Why history matters

Interview with Doris Kearns Goodwin for Echoes Magazine, July and August 2025, p. 34.  "Lincoln was worried as the Revolutionary generation was dying off, and it was a very tumultuous time. It was in the 1830s when there were abolitionists being killed and lynchings being done in the South.  And Lincoln was afraid that when those people died, we would forget the ideals of the Revolution.  He recommended that mothers read history to their children, that pastors talk about it from their pulpits, that we had to teach history in the schools--the history of the Revolution--so those ideals would remain strong in our countrymen's minds and hearts." 

Visiting the National Archives on-line

I stopped at the National Archives site today just because I looked at one of the pdf records from the JFK files. But from there I got lost in all the interesting stuff in the Archives, and stopped to look at the military records, something I'd done about 15 years ago when I was doing genealogy. I'm not going to register (well, I did for just one newsletter) to be a citizen volunteer or get a login so I can answer other's questions, but it was interesting to read through "how can I find out about my uncle's WWII service" or something like that. I clicked on it because I had made similar inquiries years ago. And when someone reported she couldn't get a form to work, some helpful non-employee responded it was probably Trump's Doge program. Yikes, get real. Government forms fail all the time, and even years ago it might take weeks to get a reply--but when you do, those government archivists really know their stuff. Then I looked around at the educational programs for schools. I saw a lot of material on women and minorities just in case some media source has told you falsely that's all been scrubbed. If the writer has insulted or demeaned a group intentionally, I suppose it could have been removed.

You could spend years poking around the National Archives. It's an exciting place to visit on-line--or maybe it's just fun for retired librarians.

What is an Official Military Personnel File (OMPF)? | National Archives

Distance Learning Programs | National Archives

History Hub

Why do Democrats vote against our country?

I can't imagine why the Democrats are so fearful of being dragged back to the era of 

personal responsibility, 

merit, 

Judeo-Christian values,

respect for talent, 

self-esteem based on work and skills instead of race, 

true biology and science, 

responsible journalism, 

borders that protect us and not the crossers, 

honest elections, 

universities that educate instead of indoctrinating, 

and two sexes. 

They truly seem terrified of the past, of our roots, of our history. The goals weren't always achieved, and some didn't make it, but it was certainly better than DEI where everyone loses. Most Democrats I know say they are for these things, but vote against their personal values!

David K a former history teacher and writer responds: "Because it takes chaos to get there, and they think they are better than banana republic leaders and will not be subject to their chaos-creating turning on them such as has happened to many others in history, not least of which was the French Revolution. It is all about power, and they are behaving very much like dictatorships, where they use (like Peron, like French Revolutionaries, like Russian revolutionaries) the poor and disadvantaged to gain power, then treat them worse than they were before, along with everyone else except the ruling elite, which gets privilege. Soviet dictators had dachas on the Black Sea, as Brezhnev bragged to Nixon, and Putin still does. Hitler had his Bechtesgarten, Clinton his Martha's Vineyard, and so on."

Paul Johnson has died at 94

"Paul Johnson, prolific journalist and best-selling popular historian, has died at 94. The range of his writing’s subject matter was astonishing: from Egyptology and the history of the Jews and Christianity to that of the United States; from studies of Mozart, Napoleon, and Darwin to art history and the history of modern times. He was, as this range might suggest, vastly knowledgeable and possessed of an elephantine memory. He was also a formidable polemicist: indeed, it was as if he were born with polemic in his blood."

I have his A History of the American People, c1997. Amazing writer. Originally a Leftist and Socialist, he moved to the Right when he realized what it actually was. Unfortunately, Johnson wrote very loooong books--about 1,000 pages with 2,000 notes. So I haven't finished the book.

Knowledge and Verve: Remembering Paul Johnson (city-journal.org)

"There’s an old joke that academics bitterly complain about popular historians for the high sin of publishing books people enjoy reading. Few working journalists have written history with as much elan and narrative force as the British author Paul Johnson, who died this week at age 94." Wall St. Journal

Letter to a promoter for an interview

As my friends and family know, I've been writing this blog for almost 20 years (began October 2003). That's how I met some nice people whom I now follow on Facebook. So, I get offers to review books and do interviews. I did review some books, but I don't anymore, and have republished some canned interviews. Sometimes I get snarky and write back my opinions. I have no idea if anyone reads them. The one I received on Monday, January 17, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day wanted to let me know that young people aren't educated about MLK Jr. because "only 81%" knew about his "I've got a dream speech," and "only 82%" knew about the March on Washington. I think that's fantastic--they probably don't know the year their parents were born, or what happened on July 4. So, here's my response.

Dear XXXX

You’re not making a good case. Considering how LITTLE anyone, let alone youth, know about our history, if 81% know about the “I have a dream speech,” that’s fantastic! I know some who graduated from high school in 1986. One day I asked them a fairly simple question, "Which came first WWII or Vietnam War?" and they didn’t know! That’s the level of history education in our country, and we live in a great school district with high scores. What makes you think this is a lack of resources? I’ve seen Martin Luther’s statue on the internet identified as Martin Luther King! Our young people may know who King is but have never heard of Martin Luther. How many know Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican? Or that there were over 200 bills in Congress to fight lynching, and Democrats voted against all of them? You’ve got some buzz words in this message that tell your mission. . . “democratizing education,” “equal access,” “cause for equality,” “diverse backgrounds.” If you need to know how ignorant U.S. youth are, watch some of the Prager U videos or the Will Witt interviews on college campuses, “What is a conservative?” https://youtu.be/jVJO1IETjC8 Also notice how inarticulate the students are—except for the one or two who can define conservatism.

Also, MLK Day was the day I got your message—how would I do an interview BEFORE today?

Report from the 1776 Commission

Under the executive order as US President, Donald Trump established a 20-member group serving a two-year term, which is to write a report on “core principles of the American founding and how these principles may be understood to further enjoyment of ‘the blessings of liberty’". Trump announced the new commission in a speech on September 17, 2020, in which he stated that a "twisted web of lies" regarding systemic racism was currently being taught in U.S. schools. The commission's goal is to end what it calls the "radicalized view of American history" which has "vilified the United States' Founders and its founding". The first day in office Joe Biden cancelled the commission, because Democrats are behind the move to change our history, our culture, and our values. However. that Commission met quickly, and in what must be a record for a government commission, it has published its work with a great bibliography. You'll need this to combat the lies your children and grandchildren will learn in school. https://www.amazon.com/1776-Report.../dp/B08T858PBH I would hate to think Amazon is the only way to get it--try Hillsdale college.

Which party has wanted freedom for all Americans since before the Civil War?

Nearly 60 years ago, we had real bi-partisanship. 40% of the House Democrats VOTED AGAINST the Civil Rights Act of 1964, while 80% of Republicans SUPPORTED it. Republican support in the Senate was even higher. Similar trends occurred with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was supported by 82% of House Republicans and 94% of Senate Republicans. (From my blog, Feb. 15, 2012)

It was Everett Dirksen, Senate Minority leader from Illinois who lead the way and knew the history of freedom and equality for blacks, not Lyndon Baines Johnson who had a career of holding them back. Read his eloquent speech from 1964 which provides the history of the Act and the history of the acts. https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/DirksenCivilRights.pdf

How many people who have graduated from high school since the mid-1960s know that it has always been the Republicans who fought for equal rights? That Democrats are the party of the KKK and Jim Crow, voter suppression, lynching, enticing the black father from his home with government programs, and aborting generations of black babies? Even today, the lies about President Trump being a racist are a cover for Democrats trying to regain power over black Americans.

Honor your father and your mother

"The fourth Commandment: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you.” That’s not just a call to filial piety; it’s a call to patriotism as well." . . .

Did you know that only 18% of colleges require a class in American history? And then we wonder why social media, academe, business and entertainment world are either battle grounds or kindergarten recess. People my age fear dementia--we've seen it ravage family members and friends, taking them from us and leaving behind a stranger. But what about national dementia--we've stolen history from our young people by offering nothing but grievances and pretending smugly only the current generation is smart and moral--they will have no memory to steal.

https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2020/05/11/patriotism-in-the-fourth-commandment/?

The United States of America began in 1776, not 1619

The New York Times has been perpetrating a fraud.

“Gordon Wood, one of the USA’s leading historians of the Revolutionary War, has been sharply critical of 1619’s best known essay (“America Wasn’t a Democracy Until Black Americans Made It One,” by Nikole Hannah-Jones), dismissing Hannah-Jones’s claim that the USA seceded from Britain primarily to protect the institution of slavery as factually inaccurate.
Wood points out that attributing American secession to a desire to protect slavery—rather than (say) taxation without representation, conflicts over French and Indian war debt, or tense armed exchanges like the “Boston Massacre”—“makes the Revolution out to be like the Civil War,” which is “wrong in so many ways.” The eminent historian seems bemused and angered by the decision of the Times to support an arguably questionable scholarly project, saying: “I was surprised by the scope of this thing, [since] it’s going to become the basis for high school education, and has the weight of the New York Times behind it.” Given that the generally reputable Pulitzer Center is already offering a “1619 Project Curriculum” targeted at “all grades,” Dr. Wood’s words of warning ring true.

Similarly, John Oakes, Distinguished Professor of History and Graduate School Humanities Professor at the City University of New York, has been extremely critical of the 1619 Project’s claim that “anti-Black racism runs in the very DNA of this country,” and the project’s explicit attempt to link many Black problems of today (i.e. “mass incarceration”) to historical slavery. As Oakes notes, this is an almost ahistorical view. To people who believe it: “There has been no industrialization. There has been no Great Migration. We’re all in the same boat we were back then.”

https://quillette.com/2020/02/17/sorry-new-york-times-but-america-began-in-1776/

https://1776unites.com/

Update: The 1776 website is so good, I've already written them a fan letter.

Is patriotism right wing extremism?

"When I mentioned to my liberal wife that my next book would be dedicated to the defense of patriotism, as an antidote to growing divisiveness, she warned me that my colleagues would consider it a defense of right-wing extremism." (Amitai Etzioni) He went on to write the whole essay on how he gets that from publishers (change the title) or reviewers like NPR--that patriotism is considered right wing and he asks when did that happen and why.

My question first would be how do these two live together? And second I'd give an answer to his question. This didn't happen over night. It was long before the 1619 garbage NYT is promoting.  Since 1980 when Howard Zinn's poisoned history began to creep into the classrooms of America, first as extra reading then required textbooks, American students have been taught that our founding and our history have been racist, sexist, evil and everything that promotes the USA is racist and white supremacist. That's 40 years--a lot of heads of mush. A lot of teachers have graduated who then taught teachers who are teaching your kids and grandchildren. That's why Democrats get so enraged by MAGA. In their minds, America was never great, and by putting that on a hat, you want to bring back slavery. There are other propagandists in the classroom besides Zinn, of course--I used to run into them at OSU, but he's the one I'm the most familiar with.

I love Paul Johnson's "A history of the American people," and if I need to look something up that doesn't insult me or my ancestors (some of whom arrived in the 1600s), that's my go-to title. I also like "A history of the 20th century," 3 vol. by Martin Gilbert, because it treats Communism and Socialism with the respect those evils deserve. Both Johnson and Gilbert are British and are prolific writers.

The Federalist offers an alternative. https://thefederalist.com/…/replace-howard-zinns-communist…/ The original essay I quoted is https://www.city-journal.org/in-defense-of-patriotism. You're up against much more than the silliness and memes you see on the Internet.

| How Not To Teach American History by David Davenport and Gordon Lloyd (Hoover Institution)

“Given the myriad crises our country now confronts, who would have guessed that among them would be how we teach American history?  Nevertheless, as a new school year begins, the content, presentation and teaching of US history are in the news almost daily.  Should statues honoring civil war figures—at least those from the losing side—or former slaveholders be retained?  Do we need to change the names of streets or buildings if they bear the names of historical figures that do not satisfy present moral or political sensibilities?  Should history texts be rewritten to diminish their emphasis on our flawed heroes while increasing the teaching of racial, ethnic and gender minorities?  In short, should we be about the business of erasing, rewriting, apologizing for, protecting against, knocking down or covering up our history as many have proposed?

The recent controversy over historic murals at George Washington High School in San Francisco presents a microcosm of the problems.  A 1936 painting depicting the life of George Washington shows two features that some found troublesome:  White settlers standing over the body of a Native American and slaves working at Washington’s estate.  Some students, faculty and parents said the mural was racist and offensive.  Others said no, it tells the truth about that era and should be seen.  Still others said, regardless of the historical questions, it is a work of art and should remain.  Washington High graduate, actor Danny Glover, said, “Art has to make us feel uncomfortable.  That’s what art does.”

Initially the school board decided to do away with the mural but after a hue and cry from many—including minority groups and artists—it reversed course and, by a one-vote margin, concluded it would cover them up at a cost of over $600,000.  The sense was that showing the art would traumatize students and others in the community, but that destroying it permanently went too far.    At the root of the debate is whether such depictions are appropriate for learning from our history or, alternatively, whether history must be presented in a way that does not offend.

What happens in the schools constitutes the ground war in the battle over American history, but elites are busily engaged in an air war.  The New York Times joined the battle this month by introducing The 1619 Project, “a major initiative…to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding.”  The beginning of slavery in 1619 explains everything, including the brutality of American capitalism, says the Times, and it will “publish essays demonstrating that nearly everything that has made America exceptional grew out of slavery.”

Meanwhile, across the country in California, the state school board has proposed a draft ethnic studies curriculum that seeks not just to celebrate the historic contributions of minorities, but to “critique empire and its relationship to white supremacy, racism, patriarchy, cisheteropatriarchy, capitalism, ableism, anthropocentrism and other forms of power and oppression at the intersection of our society.”  That is hardly the way to open a conversation about the historic contribution of ethnic groups.

The bombs are dropping and the guns are firing in the war over America’s history.

Can We Make Sense of This Moment

Why should the teaching of American history have become so controversial at this moment?  Surely one factor is a shift in how we think about students themselves.  For many years, now, the term “helicopter parents” has described a heightened involvement by adults to keep careful watch over their kids, fearful that in this complex age, their child will be left behind. 

A new term, “lawnmower parents,” seems to characterize the current age even better, since these adults now seek to mow down any and every obstacle that might stand in a child’s path. Children are thought of as “snowflakes” who might melt if exposed to too much heat, including the fires of controversy or even criticism.  Taking down murals and rewriting stories of an uncomfortable history becomes part of the strategy of coddling and protecting sensitive kids rather than letting them confront the difficulties of history and make sense of them for themselves, developing judgment and resilience for life.

Another important factor is the movement, begun several decades ago, to demythologize American history.  Howard Zinn led this charge with his People’s History of the United States (1980), a textbook that reveals the selfish motives and cruel actions of America’s traditional heroes, while retelling America’s narrative from the perspective of their victims.  By Zinn’s account, Columbus came to murder natives and steal gold, while the Founders developed a constitutional republic that would protect their slaves and property. 
The counter-narratives continues into modern times, when World War II was about “advancing the imperial interests of the United States,” and the last fifty years were “a capitalistic encouragement of enormous fortunes alongside desperate poverty, a nationalistic acceptance of war and preparations for war.”

In the early going, The People’s History, was assigned by teachers as a supplement or counterpoint to traditional history textbooks.  However, today it has sold over two million copies and has become, as Professor Sam Wineburg of Stanford University has said, “mainstream” and, in many circles, “the dominant narrative.”  One way to read the battle over American history, then, is a conflict between the traditional heroic view and Zinn’s account of resistance.  But it is no longer enough for Zinn’s story to be presented as a counterpoint to the traditional view, allowing students to make their own choices, but Zinn’s disciples now feel the need to eliminate the heroic view and favorable understanding of American history altogether.  We live in a moment when many feel a need to throw out the baby of America’s accomplishments with the bathwater of colonialism.  Zinn’s work presents not merely a counterpoint but a new orthodoxy.

In seeking to understand the current history wars, we might go so far as to say that they have become politics by other means.  American history has been afflicted by presentism, examining our past with 21st century sensibilities and standards.  If colonials owned slaves, for example, our present standards must cause us to reject them, even erase their names from our history.  If a leader was on the wrong side of the Civil War, we may no longer honor them, despite any other accomplishments.  Professor Wineburg calls this “reading the present into the past.”  Since we now find politics in every part of the curriculum—even in biology and art—we should not be surprised to find it in history class.  Indeed, publishers sell very different history textbooks in conservative Texas than they do in liberal California.

Toward Better Teaching of History and Civics

As a starting point, all sides should be able to agree that we have been teaching history and civics poorly.  In the most recent report of the National Educational Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, or “America’s report card”), only 18% of 8th graders tested as “proficient” or better in American history while a mere 23% were “proficient” or better in government and civics.  Only 1-2% tested as “advanced” in these subjects.   The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation reported last year that only 36% of Americans could pass the US Citizenship Test, including questions about the ratification and provisions of the US Constitution, the participants in World War II and other history basics.  An Annenberg Public Policy Center Study in 2017 reported that 75% of students did not know the three branches of government and 37% could not name one right in the First Amendment.

A number of curriculum experts advocate the more promising approach of teaching students using primary documents, not just textbooks.  The Ashbrook Center in Ohio has trained and retrained thousands of teachers to use primary documents—not just the Constitution and Declaration, but speeches, letters, and other documents of the time—to recreate events and debates in our history.  This engages students more actively than the passive reading of a textbook and invites them to understand history from the perspective of the participants, not just through the political lens of the 21st century.  Teachers report both greater excitement and understanding from the use of primary documents as well as the prospect that students can draw their own conclusions.  Several other curriculum efforts such as the DBQ Project and programs at Berkeley, Stanford and Brown University similarly put primary documents at the center of history teaching.

There is even a new and improved textbook, finally, in American history:  Wilfred M. McClay’s Land of Hope:  An Invitation to the Great American Story (Encounter Books, 2019).  McClay succeeds in delivering an inspiring narrative of American history, without rewriting, whitewashing, avoiding or politicizing.  Author Gordon S. Wood understood the value of such a narrative during, as he put it, “a time of severe partisanship that has infected many accounts of our nation’s past.”  History, in McClay’s hands, is a compelling and hopeful narrative, not a collection of disputed facts and intrusive opinions.

Dare we further propose that another important objective in teaching American history should be to help students not only understand but also love their country and be prepared to serve as well-informed citizens?  The Founders understood that a free republic would only work if an informed citizenry supported it and education was high on their agenda. More recently, President Ronald Reagan, in his farewell message, warned of the need to return the teaching of civics and history to develop “an informed patriotism.”  Sociologist James Loewe, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me, reminds us that, “We aren’t just learning about the past to satisfy our curiosity—we are  learning about the past to do our jobs as Americans.”  Professor Sam Wineburg agrees:  “It is not popular to talk about in an era of identity politics, but history teaching in school has a civic purpose, not only a disciplinary purpose.”

Conclusion

We live in a time when we seem to engage in every possible approach to history except to learn from it.  We seek to erase it, cover it over, topple it down, rewrite it, apologize for it, skip it—but not to put it out there to learn from it.  The evidence suggests students are doing very little learning of history as it is but, with all the bad ways we are presenting history, we should not be surprised.  It is time we return to an understanding that history and civics are essential underpinnings for good citizenship, and that teaching them includes, most assuredly, the basics but also an appreciation of one’s country and a willingness to be prepared to serve it.”

Davenport is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution.  Lloyd is a senior fellow at the Ashbrook Center and Dockson Professor Emeritus at the Pepperdine School of Public Policy

September 12

Today, September 12, marks the founding of a small but mighty organization that helped change the direction of our country--the Intercollegiate Socialist Party in 1905. http://www.marxisthistory.org/subject/usa/eam/iss.html

It was created to change the trajectory of the U.S. from being Christian to being Marxist. The list of members is quite remarkable, although not all were at that first meeting at Peck's restaurant in Manhattan and in 1921 its name was changed to the League for Industrial Democracy. Upton Sinclair, Jack London, Clarence Darrow, Walter Lippmann, Walter Reuther, Eugene Debs, W.E.B. Dubois, John Dewey, Felix Frankfurter, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Franklin Roosevelt, Jr. and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

So don’t underestimate a small group of young people with big ideas. They’ve been very successful over the last 100+ years.

Notice the names of the authors of the LID propaganda. http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/htmldocs/KCL05266.html

When powerful Democrats like President Obama talk about American values and morals,  I think he’s talking about those of the ISP/LID, and not those taught by Christ.

False advertising of the Democrats

Anyone can change.  Why not just be honest about your past in slavery, KKK, Jim Crow, civil rights, woman's rights? The DNC may be incapable of looking at their own history.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/national-party-news/343960-false-advertising-how-the-democrats-attempt-to-rewrite

Political correctness in 1994

I was still a Democrat in 1994 and didn't change my registration until 2000.  The evidence from 1994 is that the worm was starting to turn.  This is an excerpt from a 1994 letter to a friend.

"I've always enjoyed large compilations of information--encyclopedias, handbooks, etc., so when I saw the title The Oxford History of the American West (1994) on the new book shelf at the public library, I checked it out. The cover is a lovely realistic painting of mountains, cowboys, cattle--probably by a WPA artist. But inside. Oh my. Political Correctness reigns. There is not a kind, decent or pleasant word about "our" country, the one we know. It glorifies every ethnic group that ever made it to either shore, and vilifies anyone of European descent. Although the authors are somewhat puzzled about how to write about the Spaniards. After all, someone might realize that Spaniards (Hispanics) were also European. Some sections are so odd, it is almost comical--if this wasn't being taught in schools. For instance, the Indians knew how to treat animals, because although they killed them, ate them and skinned them, they respected them. I seriously doubt that made a difference to the animals. This is followed by a section on how the wives and slave women of the Indian men spent their lives tanning and preparing hides (not presented as a negative against Indian culture). Apparently, political correctness doesn't apply if women are abused within the culture of a maligned minority."

So that was 23 years ago--that's a lot of misinformed students, and it's only gotten worse.

America has political and economic Alzheimer's Disease?

 

Paul Johnson is a very fine historian—love his “A History of the American People,” and he’s British. I missed what he published in April in Forbes about Trump and political correctness. 

“Nowhere has PC been more triumphant than in the U.S. This is remarkable, because America has traditionally been the home of vigorous, outspoken, raw and raucous speech. From the early 17th century, when the clerical discipline the Pilgrim Fathers sought to impose broke down and those who had things to say struck out westward or southward for the freedom to say them, America has been a land of unrestricted comment on anything–until recently. Now the U.S. has been inundated with PC inquisitors, and PC poison is spreading worldwide in the Anglo zone.

For these reasons it’s good news that Donald Trump is doing so well in the American political primaries. He is vulgar, abusive, nasty, rude, boorish and outrageous. He is also saying what he thinks and, more important, teaching Americans how to think for themselves again.

No one could be a bigger contrast to the spineless, pusillanimous and underdeserving Barack Obama, who has never done a thing for himself and is entirely the creation of reverse discrimination. The fact that he was elected President–not once, but twice–shows how deep-set the rot is and how far along the road to national impotence the country has traveled.

Under Obama the U.S.–by far the richest and most productive nation on earth–has been outsmarted, outmaneuvered and made to appear a second-class power by Vladimir Putin’s Russia. America has presented itself as a victim of political and economic Alzheimer’s disease, a case of national debility and geopolitical collapse.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/currentevents/2016/03/23/when-excess-is-a-virtue/#7a02557734b5

About the Masons

From What Hath God Wrought by Daniel Walker Howe. Many of our founding fathers were Freemasons, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. But an incident in 1826 brought about the demise of the movement. In 1826, a man named William Morgan attempted to publish a book about the secret rituals of Freemasonry, much to the horror and strong objections of the masonic community. After his home was ransacked for the manuscript, Morgan disappeared. His kidnappers, including the Sheriff of Niagra County, were Freemasons who were never fully prosecuted, due to the protection and collusion of other Masons. Thus began the rise of Antimasonry as the first "third party" in American politics.

"Freemasonry, introduced into America from Britain in colonial times, had been an important force in the young republic. Its members had constituted a kind of republican elite, with Benjamin Franklin and George Washington prominent among them. The international Masonic brotherhood satisfied longings for status, trust, and metropolitan sophistication in an amorphous new society; its hierarchies and secret rituals offered a dimension lacking in the stark simplicity of much of American Protestantism. Freemasonry promoted the values of the Enlightenment and new standards of politeness. Its symbols of the pyramid and the eye had been incorporated into the Great Seal of the United States. Its ceremonies graced many public occasions, including the dedication of the United States Capitol and the construction of the Erie Canal. But in the Morgan episode, Masonic commitments of secrecy and mutual assistance led to disastrous consequences. To be sure, the Masonic brotherhood succeeded in the short run, protecting members from legal punishment and preventing Morgan from publishing all but the first three degree rituals, which appeared in print a month after his disappearance. But, as American Masonry's most recent historian has shown, 'it lost the larger battle in the court of public opinion.' During the decade after the Morgan affair, thousands of brothers quit the order and hundreds of lodges closed. Although Freemasonry recovered its numbers after the Civil War, it never recovered the influence it had wielded in the first fifty years of independence.”

This excerpt is from delancyplace.com which sends e-mails about a variety of books.  Sometimes I just skim, but this one was an interesting part of America history about which I knew nothing, except I’d always had a negative view of the Masons. As we say in libraries, to the victor belongs the archives.  http://www.delanceyplace.com/view_archives.php?2760&p=2760 

 

More lies about the Founders—left is working overtime

No, democracy wasn't invented by the Founding Fathers nor the indigenous peoples, who had many cultures and languages. They relied on many sources not only in Europe, but the Bible and all the way back to the Greeks and Romans. No one ever learned the nonsense of this straw man poster misinformation which first tells a lie, then reports to correct the lie. Also, we don't have a Democracy, we have a Republic. The Founders were brilliant men with flaws who knew they stood on the shoulder of giants. We have tiny shriveled gnomes today who don't think, plan or read history, whose ideas are rooted in Marxism and the divine right of kings.

Yes, the archives belong to the victors as we say in the library field, however, we are fortunate to have many original documents, although well hidden and disguised in government schools today. There was a real fascination with everything Indian if you check 19th sources. And if you go back to 16th and 17th c. sources, some Europeans were horrified by the behavior and culture they found--and obviously saw their own culture as superior (although not by our enlightened, humanist standards where we sacrifice the unborn for personal gain but not usually living children).

Two hundred years ago in America

"Having an outdoor privy signified a level of decency above those who simply relieved themselves in the woods or fields. Indoor light was scarce and precious; families made their own candles, smelly and smoky, from animal tallow. A single fireplace provided all the cooking and heating for a common household. During winter, everybody slept in the room with the fire, several in each bed. Privacy for married couples was a luxury. ...

"It was a young society: The census listed the median age as sixteen, and only one person in eight as over forty-three years old. Women bore children in agony and danger, making their life expectancy, unlike today, slightly shorter than that of men. Once born, infants often succumbed to diseases like diphtheria, scarlet fever, and whooping cough. One-third of white children and over half of black children died before reaching adulthood. The women had enough babies to beat these grim odds. To help them through labor, neighbors and trained midwives attended them. Doctors were in short supply, hospitals almost unknown. This proved a blessing in disguise, for physicians then did as much harm as good, and hospitals incubated infection. The upside of rural isolation was that epidemics did not spread easily."

What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (Oxford History of the United States) 2007, pp. 32,37

Happy birthday Boston Tea Party, December 16

The Boston Tea Party was a nonviolent political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, on December 16, 1773. The Tea Party became an iconic event of American history, and other political protests often refer to it--got to love the language, "odious miscreants and detestable tools" "murder and destroy," "vile ingrates," committee for "Tarring and Feathering." Very detailed history of the event at this site.

http://williamdbailey.wordpress.com/2013/12/16/the-boston-tea-party/

Racists exhume Emmett Till for whipping up the protests

Emmett Till? Lynched about 60 years ago? When Republicans were trying to pass anti-lynching laws and Democrats wouldn't support them. Apparently there will never be any progress, never a black president or black mayors or black middle class, black PhDs, black CEOs, because the Racialists like Sharpton, Jackson and Holder will always up the ante. Come on professional racists--get with the 21st century and start revolting against the 93% of black male murders caused by black males who don't have a father in their home to love and discipline them. Slavery is more common today, mostly children and female sex slaves, than during the 18th century. Stop with the ancient victim stuff and playing the race card--it leaves you without a full deck.