If This Be Treason

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alf a century has passed since Mrs. Allen force-fed us American history in our fifth grade Social Studies class at John Rogers School in Vancouver Washington. John Rogers School is now gone, and so no doubt is Mrs. Allen, but American history is still with us.

Not that I was unacquainted with American history before that—if nothing else, I’d heard (many times) the Stan Freberg album The Early Years released the previous May, with his caricatures of Christopher Columbus, Benjamin Franklin, and especially George Washington. I knew some of the highlights, anyway, enough to get most of it. I also knew that Columbus wasn’t the first guy to think the world was round, and that Thomas Jefferson didn’t go door-to-door trying to get people to sign the Declaration of Independence, and that Norman Rockwell didn’t win the Revolutionary War by painting a giant mural.

Actually, one of the first things I did when I hit fifth grade was to check out the copy of the Declaration of Independence Mrs. Allen had hanging on the wall to see whether it did in fact say “purfuit of happineff” as Freberg’s Benjamin Franklin had claimed (it doesn’t) or whether George Washington had ever signed it (he didn’t). And seeing a reproduction of the “Spirit of ’76” painting hanging toward the front of the classroom cheered me a bit in the dark days ahead (“I’ve got the bandage around my ears, but it doesn’t help much”).

One of the figures who did not turn up on the Freberg album, however, was Patrick Henry. I don’t know whether I’d run into him in some connection or other before—I think I’d read some children’s book about him in third or fourth grade, actually—but I remember him from fifth grade history. Our book had his “give me liberty of give me death” speech in it (actually a lengthy excerpt, and it didn’t bother to inform us that the speech was a reconstruction made long after the fiery orator’s death) and I liked the rhetoric of it. Indeed, I admired it so much that when the end of the school year came around, and we had to return our books to the school, rather than lose the speech forever (as I imagined, because what other book could possibly have it except our fifth grade history book?), I memorized it.

But the electrifying moment for me came during the Stamp Act debates, when Henry was newly elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses. Defying the oppressive British authorities, Henry concluded a speech by saying “Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell; and George the Third—” The speaker interrupted. “Treason,” he cried. Imperturbably Patrick Henry continued, “—may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.”

Damn, that was cool. That was sharp. Make the most of it indeed. Of course a couple of years later when I learned that Patrick Henry was a slave-owner (a fact Mrs. Allen never bothered to mention) that liberty-or-death thing seemed to ring a bit hollow, but in fifth grade that particular moment stood out in relief. If this be treason, make the most of it. A kind of devil-may-care defiance of an oppressive tyrant—the sort of thing I would have liked to have said anent Mrs. Allen, if only I’d had the guts—or the presence of mind.

It’s now been a quarter of a millennium (and doesn’t that sound grand?) since Patrick Henry’s moment of defiance, and time has perhaps fogged the picture a bit. Wouldn’t it be cool if we had a time-machine and could go back and see the moment for ourselves? To stand there while Patrick Henry delivered that line and hear it for ourselves?

Well, we can’t. But there is in history something like a time-machine, sometimes. There are contemporary accounts of an incident, moments as seen by an actual observer and recorded while the memory is fresh. And, in fact, we are lucky enough to have such an account, written by a French traveler, who happened to be passing through at this significant moment.

Yes, believe it or not this anonymous visitor just happened to drop in on this very day, two hundred and fifty years ago. “I went immediately to the assembly which was sitting,” he wrote (spelling modernized), “where I was entertained with very strong debates concerning duties that the Parliament wants to lay on the American colonies, which they call or style stamp duties.” No sooner did he get there than a certain member (“his name is Hennery” he informs us parenthetically) got up and “said he had read that in former times Tarquin and Julius had their Brutus, Charles had his Cromwell” (yes, yes, here it comes!) “and he did not doubt but some good American would stand up in favor of his country.”

What? Patrick Henry actually called for an assassination? That’s not the way I heard it in fifth grade!

“But—” Patrick Henry was going to continue in a more moderate tone, when the speaker interrupted him. Okay, now we’re back on track. The speaker said that Henry “had spoke treason [yes!], and was sorry to see that not one of the members of the house was loyal enough to stop him, before he had gone so far.”

Okay, that’s a little different, but now surely Patrick Henry stands his ground? Now he turns it around with a sharp retort?

Well, according to our narrative Henry again addressed the house and “said that if he had affronted the speaker, or the house, he was ready to ask pardon, and he would show his loyalty to his majesty King George the third, at the expense of the last drop of his blood.” Just wait a goddamn minute, no—that can’t be right. “But what he had said must be attributed to the interest of his country’s dying liberty which he had at heart, and the heat of passion might have lead him to have said something more than he intended, but, again, if he said anything wrong, he begged the speaker and the house’s pardon.” After that it’s really an anticlimax to read that several other members spoke in his favor “and the affair was dropped.”

What happened? I’m almost as disappointed as the narrator of Bring the Jubilee who goes back to watch Lee win the battle of Gettysburg and instead witnesses his crushing defeat.

Well, it seems that time has indeed somewhat distorted the incident. The French traveler wasn’t apparently the only one to note it. A presumably independent account (dated 21 June 1765) described it:

Mr. [Henry] has lately blazed out in the Assembly, where he compared [George III] to a Tarquin, a Caesar, a Charles the First, threatening him with a Brutus, or an Oliver Cromwell; yet Mr. [Henry] was not sent to the Tower: but having prevailed to get some ridiculous violent Resolves passed, rode off in triumph, some of which Resolves were passed one day, and erased the next; and the G[overnor], advised by the Council, thought proper to dissolve the Assembly.

No mention of an aftermath—either the if-this-be-treason line or the apology. Later in the summer (on 12 August) William Robinson noted the incident (almost certainly from this account) in a description of Patrick Henry’s character and activities:

He blazed out in a violent speech against the Authority of parliament and the King, comparing his Majesty to a Tarquin, a Cesar, and a Charles the First and not sparing insinuations that he wished another Cromwell would arise. He made a motion for several outrageous resolves, some of which passed and were again erased as soon as his back was turned.

Again, no sequel.

The first historical account (at least that I’m aware of) appeared in Charles Stedman’s 1794 The History of the Origin, Progress, and Termination of the American War, volume 1, p. 32. He described it like this:

Some idea may be formed of the manner in which this debate was conducted, by the following passage, extracted from a speech of one of the members [identified as “Mr. Patrick Henry” in a footnote], who afterwards made a conspicuous figure in the beginning of the rebellion. After declaiming with bitterness against the supposed arbitrary measures of the present reign, he added, “Cæsar had his Brutus, Charles the First an Oliver Cromwell, and George the Third—” But before he could proceed farther, a cry of, Treason! was heard from one quarter of the house, and the speaker soon afterwards rising up, called him to order, and declared that he would quit the chair, unless he was supported by the house in restraining such intemperate speeches.

For the first time we have Henry interrupted just after naming George III—and it will be noted, without any actual suggestion that “some good American” might play the part of Brutus or Cromwell. Did he have an independent source, or was he reimagining the event?

It isn’t until 1805 that John Burk (The History of Virginia: From Its First Settlement to the Present Day, Volume 3) mentions Henry’s classic rejoinder. After giving some lengthy excerpts from the speech (which are generally considered inauthentic) he comes to the point (well, our point anyway):

Here he entered into an historical enumeration of those examples of successful resistance to oppression which rendered glorious the annals of Rome and England, and concluded with this dreadful warning, which connected with its subsequent fulfilment, seemed like the inspiration of prophecy. “Caesar,” said he, “had his Brutus, Charles his Cromwell and (pausing) George the third. (here a cry of treason, treason was heard, supposed to issue from the chair, but with admirable presence of mind he proceeded) may profit by their examples. Sir, if this be treason, continued he, make the most of it.”

As Burk was not even born when Patrick Henry made his speech he had to have a source, and as his version ends the series of rulers by naming George III, it seems likely that his source was Stedman’s volume, or perhaps somebody who had read Stedman. The snappy conclusion? Well, Burk was a dramatist, and this line would play perfectly on the stage. I’m not saying he created it, but it would be nice to know where he got it.

The notion that Henry had delivered a dexterous comeback on that occasion was not unique to Burk. Jefferson remembered something of the sort, and Edmond Randolph gave an alternate version in his manuscript history of Virginia:

In his harangue, he certainly indulged a strain never before heard in the royal Capitol. This circumstance passed while he was speaking: “Caesar,” cried he, “had his Brutus; Charles the first his Cromwell; and George the third—” “Treason, sir,” exclaimed the Speaker, to which Henry instantly replied, “and George the third, may he never have either.” This dexterous escape or retreat, if it did not savor of lively eloquence, was of itself a victory.

I personally like the “if this be treason” version better, but this one is likely to be just as accurate.

So there it is. You can, I suppose, believe that the anonymous but contemporary Frenchman got it wrong somehow, and that the true version made its way via oral transmission to Burk. It’s unlikely as hell, but unlikely things sometimes happen, and this could be one of them. But I’ve got to say, honestly, that the Frenchman’s version seems so much more likely. I mean, it would be nice if Patrick Henry had had the presence of mind to deliver that snappy comeback, on cue and everything. But it savors of legend and things that should have happened, rather than history and things that did.

Are We Bored Yet?

I

 am in a foul mood this bleak Saturday in the 12014^th year of the Holocene Era. It’s cold out here, and icy winds knock down boughs and powerlines outside. Inside it’s not exactly toasty, but it’s quite warm, thank you, and I suppose I ought to count my blessings.

And one of those blessings is this page on a website called Reneland, “Where The Truth About Religion Is Told, Life In Los Alamos Is Remembered and Crimes Against Women Are Acknowledged”. Reneland sounds like a fun place—so how do I explain this inane entry, over two years old now, which makes some extraordinary claims about US religious history.

The author gets off to a rocky start by confusing the foundation of the nation (in the late eighteenth century) with the coming of the first settlers (early seventeenth century). There is a considerable difference. The first settlers did not found a nation. They set up colonies. The work of founding the nation belonged to a later generation.

She goes on to say “The freedom our founding fathers were in search of was the freedom to not be persecuted for their religious beliefs by the Catholic Church. By religious beliefs I mean Christianity, or better yet Protestantism.” This is bizarre. Puritans (for example) fled religious persecution by Anglicans, Catholics fled religious persecution by Huguenots, as well as various protestants fleeing Catholic persecution.

She then randomly flails away at a straw man who claims that the founders were not Christian—a belief held by nobody that I am aware of. (But the world is large, and there are many false beliefs. Nobody of any significance believes this anyway.) Yes, she is absolutely correct that the founders were white Christian men. And so?

But the ludicrous frosting on top of this half-baked cake is the following statement, made apparently in all seriousness:

There was no idea of any other non Christian religion, no religion, pagan or Jewish religion to any documents written when the forming of our government was happening.

I freely admit that I have no idea of what Reneland was trying to say, but the founders were quite aware of a variety of nonChristian religions, and wrote about them. George Washington, father of the country, explicitly included Judaism in the religious beliefs that were held by right, not by mere toleration. Other writers mentioned Hinduism and Islam as well. The idea that non-Christian religions were missing from “any documents written when the forming of our government was happening” is, to use one of her favorite words, ignorance.

And now come the golden sprinkles on this festive offering. “Let me give you some examples in the form of quotes by our founding fathers” Reneland writes. And of course you, my long-time readers (if any there be) know what is coming. A rich offering of fake quotes, misattributions, and other bizarrenesses. Let’s go:

First up, and by far the best of the offerings, are two quotations from John Adams. (Or from my viewpoint the worst, as they are legitimate. More or less.) The first:

I must not write a word to you about politics because you are a woman.

I actually don’t know why this one is here, or what the point of including it was. It comes from a letter to his wife Abigail (11 February 1779), and is part of an explanation of why he is avoiding a discussion of politics:

I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman.

What an offence have I committed! A woman!

I shall soon make it up. I think women better than men, in general, and I know, that you can keep a secret as well as any man whatever. But the world don’t know this. Therefore if I were to write my sentiments to you, and the letter should be caught and hitched into a newspaper, the world would say, I was not to be trusted with a secret.

Of course Adams had learned about the danger of intercepted letters, to his cost. And then we have this one, a familiar out-of-context quotation from Adams’ 11 October 1798 reply to the officers of the first brigade of the third division of the Massachusetts militia, slightly misquoted:

Our Constitution was made only for the [sic] moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

And now the real fun begins. Reneland lists three quotations attributed to George Washington, of which one is legitimate. The first is an over-familiar fake:

It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible.

As I’ve pointed out in the past, it first appeared in this form in 1893, and rests only on the word of a lawyer who never met Washington. Believe it if you like, but there’s no reason to think it authentic. This is White Queen country here. Our next is a lightly-mangled excerpt from Washington's Farewell Address:

Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that natural morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

Here is the authentic passage:

Let it be simply asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.

It’s close, at least. The third and last is a ring-tailed doozy:

We are persuaded that good Christians will always be good citizens, and that where righteousness prevails among individuals the nation will be great and happy. Thus while just government protects all in their religious rights, true religion affords to government its surest support.

As I’ve pointed out before, these are not Washington’s words in the least; they are taken from a letter written to him—let me reiterate to him—by a group of religious leaders. Washington is no more responsible for them than for any other random assemblage of words directed to him in his long and illustrious life.

Next comes a John Quincy Adams quotation, or rather, a slight misquotation:

The highest glory of the American Revolution was this, it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.

I’ve written about this one before. It’s basically legitimate, though it would be better to quote it directly from Adams, rather than from John Wingate Thornton. Also, John Quincy Adams isn’t really a founder.

Nor is James K. Polk, to whom this next mishmash is attributed:

The Bible is the rock on which this Republic rests. Under the benign act providence of almighty God the representatives of the states and of the people are again brought together to deliberate for the public good.

The first sentence is something usually attributed to Andrew Jackson, though on no very good authority. (Need I point out that neither is Jackson a founder?) The rest is legitimate, and is the opening of his fourth annual message to congress, 5 December 1848. Except, of course, the words “benign act” should be the word “benignant”.

And last, my favorite punching-bag, the ultra-fake Patrick Henry “quotation” written in 1956, long after the fiery orator’s death:

It cannot be emphasized enough to strongly or to often that this great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians, not on religions but on the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It’s misquoted, but that’s the least of its problems. It is ignorance of the rankest variety to believe that Patrick Henry, or anybody of his time for that matter, could have written this—this piece of idiocy.

And it’s really too bad because, honestly, Reneland is not a bad place to visit. Just don’t drink the Kool-aid.

David Barton’s “Unconfirmed” Quotations—The Current Score

As yesterday's observations moved one of David Barton’s “unconfirmed” quotations from the Fake to the Slightly Mangled column, I thought it might be fun to see how the entire group stacks up so far. Here they are, in his order:

1. It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ!—Patrick Henry

Fake. This one has been done to death; it’s an obvious fake—actually written in 1956, and misattributed to Henry in the 1980s.

2. It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.—George Washington

Fake. This is a misquotation of a saying attributed to Washington by James K. Paulding in a children’s biography of Washington: “It is impossible to govern the universe without the aid of a Supreme Being”. Paulding insisted in his preface that he got his material from people who had known Washington, and maybe he did, but as he chose not to give his sources, it remains an unverified claim. In any case this rewritten version is manifestly fake.

3. Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise. In this sense and to this extent, our civilizations and our institutions are emphatically Christian.—Holy Trinity v. U. S. (Supreme Court)

Fake. The actual author of this quotation is not the United States Supreme Court, but the Illinois Supreme Court (Richmond v. Moore, 1883): “Although it is no part of the functions of our system of government to propagate religion, and to enforce its tenets, when the great body of the people are Christians, in fact or sentiment, our laws and institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise. And in this sense, and to this extent, our civilization and institutions are emphatically Christian, but not for the purpose of compelling men to embrace particular doctrines or creeds of any church, or to support one or another denomination by public burthens, but simply to afford protection to all in the enjoyment of their belief or unbelief.”

Barton’s response on learning this shows that he is still far from embracing scholarly standards on evidence, in spite of his claims—he moved the quotation from the unconfirmed to the confirmed column, apparently on the ground that somebody somewhere had said it, or something like it. If that’s his standard, then all of these quotations should be moved to the confirmed column forthwith, since every one of them was said by somebody on some occasion. The issue, of course, is whether they were said by the person (or in this case court) to which they are attributed. This one isn’t. EOD.

4. We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves . . . according to the Ten Commandments of God.—James Madison

Fake. The only genuine portion of this passage were the words “the capacity of mankind for self-government”—and Barton left them out of his mangled version of the pseudo-quotation. The quotation appears to have originated around 1958 and may be based on Dean Clarence Manion’s exposition of this Madison phrase in The Key to Peace. In any case, it’s not Madison’s.

5. Religion . . . [is] the basis and foundation of government.—James Madison

Fake. Barton prefers to call this one “inaccurate” for some reason, but it’s a fake pure and simple. The word “religion” comes from a passage Madison was quoting, and the words “the basis and foundation of government” are from the title of the piece being quoted. They aren’t Madison’s, and they don’t belong together. EOD.

6. Whosoever shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world.—Benjamin Franklin

Fake. The words are Jacques Mallet du Pan’s, not Franklin’s, though du Pan claims they represent Franklin’s sentiment. He didn’t say where he got this idea.

7. The principles of all genuine liberty, and of wise laws and administrations are to be drawn from the Bible and sustained by its authority. The man therefore who weakens or destroys the divine authority of that book may be assessory to all the public disorders which society is doomed to suffer.—Noah Webster

Unconfirmed—probably genuine. The passage supposedly comes from a letter Noah Webster wrote to an unnamed New York newspaper around 1837.

8. There are two powers only which are sufficient to control men, and secure the rights of individuals and a peaceable administration; these are the combined force of religion and law, and the force or fear of the bayonet.—Noah Webster

Likewise unconfirmed—probably genuine. It is the next paragraph from the same supposed letter, minus the introductory phrase “In my view”.

9. The only assurance of our nation’s safety is to lay our foundation in morality and religion.—Abraham Lincoln

Unconfirmed—likely fake. It can’t be traced earlier than the mid-1970s.

10. The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.—Abraham Lincoln

Unconfirmed—likely fake. This one also can’t be traced earlier than the late twentieth century.

11. A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.—Samuel Adams

Genuine. Samuel Adams wrote to James Warren on 12 February 1779, “A general Dissolution of Principles & Manners will more surely overthrow the Liberties of America than the whole Force of the Common Enemy. While the People are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their Virtue they will be ready to surrender their Liberties to the first external or internal Invader.”

12. I have always said and always will say that the studious perusal of the Sacred Volume will make us better citizens.—Thomas Jefferson

Attributed. On 15 June 1852 Daniel Webster wrote a letter to “Professor Pease” concerning the sabbath-school movement in which he recalled an afternoon spent with Thomas Jefferson a quarter of a century or so before. In it he quotes Thomas Jefferson as having said to him “I have always said, and always will say, that the studious perusal of the sacred volume will make better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands.” This letter was published in 1858 and these lines have been quoted from it ever since.

13. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.—Alexis de Tocqueville

Fake. This line is a misquotation from another foreign visitor to the United States, Andrew Reed, who along with James Matheson visited the United States from Great Britain during the Jackson administration. In one of his letters he wrote back home “Universal suffrage, whatever may be its abstract merits or demerits, is neither desirable nor possible, except the people are the subjects of universal education and universal piety. America will be great if America is good. If not, her greatness will vanish away like a morning cloud.” Quoted a number of times during the nineteenth century, it was garbled early in the twentieth and misattributed to Alexis de Tocqueville.

14. The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.—John Quincy Adams

Genuine. Almost. What John Quincy Adams wrote to an autograph collector on 27 April 1837 was “The highest, the transcendent glory of the American Revolution was this—it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the precepts of Christianity. If it has never been considered in that light, it is because its compass has not been perceived.” John Wingate Thornton attributed the version above, sans quotation marks, to John Quincy Adams, making a couple of trivial changes. Perhaps he was quoting from memory, as the changes seem pointless. In any case it has been quoted in the Thornton version ever since.

By my count we have seven fakes, two probable fakes, two possibly genuine items, one attribution, and two legitimate quotations. It could be worse, I suppose. Some of them are plausible, anyway. But at least three of the fakes (the Patrick Henry and the two James Madisons) are so egregious as to make you wonder how anybody could have been deceived by them. And the Illinois Supreme Court decision is grotesque, an out-of-context quotation at its worst. (And three guesses as to why he didn’t quote this line from the same decision: “a total severance of church and State is one of the great controlling foundation principles of our system of government.”) The Washington strikes me as iffy at best, especially in Barton’s form (which goes back to 1893 at any rate), but there’s nothing impossible about it, as there is with the Henry, for example.

With the remaining unconfirmed items keep in mind that the burden of proof is always on the person citing the quotation as genuine. Once again let me invoke Martin Porter’s first principle of quotation: “Whenever you see a quotation given with an author but no source assume that it is probably bogus.” It’s not a bad basis to work from.

Patrick Henry “Religionists” FAQ

I see that for whatever reason myriads are storming the fort here and over at Fake History regarding something Patrick Henry allegedly said:

There is an insidious campaign of false propaganda being waged today, to the effect that our country is not a Christian country but a religious one—that it was not founded on Christianity but on freedom of religion. It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this great nation was founded, not by “religionists”, but by Christians—not on religion, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.

Regular readers (both of them) are probably sick of this by now, but as questions persist, I’ve thrown together a sort of FAQ on the subject.

Q – When did Patrick Henry say this?

A – He didn’t.

Q – How do you know?

A – Well, first and most important, it isn’t found anywhere in Henry’s known letters, or in the fragments of recovered and reconstructed speeches.

Q – Couldn’t he have said it anyway? Not everything somebody says gets written down, after all. Maybe it was passed down by word of mouth or something.

A – Or maybe he was misquoted. Or maybe it was said by somebody else altogether. People often make mistakes about what other people have said, or attribute something to the wrong person. That’s why giving your source is so important.

Q – I have a source that says he said it. It’s in a book/in a magazine/on a website. Doesn’t that count?

A – Not unless Patrick Henry himself wrote the material in that book, or magazine, or website. That’s why it’s so important to be able to say where he wrote it, or when he said it.

Q – Okay. My mother/my pastor/a book/somebody on the internet says he said it in a speech to the House of Burgesses in May 1765. That ought to be good enough, right?

A – How do we know he said it then and there? Where was it recorded?

Q – Well, they must have kept records, right?

A – Actually, no. Not of the exact speeches, anyway. Remember, there were no recorders, no cameras, no stenographers taking things down as people said it. Sometimes the text of a speech made it into print—more often not. In Patrick Henry’s case, only one speech from May 1765 is on record, and only a fragment of that. And that’s the famous (reconstructed) “if this be treason” exchange.

Q – And this wasn’t part?

A – No.

Q – But I’ve seen the date 1774 for it—also 1776. Couldn’t one of those be right?

A – Again you have the same problem. Where was it recorded? How do we know it was Patrick Henry who said it, and not some other person?

Q – Well, but people have been saying Henry said it for generations. When something’s been passed down by tradition, different rules apply, right?

A – There are two things wrong with that. Traditional evidence is evaluated in the same way as other evidence—and the pseudo-Henry quotation has not been passed down by tradition. It was first attributed to Henry in the 1980s.

Q – What do you mean about evaluating traditions like other evidence? How is that possible?

A – First, there is the matter of external attestation. How old is the tradition? How likely were the transmitters to know what they were claiming? Things like that. Second, there is internal evidence. Does the tradition jibe with things we know about the period from which it is supposed to have come? The pseudo-Henry quotation fails on both fronts.

Q – Well, how old is this tradition?

A – The oldest claimed source for these words as Henry’s is a book called God’s Providence in American History published in 1988 by Steve C. Dawson. It’s a long time between Dawson and Henry, and there’s no obvious chain of custody to get it there.

Q – What about the internal evidence?

A – The words don’t belong to Patrick Henry’s time. The phrase “false propaganda” for example was common from the early twentieth century on, but was unknown in Henry’s time. The author refers to “this great nation”—a nation that in Henry’s time had yet to come into existence. And “peoples of other faiths” would not be “afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here” until much later. There was no “freedom of worship” for most of the country at the time Henry is alleged to have said this.

Q – Still, if you can’t say where it did come from, I’m still entitled to quote it as Henry’s, right?

A – Not unless you have a source for it.

Q – I have lots of sources for it—websites, politicians, evangelists—don’t they count for anything?

A – You only need one source for it—the book Henry wrote, the speech he made, the letter he sent where those words appear. Otherwise you got nothing.

Q – Well, but you’ve got nothing to back your claim either.

A – Uh, actually I do. In point of fact the words were originally written in the April 1956 issue of The Virginian in a brief item about—not by—Patrick Henry. Not that that matters. The burden of proof is always on the person making the positive claim.

Q – So if you didn’t need to show where it came from, why did you?

A – It amused me at the time, and I had nothing better to do.

The Impotent Rage of the Clueless

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?

Psalms 2:1

As robots insist on spamming my posts I’ve made it a policy to close comments down after a couple of weeks, so I only have to tend to a few recent entries. If a friend of the blog stops by an older post, as sometimes happens, or somebody else contributes something valuable and I happen to notice it, then I’ll okay it. If somebody decides to unload a bucketful of bile at an old post, it will probably go down the toilet without being read. I’m sorry, but my time is reasonably valuable, and I have better things to do as I prepare to be finally pigeonholed in that great archive in the sky.

But the squawk of a complacent gull when he realizes he’s been had by some fast-talking con-artist is music for my soul. One of this breed—a character going by the handle TSVDP—saw fit to spam an earlier post with his inane jibber-jabber. Apparently his feelings were hurt on learning that his favorite Patrick Henry quotation—the one about “this great nation” being founded on Christianity, not religious freedom—is a piece of modern tripe, concocted in living memory and disseminated by sleazy hucksters out to fleece such gullible lambs as he. “You don’t make a point at all,” he squeals, “If not it confirms what Henry said and that he was a Christian.” Well, yeah, not that anybody has ever denied that Henry was a Christian, or a slave-owner, or a father, a lawyer, a legislator, an orator. None of that’s at issue here. The only question before us is the author of that “this great nation” and “religionists” quotation—and fortunately that’s a fact easily determined.

Let’s review, shall we, the bizarre history of this quotation. It begins, in a way, with something Patrick Henry actually did write. On 20 November 1798 the once-fiery orator and successful lawyer sat down to write his last will and testament. After carefully dividing up his lands, money, and slaves amongst his wife and children, he added a pious afterthought:

This is all the Inheritance I can give to my dear family, The religion of Christ can give them one which will make them rich indeed[.]

The founder passed away in June of the next year, leaving damn little behind him as a legacy to the nation. His words, that had inspired a revolution, were for the most part lost. When William Wirt attempted to collect them for his sketch of Patrick Henry’s life (issued 1816) he had to do for the most part with recollections, fragments, and speeches patched together from the fading memories of those who had been present.

Around 1823 somebody thought it worthwhile to excerpt the “religion of Christ” passage from Henry’s will, and it went the rounds of various periodicals. It wasn’t quite the way Henry had written it, however. Somehow it had undergone a strange metamorphosis:

I have now disposed of all my property to my family; there is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian Religion. If they had that, and I had not given them one shilling, they would be rich; and if they had not that, and I had given them all the world, they would be poor.

This version was reprinted in numerous sources up to the present time, but not without challenge. Some time in the early 1840s James W. Alexander, a Presbyterian minister, went to Charlotte county, Virginia, and obtained the actual words direct from the will. He published them in 1847 as part of a volume called Thoughts on Family Worship. The two versions have remained in competition ever since.

In 1956 a historical revisionist writer for The Virginian used the passage—the fake version—as a springboard for his own thoughts on religion in America. This author wrote:

There is an insidious campaign of false propaganda being waged today, to the effect that our country is not a Christian country but a religious one—that it was not founded on Christianity but on freedom of religion.

It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by “religionists” but by Christians—not on religion but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity and freedom of worship here.

In the spoken and written words of our noble founders and forefathers, we find symbolic expressions of their Christian faith. The above quotation from the will of Patrick Henry is a notable example.

Several people thought this piece of revised history was worth quoting on its own, but it wasn’t until 1988 that somebody had the bright idea of crediting part of the 1956 comment to Patrick Henry himself. It appeared as his (according to David Barton) in a book called God’s Providence in American History by Steve C. Dawson, and was almost immediately picked up and popularized by Barton himself in his Myth of Separation. From there it spread far and wide. Somebody even added that it was from a speech to the Virginia House of Burgesses in May 1765, despite the fact that Henry was first seated there late that month and no speeches of his are recorded for that time except the famous one in support of his Stamp Act resolutions, reconstructed from memory years after his death. The incongruity of Henry’s speaking of “this great nation” before it even came into existence, and his foreknowledge that “peoples of other faiths” would be “afforded asylum, prosperity and freedom of worship here” at a time when religious freedom was nonexistent in most of the colonies apparently shot by the oblivious transmitters of Barton’s fantasies. The thing is, like Chief Seattle lamenting the demise of the buffalo, Henry just plain knows too much. It’s a dead giveaway.

But Christian nation fantaisists apparently have no sense of history whatever. Like their idiot founder, history is whatever suits their fancy. You like the Fifth Monarchy slogan, no king but king Jesus? Why not give it to John Hancock and John Adams and have them say it at the beginning of the battle of Lexington? Does it matter that they weren’t there? Does it matter that there is no record of it’s being said? Not in the least. History by this logic can be whatever you want it to be. If it feels right, then it’s history. Much easier to go by your gut than to do, oh, say, actual research.

Evidence? The Christian Nationites don’t need no stinking evidence when they set out to invent new legends about the past. Or as TSVDP puts it, “No one has to prove anything that has been around and in books for hundreds of years to Atheist Scum trying to rewrite history.” I love the way he turns the world upside down. It’s not Rushdoony and Barton and that gang out to rewrite history—no, it’s the generations of historians that came before them who are doing the rewriting—via time machine, I suppose. And by the way 1988—the date this “religionists” nonsense first appeared as Henry’s in any book—is hardly “hundreds of years” ago, though maybe it seems that way to Ahistoricist Scum like TSVDP. Neither is 1956, the date it was first written, for that matter. Yeah, okay, I know it’s the twenty-first century now, and 1988 is so twentieth century, but that hardly adds up to “hundreds of years”. Or maybe TSVDP has a numerancy problem. Maybe all big numbers look alike to him. Maybe he meant to say “dozens” instead of “hundreds”. He might as well have said “millions”—it would have been just as accurate.

There is one point I do agree with our clueless comment-slinger about, though. “…your boogey man David Barton is a joke,’ he writes, “most people don’t even know who he is…” I don’t know about that last comment, seeing as he’s giving lessons on constitutional law (believe it or not) to congressmen and being featured on popular shows in the mainstream media and advising the Texas Board of Education on history (despite his complete lack of any qualification for the task), but he definitely “is a joke”. Which makes it all the more puzzling, if TSVDP feels that way, that he feels obliged to go way out on a limb to support one of Barton’s, uh, errors—to put it charitably. Nobody ever heard of this Patrick Henry “quotation” before Barton put it in a book—and if it weren’t for his footnote, nobody would even know that he wasn’t the one who first came up with it.

As a parting shot our feckless friend returned a third time to add, “Your comment FAILS in all possible ways that Henry did not say this. The burden of proof is for you to prove he did not say this.” Well, no. Mind you, even if it were I have amply shown that this alleged observation cannot belong to Henry’s time, that it is not found in his writings, and that it was written by somebody else more than a century and a half after Henry’s death. That’s pretty conclusive, really. But it’s all window-dressing, and entirely unnecessary—done only for my own satisfaction. It is always up to the person making a positive assertion to show evidence that what he says is true. In the case of a quotation, fortunately, that burden of proof is easily met. All it takes is a citation to a primary source. Martin Porter’s first principle of quotation is a good rule to follow here: “Whenever you see a quotation given with an author but no source assume that it is probably bogus.” If no source is given, or a nonsense source like “May 1765 Speech to the House of Burgesses”, then—lacking other evidence, or the time or inclination to follow up on it by doing actual research—a reader is entirely justified in assuming that the alleged quotation is fake.

Notes
A transcription of Patrick Henry’s will is found at the Red Hill Patrick Henry National Memorial website. An earlier transcription appears in George Morgan, The True Patrick Henry (Philadelphia, 1907), pp. 455-7.

The oldest example of the fake version of the quotation from Patrick Henry’s will I could find was in the 29 November 1823 issue of The Manchester Iris, a Weekly Literary and Scientific Miscellany, vol. II, p. 387.

Flogging a Dead Horse Department

I notice that somebody signing himself "mandible claw" commenting at the aptly named Moonbattery website managed to get things doubly wrong in a single post. Not only does he quote the often-debunked fake Patrick Henry "religionists" claim (as part of the familiar Christian Nationite notion), but he attributes it to "Patrick Henry, Ratifier of the U.S. Constitution", as though Patrick Henry had supported rather than opposed ratification. "I am sure Barack Obama could set Patrick Henry straight as to the real nature of America, though," mandible claw adds as a parting shot.

Well, here's what Patrick Henry thought of the Constitution:

This Constitution is said to have beautiful features, but when I come to examine these features, sir, they appear to me horribly frightful; among other deformities, it has an awful squinting—it squints towards monarchy; and does not this raise indignation in the breast of every true American?

Patrick Henry Redux

My scanner is working again, thanks to my nephew's efforts, so I can upload that page from the American Mercury of September 1956 containing the original version of the "religionists" quotation so often falsely attributed to Patrick Henry:

Once again let me point out that the burden of proof is on anybody claiming that a quotation is genuine. This alleged Patrick Henry quotation fails the test in all possible ways.

This Great Nation Was Founded Not By Religionists

There are few people that I personally despise more than canonical critics, but Christian Nationites are almost certainly among them. David Barton and his gang of loony liars have done more than a small part in undermining American values and destroying the fabric of this once great nation--and continue to today, thanks to the National Council On Bible Curriculum In Public Schools, the late D. James Kennedy, and other unscrupulous types more concerned about making a buck off the gullible than about the survival of the nation that brought them up. One of the tricks of their nefarious trade is the invention of fake quotations from the Founding Fathers designed to make them look like modern Christian Nationites. Many of them have been discredited; others lurk in the limbo of the unknown.

It is not always appreciated that the Founding Fathers were a diverse lot with differing opinions on exactly how the new nation ought to be put together. Some of them favored having a state religion, as all respectable nations had in their time. Others--Jefferson, Washington, Madison, for example--favored keeping religion out of government altogether. This was the winning faction.

Among the famous Founding Fathers on the wrong side of that particular issue was Patrick Henry, slave-owner and the reputed author of the words "Give me liberty, or give me death." He undoubtedly did write some pretty crazy stuff about church-state relations, but--did he say, as the Christian Nationites claim:

It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ!

Okay, it's tripe, but that's not really the point. Some people are obviously impressed with it. A quick check of Google Books reveals its popularity. One book is listed as having this quotation in 1994, another in 1996, and still one more in 2000. Starting with 2002, however, it begins to take off. Three books quote it in 2002, four in 2003, six in 2004, and seventeen in 2005. While that was a high point, ten books quote it in 2006, eleven in 2007, and two this year.

Well, you can't argue with success, right? If so many authors use it, well, then Patrick Henry must have said it. The market has spoken, as Stephen Colbert would say.

Still, there is one oddity at least. Nobody seems to have heard of this saying before 1994. Now Google books is a neat little tool, but it is far from infallible. However, if Patrick Henry had really said, or written, or muttered this little piece of garbage, you'd think it would show up somewhere. And in fact Patrick Henry scholars have searched his recorded words, and found--nothing.

Even though it doesn't show up in the Google books search, the saying apparently first appeared (at least as Patrick Henry's) in The Myth of Separation by David Barton in 1988. Barton himself has since repudiated it, describing it as "unconfirmed" in his WallBuilder's website. He does hold out hope that it will turn out to be genuine, however, citing some absolutely irrelevant quotations by and about Patrick Henry, a cheesy trick that used to be exploited by the brave Cold War liars who promulgated fake quotations attributed to Lenin, Stalin, and other Communist leaders. (Anybody else remember Stormer's None Dare Call It Treason?) Humorously Barton goes on to make the suggestion (without giving the slightest evidence to support it) that "there is a possibility that the unconfirmed quote came from Henry's uncle, the Reverend Patrick Henry. We find no record of the Reverend's letters or writings. Therefore," he suggests, "until more definitive documentation can be presented, please avoid the words in question."

Need I remind the Myth of Separation author that the burden of proof is always on the person who puts forth a quotation as genuine? Cite your source, damn it--cite it. That's all you have to do. The works of the Founding Fathers are not even that hard come by, for the most part. You usually can find them in multi-volume sets of speeches and letters and publications and all like that there. If you got took by a bum secondary source--well, them are the breaks. At least if you've cited it, people will know who to blame.

In this case, however, it should have been clear that something was off in the brew. The word "religionists"--it ain't right. The word's been around since the seventeenth century, and our patriot could have used it--but not in the sense it's used here. That's pure twentieth-century, not Patrick Henry's era in the least. In his time a religionist was a fanatic, somebody obsessed with religion. The author of this quotation, however, is using it in a strange generic sense, meaning apparently people of different religions joined together, or something of that sort.

Of course the answer to this riddle is simple--these words were not written or spoken by Patrick Henry. Nor did they come from Patrick Henry's uncle (a ridiculous idea, by the way). Here is the quotation in context:

"I have now disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian Religion. If they had that and I had not given them one shilling they would have been rich; and if they had not that and I had given them all the world, they would be poor."

Patrick Henry, Virginia,
His Will

"There is an insidious campaign of false propaganda being waged today, to the effect that our country is not a Christian country but a religious one--that it was not founded on Christianity but on freedom of religion.

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by 'religionists' but by Christians--not on religion but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity and freedom of worship here.

"In the spoken and written words of our noble founders and forefathers, we find symbolic expressions of their Christian faith. The above quotation from the will of Patrick Henry is a notable example."

I got this from the September 1956 issue of The American Mercury (p. 134) where it appears as a page filler. Their source: the April 1956 issue of The Virginian, a short-lived segregationist rag.

So dig this, all you dupes and pawns who mindlessly copied the crap that David Barton fed you. These jejune and insipid words you have enshrined in your books and on your websites are not pearls of great price delivered by one of America's patriots. They were written by some anonymous racist hack, the dregs of the era of McCarthy and George Wallace and the Ku Klux Klan. Enjoy the feast--and I hope you choke on it.