university of virginia – Warren Throckmorton

David Barton Removes Claim About Chaplains at the University of Virginia in New Edition of The Jefferson Lies

In the 2012 edition of The Jefferson Lies, David Barton claimed to debunk the notion that the University of Virginia (founded by Jefferson) had no chaplains. He took up this as one of his major points as evidence that Jefferson established UVA as a “transdenominational” college. See below from the first edition of The Jefferson Lies:

4. Did the University of Virginia Have Chaplains?
The modern claim that the University of Virginia had no chaplains is also easily disproved by original documents, including early newspaper ads that the university ran to recruit students from surround-ing areas. In the Washington newspaper the Globe, the Reverend Septimus Tuston (identified in the ad as the chaplain of the university and who later became the chaplain of the US House of Representatives and then the US Senate) discussed religious life at the school, reporting:
Barton, David (2013-02-15). The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson (Kindle Locations 1330-1335). WallBuilder Press. Kindle Edition.

Barton then cited a 1837 article from the Washington Globe. Jefferson died in 1826; he had nothing to do with chaplains at UVA. Perhaps anticipating this counterpoint to his argument, Barton crafted a narrative to try to explain why chaplains were not appointed in the early days of the school. However, what Barton does to James Madison (who took over when Jefferson died) demonstrates his bias. From the first edition of The Jefferson Lies, Barton selectively quoted Madison:

The University of Virginia did indeed have chaplains, albeit not in its first three years (the university opened for students in 1825). At the beginning, when the university was establishing its reputation as a transdenominational university, the school had no appointed chaplain for the same reason that there had been no clergyman as president and no single professor of divinity: an ordained clergyman in any of those three positions might send an incorrect signal that the university was aligned with a specific denomination. But by 1829, when the nondenominational reputation of the university had been fully established, President Madison (who became rector of the university after Jefferson’s death in 1826) announced “that [permanent] provision for religious instruction and observance among the students would be made by . . . services of clergymen.”
Barton, David (2013-02-15). The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson (Kindle Locations 1362-1369). WallBuilder Press. Kindle Edition.

This treatment of Madison completely changes Madison’s meaning. Actually these words from Madison comes from a letter he wrote to a fellow university trustee. Here is what Barton cited Madison as saying:

“that [permanent] provision for religious instruction and observance among the students would be made by…services of clergymen.”

However, Madison made no public announcement about UVA policy. Instead, Madison wrote those words in a May 1, 1828 letter to Chapman Johnson, one of the members of the university Board of Visitors. The actual quote depicts a completely different meaning than Barton implies. Here is the entire section of the letter, from which Barton lifts his quote. Barton leaves out the words from Madison which are required to understand the meaning. Another unwarranted change Barton makes is to add the word “permanent.” What Barton omitted is in bold print below:

I have indulged more particularly the hope, that provision for religious instruction and observances among the Students, would be made by themselves or their Parents & Guardians, each contributing to a fund to be applied, in remunerating the services of Clergymen, of denominations, corresponding with the preference of the contributors. Small contributions would suffice, and the arrangement would become more & more efficient & adequate, as the Students become more numerous; whilst being altogether voluntary, it would interfere neither with the characteristic peculiarity of the University, the consecrated principle of the law, nor the spirit of the Country.

Instead of securing chaplains, Madison hoped that the students and parents would handle the religious matters themselves voluntarily.
In the new edition of The Jefferson Lies, Barton continues to assert that Jefferson wanted to establish a “transdenominational” school but he leaves out the chaplains story. From the new edition:

4. DID JEFFERSON EXCLUDE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION FROM THE ACADEMIC PROGRAM?
As already noted, in 1818 Jefferson and the university Visitors publicly released their plan for the new school announcing that it would be transdenominational and making clear that religious instruction would be provided to all students. But Jefferson insisted on additional steps to ensure that religious training would occur at the university.
Barton, David (2015-12-22). The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson (Kindle Locations 1997-2000). WND Books. Kindle Edition.

I am surprised that Barton left this story out because in February 2015, Barton told the same story to Jack Hibbs, pastor of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills. He told this story as evidence that he is positively revising errors of academic historians. Watch:

There is no actual academic debate over the eventual presence of chaplains at UVA. Barton’s narrative seems designed to make him look like he is revising history in the direction of accuracy. However, when you know the rest of the story, it is easy to see who engaged in revision.

Cover of Getting Jefferson Right, used by permission

Barton has taken the position that Michael Coulter and I are mostly wrong in our critique of The Jefferson Lies. However, in this case, our accurate telling of the story apparently resulted in a significant alteration in his book. Instead of acknowledging this, Barton and World Net Daily are doubling down on the false narrative that the first edition was killed due to liberal attacks.

David Barton on Real Life with Jack Hibbs: Did the University of Virginia Have Chaplains?

David Barton was on Calvary Chapel pastor Jack Hibbs’ show Real Life with Jack Hibbs last night. Part one is available on You Tube with apparently more to come. They didn’t get into much until near the end of this segment. At about 22 minutes into the video, Barton accuses others of using history to support an agenda. Then he illustrates how he revises the work of PhDs in history with original sources by citing his involvement in a 2011 book with Daryl Cornett, William Henard, and John Sassi titled, Christian America? Perspectives on our Religious Heritage. In that book, Daryl Cornett said about the University of Virginia:

At the University of Virginia there was no Christian curriculum and the school had no chaplain.

Barton cited that claim to Jack Hibbs. Watch:

Barton claims to have refuted Cornett by going to an original source. While it is true that the University of Virginia eventually created a chaplain position, this was not the case from the beginning of the school. Originally, UVA did not employ chaplains. Barton doesn’t tell you that scholars are concerned with the founding of the school and no academic historian I am aware of disputes that the school eventually added chaplains.
Barton tells Jack Hibbs that the claim about chaplains and the UVA is made in connection to Jefferson (who died in 1826). In addition, Barton says he has a newspaper from “that era” which contains an ad by the chaplain of UVA. However, what Barton does not tell Jack Hibbs is that Jefferson was long dead before that newspaper article was published in 1837. By not placing the events in proper context, Barton misleads the audience to think the existence of chaplains at UVA came when Thomas Jefferson was alive. Not so.
The claim about chaplains at UVA is also in Barton’s pulled-from-print book The Jefferson Lies and was one Michael Coulter and I addressed in our book Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims about Our Third President. To fully address Barton’s claim and our response to it, I have taken that section from our work on the 2nd edition of the book and made it into a pdf file for review.
Barton’s claim to correct academic historians is stunning. From the pdf, let me take just a bit of what Barton does to James Madison. From Getting Jefferson Right:

Another aspect of the chaplain story bears comment. Barton takes portions of a letter written by James Madison and selectively portrays the quote as an announcement about chaplains. Here again is what Barton quotes [from The Jefferson Lies] from Madison:

By 1829, when the nondenominational reputation of the university had been fully established, James Madison (who became rector of the university after Jefferson’s death in 1826) announced “that [permanent] provision for religious instruction and observance among the students would be made by…services of clergymen.”

Rather than a public announcement or a policy change, Madison wrote those words in a May 1, 1828 letter to Chapman Johnson, one of the members of the university Board of Visitors. The actual quote depicts a completely different meaning than Barton implies. Here is the entire section of the letter, from which Barton lifts his quote. Barton leaves out the words from Madison which are required to understand the meaning. Another unwarranted change Barton makes is to add the word “permanent.” What Barton omitted is in italics below:

I have indulged more particularly the hope, that provision for religious instruction and observances among the Students, would be made by themselves or their Parents & Guardians, each contributing to a fund to be applied, in remunerating the services of Clergymen, of denominations, corresponding with the preference of the contributors. Small contributions would suffice, and the arrangement would become more & more efficient & adequate, as the Students become more numerous; whilst being altogether voluntary, it would interfere neither with the characteristic peculiarity of the University, the consecrated principle of the law, nor the spirit of the Country.

Contrary to Barton’s claim, Madison did not make an announcement in 1828 that permanent provision for religious worship would be made by clergymen. Instead, he told one of the university board members his hope that parents and students would voluntarily secure clergymen to provide religious services if so desired by the parents and students. Indeed, reading the entire letter, Madison’s view was that such instruction should come in this voluntary manner rather than having it come via the hiring of members of the clergy to teach.vii Such an arrangement would preserve the independence of the school from religious entanglements and disputes while respecting the free exercise of religion. Barton’s selective quotation of a primary source obscures Madison’s meaning and adds a revised one he apparently prefers.

Obviously, Barton is the one doing the revising. Barton said Madison wrote this:

“that [permanent] provision for religious instruction and observance among the students would be made by…services of clergymen.”

However, James Madison actually wrote this:

I have indulged more particularly the hope, that provision for religious instruction and observances among the Students, would be made by themselves or their Parents & Guardians, each contributing to a fund to be applied, in remunerating the services of Clergymen, of denominations, corresponding with the preference of the contributors. Small contributions would suffice, and the arrangement would become more & more efficient & adequate, as the Students become more numerous; whilst being altogether voluntary, it would interfere neither with the characteristic peculiarity of the University, the consecrated principle of the law, nor the spirit of the Country.

I hope it is obvious that the import of this is not about when UVA had chaplains. It is about credibility and what appears to be an intent to mislead people.
I have images of the Globe newspaper Barton referred to. Barton touts his original documents but I haven’t found anything yet that I can’t get via an historical data base. The letter was in an 1837 edition but wasn’t an ad to get students to come to UVA.
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To read the segment on chaplains at UVA, click Did the University of Virginia Have Chaplains?

David Barton Supports Texas Concealed Carry Gun Bill with Half the Story

The other half of the story undermines his position.
On his WallbuildersLive program today, David Barton got sidetracked from the topic of recess appointments and on to guns on campus. During a break in his discussion with Rick Green, a child read a citation from Thomas Jefferson where Jefferson said persons should be “at all times armed” (about 12:05 into the mp3). Barton got excited about those words which reminded him of something Jefferson had a hand in deciding regarding students at the University of Virginia.

Barton: I’m now intrigued with “at all times armed”
Green: Hey, we need to do a whole program on that.
Barton: Man!
Green: That’s a great example, you not only want to defend yourself from you know some attacker on the street, but a tyrannical government, hey just make sure everybody knows citizens are armed.
Barton: I gotta tell you, this happened just this week. We’re always looking through original documents, finding new things. It’s kind of like the Bible, the BIble describes itself as unsearchable to get to the bottom of all of the knowledge that’s there. Just this week, in looking at Jefferson and the University of Virginia, ’cause we’ve dealt with that in the book Jefferson Lies, going through that looking at what he did in teaching religion there. But we also found Jefferson, at the University of Virginia, required that every single student go through gun exercises at the University of Virginia. If you’re going to go to his university, you’re going to have to know how to use the gun, learn how to use the gun. You had to know how to be militia, they took you through military exercises as well. That’s kinda like an ROTC program; every single student. And I thought, you know, we’re talking about here in Texas, doing something like campus carry or something else. Wouldn’t that drive the liberals crazy to find that Jefferson required every student on campus to go through gun training and guns and use guns and etc.
Green: Man, that’s a great point. We gotta get that to our good friend Senator Birdwell, trying to get that done in Texas…
Barton: I did. I sent it to the Senate and House and said, ‘hey guys, here’s some ammunition for your “campus carry” bill.
Green: No pun intended, right? And now they can say, Jefferson wanted every kid on campus to be armed; we’re just asking for the ones that want to be.

I suspect what Barton is referring to is a section of the minutes of an October 24, 1824 meeting of the Visitors (trustees) of the University of Virginia where the Visitors decided the student code of conduct. In that section, there is a description of required military exercises:

A military instructor shall be provided at the expense of the University, to be appointed by the faculty, who shall attend on every Saturday from half after one o’clock to half after three p.m., and shall instruct the students in the manual exercise, in field evolutions, manoeuvres, and encampments. The students shall attend these exercises and shall be obedient to the military orders of their instructor. The roll shall be regularly called over by him at the hour of meeting, absences and insubordinations shall be noted and the list of the delinquents shall be delivered to the presiding member of the faculty, for the time being to be animadverted on by the faculty and such minor punishment imposed as each case shall in their discretion require. The school of modern languages shall be pretermitted on the days of actual military exercise.
Substitutes in the form of arms shall be provided by the proctor, at the expense of the University; they shall be distinguished by numbers delivered out, received in and deposited under the care and responsibility of the instructor in a proper depository to be furnished him; and all injuries to them by a student shall be repaired at the expense of such student. (450-451)

As a means of getting exercise, students were required to drill and learn military maneuvers. Note that the guns (perhaps not even loaded guns – I am checking the meaning of the phrase “substitutes in the form of arms”) were to be owned and kept by the school, and not by the student. That students were not to have guns on campus was made clear several pages earlier in the report.
In addition to guidelines on exercise, the subject of gun possession on campus was addressed by the Visitors, and not in a way that supports the idea that students should be allowed to carry concealed weapons on campus. The report states:

No student shall within the precincts of the University introduce, keep, or use any spirituous, or vinous liquors, keep or use weapons or arms of any kind, or gunpowder, keep a servant horse or dog, appear in school with a stick, or any weapon, nor while in school, be covered without permission of the professor, nor use tobacco by smoking or chewing on pain of any of the minor punishments at the discretion of the faculty or of the board of censors approved by the faculty. (p. 447)

A bit earlier in the minutes, the subject was first addressed:

No student shall admit any disturbing noises in his room, or make them anywhere within the precincts of the University, or fire a gun or pistol within the same on pain of such minor sentence as the faculty shall decree or approve. But the proper use of musical instruments shall be freely allowed in their rooms and in that appropriated for instruction in music. (p. 446)

Thus, the contention that being “at all times armed” had no exception is not accurate. The UVA code of conduct as drafted by Jefferson and his colleagues forbid guns on campus.
It will be interesting to see if Senator Birdwell uses Barton’s faulty information to support his bill, which, according to this report, would prohibit colleges from banning guns from campus when carried by licensed owners.
If such a bill had passed in Jefferson’s day, the UVA Visitors would have had to rewrite their rules.
In any event, the experiment in physical education via military drilling wasn’t a success. A UVA Alumni publication years later described the response and the demise of the program (see page 24).

The military company organized under this enactment continued in existence for several years. A uniform was prescribed and arms were provided. But the students, as a rule, detested the one and misused the other. Appearing out of uniform at unseasonable times and improper places was a frequent offence, and the admonitions and punishments inflicted on the offenders caused vehement complaints. The system at last became odious to all concerned, and Jefferson’s pet plan of securing the physical culture of his students was by solemn resolution abolished.

This passage gives a clue (although does not prove) that the guns were real guns. Note, however, the description of them being misused with the eventual outcome that the program was abolished. All told, Jefferson’s experiment at UVA isn’t a great foundation for talking points in favor of a concealed carry bill.