The Emancipation Memorial in Washington, D.C. was paid for with donations from former slaves. Frederick Douglass and Ulysses S. Grant were among those who attended its dedication in 1876.
Through the study of world history, we learn that freedom is the exception to the human experience, not the rule. Not so in the United States. When Thomas Paine wrote in 1776 in his pamphlet Common Sense that “We have it in our power to begin the world over again,” even he probably could not have anticipated the positive impact the United States would have on the world. By limiting government and promoting the liberty and dignity of the individual, our Founding Fathers changed the course of human history.
Every American needs to learn and understand our history. It is vital in maintaining us as a good and noble nation. Without an understanding of history and basic civics, we risk losing younger generations to an embrace of a value system much different than the one promoted by virtually every other generation of Americans. This will have negative consequences far and wide.
How should American history be taught? Like all history, choices about what to emphasize or leave out have to be made. Our founding generation and founding documents, especially the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, our growth as a country, our struggle to end slavery and achieve civil rights for all, a sharing of the stories of the heroes who fought and died against tyranny all over the world, and the brilliant achievements and advances created by the unrestrained human mind are just some of the topics that every American should have a basic understanding of.
This does not mean that only the best aspects of American history should be taught and some of the worst should be ignored. Nor should American history be taught from an alternative viewpoint where only the very worst of the American experience is discussed. American history should be taught how historian and scholar Wilfred M. McClay describes it in his book Land of Hope, as an examination of “the good, the bad and the ugly.”
The Good
The United States of America was founded in 1776 with a vote for independence and the writing of the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” With these words, America established a new set of values that changed the world.
The Declaration of Independence needed a government that supported its ideals. In the summer of 1787, our Constitutional Framers went to work to create a government with enumerated powers that put the bulk of the power in the hands of “We the People.” To accomplish this, the Constitution created three branches of government, the legislative, the executive, and the judiciary, each with its own powers, that acted as a system of checks and balances against one another. As James Madison wrote in Federalist 51, “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
Opponents of the ratification of the Constitution were not concerned about whether the Constitution established too little government but rather if there was too much. “Anti-Federalists,” as they were called, believed the proposed structure put too much power in the federal government and not enough in local and state governments. They wanted guarantees that individuals would retain certain rights.
An agreement was reached that a Bill of Rights would be added to the Constitution in exchange for support from certain states. This is what happened. The Bill of Rights, or the first ten amendments to the Constitution, put in writing that each American has certain rights that the government could not take away. Among these are the right to free speech, freedom of religion, to petition the government, of assembly, of a free press, to bear arms, to a jury trial, a right against unreasonable search and seizure, and due process and equality before the law among others. The Founders also added a mechanism for the Constitution to be amended if the people see fit.
Our Founders also understood the importance of religion and religious liberty. They believed our rights come from God and that we are all equal before God. The Founders believed in morality based on Judeo-Christian or Bible-based principles. People’s ability to govern themselves becomes compromised without a solid moral foundation. As John Adams put it, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” This is why religious freedom and expression have always been cherished and important aspects of American society.
The United States system of government and capitalist system unleashed the individual genius of the human race to a greater extent than ever before. The results have been extraordinary. It is not an accident that technology has exploded more in the last 150 years than the rest of the time humans have been on Earth. This is the result of free people. It is not an accident that those born of humble beginnings can achieve great riches in the United States. This is often not the case in most countries around the world, where only political connections and corruption change individual circumstances.
It is also not an accident that the values of the United States have brought those of every race, color, and creed to our shores. Many have risked their lives to come here. As is often the case, only those who have lived under a form of tyranny can truly appreciate the opportunities offered in the United States. Throughout history, especially beginning in the twentieth century, Americans stood up against tyranny at home and around the world.
The struggle and sacrifices of so many generations of Americans to maintain freedom here and abroad were taught from one generation to the next. Our Founding Fathers were treated with reverence, understanding that, like all of us, they weren’t perfect and had to function within the challenges of the time in which they lived. American heroes are plentiful. Some are well-known, but most are anonymous. This created a proud and patriotic nation. One grounded in liberty and appreciation for being Americans.
The Bad
The United States was founded during a time when slavery existed all over the planet. As such, many of our Founding Fathers were slaveholders. There was strong support among our founding generation to put slavery on the path to extinction. With the writing of the words, “all men are created equal,” it was only a matter of time before slavery would see its end. The Founding Fathers attempted to set up a system of government that they believed would eventually abolish slavery in the United States. It took many generations and, eventually, a civil war that killed 620,000 Americans to fulfill this vision. Our country paid a heavy price to rid ourselves of the evil of slavery.
Segregation followed slavery in some parts of the country, specifically the former states that made up the Confederacy. Again, multiple generations of Americans fought to right this wrong. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Christian churches of the South led the struggle for civil rights. Out of this movement, a Georgia pastor named Martin Luther King, Jr. rose to become the movement’s leading voice. In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed in a bipartisan manner by Congress, a watershed moment for our country.
As America expanded west throughout the nineteenth century, armed conflicts with Native Americans often became brutal and innocents were killed. The forced relocation of thousands of primarily Cherokee Indians from Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee to Oklahoma in 1838-1839, known as the “Trail of Tears,” was a great injustice to the Cherokee Nation and all Native Americans.
While these are some of the worst aspects of American history, Americans were traditionally taught to learn from these experiences and about the many Americans who fought to end these wrongs. Taking pride in the country for overcoming its worst aspects and building on its best was something shared among all Americans.
However, starting in the Progressive Era of the early twentieth century and continuing through to today, some in our society began to argue that America was irredeemably flawed and, therefore, needed to be changed into something very different. All this has done is create a generation of Americans who are less happy, less patriotic, and more open to forms of government like socialism, communism, and fascism that, historically speaking, have led to death, poverty, police states, and an unimaginable loss of freedom for hundreds of millions (if not billions) of people around the world.
During the Progressive Era, a historian and economist named Charles Beard hypothesized that the Founding Fathers established the country to protect their own economic interests, not to ensure the principle of individual liberty. Although this has been challenged ever since and has no historical basis of support, Beard began a movement to try and delegitimize America’s founding.
Another influential individual of the age was John Dewey. Through his writings, Dewey condemned the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, capitalism, and private property, among other foundational aspects of American life. Dewey was an “educational reformer” who advocated that these teachings be taught in public schools, encouraging a model that emphasized a collectivist economic and social outlook.
Even presidents during the Progressive Era, especially Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, began to question whether the Constitution was an outdated governing model. The idea that the Constitution limited their power did not sit well with them. As Wilson said while president in 1913, “The Constitution was founded on the law of gravitation. The government was to exist and move by virtue of the efficacy of ‘checks and balances.’ The trouble with the theory is that government is not a machine, but a living thing. No living thing can have its organs offset against each other, as checks, and live.”
Men who became close advisors to President Franklin Roosevelt gained an audience with Soviet tyrant Joseph Stalin before Roosevelt’s first term. This was the highlight of a carefully choreographed trip through Communist Russia. Their goal was to determine if lessons could be learned from the Communist regime that could be implemented later in the United States.
To be fair, these men did not know of communism’s true horrors at the time of their meeting, including the starvation of five (and perhaps as many as eight) million Ukrainians that took place shortly thereafter. Stalin wanted to punish Ukrainian farmers who resisted giving their farms to the State through “collectivization.” The New York Times and Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent Walter Duranty were busy making sure Stalin got good press coverage in the United States, including sanitizing stories about the Ukrainian genocide and of millions of others who suffered and died in the Soviet Gulag system.
In 1980, a communist sympathizer and professor at Boston University named Howard Zinn published A People’s History of the United States. The book can be broken down simply. In Zinn’s view, America is a land of oppressors and the oppressed. This is the language of Marxism. He believes there are no heroes; even George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are attacked. Zinn goes on to tell his readers that everything from our founding to World War II was done with the primary motivation of enriching small groups of people. It is a depressing depiction of our history that intentionally leaves out critical facts and is full of half-truths and misrepresentations.
The book should be an obscure piece of writing from an openly anti-American author. However, thanks to crafty publicity, especially from Hollywood celebrities, Zinn became somewhat of a celebrity himself. His book is still represented as the “real history” of America in some quarters.
Nothing can be further from the truth. Unfortunately, his book has found its way into the hands of millions of American students through the years without any balance or pushback. It has sold over three million copies.
Today, the government of Iran, whose people are regularly required to chant “Death to America,” allows only one book on America not published by the Iranian government to be read by Iranians. That book is A People’s History of the United States. In 2008, a major school district adopted a version of Zinn’s book called A Young People’s History of the United States that some teachers use as required reading for eighth-graders. That school district? Portland, Oregon.
Although Howard Zinn died in 2010, a foundation called the Zinn Education Project, set up in his name, continues to try and influence education all around the United States. It doesn’t pretend to bring any balance. Its goal is to try to influence as many young people as possible to support the communist/Marxist ideology favored by Zinn.
In 2019, the New York Times began a series of essays called the “1619 Project,” whose central thesis was that the United States was not founded in 1776 but rather in 1619, the year African slaves (actually indentured servants) were sent ashore to the English colony at Jamestown, Virginia. The project has been rightfully criticized from across the spectrum by historians, scholars, and many others in our society for its blatant inaccuracies and falsehoods, including the notion that the American Revolution was fought to maintain slavery within the colonies.
The New York Times has a goal: To teach as many young people as possible that, essentially, America was founded on slavery and can never be redeemed. Therefore, the country has to be reestablished with a completely different set of principles. The idea that our rights come from God is not among those principles. As of this writing, some 4,500 schools across America incorporate aspects of the “1619 Project” into their curriculum.
Why are so many trying to portray America in the worst light possible? If you can manipulate the past, you can manipulate the present. This is a hallmark of every tyranny on earth. By teaching the worst aspects of American society and not balancing it with its many positives, generations of Americans not only don’t understand the basic principles on which our country was founded but also become angry and disillusioned. This opens some to push whatever agenda they are trying to implement. The Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights, capitalism, and basic individual freedom are often at odds with these agendas so they must be deemed somehow defective by those seeking to change the country into something different.
The Ugly
The United States is seeing the results of multiple generations of Americans teaching younger generations that there is nothing exceptional about America. American society is historically illiterate to an alarming degree.
Many might not know that part of becoming a legal United States citizen entails taking a basic history and civics test that requires a 60% correct score to pass. As of late 2018, about two-thirds of all Americans would fail this test, and while pass rates improve with the age of the test-taker, only 19% of those under forty-five would pass. Sample questions are attached here.
The more Americans fail to learn their history and appreciate their God-given liberty, the more America itself will move away from our founding principles. This has very negative consequences that can be seen in more modern times.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. includes the names of 58,320 brave Americans killed during the war.
The Vietnam War from 1964-1975 was a tumultuous and emotional time in our history. While peaceful protests and opposition to any war have always been part of the American tradition and guaranteed under the First Amendment, some aspects of American’s behavior in opposition to the Vietnam War crossed lines never before seen in America. The first was the burning of the American flag as a form of protest. Although the Supreme Court ruled this was protected speech, burning the flag was almost unheard of before this.
Some individual Americans also did something that should be universally condemned and largely has been ever since. They used their own freedom to protest American soldiers as they came home from Vietnam. The war was difficult to fight because enemy forces blended into their population. There were some isolated incidents of American soldiers killing unarmed civilians. Hollywood has gone out of its way to portray these incidents as commonplace. They were not. The overwhelming majority of soldiers who fought in Vietnam did so with great honor. An infantryman in Vietnam averaged two hundred and forty days a year of combat under demanding circumstances, often not knowing who the enemy was. As a reference, a World War II infantryman averaged ten days of combat a year.
Che Guevara should be universally condemned
During this time, someone had the idea to put a communist named Che Guevara on a t-shirt. This was supposed to mean you were a “revolutionary.” The real Che Guevara was a mass murderer who helped tyrant Fidel Castro enslave Cuba. He has no place being honored on a t-shirt or anywhere else. But this happens when people don’t know their history. They have no idea who that man on the t-shirt is.
2020 will go down as one of the more difficult in United States history, primarily because of the global pandemic and subsequent economic lockdown as the result of the COVID-19 virus. But in the summer of 2020, rioting occurred in many United States cities. A segment of these rioters were self-described anarchists whose principal objective was to cause as much damage to the country as possible. Public statues of historic figures became one of their targets. If Howard Zinn and the New York Times declare there are no heroes, why should any statues be left standing? This is what happens when history isn’t taught at all, or worse, taught in an openly biased and unbalanced manner.
George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Christopher Columbus are just some of the icons under attack. A commission established by the District of Columbia (yes, named after Columbus) recommended that the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial be taken down. Other statues, such as the tribute to the all-black 54th Massachusetts Regiment in Boston and the Emancipation Memorial in Washington, D.C., a statue paid for by former slaves, have been attacked.
Statues of Christopher Columbus have been the most commonly attacked and removed. While a more extensive examination of Columbus is required, think about this for a moment. In 1492, he undertook a voyage into the unknown, using primitive and inaccurate maps, where being lost at sea wasn’t just a possibility, it was the most likely outcome. He reunited people on earth who had had no contact with each other for thousands of years. Many believe this was the most important singular event in human history.
While there should be debate on how Columbus should be recognized, for those such as Howard Zinn, Columbus represents Western Civilization itself. According to Zinn, the primary legacy of Columbus and the subsequent European migration to the New World is only one of “stolen land” and “genocide.”
A country needs heroes and the United States is full of them. We need more statues of heroes, not fewer. Once a nation begins to take down statues that have stood for generations, there will always be someone who argues the need to take down another. This has no logical end until every statue of every consequential American has been removed. Eventually, generations of young Americans will not know anything about the historical figures or events represented by those statues. This is the point of those leading the charge. Destroy the past so you can change the present. Into what exactly? Into a model far removed from the one established in 1776 and one far closer to the oppressive models that have plagued societies throughout history.
The Path Forward
Everything starts with education. Unbiased, non-agenda-driven, fact-based education that stresses the best aspects of America but doesn’t ignore the worst. Young people need to be able to compare our history and country with other countries. They need to understand the evils of totalitarian ideologies such as communism, socialism, Marxism, fascism, or any other ideology in which the very few suppress the destiny of the many.
This doesn’t mean censorship or lack of debate. The response to speech or ideas you don’t like is more speech and more ideas, not silencing those with whom you disagree. Historians are always evaluating historical figures and events as new materials are discovered about them, and new discussions about these individuals and events should be encouraged.
Americans of every race, color, creed, and age should take pride in their country. Far too many have sacrificed far too much to make America the place where billions of people worldwide yearn to be. It will take responsible educators, public policymakers, parents, and families to make this happen. All of us need to stand up and call out agenda-driven education and demand that a balanced perspective be taught to our young people. Parents need to take an interest in what their children are learning and should not be afraid to challenge educational providers who are not following this standard. Directing young people to learning materials outside of traditional schooling will often be required.
Freedom is the most precious of human gifts. One only needs to see the joy of those who have escaped tyranny to remind us of this. Just look at this link that shows the fall of the Berlin Wall if you need a reminder.
From the founding generation to the current generation, Americans have tried to remind their fellow citizens of the need to protect their God-given liberties. Freedom is a value that constantly needs to be taught and protected. If it isn’t, it will quickly fade away.
I’ll leave you with this quote from Ronald Reagan:
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
Below are some links to some websites that promote American patriotism and provide balanced, fact-based learning:
1776 Project – 1776unites.com (written in response to the New York Times 1619 Project)
Hillsdale College – hillsdale.edu (offers courses for a more in-depth look at American institutions)
Prager University – prageru.com (covers a wide range of topics, including history, philosophy, and contemporary politics)
Recommended Reading: Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story by Wilfred M. McClay
Recommended Reading: Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History That Turned a Generation against America by Mary Grabar