More David Barton: A Closer Look At His Analysis Of The Texas Social Studies TEKS

We’ve done a bit of fact checking on David Barton’s analysis of the Texas Social Studies TEKS already, and now it is time to take a closer look at Barton’s analysis. Hang on for a bumpy ride.

First off, Barton is following the lead of Don McLeroy and other rightwing extremists by trying to turn social studies instruction in Texas into a course in religious doctrine. Note this from Barton’s Analysis:

Students should be familiar with the fundamental principles of America government set forth in the 126 words in the first three sentences at the beginning of the Declaration and those principles should be regularly reviewed throughout their tenure as a student:

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitles them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. 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. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

(It is from this section that students are to recite by memory under state law.)

The principles set forth here and subsequently secured in the Constitution and Bill of Rights include:

1. There is a fixed moral law derived from God and nature

2. There is a Creator

3. The Creator gives to man certain unalienable rights

4. Government exists primarily to protect God-given rights to every individual

5. Below God-given rights and moral law, government is directed by the consent of the governed

Before we get into the religious aspects, let’s debunk a Barton Blunder.

Barton Notes: (It is from this section that students are to recite by memory under state law.)

The Reality Is: You’d be hard pressed to find any member of the Texas Legislature living or dead who ever cast a vote to require students to recite any excerpt of the portion of the Declaration of Independence Barton cites from memory. Why? Because no bill ever existed to require this, and it is not state law.

The entire portion of Texas law referencing what Barton is talking about is Section 29. 907 of the Texas Education Code. In its entirety, it reads:

Sec. 29.907.  CELEBRATE FREEDOM WEEK.  (a)  To educate students about the sacrifices made for freedom in the founding of this country and the values on which this country was founded, the week in which September 17 falls is designated as Celebrate Freedom Week in public schools.  For purposes of this subsection, Sunday is considered the first day of the week.

(b)  The agency, in cooperation with other state agencies who voluntarily participate, may promote Celebrate Freedom Week through a coordinated program. Nothing in this subsection shall give any other state agency the authority to develop a program that provides instruction unless funds are specifically appropriated to that agency for that purpose.

Nowhere does that state anything about recitation from memory. So, where did Barton devise this? It comes from the Texas Administrative Code. To be fair, Barton indicates that (although he actually cited the section of the TAC incorrectly.   The basis for Barton’s fantasy remark that Texas school children are required to “recite by memory” is TAC Title 19, Part 2, Chapter 74, Subchapter C, Rule 74.33, which states in part:

(1) Each school district shall require that, during Celebrate Freedom Week or other week of instruction prescribed under subsection (a) of this section, students in Grades 3 – 12 study and recite the following text: “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–That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.”

Where doe Barton get that students have to recite this from memory? Who knows. He probably just made it up like he’s made up quotes from our founding fathers. The TAC clearly says “study and recite.” “Study” does not equal “memorize.”

And, let’s be clear about something else: while it may be a finite difference, the Texas Administrative Code is not law. It was not drafted or codified by the Texas Legislature. It was written by the state agencies themselves. They are considered rules.

Getting back to the religious overtones, let’s discuss those five principles Barton says should be regularly reviewed by students:

1. There is a fixed moral law derived from God and nature

2. There is a Creator

3. The Creator gives to man certain unalienable rights

4. Government exists primarily to protect God-given rights to every individual

5. Below God-given rights and moral law, government is directed by the consent of the governed

The study of history, government, and social studies is not the place to force religion on public school students. In addition, I think that the U.S. Supreme Court has spent two centuries interpreting the U.S. Constitution precisely so this kind of religious zealotry isn’t foisted upon public school children. Let’s face it: not all public school students are Judeo-Christian, and it is not the school’s duty to tell kids that government exists for these particular reasons. Furthermore, to say that government exists for these particular reasons is a bit dangerous, and Barton should see that.

Why? Here is one example. Slavery wasn’t outlawed by the U.S. Constitution. Using Barton’s rationale that government exists to protect the God-given rights of every individual, you essentially arise at then having to explain to students why God thought that slavery was just dandy for a few centuries and then thought it was bad. On top of that, you get to explain to a generation of African American why it took from the signing of the emancipation proclamation to the signing of the Civil and Voting Rights Acts (plus more) for the government to give them something God intended them to have in the first place. I fail to envy the fourth grade teacher who must answer the student who asks, “So, why did God allow slavery.” Furthermore, I doubt that many Texans want their fourth grade child’s teacher explaining why God did or did not allow anything.

Barton makes other mistakes as well. In addressing the interrelationship of the U.S. Constitution to the Declaration of Independence, he botches–pretty severely–a quotation from a U.S. Supreme Court case. Barton notes:

The interdependent relationship of these two documents was so clear that the U. S. Supreme Court has openly affirmed:

The latter [Constitution] is but the body and the letter of which the former [Declaration of Independence] is the thought and the spirit, and it is always safe to read the letter of the Constitution in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence.

Barton has used some pretty serious literary liberties here. The quote that Barton cites as an independent clause is actually part of a much larger sentence [we bold the part Barton cites]:

While such declaration of principles may not have the force of organic law, or be made the basis of judicial decision as to the limits of right and duty, and while in all cases reference must be had to the organic law of the nation for such limits, yet the latter is but the body and the letter of which the former is the thought and the spirit, and it is always safe to read the letter of the Constitution in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence. No duty rests more imperatively upon the courts than the enforcement of those constitutional provisions intended to secure that equality of rights which is the foundation of free government.

That quote, by the way, comes from Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Ellis, 165 U.S. 150 (1897), which was actually a U.S. Supreme Court case marking the Court’s first instance of applying the Rational Basis Test.

That isn’t the only example of sloppy quotations by Barton. He quotes Alexis de Tocqueville incorrectly as well:

Alexis de Tocqueville, in his famous book Democracy in America, penned the phrase that has resulted in the term America Exceptionalism when he declared:

The position of the Americans is quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one.

The problem is that Barton was evidently too lazy or didn’t care to actually quote de Tocqueville properly; he left out a word. The acutal quote reads:

The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one.

Evidently WallBuilders doesn’t employ a fact checker or proofreader–at least not one that can use Google and spell “de Tocqueville.”

In talking about the Founding Fathers, Barton also goes on and on about Charles Pinckney, who signed the constitution and introduced a resolution at the Constitutional Convention that some scholars say is the basis for the modern constitution:

Nowhere in the TEKS is definition given to who constitutes a Founding Father. and the current definition is dramatically different from the historic definition. The modern tendency has become to consider only half-a-dozen individuals as Founding Fathers; and while today’s writers consider James Madison as “The Father of the Constitution,” previous generations also accorded that title to George Washington, James Wilson, Roger Sherman, and Charles Pinckney – individuals largely ignored today. In fact, the finished Constitution was closer to the recommendations made by Charles Pinckney than to those of any other Framer, yet who today has heard of Charles Pinckney?

The probelm here is that what Barton purports to be true about Pinkney could be difficult to prove conclusively. From a work on the constitutional convention by John Vile:

When John Quincy Adams edited the official records of the Convention in 1818, he wrote to Pinckney asking for a copy of his original plan. Pinckney in turn presented Adams with a plan, which has many similarities to the Convention’s final product, and Adams published it. Given the numerous similarities between the Pinckney Plan and the Convention’s final product, from time to time, scholars have attributed major influence to the Pinckney Plan. Some have even accused Madison of suppressing the important role of this delegate, who was known for his egotism and general unpopularity among fellow delegates…

Madison appears to have been largely vindicated. Drawing from other scholarship, historian Max Ferrand has presented four reasons to doubt the plan Pinckney offered to Adams was his original. Farrand observed that the paper was not from the time of the Convention and appears to have been prepared in 1818 rather than at the time of the Convention; a number of its provisions are opposed to positions Pinckney was known to have taken from the Convention; the copy of the plan included provisions that were not reached until after weeks of dispute and compromise; and a copy of the speech Pinckney prepared for publication just before the Convention differs from the plan he presented to Adams in several significant respects…

In the early 1900s, among the papers of convention delegate James Wilson were found documents which could have been notes by Wilson or others about the Pinckney draft or, quite frankly, something else entirely. A 300 plus page monograph was actually published to address the questions of the Pinckney draft in 1908, and the questions that remained unanswered in that book remain unanswered today. Why Barton elects to try to steer the committee into this black hole that America’s foremost historians could argue about for days is unknown.

Later, on the subject of civic duty, we again have Barton playing fast and loose with quotations:

For example, James Wilson (signer of the Declaration and Constitution) declared: “To each class of rights, a class of duties is correspondent.” John Quincy Adams agreed: “The connection between a people and their government is a connection of duties as well as of rights.” Dewitt Clinton similarly declared: “If knowledge teaches man his rights, it also teaches him his duties.” (Significantly, the word “duty” appears no where in the TEKS yet it is a powerful word indicating the gravity of the responsibilities of a citizen.)

First, let’s take the James Wilson quote. First, Barton fails to note that Wilson was also one of George Washington’s initial appointments to the Supreme Court. That is important because the quote came not from any Wilson pontification at the Continental Congress or Constitutional Convention, but from a collection of collected works and lectures by Wilson on the law. Wilson was also a law professor. Again, we find Barton putting a period where he should have either finished the full quote or placed an ellipsis.

Barton Version: To each class of rights, a class of duties is correspondent.

Actual Version: To each class of rights, a class of duties is correspondent; as we had occasion to observe and illustrate, when we treated concerning the general principals of natural law.

The DeWitt Clinton quote is similarly skewed, but because it is taken well out of context.

Barton Version: If knowledge teaches man his rights, it also teaches him his duties

Actual Version: As ignorance is the patron of error and the enemy of truth, the diffusion of knowledge is friendly to the propagation of religion and the ascendancy of good government. If it teach man his rights, it also teaches him his duties. “Truth and goodness,” said an illustrious philosopher, “differs but as the seal and the print; for truth prints goodness, and they be the clouds of error which descend in the storms of passions and perturbations.”

Barton also fails to note that the original version comes from an address by Clinton on the seventh anniversary of the American Bible Society.

Barton’s treatment of the John Quincy Adams quote, however, is most perplexing.

Barton Version: The connection between a people and their government is a connection of duties as well as of rights

Actual Version: The connexion between different portions of the same people and between a people and their government, is a connexion of duties as well as of rights. (See page 16 of the link)

While we can forgive Barton for changing “connexion” to the modern spelling, one must wonder why on earth he dropped “different portions of the same” in front of people and added “a.” Literary license may be okay in films or even literature, but when you are reviewing social studies standards and quoting someone and purporting to be a historian, you have the duty to get the quotes right.

There are other quotations listed in Barton’s missive, and, to be quite frank, dissecting every one as we have tried to do up to now would be a chore for another day. However, we did find one more nugget to share, a quote Barton purports to be from Samuel Adams:

Religion and good morals are the only solid foundations of public liberty and happiness. SAMUEL ADAMS

In this case, we have a prime example of why Barton can best be classified as a pseudo historian, and why he has no business whatsoever evaluating a social studies curriculum standard.

Barton attributes this quote to Samuel Adams. A quick Google search shows that several internet websites do the same as well. One goes so far as to source the quote as coming from a letter from Sam Adams to John Trumbull on October 16, 1778.

Upon review of the actual letter, however, which would have been fairly easy for Barton to do, since it is actually transcribed online, we find this:

Mr Sherman was so obliging as to give me the perusal of your Letter to him, and I am happy that Congress as a Body concur with you in the Sentiment therein containd, having passd a Resolution by a great Majority expressing their Sense that true Religion & good Morals are the only solid Foundations of publick Liberty and Happiness [....] (3) I am Sir with the most cordial Esteem & Respect Yr Excys most obedt hbt servt S. A. [Emphasis added; the (3) indication indicates that five lines are missing from the original letter]

Samuel Adams clearly did not say that of his own words. It was, as Adams actually noted in the letter a quotation (the “whereas clause”, to be precise) from a resolution passed by the Continental Congress:

Whereas true religion and good morals are the only solid foundations of public liberty and happiness:

One would think Barton would know this. After all, he quotes from the same resolution on the WallBuilders website, citing the anti-gambling provision of what was essentially a morality resolution:

Whereas true religion and good morals are the only solid foundations of public liberty and happiness: Resolved, That it be, and it is hereby earnestly recommended to the several states, to take the most effectual measures for the encouragement thereof, and for the suppressing theatrical entertainments, horse racing, gaming, and such other diversions as are productive of idleness, dissipation, and a general depravity of principles and manners.

The quotation is incorrectly attributed to Samuel Adams because he quoted the resolution of the Congress in his letter. Barton, by failing to do fact checking (or, presumably, checking his own website), perpetuates the myth. And this is the kind of person we have reviewing curriculum standards?

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