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Educators from around the country have been reflecting on what they teach and how they teach it in the wake of the death of George Floyd and the national protests that followed. Some lessons up for reconsideration: the dismissive take that it was simply "the norm" that Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves in the late 1700s and language around Christopher Columbus' "discovery" of America.

Over the past two weeks, I've highlighted eight little-known facts about the Declaration of Independence. (If you missed the first two parts of this series, you can find them at http://www.creators.com/opinion/chuck-norris.html.) Here are the last four facts in my series: 9) One of the 26 known July 1776 copies of the Declaration of Independence was found behind an old painting purchased at a flea market for $4. In 1991, one of 24 known copies at the time of the declaration -- and one of only three known to be privately owned -- was auctioned for $2.42 million. What's even more...

Last week, I highlighted four little-known facts about the Declaration of Independence. Here are a few more facts to add to those oddities: There are at least 26 surviving paper copies of the Declaration of Independence of the hundreds made in July 1776 for circulation among the Colonies. After Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, the Committee of Five, which was appointed to write it, was also responsible with overseeing its reproduction for proclamation to those living in the Colonies. The reproduction was done at the shop of Philadelphia printer John Dunlap. "On July 5, Dunlap's copies were dispatched across...

Being about a week away from Independence Day, I was doing a little reflecting upon the history surrounding the Declaration of Independence. And I thought it would be of equal interest to many of my readers to look at some often-overlooked aspects of the declaration's production and legacy. Several historical websites hold some fascinating facts about this national treasure -- including the National Archives and Records Administration's site, at http://www.archives.gov. In addition, on History's website, the article "9 Things You May Not Know About the Declaration of Independence," by Elizabeth Harrison, has some intriguing notes. Let me elaborate on some...

Thomas Jefferson wrote that “all men are created equal,” and yet enslaved more than six-hundred people over the course of his life. Although he made some legislative attempts against slavery and at times bemoaned its existence, he also profited directly from the institution of slavery and wrote that he suspected black people to be inferior to white people in his Notes on the State of Virginia. Throughout his entire life, Thomas Jefferson was publicly a consistent opponent of slavery. Calling it a “moral depravity”1 and a “hideous blot,”2 he believed that slavery presented the greatest threat to the survival of...

In a recent article about Mount Rushmore, The New York Times said of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt that “each of these titans of American history has a complicated legacy.” Reporters Bryan Pietsch and Jacey Fortin casually summarized the woke herd’s litany of grievances: Washington and Jefferson owned slaves, Lincoln was “reluctant and late” to issue the Emancipation Proclamation and Roosevelt “actively sought to Christianize and uproot Native Americans.” Rushmore’s sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, didn’t escape unscathed. “Borglum had been involved with another project: an enormous bas-relief at Stone Mountain in Georgia that memorialized Confederate leaders,” the...

Fascinating news from The New York Times this week! Reviewing its op-ed titled “I’m a Direct Descendant of Thomas Jefferson. Take Down His Memorial,” I gather we now weigh Americans’ opinions based on who their ancestors are. I’m not sure that’s a good idea, but the rules are the rules. Otherwise, why would the Times consider it so important to publish Lucian Truscott, a great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Jefferson, at all? Blut uber alles! Obviously, we’re going to need a list of Whose Opinion Matters. Here’s my first stab at it: Descendants of John Adams will have their views count the most....

Frederick Douglass spent the entirety of his adult life fighting tirelessly for black people and women to be recognized as full United States citizens. Douglass, a famous black abolitionist in the 1800s, used Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence as the foundation of his argument to end slavery. That’s why it struck me as ill-informed that Colin Kaepernick would use Douglass’ What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July speech as the audio backdrop for his incendiary tweet condemning America’s Independence Day. Kap, aka Mute-hammad Ali, tweeted Saturday morning: “Black people have been dehumanized, brutalized, criminalized and terrorized by America...

Radical activist mobs toppling statues across the country aren't just wrong about the contributions of Thomas Jefferson, they're wrong about the Founding. It is believed playwright George Bernard Shaw once said “Every man deserves to be judged in the context of his times.” While that sentiment often goes unheeded, in our current moment it seems to be under full-blown assault. Hardly an hour goes by without demands — even preemptive actions — to topple a monument or statue memorializing someone from the past.A Thomas Jefferson statue is the latest target for my alma mater, the University of Missouri. Since 1885,...

I’ve been writing this week about the ideological wars on the Progressphiles listserv for Democratic Party data and technology professionals. A reader who is on H-France, a similar listserv for academic historians of France, passes on news of a similar meltdown on that list — along with the emails that brought this to pass. It all began with this June 16 request sent to the list, which is followed by thousands: In the piece, Prof. Daut calls on the French government to remove a statue in Paris depicting Thomas Jefferson. It takes some cheek to be a professor at the...

he promise of bloodshed coming alongside or following shortly after is an historic certainty. The symbols of a people never satisfy: People themselves must always come next. WASHINGTON, DC — For millennia, King Mob has targeted societies’ icons with varied goals and to varied ends, and few things are more foreboding than his desecration of civic art. Just as the targets have ranged from rulers to clergy, from tyrants to helpless, and from the guilty to the innocent, the outcomes have ranged from victory to defeat depending on the society’s strength and will. The promise of bloodshed coming alongside or...

One of the people who tore down the Thomas Jefferson statue was a 33-year-old white Portlander who happened upon the statue's removal by accident. He planned to attend a rally at Jefferson High, but ran an hour late. Most of the crowd had left. Key part from interview with anonymous man (identity concealed by the newspaper) below: WW: Why was this important enough to risk arrest? Portland man: I felt like I knew I wouldn't be. Maybe because I'm white. It just felt it was the moment. Like, everyone was there together. It was a joyous moment. It didn't...

There is no need to name names. The so-called conservatives who have been coddling mindless calls to destroy public art know who they are, so do the rest of us. These are the reasonable conservatives, the good ones, so ever careful no to be called racist. They had a compromise in mind because they always do. Throw the Confederate statues under the bus and we can save the rest. Well. Friday night a statue of Ulysses S. Grant was toppled. Also the statue of a Catholic saint. Do you know who is to blame? It is not the hordes of...

A statue of Thomas Jefferson outside a high school named for him in North Portland, Oregon was toppled Sunday after a night of protests, reports CBS Portland, Oregon affiliate KOIN-TV. It was the latest to be vandalized or pulled over in the U.S. and other nations during the racial justice protests that have followed the death of George Floyd at Minneapolis police hands three week ago.

Today's Quotefall Puzzle features a quote by Thomas Jefferson. Click puzzle (or click here) for full size rendition, then use your browser's print command to print puzzle. Thomas Jefferson was one of our major founding fathers. Although he disagreed vehemently with others, the framework of Independence and the Constitution stands today. The quote should be practiced at least occasionally to remain sane, updated for the modern media of course. All hints, along with the answer, are provided in the first reply comment below, using filtered font to prevent accidental spoilers. Please refrain from disclosing the full answer in comments to prevent spoilers.To...

Churchgoers across the country are reasserting their fundamental rights of conscience—rights that too many political leaders have forgotten or denied. On Friday, President Trump said churches and houses of worship are “essential” and called on governors nationwide to allow them to open this weekend. If they don’t, Trump said he would “override” governors, citing forthcoming guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.In remarks Thursday, the president criticized some governors who have “deemed liquor stores and abortion clinics as essential” but not churches. “It’s not right. So I’m correcting this injustice and calling houses of worship essential.”Trump is right,...

When you abandon freedom to achieve security, you lose both and deserve neither. —Thomas Jefferson There is no justification for taking away individuals' freedom in the guise of public safety. —Thomas Jefferson The greatest calamity which could befall us would be submission to a government of unlimited powers. —Thomas Jefferson [more...]

The city of Charlottesville, Virginia, will not honor the birthday of Thomas Jefferson this spring for the first time since World War II. The Washington Post reports that the city will instead celebrate the demise of slavery this coming Tuesday. The holiday is known as Liberation and Freedom Day. It will commemorate when Union troops arrived in the city in March 1865 and freed enslaved people. The change is the latest example of this southern city reckoning with its history. It began when the city tried to remove its Confederate monuments. That inspired white supremacists to stage the deadly 2017...

Today's Quotefall Puzzle features a quote by Thomas Jefferson. Click puzzle (or click here) for full size rendition, then use your browser's print command to print puzzle. Thomas Jefferson, and other Founding Fathers laid the foundation for the Constitutional Republic, which tempered the mob tendencies of pure Democracy. All hints, along with the answer, are provided in the first reply comment below, using filtered font to prevent accidental spoilers. Please refrain from disclosing the full answer in comments to prevent spoilers.To solve the puzzle: Enter the letters in the top half (letter columns) of the puzzle into the white squares on the...

Subtitle: The Matter of the Mississippi River. A not inconsequential percentage of Article V opponents, like those in the John Birch Society, identify as Anti-Federalists. They question the 1780s need for the vigorous government of our Constitution. Those familiar with the era know of Shays’ Rebellion. According to modern Anti-Federalists, Shays’ was the pretext for nationalists like George Washington and James Madison to justify the 1787 Philadelphia Convention. There were other problems facing the infant United States to which the Articles of Confederation proved inadequate. For instance, most of the great European and New World ports were closed to American...