Category: david barton

Upon Hearing of David Barton's New Television Venture…

Twitter said:


foundationsfreeTBNHere is the press release for Barton’s new TBN dramatization.
Oh and here’s the trailer:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfUvhqezBtE[/youtube]

Dear Fred Clark: Thanks But I Think John Fea and I Are in Good Shape

Fellow Patheos blogger Fred Clark (Slacktivist) is worried for Messiah College prof John Fea and me. He says:

But I’m worried for both of them. Specifically, I’m worried because this is an election year and that means that the ever-shifting goalposts of the white evangelical tribal gatekeepers may well shift between now and November. Depending on the outcome of the upcoming Republican presidential primary races, the bounds of theological acceptability could shift in such a way that both of these fine professors may end up on the outside looking in.

I like Fred and appreciate his blog so his post deserves attention and I encourage you to read it. I appreciate his kind words and positive assessment of my work here.
He’s worried because Ted Cruz is doing well in the polls. Cruz is supported in no small way by David Barton. Barton appears to be Cruz’s evangelical endorsement broker and runs one of Cruz’s Super PACs. Both John and I have written in honest terms about Barton’s revisions of American history as well as his problems with more current events (e.g., Barton’s claim that Obama’s administration has not prosecuted child porn).
Fred thinks we may be in some jeopardy since we both teach at conservative Christian schools. I sincerely appreciate his concern. In a day when Wheaton College is moving against a tenured professor for her religious beliefs, I guess it looks like anything can happen.

SlacktivistLogo
From http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist

Fea thinks he is ok, and I suspect he is right. I feel pretty confident that I am in good shape as well. I am not a stranger to efforts to silence me by pressuring my employer, it has happened on more than one occasion before, coming from both the far right and the left. Grove City College’s leadership has leaned on academic freedom as a value and I keep on writing. While I take nothing for granted, I have appreciated GCC’s stance on these matters through the years.
Leaving aside our employers, I think Clark sees something real when he discusses “the ever-shifting goalposts of the white evangelical tribal gatekeepers.” A Cruz win would shift the party dramatically toward the Christian dominionist view of the world. Although I consider myself generally conservative, many in the far right consider me to be a moderate. I honestly think Ronald Reagan would be considered a moderate in today’s GOP.
Having said that, I think John and I are fine. I have already gone on record as saying Cruz isn’t a good choice for the GOP. I will say that even if he turns out to be the GOP’s choice.
And besides, if something does happen and I have to start another life, Clark says I have potential to make a switch:

Throckmorton can be a tenacious pitbull when he sniffs out a story. Check out his ongoing series examining financial irregularities at the mission agency Gospel for Asia — it’s an impressive, dogged pursuit of answers to important questions. In another life, Throckmorton would have made a fearsome investigative journalist.

I could start by investigating why Ted Cruz appeared at an event coordinated by his Super PAC, especially when the event seemed designed to collect and schedule candidate endorsements.
 

David Barton Tells Listeners Virginia Law Kept Slave Owners from Emancipating Slaves; Admits it Happened in New Edition of The Jefferson Lies

Yesterday, David Barton said again that Virginia law did not allow slave owners to free their slaves. He usually tries to make that case in relationship to Thomas Jefferson, but yesterday on his Wallbuilders’ program, he said George Mason could not free his slaves because of Virginia law.
At about 37 seconds into this clip from the program, Barton says Mason didn’t free his slaves “because in Virginia it was illegal for guys like him to release their own slaves.” Listen:

I have debunked this repeatedly (here, here, here, here, here) but it is worth pointing out that Barton tries to have it both ways in the new edition of his book, The Jefferson Lies. He says Michael Coulter and I are wrong about Virginia law but then he indirectly acknowledges we are correct by citing the case of Virginia plantation owner Robert Carter who began a process of manumitting his 452 slaves in 1791. In the second edition of The Jefferson Lies, Barton invokes Robert Carter’s act to free his slaves.

Perhaps the case of Robert Carter best demonstrates the overall complexity of the Virginia emancipation process. Carter, whose wealth was considerable and who had as many as 500 slaves, emancipated them all in 1791. Yet, due to the difficulties of his executor process, and the intricacies of Virginia slave laws, sixty years later in 1852 (and long after Carter’s death), his heirs were still working to free his slaves as per his original directive. When it came to emancipation, Virginia law was definitely convoluted and restrictive.
Barton, David (2015-12-22). The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson (Kindle Locations 588-592). WND Books. Kindle Edition.

In the new edition, he attacks me for being wrong about Virginia slave laws, but in another place he acknowledges that Virginia law allowed manumission. When discussing Virginian plantation owner Robert Carter, Barton acknowledged that Carter started the process of emancipation for his slaves in 1791. Some slaves were freed immediately, minor slaves were freed gradually as they attained adult status. Yesterday, however, he said Virginia prohibited “guys like” Mason from freeing his slaves.
Simply put, Barton originally claimed Virginia law did not allow Jefferson to free his slaves. He has said before and said again yesterday that Virginia law did not allow “guys like” George Mason to free his slaves. Mason lived until 1791 which was nine years after Virginia’s 1782 law allowing private manumissions. It might have been a hardship for Mason to do so but Virginia law did not make it illegal.
We demonstrated in Getting Jefferson Right that not only did Virginia law allow it for a period of time, some slave owners who were contemporaries of Jefferson and Mason did indeed free some or all of their slaves.  Barton even refers to one of our illustrations of a slave owner, Robert Carter III, who used the 1782 law to free his slaves legally but he still can’t admit that he misled his readers and yesterday his listeners.

A Challenge to WND and David Barton on Thomas Jefferson and Slavery

Late last night, World Net Daily published another “exclusive” promo piece for David Barton’s The Jefferson Lies. This one focuses on Thomas Jefferson’s relationship to his slaves and repeats Barton’s overconfident denial that Jefferson fathered any of Sally Heming’s children. We did not take up that claim in Getting Jefferson Right because there is no way to know for sure what happened.
However, the unknown author of the WND article then comes after me (and my co-author Michael Coulter without naming him). In his first edition, Barton selectively omitted a section of Virginia’s 1782 law on manumission which allowed slave owners to free slaves by going to the county court house with a “deed of manumission.” He claimed that Virginia law did not allow emancipation. Citing Barton, the WND article doubles down on that claim:

“Numerous historians of previous generations who sought for truth rather than political correctness affirm that the laws of Virginia did indeed forbid Jefferson from doing what he wanted to do throughout his long life: free his own slaves.”

Mr.Barton please name some of those “numerous historians.”
In fact, because of the 1782 law on manumission, many slaves were freed by their owners.
Barton continues:

But Barton says the situation was far more complicated, and takes on Throckmorton’s claim directly in a special section of the new edition. He argues Throckmorton seems to believe only one law governed emancipation in Virginia. In fact, he argues, there were many.

In Getting Jefferson Right, we deal with several relevant Virginia laws, not just one as Barton claims.

Barton asserts:

Because Jefferson suffered severe difficulties throughout his life, Barton says he would be exposing his slaves to possible re-enslavement if he tried to set them free.

Barton observed: “Particularly relevant to Jefferson’s case was a law requiring the economic bonding of certain emancipated slaves… Jefferson… was unable to meet the added financial requirements of that emancipation law.”

We never claimed that it would have been easy for Jefferson to free all of his slaves. We countered Barton’s assertion that Jefferson was not allowed to do so by Virginia law. In fact, there were some restrictions on emancipation for some slaves. On that point, the 1782 Virginia law enumerated the conditions (scroll down to page 39):

 II. Provided always, and be it further enacted, That all slaves so set free, not being in the judgment of the court, of sound mind and body, or being above the age of forty-five years, or being males under the age of twenty-one, or females under the age of eighteen years, shall respectively be supported and maintained by the person so liberating them, or by his or her estate; and upon neglect or refusal so to do, the court of the county where such neglect or refusal may be, is hereby empowered and required, upon application to them made, to order the sheriff to distrain and sell so much of the person’s estate as shall be sufficient for that purpose.

Males and females above 45, males under 21, females under 18 and disabled slaves required financial support. However, not all of Jefferson’s slaves fell in those categories. This provision of Virginia law did not prohibit emancipation. Furthermore, during this period of time, Jefferson voluntarily sold over 50 of his slaves to reduce debts, moving them from one condition of enslavement to another.

Barton and WND continue:

Another law applicable to Jefferson also stated, “All slaves so emancipated shall be liable to be taken… to satisfy any debt contracted by the person emancipating them.”

As Jefferson was, in today’s standards, millions of dollars in debt when he died, freeing the slaves might simply lead to them being taken by someone else.

The clause Barton refers to was passed as a part of a 1792 law. In full, the clause provided:

That all slaves so emancipated shall be liable to be taken by execution to satisfy any debt contracted by the person emancipating them, before such emancipation is made. (emphasis added)

Barton omitted the phrase in bold print. After 1792, a slave freed after an owner contracted a debt could be taken by authorities and sold back into slavery with the proceeds going to satisfy the pre-existing debt. However, if a slave was emancipated and then the slave owner went into debt, the slave could not be taken.

Two points should be obvious. First, this clause is a restriction but not a prohibition. Second, there was a ten year window when the 1792 restriction did not apply.

A third point isn’t as obvious because Barton doesn’t address what Thomas Jefferson did while some Virginia slave owners were manumitting their slaves. Jefferson continued to buy and sell slaves during this period. Jefferson even hired slave catchers to track down runaway slaves.

A Challenge to WND

Let me issue a challenge to Barton and World Net Daily: Allow me space to rebut these promo pieces. Stop misrepresenting my arguments and the evidence and link to this post. Right now, your behavior is a right wing version of the liberal bias you assert is true of the mainstream media. If you are so sure you are correct, then have the courage to back it up.

No, David Barton, I Did Not Recruit Jay Richards

Cover of Getting Jefferson Right, used by permission
Cover of Getting Jefferson Right, used by permission

Although World Net Daily lists January 12 as the release date for the second edition of David Barton’s book The Jefferson Lies, it is now available on Amazon. I ordered the Kindle version and found a serious flaw within minutes of reading Barton’s response to our book Getting Jefferson Right.

Barton claims that I recruited Jay Richards to in turn recruit Christian historians to begin a campaign against Barton. That claim is not true. After reading Getting Jefferson Right, Richards approached me via Facebook message on May 14, 2012. Before that message, I did not know Richards. Here is what Barton says in The Jefferson Lies:

Throckmorton admitted that he had recruited scholars for this purpose, led by Jay Richards, a philosopher/theologian with the Discovery Institute, who, according to media outlets had asked “10 conservative Christian professors to assess Barton’s work.” Although he reported that their responses were “negative,” several of them actually refused to participate in his quest.
Barton, David (2015-12-22). The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson (Kindle Locations 133-137). WND Books. Kindle Edition.

Later in the book’s preface, Barton claims:

In fact, when Jay Richards (the speaker from the Discovery Institute who was enlisted by Throckmorton to find and recruit critics to attack my works) confronted me about what he claimed were errors in The Jefferson Lies, I repeatedly asked him if he had read the book. He refused to answer. But it was clear from his mischaracterization of my arguments that he had not read it (or at least all of it). For instance, he repeatedly asserted that I said that Jefferson was an evangelical, but as is clear in the chapter on Jefferson’s faith, I do not make that claim.

Barton, David (2015-12-22). The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson (Kindle Locations 613-617). WND Books. Kindle Edition.

In fact, Richards wrote to Michael Coulter and me on May 14, 2012 via the Getting Jefferson Right Facebook page. He thanked us for the book and offered to contact Christian journalists on our behalf. Then, on May 23, Richards wrote to say that he had spoken to two of Barton’s supporters about the historical problems in Barton’s book (see below for the identity of one of them which was revealed by Barton). The next day, Richards alerted me that he had been “commissioned” (it was unclear who did the commissioning, but it wasn’t me) to find six Christian historians to read Barton’s book, our book, and Barton’s DVD lecture America’s Godly Heritage. Richards then approached six scholars who then agreed to provide feedback. Richards did not tell me the identity of the scholars and I still don’t know all of them. The number providing some level of feedback eventually grew to ten.

According to Richards, Barton was also going to be informed that this process was happening.

Barton’s attempt to make me the one pulling all the strings is false and I think he knows it. I say this because on his Wallbuilders’ website, he tells the story differently. About one of the scholars recruited by Richards — The Masters’ College history professor Gregg Frazer — Barton says (see footnote 2):

From a hostile written review of David Barton and WallBuilders written by Gregg Frazer at the request of Jay Richards. That written critique was subsequently passed on to David Barton on August 13, 2012, by the Rev. James Robison, to whom Jay Richards had distributed it.

From Barton, we learn that Gregg Frazer was one of the historians recruited by Richards. Richards then gave the critique to Robison (co-author with Richards of the book Indivisible). Then, if Barton’s timing is correct, Robison gave Frazer’s critique to Barton on August 13, 2012, a few days after Thomas Nelson’s move to pull The Jefferson Lies from the shelves became public.

Not only is Barton’s claim about me false, the narrative he constructs appears to be designed to obscure what really happened. The Jefferson Lies was not doomed by political correctness, but rather by the deficiencies identified by conservative critics and reviewers. Conservative scholar Jay Richards came to us due to the merits of our work, not because we recruited him. In turn, Richards did not act alone in the effort to bring peer review to The Jefferson Lies. 

For some reason, those who commissioned Richards apparently did not follow through in a vigorous manner on the information they received. This is a part of the story as yet untold although the removal of The Jefferson Lies from publication was influenced by Richards’ efforts.

This misrepresentation of recent history is just the first of many issues from the second edition of The Jefferson Lies I will explore in the coming months.