

While the changes toward conservatism were substantial, nearly all of the national news coverage focused only on fiscal conservatism; but statistics affirm that the election was also about social conservatism. For example, exit polling showed that among conservative voters:

When asked what was needed to get America back on track, reducing spending and restoring values were equally important.¹¹
A majority of voters said members of Congress and political leaders are ignoring our religious heritage.¹²
53% of the voters opposed homosexual marriage.¹³
Christian conservatives comprised 28.8 million, or 32% of all voters¹⁴– the highest recorded percentage of any election.¹⁵

Furthermore:

30% of all voters said that the abortion issue affected their vote; 22% said they voted for pro-life candidates, and 8% for pro-abortion candidates, thus providing pro-life candidates a 14-point advantage over abortion voters.¹⁶ That large advantage provided the margin of victory for pro-life candidates in many otherwise close races.

Interestingly, exit polling has long demonstrated that the frequency of church attendance is the best indicator of whether an individual will vote conservative or liberal. As Washington Post writer Thomas Edsall had reported: “Pollsters are finding that one of the best ways to discover whether a voter holds liberal or conservative value stands is to ask: How often do you go to church? Those who go often tend to be Republican, those who go rarely or not at all tend to be Democrat.”¹⁷ In 2010, that tendency was again reaffirmed:

Among Born-Again or Evangelical voters, 77% voted for Republicans – up 7% from four years ago.¹⁸
White Protestants voted for Republicans over Democrats by a 69% to 28% margin – up 8% from four years ago.¹⁹
White Catholics voted for Republicans over Democrats by a 59% to 39% margin – up 10% from four years ago;²⁰ and among all Catholic voters, 54% voted for Republicans, an increase of 12% from two years ago.²¹

But on the other hand:

Those who have no religious affiliation supported Democrats over Republicans by a 68% to 30% margin (although this is an 8% improvement from four years ago).²²

Exit polling from this year’s election makes clear that conservative people of faith carried their values with them into the voting booth – something that they did not do two years ago in 2008 (as will be seen below).

Another disappointing number from two years ago was that only 14% of churches provided voter guides or urged parishioners to vote, compared to 27% in 2006. In 2008, WallBuilders created a website (www.ChristianVoterGuide.com and www.Judeo-ChristianVoterGuide.com) in order to make conservative, pro-family state voter guides available to voters in every state. This year, a mailing was sent to 285,000 of the 325,000 houses of worship in America, urging pastors, rabbis, and priests to get voter guides from those websites and distribute them to their congregations or synagogue, resulting in more than 140,000 website hits from that mailing.

Because values mattered to voters, there was more cohesion between economic and social conservatives than in recent elections. Consequently, nearly all the conservative candidates who won this year were not only economic but also social conservatives.

For example, in the U. S. Senate, 16 new freshmen were elected: 3 Democrats and 13 Republicans. (The 3 Democrats all replaced Democrats, and 7 of the 13 Republicans replaced Republicans, with the other 6 replacing Democrats). Of the 13 freshmen Republican Senators, 12 are conservative and pro-life (Mark Kirk of Illinois is not); and of the 3 Democrat freshmen, 1 is pro-life. Thus, 13 of the 16 new Senators are pro-life – an 81% pro-life class. (Compare this year’s freshman Senate class with that of 2008, which was only 14% pro-life.)

Similarly, of the 97 new freshmen in the U. S. House, 81 are pro-life – an 84% pro-life class. In fact, this election resulted in a net gain of 52 pro-life seats in the House! (Of the 97 freshmen, 33 seats showed no change, with 26 pro-life freshman replacing pro-life predecessors, and 7 pro-abortion freshmen replacing the same. There were 3 seats where a pro-abortion freshman replaced a pro-life predecessor, 40 seats where a pro-life freshman replaced a pro-abortion predecessor, an additional 15 seats where a solid pro-life freshman replaced a predecessor with a mixed pro-life voting record, and 6 where the pro-life positions of the freshman are unknown.)²³ As a result of the election, Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ), co-chair of the House Pro-Life Caucus, announced that “January will mark the beginning of the arguably most pro-life House ever.”²⁴ (Compare this year’s freshman House class with that of 2008, which was only 40% pro-life.)

While voters overwhelmingly chose pro-life candidates in this election, apparently, Democrats became increasingly less tolerant of pro-lifers in their own ranks. For example, Democrats for Life raised only $7,989 and gave only $7,309 to 14 candidates,²⁵ while the Republican National Coalition for Life raised almost ten-times as much ($67,152), and gave $77,045 to 60 candidates.²⁶ And in states such as Hawaii, during the Democrat primary in September, most pro-life Democrat incumbents were defeated and replaced with a pro-abortion Democrat. But outside of Democrat-only circles, the general population did elect some proven conservative pro-life Democrats, including Congressmen Mike McIntyre and Heath Shuler of North Carolina.

(By the way, non-liberal Democrats appear to be a shrinking group. Before the election, there were 54 Democrats in the Blue Dog Caucus, which is composed of conservative to moderate Democrat House Members. Only 26 from that group were re-elected.)²⁷

Some other interesting facts about the new Republican freshman class:

2 black Republicans were elected to positions never before held by any black representative. There are 6 new Latino Republicans in Congress (5 in the House, 1 in the Senate), and 9 new female Republicans (8 in the House, and 1 in the Senate). All of these new freshmen are pro-life; and the addition of these new women increases by 60% the number of pro-life women in the U. S. House.
8 freshmen are military veterans, most of whom served in Iraq and Afghanistan.²⁸ They all support victory on the battlefield in both countries and also hold a very strong national security position.²⁹ These 8 more than double the number of like-minded War on Terror veterans already serving in Congress and will form the new Victory Caucus. Significantly, however, every War on Terror veteran who ran as a challenger and who held an anti-war position was defeated, as were 2 incumbent anti-war Iraqi war veterans.³⁰
All of the new Republican Latino members ran on the Arizona-style immigration position that the media and liberals so denounce – that is, securing the borders, enforcing existing laws, controlling immigration, and opposing amnesty.
The new freshman class is very strongly pro-Israel, replacing many incumbents who were openly critical of Israel.
3 of the new Republican Senate Freshmen (Marco Rubio, Pat Toomey, and Ron Johnson) are openly and unabashedly pro-American Exceptionalism, boldly advocating Americanism, God-given unalienable rights, the Free Market, and constitutionalism.

And finally, there is the Congressional Prayer Caucus. Most citizens are unaware that every week Congress is in session, as votes begin, dozens of congressional Members meet in Room 219 of the Capitol (directly across from the House Chamber) to join together in extended prayer for the country. The Prayer Caucus has been bold in defending religious liberties and public religious expressions, including at the Washington Monument, the Capitol Visitor Center, veterans’ funeral ceremonies, and many other areas where officials had ordered the removal of public acknowledgments of God. (To see something of their admirable work, www.CPCFoundation.com.) Significantly, of the 62 Members of the Congressional Prayer Caucus running for re-election, 61 were returned – a percentage much, much higher than the House at large.

State Election Results

Clearly, the federal election results went heavily in favor of conservatives (and Republicans), but the state level results were even more dramatically pointed in that direction.

There are a total of 99 State legislative chambers (Nebraska has a unicameral government with only one chamber). As the 2010 election began, the balance of power in 25 of those chambers was such that it could change hands. When Election Night ended, Republicans lost control of no chambers but Democrats lost control of 20.

Heading into Election Day, Democrats held 783 more state legislative seats than Republicans, but when the night ended, Republicans held a 523 seat advantage.³¹ Republicans gained 690 state legislative seats (with several still undecided).³² They not only gained 134 seats in New Hampshire, 41 in Minnesota, 28 in Maine, etc., but they also made massive gains even in chambers where they already held control. For example, Republicans held a slim 77 to 73 majority in the Texas State House, but on Election Night jumped to a 99 to 51 majority. And in Tennessee, the State House went from a 2 seat majority to a 31 seat supermajority. Amazingly, Republicans lost seats in only 5 of the 99 legislative chambers (the Senates of Hawaii, Mississippi, Maryland, and Massachusetts, and the House in Delaware; Republicans were already in the minority in all 5 states).

Republicans currently control both chambers in 25 states, and one chamber in 6 more states. They have not controlled this many legislatures since 1928.³³

And just as a number of state legislative chambers changed control, so too did a number of Governors’ Mansions: 15 switched hands, 11 to Republican, 3 to Democrat, and 1 to Independent (one is still undecided). Republican governors currently outnumber Democrat governors by a margin of 29 to 19, with 1 Independent.

Republicans now hold a trifecta (that is, they control the state house, senate, and governorship) in 20 states, while Democrats hold a trifecta in only 11. Several of these new trifectas are historic. For example, the last time Republicans controlled Alabama government, Robert E. Lee was still alive. (Since the election, thirteen Democrat legislators have switched to Republican in states including Alabama, Georgia, Maine, South Dakota, and Louisiana; expect this pattern to be repeated in other states as conservative Democrats feel less and less at home in the Democrat Party.) Minnesota government had never been under Republican control before this election, and North Carolina is now in Republican control for the first time since 1870.

As an interesting aside, the Louisiana House also flipped to Republican control as a result of this year’s election, even though there were no state legislative races in Louisiana. (Louisiana is one of five states, along with Mississippi, Kentucky, Virginia, and New Jersey that hold state elections in the years between federal elections.) Nevertheless, following the nationwide conservative tsunami, a Democrat State House member announced that he was changing parties, thus giving Republicans control of that chamber for the first time since Reconstruction.

State Effects on the Federal Congress

State legislative results have a direct effect on the composition of the federal Congress through the process of decennial redistricting – a process required by the Constitution in Art. 1, Sec. 2, Par. 3. Every ten years, a census is conducted to determine the national population, and the total population is then divided by 435 (the number of Members in the House) to determine the number of citizens in each congressional district. Once that number is ascertained, new congressional lines are drawn and elections are held. In this case, the census was conducted in 2010; state legislatures will redraw lines in 2011; and congressional elections under the new lines will be held in 2012, and those lines will remain in place for the next decade.

Because state legislatures draw the lines in most states, the party that controls the legislature will draw the lines in a manner more favorable to their party. Thus, states like New York make it easier for Democrats to be elected, and states like Texas make it easier for Republicans to be elected. However, redrawing lines becomes especially significant when the population has shifted in such a manner that a state either gains or loses a congressional seat.

Over the past decade, millions of citizens in the north have moved toward the south where the economy is much better. As a result, Texas is gaining 4 congressional seats and Florida 2; Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Washington, and Utah will each gain 1. Since most of those states are controlled by Republicans, it is likely that lines will be drawn to make it easier to elect Republicans to Congress in these new districts. States losing a congressional seat include Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Michigan, Missouri, and Pennsylvania, and New York and Ohio will lose 2 seats. Since most of the seats to be eliminated are currently held by Democrats, it is likely that Democrat numbers in Congress will be reduced.

As a result of the state legislative changes on election night, the redistricting process could result in a 20-25 seat federal congressional gain for Republicans – a gain that could last for the next decade.

State Judicial Races

Just as conservatives gained control of state legislatures and governorships, they also re-gained control of judiciaries in Alabama, Michigan, North Carolina, Texas, and other states.

One of the most dramatic wins of the night (and one of my personal favorites) was in Iowa, where 3 of the Iowa Supreme Court Justices who handed down a 2009 decision to allow same-sex marriage were turned out of office by the voters. This is the first time in the nearly fifty year history of judicial retention elections in Iowa that any Supreme Court justice was defeated, and in this case, all 3 that appeared on the ballot were defeated.

Significantly, the removal of any judge in a retention election is so rare (99% of all state judges facing retention elections are retained³⁴) that their positions are essentially lifetime appointments. The removal of these liberal judges sent shockwaves throughout the judiciary across the nation, delivering a clear message that voters can and will hold judges accountable if they abandon their traditional role and instead try to become judicial legislators. (To see something of the story behind this remarkable victory, go to DallasBlog.com and read the article by Dr. Richard G. Lee on “Behind the Fall of Iowa’s Judicial Gods.”³⁵)

State Ballot Initiatives

With very few exceptions, voters across the nation expressed conservative positions in their decisions on 160 ballot initiatives in 37 states. For example:

Oklahoma said that their judges must base their rulings on federal and state law, not international or Sharia law. (However, an Islamic group has already filed suit against the measure, and a federal judge has granted a temporary injunction in their favor.)
Arizona and Oklahoma joined Missouri in allowing their citizens to say “no” to federal health care.
Arkansas, South Carolina, and Tennessee approved a constitutional right to hunt, thus pushing back against liberal animal rights groups.
California rejected the legalization of marijuana, and Oregon and South Dakota rejected medical marijuana.
Arizona, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah passed constitutional amendments to protect the right to secret ballots in union elections, pushing back against President Obama’s promise to allow workers to unionize without a secret ballot.
Washington rejected a state income tax.
Indiana placed a cap on property taxes.
Kansas passed a constitutional amendment securing the right of citizens to bear arms.
Missouri and Montana voted to prohibit new taxes on the sale of property (i.e., no capital gains taxes on property).
California and Washington passed measures making it harder to tax citizens by requiring a legislative supermajority to approve a new tax.
Missouri passed a measure that allows citizens to decide on the taxes on their earnings.
Nevada rejected a measure to allow lawmakers to change taxes without a vote of the people.
Rhode Island overwhelmingly rejected a name change for its state. (This was the second of my personal favorites of the night. The official title of Rhode Island is “State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations,” given when the two colonies merged in 1663. Liberal legislators asserted that the use of “plantation” was a racist term, despite the fact that Rhode Island’s Governor Stephen Hopkins – a Founding Father and signer of the Declaration – signed America’s first anti-slavery law; and the colony’s founder Roger Williams had excellent relations with American Indians. Rhode Island was long a model of early American justice and civil rights; and citizens overwhelmingly rejected – by a 78% to 22% margin – the liberal attempt to rewrite their state’s history!)

A Few State Disappointments

Despite the numerous conservative victories in states across the nation, there were a few underperforming states, including Arizona, Colorado, Washington, California, and Hawaii. For example, in Arizona, many of the congressional seats that were expected to change hands from liberal to conservative failed to do so, and the state also passed a measure legalizing medical marijuana. Colorado experienced similar statewide underperformance, and their initiative on the unborn failed by a large margin (it was the only pro-life initiative in the nation this year). This is not to say that some conservative gains were not made in most of those states; they were; it is just that they were not nearly as broad as in other states. (By the way, as noted earlier, Hawaii was one of only a handful of states in which conservatives and Republicans actually lost ground. As a result, the current composition of Hawaii’s 25 member state senate is now 24 Democrats and 1 Republican. What a lonely senator!)

A few of the disappointments included:

Colorado did not opt out of federal health care mandates, pass tax limitation amendments, approve the personhood amendment, or prohibit the increase of state debt through loans.
Massachusetts did not reduce state sales tax from 6.25% to 3%.
Arizona passed medical marijuana, and did not protect the right to hunt and fish.
Maine narrowly allowed a casino (but opponents have announced a call for a recount).
California did not suspend the “Global Warming Act.”
Washington voted to allow the state to run its own liquor stores.

Yet notwithstanding these few losses, Election Day was an overwhelming success for God-fearing conservatives, both social and fiscal.

An Interesting Side Note – “Hollywood Stays Home”

Compared to the presidential election of 2008, Hollywood stars stayed out of this election. According to Stephen Zunes, a professor at the University of San Francisco, the Obama administration has not been living up to Hollywood expectations. As he explains, “The more left-wing of the celebrities feel that Obama and the Democrat Congress haven’t been liberal enough (i.e., still in Iraq, escalating in Afghanistan, no single-payer health care (or even public option), no climate legislation, etc.) and are therefore part of the ‘enthusiasm gap’.”³⁶

A Big Loser

Liberals and Democrats were the election’s biggest collective loser, but perhaps the biggest individual loser was George Soros.

Soros is the secularist billionaire who has invested so heavily into severing America from its traditional religious, moral, and constitutional foundations. He has been tactically brilliant, advancing his dangerous agenda through scores of well-coordinated but seemingly unconnected groups, gaining control over numerous powerful but relatively unglamorous political positions that exercise tremendous influence over the direction of the states and thus the nation.

Considered one of the most powerful men on earth, Soros has sought to further his secularist, progressive, socialist agenda by distributing (so far) more than $5 billion through numerous allied groups (e.g., Open Society Institute, Tides Foundation, ACLU, America Coming Together, Media Matters, America Votes, Center for American Progress, MoveOn.org, etc.). Soros unabashedly opposes free market economics, the American military, and our constitutional form of government; seeks a massive expansion of government, including welfare programs, socialized medicine, and amnesty for illegal aliens; supports the elimination of all prisons and the release of all inmates; supports abortion and opposes traditional marriage and all forms of traditional morality; supports anti-American Arab groups and defends anti-American terrorists; opposes tax cuts of any type; opposes American sovereignty and supports complete globalism; promotes radical environmentalism; supports unilateral disarmament and the placing of American foreign policy under the control of the United Nations and the placing of American criminal policy under the control of the World Court; etc.³⁷

Much of Soros’ effort to fundamentally transform America has occurred at the state level by seeking to place his like-minded operatives into the more unglamorous but nevertheless influential political positions of state judges and secretaries of state, and he also works heavily for the passage of specific state ballot initiatives. Soros had experienced almost unbridled success in recent elections, but in 2010, his agenda became one of the biggest election losers.

For example, he has already spent over $45 million³⁸ to “remake the judiciary and fundamentally change the way judges are selected.”³⁹ His plan is to move state judges as far away from voters as possible, having judges chosen instead by groups of elitist lawyers appointed by the governor or some other state official.⁴⁰ After being appointed, the judges only have to face the voters in periodic retention elections – a plan that, as noted above, amounts essentially to a lifetime appointment.⁴¹ Soros wants judges to be unaccountable to, and independent from citizens – much in the same way that federal judges in recent decades have also wrongly become independent and unaccountable. But not only did Soros suffer a setback with the Iowa judges being turned out, but in Nevada, the Soros-backed initiative on appointing rather than electing judges was overwhelmingly rejected by a 57% to 42% margin.⁴²

(By the way, other Soros-supported ballot initiatives that lost on Election Night included California’s plan to legalize marijuana, and its plan to keep redistricting in the hands of the extremely liberal Democrat state legislature rather than in the hands of a citizens’ commission.⁴³ Gratefully, several Soros-backed measures went down at the hands of the people.)

In addition to Soros’ judicial activities, another area in which he is heavily involved is his “Secretary of State Project,”⁴⁴ which is his effort “to elect Secretaries of State around the country willing to impose Democrat-friendly election laws in an attempt to tilt the playing field in their favor on Election Day.”⁴⁵ Soros clearly understands the axiom delivered long ago by Communist leader Joseph Stalin, who declared: “The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.”⁴⁶

Consider how Soros’ involvement with secretaries of states impacted the 2008 U. S. Senate race between Democrat Al Franken and Republican Norm Coleman. The Secretary of State who oversaw the recount was Mark Ritchie, a Soros-backed official. Ritchie was so overtly partisan during the recount that even national newspapers questioned the integrity of the recount process, noting that almost all of the voting “errors” that Ritchie “discovered” in the state went in Franken’s favor.⁴⁷ As the Wall Street Journal reported:

Mr. Franken’s gains so far are 2.5 times the corrections made for Barack Obama in the state, and nearly three times the gains for Democrats across Minnesota Congressional races. . . . Mr. Franken’s “new” votes equal more than all the changes for all the precincts in the entire state for the Presidential, Congressional and statehouse races combined.⁴⁸

Soros’ “Secretary of State Project” was undertaken to “tilt the playing field in the Democrats’ direction,” and Soros’ Mark Ritchie certainly did that.

Another example is Soros-backed Colorado Secretary of State Bernie Buescher. When the attempt was made to place a pro-life personhood initiative on the ballot this election, Buescher unilaterally changed the normal rules of engagement, actually shortening the normal time allotted to collect signatures for that measure, thus making it much more difficult to get it before the people.⁴⁹

It is clear why Soros has focused so much money on gaining the positions of secretaries of state (as well as of judges and ballot initiatives): they have significant impact in moving forward a secular progressive agenda with less interference from the people. Nevertheless, despite Soros’ efforts, 17 of the 26 secretaries of state up for election this year were won by Republicans;⁵⁰ and several Soros-backed candidates lost or were voted out of office.

Thankfully, at the level of state judges, secretaries of state, and state ballot initiatives, George Soros’ anti-American agenda was one of the biggest losers on Election Night!

Some Other Pro-Family Victories

The biggest winner on Election Night was definitely America’s conservative pro-family voter. And in addition to the numerous gains already mentioned (e.g., in the federal Congress, state legislatures, and ballot initiatives), there were also many other momentous pro-family victories that night.

For example, last year in 2009, Maine legislators passed and the governor signed a gay marriage law, but citizens objected and mounted a drive to place the issue on the ballot. The necessary signatures were gathered, and in November 2009, citizens vetoed the gay marriage law passed by the legislature. In this election, voters continued to make their voice heard on this issue, replacing 22 of the legislators who had voted for same-sex marriage last year with 22 who supported traditional marriage; they also elected a new governor who supports traditional marriage. With this change, traditional marriage in Maine is now safe for the foreseeable future.

Similarly, New Hampshire passed a gay marriage law in early 2010; but this election likewise removed dozens of legislators who had supported the law (recall that an amazing 134 seats changed hands), placing both the House and the Senate into the hands of conservative Republicans. Plans are currently underway to secure a vote on a constitutional amendment to permanently ban homosexual marriage.

In Minnesota, the new Republican controlled house and senate now ensure that a homosexual marriage initiative will not make it through that legislature.

In El Paso, Texas, city leaders had given medical benefits to gay partners of city employees, but voters rolled back that policy by a 55% to 45% margin.⁵¹

And because of the gains in Missouri, of the 34 members of the state senate, 29 are now pro-life; and of the 163 members of the state house, at least 126 are now pro-life, thus making Missouri a rock-solid, pro-life, veto-proof legislature.

— — — ◊ ◊ ◊ — — —Reviewing this year’s election results makes it seem as if citizens had taken their marching orders from President Ronald Reagan’s speech of March 8, 1985, in which he declared:

I said, “This is a wonderful time to be alive,” and I meant that. I meant that we’re lucky not to live in pale and timid times. We’ve been blessed with the opportunity to stand for something – for liberty and freedom and fairness. And these are things worth fighting for – worth devoting our lives to. And we have good reason to be hopeful and optimistic. We’ve made much progress already. So, let us go forth with good cheer and stout hearts – happy warriors out to seize back a country and a world to freedom.

Voters this year did indeed seem to be happy warriors, taking back their country to freedom.

But as voters, we have to remember that this election was not an event – it was only a single step in a lifelong process of involvement and civic engagement, requiring us not only to be involved in every election but also to always carry our conservative religious, moral, and constitutional values with us as we vote (and we must also stay actively involved between elections). To use President Reagan’s phrase, “we’ve made much progress”; but really we have only just begun. So let’s stay engaged and finish the job, no matter what happens or how long it takes.

God bless!

David Barton

Endnotes

¹ “The Four-Year Majority,” Wall Street Journal, November 3, 2010 (at: https://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704462704575590871101994524.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_RIGHTTopCarousel_1).

² “CNN National Exit Polls, Election 2010,” CNN.com (at: https://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2010/results/polls/#USH00p1) (accessed on November 19, 2010).

³ See “CNN National Exit Polls, Election 2006,“ CNN.com (at:
https://us.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/results/states/US/H/00/epolls.0.html);
“CNN National Exit Polls, Election 2008,” CNN.com (at:
https://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#USP00p1).

⁴ In 2010, 37% of Independents voted Democrat and 56% voted Republican. See “CNN National Exit Polls, Election 2010,” CNN.com (at: https://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2010/results/polls/#USH00p1). This was quite a reversal from previous elections. For example, in 2008, 52% of Independents voted Democrat and 44% voted Republican. See “CNN National Exit Polls, Election 2008,” CNN.com (at:
https://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#USP00p1). In 2006, 57% of Independents voted Democrat and 39% voted Republican. See “CNN National Exit Polls, Election 2006,” CNN.com (at:
https://us.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/results/states/US/H/00/epolls.0.html).

⁵ From the 2006 midterm elections to the 2010 elections, there was a 37 point swing in favor of the Republican Party; and from the 2008 to the 2010 elections, there was a 27 point swing in favor of the Republican Party. It was these Republican-voting independents who gave the winning margin to conservatives, represented especially by Republicans, in the 2010 elections. See “CNN National Exit Polls, Election 2010,” CNN.com (at: https://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2010/results/polls/#USH00p1); “CNN National Exit Polls, Election 2006,” CNN.com (at:
https://us.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/results/states/US/H/00/epolls.0.html). “CNN National Exit Polls, Election 2008,” CNN.com (at:

https://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#USP00p1).

⁶ Lydia Saad, “Political Ideology: “Conservative” Label Prevails in the South,” Gallup.com, August 14, 2009 (at: https://www.gallup.com/poll/122333/Political-Ideology-Conservative-Label-Prevails-South.aspx#2).

⁷ CNN National Exit Polls, Election 2010, CNN.com (at: https://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2010/results/polls/#USH00p1) (accessed on November 19, 2010).

⁸ CNN National Exit Polls, Election 2006, CNN.com
https://us.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/results/states/US/H/00/epolls.0.html, (accessed on November 19, 2010);
“CNN National Exit Polls, Election 2008,” CNN.com (at:
https://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#USP00p1) (accessed on November 19, 2010).

⁹ “CNN National Exit Polls, Election 2010,” CNN.com (at: https://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2010/results/polls/#USH00p1) (accessed on November 19, 2010).

¹⁰ Matthew Daly, “Voter turnout increases from last midterm in 2006,” WashingtonPost.com, November 3, 2010 (at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/03/AR2010110305169.html).

¹¹ “FFC National Survey,” FFCoalition.com, November 3, 2010 (at: https://www.ffcoalition.com/2010/11/03/ffc-national-survey/).

¹² “FFC National Survey,” FFCoalition.com, November 3, 2010 (at: https://www.ffcoalition.com/2010/11/03/ffc-national-survey/).

¹³ “CNN National Exit Polls, Election 2010,” CNN.com (at: https://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2010/results/polls/#USH00p1) (accessed on November 19, 2010).

¹⁴ “FFC National Survey,” Faith and Freedom Coalition, November 3, 2010 (at: https://www.ffcoalition.com/2010/11/03/ffc-national-survey/).

¹⁵ “FFC National Survey,” FFCoalition.com, November 3, 2010 (at: https://www.ffcoalition.com/2010/11/03/ffc-national-survey/).

¹⁶ Dave Andrusko, “Abortion, Abortion Funding, Public Opinion, and the Mid-Term Elections,” National Right to Life News, November 3, 2010 (at: https://www.nrlc.org/News_and_Views/Nov10/nv110310part2.html).

¹⁷ Thomas B. Edsall, “Voter Values Determine Political Affiliation,” Washington Post, March 26, 2001 (at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A56905-2001Mar25).

¹⁸ Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, “Religion in the 2010 Elections,” Pew Research Center Publications, November 3, 2010 (at: https://pewresearch.org/pubs/1791/2010-midterm-elections-exit-poll-religion-vote).

¹⁹ Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, “Religion in the 2010 Elections,” Pew Research Center Publications, November 3, 2010 (at: https://pewresearch.org/pubs/1791/2010-midterm-elections-exit-poll-religion-vote).

²⁰ Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, “Religion in the 2010 Elections,” Pew Research Center Publications, November 3, 2010 (at: https://pewresearch.org/pubs/1791/2010-midterm-elections-exit-poll-religion-vote).

²¹ Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, “Religion in the 2010 Elections,” Pew Research Center Publications, November 3, 2010 (at: https://pewresearch.org/pubs/1791/2010-midterm-elections-exit-poll-religion-vote).

²² Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, “Religion in the 2010 Elections,” Pew Research Center Publications, November 3, 2010 (at: https://pewresearch.org/pubs/1791/2010-midterm-elections-exit-poll-religion-vote).

²³ Dianne Edmondson, “Pro-Life Victories Are Sweet!” Republican National Coalition for Life E-Notes, November 5, 2010 ( at: https://www.rnclife.org/e-notes/2010/nov10/10-11-05.html).

²⁴ “Rep. Smith: New U.S. House Arguably Most Pro-Life Ever,” LifeSiteNews.com, November 5, 2010 (at: https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/nov/10110501.html).

²⁵ “Committee (C00414219) Summary Reports – 2009-2010 Cycle, DEMOCRATS FOR LIFE OF AMERICA INC PAC,” Federal Election Commission (at: https://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/cancomsrs/?_10+C00414219) (accessed on November 21, 2010); “Committees And Candidates Supported/Opposed, DEMOCRATS FOR LIFE OF AMERICA INC PAC,” Federal Election Commission (at: https://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/com_supopp/2009_C00414219) (accessed on November 21, 2010).

²⁶ “Committee (C00255406) Summary Reports – 2009-2010 Cycle, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COALITION FOR LIFE POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE,” Federal Election Commission (at: https://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/cancomsrs/?_10+C00255406) (accessed on November 21, 2010); “Committees And Candidates Supported/Opposed, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COALITION FOR LIFE POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE,” Federal Election Commission (at: https://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/com_supopp/2009_C00255406) (accessed on November 21, 2010). A letter from Dianne Edmondson, Executive Director of the Republican National Coalition for Life, confirmed that the RNCL PAC contributed to 60 candidates in this election cycle.

²⁷ Matthew Shaffer, “Blue Dog Dems: How Did They Fare?” National Review Online, November 3, 2010 (at: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/252400/blue-dog-dems-how-did-they-fare-matthew-shaffer).

²⁸ “Elected Candidates from Operation 10-in-10,” Vets for Freedom Political Action Committee (at: https://www.vetsforfreedom.org/pac/Operation10-in-10/) (accessed November 24, 2010).

²⁹ All eight freshmen veterans were endorsed by the VFF-PAC, whose mission is “to help Iraq & Afghanistan veterans – who believe in succeeding on the battlefield and in advancing strong U. S. national security policies – get elected to the United States Congress.” “VFF-PAC Mission,” Vets for Freedom Political Action Committee (at: https://www.vetsforfreedom.org/pac/about/) (accessed November 24, 2010).

³⁰ Pete Hegseth, “The New Victory Caucus in Congress,” National Review Online, November 4, 2010 (at: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/252476/new-victory-caucus-congress-pete-hegseth).

³¹ Greg Janetka, “Most states which saw legislative chambers switch to Republican were won by Obama in 2008,” Ballotpedia, November 4, 2010 (at: https://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Most_states_which_saw_legislative_chambers_switch_to_Republican_were_won_by_Obama_in_2008).

³² “Republicans Exceed Expectations in 2010 State Legislative Elections,” National Conference of State Legislatures, November 3, 2010 (at: https://ncsl.org/?tabid=21634); see also “Dem State Lawmakers Defecting To GOP Post-election,” CBSNews.com, November 29, 2010 (at: https://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/29/ap/national/main7100495.shtml).

³³ Huma Khan, “Will Redistricting Be a Bloodbath for Democrats?” ABC News, November 4, 2010 (at: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/republicans-historic-win-state-legislatures-vote-2010-election/story?id=12049040).

³⁴ David W. Neubauer and Stephen S. Meinhold, Judicial Process: Law, Courts, and Politics in the United States, Fifth Edition (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010), p. 187 (at: https://books.google.com/books?id=qG9K5q7Q9NQC).

³⁵ Dr. Richard G. Lee, “Behind the Fall of Iowa’s Judicial Gods,” DallasBlog.com, November 23, 2010 (at: https://www.dallasblog.com/201011231007382/guest-viewpoint/behind-the-fall-of-iowa-s-judicial-gods.html).

³⁶ Hollie McKay, “Liberal Hollywood Quiet for 2010 Midterm Elections, Experts Say,” Fox News, October 26, 2010 (at: https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2010/10/26/hollywood-celebrities-vote-elections-midterms-enthusiasm-gap/).

³⁷ “Guide to the George Soros Network,” Discover The Networks (at: https://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=589) (accessed on November 19, 2010); Glenn Beck, “Soros Exposed: Research on the Progressive Puppet Master,” GlennBeck.com, November 11, 2010 (at: https://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/47856/);
“Organizations Funded Directly by George Soros and his Open Society Institute,” Discover The Networks, July 2007 (at: https://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/orgsfundeddirectly%20.html).

³⁸ “Justice Hijacked,” A report published by American Justice Partnership, September 2010 (at:
https://www.americanjusticepartnership.com/hijacked.php).

³⁹ Bob Unruh, “Report: Soros spent millions to ‘undermine’ judiciary,” WorldNetDaily,
September 09, 2010 (at: https://www.wnd.com/?pageId=201409).

⁴⁰ Bob Unruh, “Exposed! George Soros’ scheme for ‘elite’ judiciary,” WorldNetDaily, October 30, 2010 (at: https://www.wnd.com/?pageId=220849).

⁴¹ David W. Neubauer and Stephen S. Meinhold, Judicial Process: Law, Courts, and Politics in the United States, Fifth Edition (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010), p. 187 (at: https://books.google.com/books?id=qG9K5q7Q9NQC).

⁴² Tom McClusky, “Altered States: Pro-family victories were seen everywhere,” The Cloakroom, the Blog of FRC Action, November 5, 2010 (at: https://www.thecloakroomblog.com/2010/11/altered-states-pro-life-victories-were-seen-everywhere/).

⁴³ “Soros-Sponsored Candidates, Ballot Initiatives Go Down on Election Day,” Fox News, November 4, 2010 (at: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/11/04/soros-sponsored-candidates-ballot-initiatives-election-day/).

⁴⁴ “‘Secretary of State Project’ Website” (at: https://www.secstateproject.org/).

⁴⁵ Mark Hemingway, “You know who was a big loser in this election? George Soros.” Washington Examiner, November 3, 2010 (at: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/you-know-who-was-a-big-loser-in-this-election-george-soros-106640398.html).

⁴⁶ Matthew Vadum, “Soros-supported ‘Secretary of State Project’ dealt blow in midterm elections,” The Daily Caller, November 9, 2010 (at: https://dailycaller.com/2010/11/09/soros-supported-secretary-of-state-project-dealt-blow-in-midterm-elections/).

⁴⁷ Ed Lasky, “The Soros Connection in the Minnesota Senate Race Vote Count,” American Thinker, November 17, 2008 (at: https://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/the_soros_connection_in_the_mi.html).

⁴⁸ “Mischief in Minnesota?” Review & Outlook, The Wall Street Journal, November 12, 2008 (at: https://online.wsj.com/article/SB122644940271419147.html).

⁴⁹ “Colorado deadline for personhood amendment moved up,” Ballotpedia, January 25, 2010 (at: https://www.ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Colorado_deadline_for_personhood_amendment_moved_up). There were so many complications created by Buescher, including the failure to communicate ID rules to notaries, that it resulted in a voter lawsuit against him over his actions on this initiative.

⁵⁰ Mark Hemingway, “You know who was a big loser in this election? George Soros.” Washington Examiner, November 3, 2010 (at: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/you-know-who-was-a-big-loser-in-this-election-george-soros-106640398.html).

⁵¹ Marty Schladen, “City ready to reverse partner benefits vote,” El Paso Times, November 16, 2010 (at: https://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_16613774).

Steps for Viewing Candidates Scorecards

Steps for Viewing Candidates Scorecards:1. Go to Project Vote Smart.

2. Type in the name of any candidate about whom you are seeking information.

3. When the page comes up for that candidate, click on the “Ratings” folder at the top of the page.

4. Dozens of scorecards on the candidates will appear, listed alphabetically by categories. To see where the candidate stands on abortion, go to the “Abortion” section at the top; scroll down to “Civil Liberties and Civil Rights” to see the ratings of groups like the ACLU and AU and other secular groups that oppose public religious expressions and the ratings of pro-homosexual groups such as the Human Rights Campaign and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force; scroll down to “Conservative” to see the ratings of many pro-family Christian groups, such as Christian Coalition, Concerned Women for America, Christian Action Network, scroll down to “Family and Children Issues” to find the ratings of Christian groups such as the Family Research Council; etc.

5. Realize that secular and religious, liberal and conservative groups are all mixed in each category; make sure that you know the philosophy of each group to understand whether its rating is good or bad for a Biblical viewpoint. (For example, National Right to Life is against abortion whereas Planned Parenthood, Pro-Choice America, and NARAL and for abortion. And pro-family groups that embrace Biblical values will include Family Research Council and Eagle Forum while Pro-homosexual marriage groups will include Human Rights Campaign and Gay-Lesbian-Straight Education Network (GLSEN). Therefore, from the “bad” groups, you want to see a low score on the candidate, while from the “good” groups, you want to see a high score.

*For additional voting resources, visit our Voter Resource page for voting guides,
instructions on registering to vote and much more.

David Barton & the ADL

On June 9th, 1994 the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) published unsubstantiated and scurrilous slanders against more than a dozen major Christian leaders including Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Dr. James Dobson, Dr. D. James Kennedy, Donald Wildmon, Phyllis Schlafly, Jay Sekulow, and David Barton.

The title of the now thoroughly discredited publication was “The Religious Right: The Assault on Tolerance and Pluralism in America.” Its contention, expressed in incendiary and intemperate language, was that adherence to Christian faith represented an “assault on tolerance and pluralism in America.”

David Cantor, the ADL researcher who wrote the report, and soon thereafter sought employment elsewhere, admitted to the New York Times that he never contacted any of the individuals or groups he slandered for their statements or reactions. Furthermore, he confessed that his report comprised almost entirely statements about the selected Christian leaders that had been written by their opponents. In a flagrant violation of journalistic ethics, he conducted no direct interviews of his subjects.

The abhorrence felt toward this baseless attack upon some of Judaism and Israel’s staunchest friends provoked a firestorm of criticism against the ADL in the mainstream Jewish community. A number of ADL leaders and board members made their objections widely known or resigned their positions in protest. This included well-respected leaders like Carl Pearlston, Phillip Aronoff, Fred Zeidman, and Houston attorney Gary Polland who later told New York magazine that “the liberal Jewish community is the enemy” and “the intellectual backbone of everything that’s wrong in this country.”

On August 2nd, responding to the ADL, the organization I had established and was privileged to lead, Toward Tradition, placed a large paid advertisement on a page of the New York Times. The headline read “Should Jews Fear The Religious Right?” and continued, “We are a group of Jews who wish to make it known that we reject the implications of this report and deplore its publication.” This national indictment of the ADL was signed by eighty-nine prominent Jewish leaders and made clear that most American Jews condemned the Anti-Defamation League for engaging in defamation of its own in its attack on leaders of the religious right.

In response to a vigorous protest by Pat Robertson, on August 3rd, the ADL’s National Director, Abraham Foxman wrote a letter to the evangelical leader in which he admitted to major inaccuracies and slanders in the report. Foxman’s letter also retracted the accusation found in the ADL report that in a 1980 staff meeting Robertson had referred to Jews as “spiritually deaf” and “spiritually blind.”

Syndicated columnist, Mona Charen, wrote, “The ADL has committed defamation. There is no other conclusion to be reached after reading its new report, The Religious Right: the Assault on Tolerance and Pluralism in America. It is sad that an organization with a proud history of fairness should have descended to this kind of character assassination and name calling.”

During the summer of 1994, Minnesota Senator, Rudy Boschwitz, who had been an honorary vice-chairman of the ADL wrote: “I always believed that the ADL considered diverse opinions permissible …. Indeed, they have just produced a scathing report about a group they maintain doesn’t allow such diversity. Could it be that our own ADL is itself assaulting pluralism and tolerance in America?”

The Jewish newspaper, The Forward, reported that William Kristol, son of Jewish intellectual Irving Kristol, and who was Vice President Dan Quayle’s chief of staff, said, “It is so shortsighted and self-destructive for a Jewish organization like the ADL to unjustly and gratuitously alienate Christian conservatives.” Kristol also said that the ADL is part of the Democratic Party’s strategy to “demonize religious conservatives.”

Herb Zweibon, head of Americans for a Safe Israel said the ADL report is a “slap in the face” to friends of Israel and indicated “that the ADL has veered off course and adopted a new ultra-liberal agenda that has nothing to do with ADL’s stated purposes.” He praised the Christian right for standing by Israel when others turned out to be “fair-weather friends.”

The September 1994 issue of Commentary magazine published by the American Jewish Committee carried a stinging denunciation of the ADL and its, by then, notorious report. It was written by Midge Decter the distinguished fellow at the Institute on Religion and Public Life.

A son-in-law of Midge Decter, Elliot Abrams who had served in both the Reagan and Bush administrations termed the ADL report “despicable.”

By the end of 1994, virtually the entire Jewish community had rejected the report as not only false and evil but also as stupid and a self-serving act of unconscionable ingratitude to some of the Jewish community’s greatest friends.

Originally created to combat the extensive anti-Semitism prevalent in the early twentieth century, ninety years later the ADL had become enormously successful with an annual budget of about fifty million dollars. Many have asked how the ADL could possibly have embarked upon this ill-advised adventure, defaming the friends and allies of the Jewish community and bringing embarrassment to itself. The answer offered by most Jewish commentators and by former members of the ADL is that by the 1990s, active anti-Semitism in America was largely extinct and the organization was becoming irrelevant.

In order to redesign its purpose and rediscover relevance, it repackaged itself as a national advocate of secular liberalism. It was chiefly responsible for popularizing the equation that Judaism equals liberalism, thus allowing the demonization of all anti-liberals (conservatives) as anti-Semites.

For this reason, the ADL declined to support then Jewish Dr. Laura Schlesinger in the attempts by the homosexual community to destroy her broadcasting career. The ADL also flouted Jewish tradition and values by taking public positions in favor of homosexual marriage and in favor of aggressive gun control, arguing against the conventional understanding of the 2nd Amendment. In the attack against the Boy Scouts of America mounted by the homosexual community, the ADL backed the homosexual plaintiffs all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In its nationwide partnership with Barnes and Noble in the program Hate Hurts the ADL endorsed the books Heather Has Two Mommies and Steve Has Two Daddies as suitable tools for teaching tolerance to young children. In short, as anti-Semitism declined in America, the ADL found a new reason to exist and a new reason to raise large sums of money for its headquarters and staff. (Abraham Foxman, national director of ADL earns annual compensation of about half a million dollars and was disgraced by his role in persuading President Bill Clinton to issue a pardon for tax fugitive Marc Rich, a major ADL contributor.)

In conclusion, few of prominence and respectability in the Jewish community today regard the ADL as a responsible voice for Judaism. Wags dismiss the ADL as the circumcised wing of the Democratic Party.

The reputations of all those maligned in the hateful 1994 report have suffered no setbacks and if anything, the Jewish community looks toward those named with appreciation and gratitude for their staunch defense of those values that have made the United States of America the most tranquil and prosperous haven Jews have experienced in the past two millennia.

As someone who has been a rabbi and Jewish community leader for several decades, the undersigned wishes personally to thank David Barton of Wallbuilders along with the other leaders defamed in that sixteen-year-old mistake for all they have done for Judeo-Christian values in America and to express his willingness to be contacted personally by anyone seeking further information on this shameful episode in the history of a once proud and valuable organization, the Anti-Defamation League.

Rabbi Daniel Lapin

The American Alliance of Jews and Christians.

President Obama’s Misguided Sense of Moral Equivalency

President Obama made headlines by comparing historic Christianity with modern radical Islam. Cautioning Christians, he warned:

And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. . . . So this is not unique to one group or one religion. ¹

The indignation over these remarks was prompt. Even HBO personality Bill Maher – an ardent secularist who has described himself as an atheist – affirmed the president’s error. He noted that to make such a criticism of Christianity requires going back to ancient centuries long ago, while the problem of radical Islam is a very real one right now.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal agreed, declaring: “The Medieval Christian threat is under control, Mr. President. Please deal with the Radical Islamic threat today.”

He added:

It was nice of the President to give us a history lesson at the Prayer breakfast. Today, however, the issue right in front of his nose, in the here and now, is the terrorism of Radical Islam, the assassination of journalists, the beheading and burning alive of captives. We will be happy to keep an eye out for runaway Christians, but it would be nice if he would face the reality of the situation today. ²

Pat Buchanan, national columnist and former presidential candidate, concurred:

He’s trying to give them all [i.e., radical Islamicists] equivalence to what happened in the 11th century to what’s happening today? It’s astonishing. . . . Can the president not see the reality of his own time that he’s got to retreat centuries to find what he thinks might be a moral equivalence? ³

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee went even further. Referring to the president’s recent comment that global warming and climate change is the greatest threat facing America today, Huckabee quipped: “…I believe that most of us would think that a beheading is a far greater threat to an American than a sunburn.” ⁴

Historians and political philosophers from across the centuries have long affirmed what the president refuses to acknowledge: a people’s dominant religion (or lack thereof) always exerts a significant influence in shaping their government and behavior. For example, Baron Charles Montesquieu, the most-popular political philosopher of the Founding Era, ⁵ undertook a perusal of a thousand years of world history to assess the impact of religion (especially Islam and Christianity) upon government. He concluded:

The Christian religion is a stranger to mere despotic power. . . . [Christian rulers] are more disposed to be directed by laws and more capable of perceiving that they cannot do whatever they please. While the Mahometan princes incessantly give or receive death, the religion of the Christians renders their princes . . . less cruel. ⁶

Many others reached the same finding – including famous American diplomat and U. S. President John Quincy Adams, who noted:

[The] law of nations as practiced among Christian nations . . . is founded upon the principle that the state of nature between men and between nations is a state of peace. But there was a Mohometan law of nations which considered the state of nature as a state of war. ⁷

A half-century later, historian Charles Galloway confirmed:

The Koran puts a premium upon war, offering the highest rewards to those who slay the greatest number of infidels. Mohammed’s cardinal principle (that the end justifies the means) consecrated every form of deception and lying, and encouraged every sort of persecution and violence. . . . The citizen is the slave of the state; he has no rights to be respected. Mohammedanism is an absolute despotism. ⁸

Half-a-century after Galloway, England’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill (who was also a noted historian) concurred:

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries [followers]! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement and the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, … but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science – the science against which it had vainly struggled – the civilization of modern Europe might fall as fell the civilization of ancient Rome. ⁹

Based on the obvious difference between the effects of Islam and Christianity upon a nation, Montesquieu concluded:

A moderate [non-violent, non-coercive] government is most agreeable to the Christian religion, and a despotic government to the Mahometan. . . . From the characters of the Christian and Mahometan religions, we ought without any further examination to embrace the one and reject the other; for it is much easier to prove that religion ought to humanize the manners of men than that any particular religion is true. ¹⁰

Significantly, if one tabulates the loss of lives occasioned by so-called Christian governments over the 2,000 year history of Christianity (such as the Inquisition, and even the Crusades – which were largely Christian attempts to repel militant Muslim jihadist invasions made into Judeo-Christian regions ¹¹), a very generous count of the total deaths that may be laid at the doorstep of Christianity is about five million. But the number of lives lost at the hands of secular, non-, and anti-Christian leaders and governments in just the 20th century alone is well over 100 million.

That includes the 1.5 million Christian Armenians massacred by Muslim Turks ¹² on just one occasion beginning in 1915; the 62 million killed by the secular Soviet Communists; the 35 million by the secular Chinese Communists; the 1.7 million by the secular Vietnamese Communists; the 1 million in the Polish Ethnic Cleansing; the 1 million in Yugoslavia; the 1.7 million in North Korea ¹³, and other non- or anti-Christian regimes.

And the number of deaths perpetrated by such leaders is enormous, including the murder of 42.7 million by Joseph Stalin; Mao Tse-tung, 37.8 million; Adolf Hitler, 20.9 million; Vladimir Lenin, 4 million; Tojo Hideki, 4 million; Pol Pot of the Khmer Rouge, 1 million; Yahya Khan, 1.5 million; ¹⁴ and so forth. Thus the number of lives lost at the hands of anti-Christians in just the past century is more than 20 times greater than those lost at the hands of Christians in the entire previous twenty centuries.

And since the President mentioned the Inquisition, in nearly four centuries of the brutal Spanish Inquisition, between 3,000 and 5,000 individuals were put to death ¹⁵ — an average of nine to fourteen deaths a year across that time. But last year alone (2014), Muslims executed 4,344 Christians, ¹⁶ thus killing as many in one year as Christians did in nearly four centuries. Additionally, when including just the publicized incidents, Muslims have killed some 11,334 innocents in terrorist attacks since 1980 ¹⁷, with thousands if not tens-of-thousands more dead as a result of the non-reported killings in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, and other countries as groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda, and Islamic State have attempted to take control in recent years.

And regarding the president’s specific allusion to Christianity and slavery, Jewish writer and national news editor Ben Shapiro correctly noted:

Christians obliterated slavery. Christians obliterated Jim Crow. Modern slavery is largely perpetrated by Muslims. Modern Jim Crow is certainly perpetrated by Muslims under Sharia law. ¹⁸

By the way, if the president’s defenders wish to invoke the American witch trials of 1692-1693 (which the president did not mention, but which American academics often do), then you can include 27 lost lives at the hands of Christians over that two-year span ¹⁹ (but you must also note that it was Christian ministers who took the lead in bringing those trials to a close ²⁰). Yet 27 American lives lost over two years is hardly an equivalent comparison to the 3,000 American lives lost on just one day in September 2001 at the hands of Muslim terrorists.

Sorry, Mr. President, but there is absolutely no moral equivalency with your comparison. You have failed to recognize the reality of history and its consistent lesson that the application and practice of the Bible and its teachings elevates a society and civilizes its institutions. By comparing modern Muslim terrorists with medieval Christians you have, once again, totally missed the mark.

Endnotes

¹ “Remarks by the President at National Prayer Breakfast,” The White House (February 5, 2015).
² “Governor Jindal to President Obama,” Office of the Governor: State of Louisiana (February 6, 2015).
³ “Obama: Christians Did Bad Things ‘in the Name of Christ’,”NewsMax (February 5, 2015).
⁴ “Obama Says US Not in ‘Religious War’ Against Radical Islamists; Sen. Graham Asserts the Opposite,” The Christian Post (February 2, 2015).
⁵ Donald S. Lutz, The Origins of American Constitutionalism (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 143.
⁶ Charles Secondat de Montesquieu, Spirit of Laws (London: J. Nourse and P. Vaillant, 1752), II:147.
⁷ John Quincy Adams, The Jubilee of the Constitution (New York: Samuel Colman, 1839), 73.
⁸ Charles B. Galloway, Christianity and the American Commonwealth (Nashville, TN: Publishing House Methodist Episcopal Church, 1898), 39-41.
⁹ Sir Winston Churchill, The River War (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1899), II:248-250.
¹⁰ Montesquieu, Spirit of Laws (1752), II:147.
¹¹ Paul Crawford, “Four Myths about the Crusades,” First Principles(April 21, 2011). See also, Bill Warner, “Jihad vs. Crusades,” Center for the Study of Political Islam (August 20, 2014).
¹² “Frequently Asked Questions,” Armenian Genocide Institute (accessed February 12, 2015).
¹³ R. J. Rummel, Death By Government (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1994), 4.
¹⁴ Rummel, Death By Government (1994), 8.
¹⁵ Llorente, Juan Antonio, The history of the inquisition of Spain, from the time of its establishment to the reign of Ferdinand VII (London, Printed for G. B. Whittaker, 1826), 14; Charles T. Gorham, The Spanish Inquisition (London : Watts & Co., 1916), 115; “Spanish Inquisition,” New World Encyclopedia (February 14, 2009).
¹⁶ “Persecution: Christian Deaths at Hands of Muslims Doubled in 2014, Study Warns It Will Only Get Worse,” The Gospel Herald Society (January 9, 2015).
¹⁷ “List of Islamic terrorist attacks,” Wikipedia, (February 4, 2015).
¹⁸ “Obama Rips Bible, Praises Koran,” Breitbart (February 6, 2015).
¹⁹ Of the 27, 14 women and 5 men were tried, found guilty and hanged; another man was tortured to death by crushing because he refused to cooperate with the court by not answering their questions. To persuade him to talk they took him to a field and put a board on him with rocks, they increased the number of rocks until he would cooperate but he continued to refuse and was crushed to death. He was therefore never convicted but is considered the 20th victim as he was on trial for being a wizard. And 7 individuals died in prison awaiting trial; one was a baby in prison with her mother, who was awaiting trial as a witch. “The Salem Witch Trials of 1692,” Salem Witch Museum, January 13, 2011 (accessed February 13,2015) per the museum’s Department of Education.
²⁰ Dictionary of American Biography, ed. Allen Johnson (New York: Charles Scribber’s Sons, 1929), s.v. “Increase Mather” and “Thomas Brattle.” See also Charles Wentworth Upham, Salem Witchcraft (New York: F. Ungar Pub. Co., 1959), 2:304-305; Mark Gribben, “Salem Witch Trials: Reason Returns,” Court TV: Crime Library (accessed on February 28, 2013); David D. Hall, Witch-Hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1991), 350, 354 fn25; Jonathan Kirsch, The Grand Inquisitor’s Manual (New York: HarperOne, 2008), 245.

Bob Barr Crosses the Line

Bob Barr Crosses the LineIn 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.

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.

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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:

Believe the Bible is God’s holy infallible Word
Preach and teach the Bible
Believe life is sacred
Believe marriage is only between one man and one woman
Encourage the congregation to vote Biblical values
Believe that prayer is key
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.

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