Tag: david Barton

David Barton Continues the Whitewash of Jefferson as Slave Owner on the Bill Martinez Show

In prior posts, I have demonstrated that Thomas Jefferson was allowed by Virginia law to emancipate his slaves. Barton says he couldn’t do it, but we demonstrate in Getting Jefferson Right that Barton omitted from The Jefferson Lies the citation to Virginia law that proves Jefferson could have done so.

In a June 14 podcast of The Bill Martinez radio show, Barton compounds the problem by distorting the situation even more. About Jefferson and his slaves, Barton tells Martinez starting at 11:10 –

…he [Jefferson] inherited 187 slaves when he was back at 13 years old. Guess what? Virginia state law makes it illegal to free your slaves, period. So Jefferson  has 187 slaves he’s inherited, he cannot free them. Now George Washington found a loophole and freed his slaves on his death and the legislature said, ‘would you look at that, we missed that’ and they came back and fixed the loophole so you could not free your slaves on your death. So a lot of Thomas Jefferson’s neighbors moved out of Virginia, took their slaves with them, cause they wanted to free slaves and you couldn’t do it in Virginia, and Jefferson choose not to leave Virginia, so he stayed with family, he stayed there. What he did was he had these slaves working for, he paid them, if they caught fish, if they hunted game, he paid them, which is one of the reasons he died broke. Find me another slave owner who paid slaves.

Nearly everything said there is wrong. Jefferson inherited 20 slaves at age 14 when his father died. He acquired the remainder of his slaves via inheritance from his father-in-law and additional purchases and births throughout the remainder of his life. By 1822, Jefferson had 267 slaves. We have all the details in Getting Jefferson Right.

The loophole Barton refers to is the 1782 law on manumission which allowed owners to free slaves while the owner was alive and at death. As we have pointed out, Barton omitted from The Jefferson Lies the section which allowed owners to free slaves, but on the Martinez show, he says the rest of the law was a “loophole.” The Virginia legislature knew what was in the law, and they encountered many petitions from slave owners to revoke the law over the years it was in effect. However, the law was used by owners like George Washington at death and Robert Carter while alive to free their slaves. Even in 1806 when the law was tightened, emancipation was still possible. However, freed slaves were required to leave the state within a year after their freedom. With that restriction, some slaves preferred to remain near family rather than become emancipated.

Barton says Jefferson was broke because he paid his slaves. I just returned from Monticello and agree with the many historians who point out that Jefferson’s lifestyle was most likely the reason he was chronically in debt. Jefferson bought and sold slaves during the period of time when he could have freed them. While he was a kinder master than many, he certainly viewed his slaves as property.

Rather than expose a myth, Barton elaborated one that he first told in his book.

Did we parrot our professors to write Getting Jefferson Right?

Yesterday, on his Wallbuilder’s radio show, David Barton took another swipe at Getting Jefferson Right. More precisely, he said:

The book we recently did on the Jefferson Lies, there’s two professors who came out with a book rebutting it before I’d even released the book! We don’t have to read this stuff, we know it all false.

I know of no other book by two professors which rebuts The Jefferson Lies, so I am pretty sure he is referring to our book. As RightWingWatch blogger Kyle Mantyla points out in his write up of Barton’s show, we announced the May 1st release of our book on May 3rd. Barton’s book was officially released on April 10, 2012.

Stranger still is Barton’s contention that we (including other Christians who have critiques Barton’s writing) are all parroting our secular professors. RightWingWatch has the audio, but here is the relevant portion:

…what’s happened is all these secular guys have been training students that were Christians, but now these Christian kids have been trained with a secular philosophy, they’ve become our professors and they’re just parroting what they heard. It’s not that they went back and check for themselves, they just assumed that their professors were right- they really like their professors, they were nice guys and they were really educated and had three Ph.Ds and they told me all the Founders were atheists. And so now you’ve to Christians repeating exactly what they’ve been taught rather than what truth and what history actually is.

In my case, I took undergraduate history from professors at Cedarville University, a pretty conservative Baptist school. None of my professors there told me that the founders were atheists. Beyond that, I don’t remember much of what they taught, except that the founders were a pretty diverse bunch. In my psychology and counseling graduate training, I don’t think I ever heard anything about the founders.

Mike Coulter is a graduate of Grove City College with his graduate work from the University of Dallas, a pretty conservative Catholic school. We both teach at GCC which is pretty well established as a conservative school, not known for parroting a liberal position.

Mr. Barton, that dog won’t hunt.

 

 

Fired Alabama Public Television CEO May Sue Over Dismissal

Co-author of Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims about Our Third President, Michael Coulter, was interviewed for this Current.org article which goes in depth about the firing of Alabama public TV executives. One fired executive suggested that the firings related to refusal to air David Barton’s DVD series about the founding era. The current APTV board says the firings were unrelated to disagreements over programming. After reading the article, I think there is room for skepticism about that denial.

Please read the entire piece, but here is some of the money:

Pizzato [fired CEO] asked a group of APT staff members to watch the Barton videos and give him feedback in April, according to Howland, who participated in the review process. The programs “talked about how our government forefathers were very religious men,” Howland said, “how the country was founded on religious principles and how we need to go back to that.” The content “was very much advocating that position.”

Pizzato and his staff had “grave concerns” that the Barton content was inappropriate for public broadcasting due to its religious nature, Howland said.

Pizzato also sought advice from the station’s attorney in Washington, D.C. Todd Gray of Dow Lohnes confirmed he spoke with Pizzato about the Barton programs but he declined further comment.

In a brief interview with Current, Pizzato declined to discuss the programs or describe how he responded to the commission’s request that APT broadcast the Barton videos.

But minutes of the June 12 meeting, which have not yet been formally approved by the commission, reveal that he proposed a different set of programs for broadcast. Pizzato unveiled a new show, In the Public Interest, which would “tackle issues that have been of some concern to the Commission.” Pizzato also offered to run a 1992 documentary on creationism, Voices for Creation. Creationism also was a potential topic on In the Public Interest,Pizzato told commissioners.

Soon after, the minutes say, commissioners went into executive session to discuss Pizzato’s “general reputation, character and job performance.” About an hour later they returned to announce that they had voted to oust Pizzato and Howland.

According to the article, Pizzato appears to be preparing a suit against the Alabama PTV board. Discovery will be intriguing if it gets that far.

 

Did we refer to original sources in Getting Jefferson Right?

Of course we did. I have referred to the original table of texts used by Jefferson on this blog to point out where David Barton incorrectly added some miracles to his account of the Jefferson Bible. They are also in Getting Jefferson Right.

I pointed out here and we provided in the book the subscriber’s lists proving that Jefferson was not one of a few founders who financed the first hot-pressed Bible in the United States. He subscribed to it, as did over 1200 other people.

We quote the entire 1782 Virginia law on manumission; Barton only quotes part of it.

However, Barton yesterday told a radio host in Texas (Not Too Late Show – Listen at about 28:00 into the podcast or click the link below) that a couple of professors from Messiah College (guess he got us confused with John Fea) did a point by point refutation of The Jefferson Lies, but then said we only quoted other professors and did not refer to the original sources.

Listen to the 39 second portion by clicking the link: NotTooLate.

So yes, Mr. Barton, we did refer to the primary sources, and no, we did not just quote other experts.

In case, you want to comment on the episode, Not Too Late’s Facebook page is here: https://www.facebook.com/NotTooLateShow

Did Alabama Public Television fire executives over David Barton’s videos?

Maybe.

Two executives, Allan Pizzato and Pauline Howard, were fired with no reason given on Tuesday. One of those fired gave no specific reason but another provided a hypothesis:

Howland, deputy director and chief financial officer, described the firings in an interview with Current and said she was “baffled” by the dismissals. But she also recalled how Pizzato had asked staff in April for advice about a series of videos that AETC commissioners wanted APT to air.

The videos featured David Barton, an evangelical minister and conservative activist whose publications and media appearances promote his theories about the religious intentions of America’s founders. He frequently appears on political commentary programs hosted by conservative Glenn Beck.

The American Heritage Series, a 10-part DVD series offered by Barton’s Texas-based organization WallBuilders LLC, “presents America’s forgotten history and heroes, emphasizing the moral, religious and constitutional foundation on which America was built.” Christian broadcast networks Cornerstone Television and Trinity Broadcasting Networks air the series, according to the website.

No word from AL PT if they will now air the videos, but I suspect many will be watching to see if they do. The DVD series is where Barton claims that Jefferson founded the Virginia Bible Society along with many claims that just don’t stand up to scrutiny.

Ht – Rob Boston.