November 29th 2008
The Lies They Teach: #13 – #15
O
ur quick summation of Larry Schweikart’s 48 Liberal Lies about American History (That You Probably Learned in School) – which C-SM hopes will lead to you purchasing a copy of the book for yourself and any college-age kids in your acquaintance – continues with three more lies from this solid review of what liberal history profs are doing to revise the past and pollute the minds of the next generation.
Lie #13 – Thomas Jefferson Favored “Small Government” And Was A Pacifist
“He can with some justice be called a ‘half-way pacifist.’” Reginald C. Stuart, The Half-Way Pacifist
The chapter starts with a recounting of Jefferson as the first president with a preemptive war policy, as displayed by his aggressive approach to the Barbary pirates. While he favored a small navy (a half-way pacifist), he had no problem using Adams’ big navy against Tripoli (an all the way warmonger).
As for small government, it is true Jefferson cut the federal budget from Adams’ final budget of $10 million down to just over $7 million. Those were the days! But by 1805, the Jefferson admin was spending a budget of $12 million. Under him, per-capita income fell and government spending as a share of all national spending increased slightly.
Jefferson also directed Sec. of Treasury Albert Gallatin to develop plans for roads, harbors, navigable rivers and canals – all work that had previously been the business of the private sector. Says Schweikart of this supposedly “small government” president:
It is therefore surprising to see Jefferson order Gallatin to prepare an extensive report to Congress in 1808 in which he concluded, “The General Government can alone remove these obstacles”‘ to improving transportation.
At a time when the entire federal budget was $10 million, Gallatin and Jefferson recommended a $20 million federal spending program on infrastructure. Small government indeed.
Lie #14 – Women Had No Rights In Early America
“The United States had founding mothers … but on the whole our history celebrates only the white founding fathers ….” – Carol Berkin and Mary Beth Norton, Women of Amercia
Schweikart starts his rebuttal with an admission that being a woman in colonial America “was no picnic,” but adds that colonial women enjoyed more rights than English women, and better than today’s women in North Korea or Saudi Arabia.
Colonial inheritance laws allowed women to inherit parts of their husbands’ estates (all if the couples were childless), and lawyers in Colonial America invented the prenuptual, protecting the inheritances of many wealthy young women from nefarious scoundrels.
Many women of the era inherited their husbands’ businesses under these laws, and went on to run them successfully.
Where education was available, “Dame Schools” taught young women and there were examples of truly visionary approaches to education here, such as at the Lowell Mills in MA, where “Lowel Girls” working in the mills received an education at company expense. Our churches also offered women great freedom. Many were warm-up preachers to the main sermon, and many denominations included them in the church’s decision-making leadership.
Schweikart sees the problem feminist revisionists face:
One of the problems feminist historians have faced is that they must simultaneously portray women as victims and heroines: for women to be worthy of study as a separate historical topic, women must have done something exceptional or out of the ordinary. Y et as soon as there were examples of women achievers, it challenged the feminist notion of a rigid “classist/sexist” society that held women back.
Lie #15 – Restrictions On The Right To Vote Kept Voter Participation Low
“The roaring flood of the new democracy was now foaming perilously near the crest.” – Charles and Mary Beard, The Rise of American Civilization
Most early colonies had restrictions on the vote. Not only did voters have to be men and white, they had to either own land or property, or in some cases, have certain levels of wealth. Generally, only somewhere around 60 to 80 percent of white men were qualified to vote.
But this didn’t lead to lower voter registration than we have today. Between 1776 and 1780, turnout of eligible voters in the 13 states was between 48 and 65 percent. Between 1952 and 1960, just 64 percent of adults qualified to vote voted. In 2000, 64 percent of the eligible population registered, of whom 83 percent voted, or about half of all qualified voters.
The “foaming perilously near the crest” quoted above is a reference to historians’ portrayal of the surge of popular democracy during the Jackson years. At this time, Jackson’s foes were portrayed as the Eastern business elite “who grew rich by … government-bestowed privileges,” according to John Murrin et al.’s Liberty, Equality, Power: A History of the American People. But, Schweikart says,
What universally goes unmentioned is that Van Buren’s party system, which produced Jackson’s election, was based on patronage and spoils. Both Jackson’s’ and Van Buren’s administrations greatly expanded the scope and power of the federal government, as well as spending by the government, precisely because they had to reward their supporters with party and government jobs.
The Lies They Teach #11 And #12
The Lies They Teach: #9 and #10
The Lies They Teach – #8
The Lies They Teach: #6 And #7
The Lies They Teach: #4 And #5
The Lies They Teach: #1 – #3
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