Truth My Kids Will Know - America Has An Honorable History

 Lie #17 - America Is Fundamentally Evil; Nothing About Its History Is Good.

This is the dominant thought in our mainstream culture right now:

"The founders were all ignorant racist slaveowners."

"Slavery was an American issue - and we fought to keep it."

"All of the systems of this country were unjust when they were formed, and are still racist today"

When was the last time your kids were taught about the American founders...other than to call them racists?

When was the last time you saw the first pilgrims in America shown in a positive way in our media?

When was the last time you heard the United States defended from racist accusations?

In spite of all of our focus on Black History, can you name one black American hero before the Civil War?

If you have no knowledge of these things, I don't blame you.

But I do blame our education...

We aren't being told the truth about our own country...and it's dangerously affecting the way we're treating it.

Of course there have been flaws with this country. Of course we have done things as a nation that we're not proud of. These mistakes and national sins should be known and taught...but so should the good. Today we're only hearing about what we did wrong...we're NEVER told about the overwhelming good that surrounds the United States of America.

Deuteronomy 32:7 - "Remember the days of long ago; think about the generation past. Ask your father and he will inform you. Inquire of the elders and they will tell you."

Founded For Freedom

The New York Times' 1619 Project is a source of a lot of unrest in the country right now. This project is actively stoking racial tensions, not relieving them. The United States, they claim, was actually founded to strengthen and protect the slave trade. In their mind, America was born, not with the Declaration of Independence in 1776, but with the arrival of the first African slaves in 1619.

Of course slavery was, and still remains, evil. It was an injustice that was considered normal for far too long - and one that true Christians should oppose at every turn. 

It's tragic that slavery had any role in the history of this nation. Unfortunately, there was a portion of our population believed that one person owning another was perfectly acceptable. I do agree that this national sin needs to be taught - but it should be taught completely. Rather than only pick out the areas where Americans failed, we should also teach about how things changed and who was responsible for the change.

First: America was always intended to be a Slave-Free nation

 - Did you hear about the second group of slaves that arrived in America and landed in Massachusetts? The slaves were immediately set free, and the slavers were imprisoned. Since it's very beginning, Massachusetts has never allowed slavery.

 - The original draft of the Declaration of Independence contained a lengthy paragraph about the American colonists continuing efforts to end slavery, and spoke of King George's opposition to their movement. This passage was removed because only two colonies (Georgia and South Carolina) opposed it.

 - There were many black American patriots fought and died in the Revolutionary war as equals beside their white countrymen.

 - The Revolutionary War was finally won largely due to the espionage of America's first double agent, a free black man named James Armistead.

 - The three-fifths clause in the Constitution was designed to reduce the national influence of the Slave-holding southern states. It was not about human value, it was about representation in Congress. Freed black Americans in the northern states were not included in the three-fifths clause and possessed full representation.

 - Black Americans held all types of leadership roles in the (Northern) United States - even before the Civil War - from elected judges, to influential preachers, to businessmen.

Second: We had the first government in the world to free the slaves

 - Immediately after the Revolutionary War, the Northern States set to work abolishing any trace of slavery.

 - While the first nation to abolish slavery was the British empire, the state of Vermont was the first government to do so. They ended slavery as soon as they could in 1777, fifty-six years before Great Britain followed suit.

 - Until the Democratic Party changed the law in 1820, America originally required all new states coming into the Union to be free states - further reducing the political power of the slave-holding states.

 - Thirty-two years after the Declaration of Independence, the United States banned the Slave Trade from importing any more slaves. The U.S. Navy was actually dispatched to the coast of Africa for years to try and stop slave ships and return the captives back to Africa.

Third: We paid a terrible price in American blood to end the atrocity of slavery.

 - The Republican party was specifically formed to finally put an end to slavery. Their first president was Abraham Lincoln.

 - 360,000 Americans from the North gave their lives to end slavery; the majority of them white. These men fought alongside their black countrymen to give them the freedom that was ingrained in our national DNA.

 - Immediately following the end of the Civil War, hundreds of black Americans - former slaves - swept into government offices across the South. Naturally, all of them were members of Lincoln's Republican party

The end of the Civil War should have been the capstone of Civil Rights in this nation - we should all have been on equal standing at that point. Unfortunately, there was still a group of Americans that refused to let the old racism die.

Defeating Our Own Evil

The period after the Civil War was known as the reconstruction. During this time, the United States added three new Amendments to our Constitution.

-The thirteenth amendment outlawed slavery completely.

-The fourteenth amendment guaranteed the full rights and representation of citizenship to all former slaves.

-The fifteenth amendment guaranteed the right to vote, no matter what race an individual belonged to.

During the reconstruction, the new Republican party was sweeping into power left and right. Of course, the newly freed slaves voted almost unanimously for the party that destroyed the practice of slavery. Since there were more than 2 million former slaves in these southern states, you can imagine the kind of political power they were now wielding. If things kept going, the pro-slavery Democrat party was going to find itself with no more influence. 

In 1865, a radical and militant wing of the Democrat party was formed to violently oppose the reconstruction of the south. This organization, known as the Ku Klux Klan (or KKK), wasn't developed as an "anti-black" group, per say. It was specifically designed as an anti-republican organization.

-Republicans were the ones that freed the slaves.

-Republicans were the ones pushing for complete equality between the races.

-Republicans defeated the democrats in the Civil War.

-And the majority of Republican party chapters in the South were founded by former slaves.

Therefore, it was Republicans that were the targets of the Klan's vengeance.

Of course, the Klan overwhelmingly targeted black Americans. (This was because it was assumed that if you were black, then you were a Republican.) But of the 4,700 lynchings that were committed between 1882 and 1968, more than a quarter actually targeted white Republicans.

To keep itself in power, the Democrat party went back to oppression of black Americans. The so-called "Jim Crow" laws were enacted by Democrat lawmakers to force black Americans back into segregation. "White only" and "Black only" signs began to appear all over the South. Illegally, black citizens were denied the ability to vote - with various intimidation tactics used to keep them from casting ballots. This oppression continued in force for a long time, and was only officially put to an end with the Civil Rights act of 1964 (a bill that was supported by nearly ALL Republicans, but only NORTHERN Democrats).

Racism is evil - whether it's committed by an individual or an elected government. The systematic oppression of the Jim Crow era was inexcusable. But the truth is, that systematic oppression was illegal, and actually broke the laws of the land. From the end of the Civil War until the 1960's, the fight was to maintain and enforce the laws of equality that were put in place during the time of Lincoln.

Why is it we don't hear about the whole story? Have you ever heard about the party affiliation of the KKK? Did you know that the Democrats doubled down on their pro-slavery, anti-black positions after the Civil War? Did you know that the three Civil Rights constitutional amendments were passed almost entirely by Republican lawmakers?

I completely support exposing the flaws and wrong-doings of this nation. I think there's a lot we can learn from where we failed. However, that truth quickly transforms into a lie when you exclude the rest of the story. Over time, we've only focused on historic wrong, and have lost sight of all the virtue of this country...and the men and women (of ALL races) that founded it. 

But my kids will know their history. They will know that America became the greatest nation on earth because it was founded for freedom. We fought for "liberty and justice for all" - even when it meant battling ourselves to achieve it.