By Harold Pease, Ph. D.
What follows is an email addressed to me from an acquaintance of importance at Independence Hall, who has been involved in tours at historical facilities since 1986, assigned to Independence Hall for the last 3 years; now charged with telling the world the story of America’s freedom birth as it happened and has been repeated for 247 years with no deviation from the truth until the Biden Administration. This historian does not fear the truth—only possible retaliation for not “bending the knee” to the fake history wanted by the government.
It began, “My colleagues and I were obligated to attend a ‘training session’ with [The International Coalition of Sites of Conscience]. They are up to no good, as you will see: ‘I went to the training, but — I am proud to say — fought the presenter each step of the way.’
“It was all about ‘re-framing’ the tours at Independence Hall to include stories about ‘people that have been left out of the story’ of our Founding. Apparently, this includes ‘indigenous people, women, the working class, Loyalists [to the King] fence-sitters, enslaved people [we aren’t allowed to say ‘slaves’ anymore], free African-Americans, the common soldier, non-English speaking people, international participants, non-Christians, political dissidents, and [drumroll …] LGBTQ.’
“As it happens, the tours are only 20 minutes long. The presenter said, ‘You could easily cut 20% of what you say now.’ Who and what will be cut? Washington, Adams, Franklin? …’
“I first piped up when mention was made of the way in which the signage has been changed at Monticello to include Jefferson’s ‘relationship’ with Sally Hemings and to honor their ‘descendants.’ I said that ‘the biggest disappointment of my life has been the realization that most people are not interested in the truth; they are interested only in what is fashionable. The Sally Hemings story was made up by a newspaperman named James Callender who hated Jefferson. Everyone that knows anything about the history of journalism knows that. It was popularized around 40 years ago by an author named Fawn Brodie; but Dumas Malone, the dean of Jefferson historians, who wrote a six-volume biography of Jefferson … Here the presenter cut me off with, ‘but the DNA …’
“I said, ‘The DNA doesn’t prove that it came directly from Jefferson.’ One of my colleagues—bless him—interjected, ‘Wasn’t it his nephew?’ I continued, ‘There is no proof, but we permit a slander on the man that wrote the Declaration of Independence.’ ‘[NOTE: I’m not saying there wasn’t hanky-panky on the old plantation: Apparently, Sally Hemings was Jefferson’s wife’s half-sister!]’
“Then we came to Harriet Beecher Stowe. It seems her house in Hartford has been taken over by this ‘Sites of Conscience’ group and now it’s all about ‘social justice.’ They want to get away from the ‘standard house tour.’ In the middle of the tour they take visitors into her library and discuss ‘racial justice.’ I said, ‘This ignores the motivating passion of Mrs. Stowe’s life, which is that she came from a family of clergymen and she was a Christian. She was a radical in that she thought slavery needed to be abolished yesterday, but she was conservative in that what she hated about it was that it destroyed the family; children were sold away from their parents.’
“The presenter gave me a hostile look and said, ‘But she wasn’t an abolitionist until she lost a child of her own.’ I said, ‘That’s not true! Don’t you know anything about Henry Ward Beecher or Lyman Beecher?’
“As this horrid thing ended, one of my co-workers asked the presenter, ‘What kind of tour would you like to see?’ She answered that she’d like to see a tour in which the ‘marginalized’ groups would know why the Declaration and Constitution are important.
“I said, ‘I’d like to address that. Here is the most inclusive thing I’ve ever read. It’s a quotation from Calvin Coolidge, who was President of the United States during the 150th anniversary of our country.’ He said: ‘To live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race.’
“The ‘human race’ includes everyone! I continued, ‘The beauty of our country is that there isn’t one person on that list [of ‘marginalized groups’] who can’t make a tremendous success in this country! The sky’s the limit if you’re willing to get over yourself!’
“The presenter (who by this time looked like she wanted to kill me) said, ‘But in its time, it [the Constitution] was responsible for horrible abuses and systemic racism!’ (By now we were both yelling.) I yelled, ‘It wasn’t responsible for them! And one of my favorite writers, Ben Stein, calls ‘systemic racism’ a ‘wicked, paranoid phantasm’!
“She yelled, ‘I will not have this conversation with you!’ I said calmly, ‘You just did.’”
Why the current attack on traditional history from the Biden Administration? One answer, they hate it! On September 8, 2021, the “National Archives Slaps ‘Harmful Content’ Warning On Constitution, All Other Founding Documents,” By Haley Strack, cautioning readers against ‘racist, sexist, misogynistic, and xenophobic opinions’ supposedly housed in these God given documents (The Federalist). So absurd!!!
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly columns, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org Column # 718.
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