Revisionist history
I’ll do a short fact check today based on Neal Boortz’s blog. Over the Thanksgiving weekend, there was an all-too-convenient story in the news about the Declaration of Independence being “banned” in a public school in California.
The MSNBC article Boortz cites actually carries the inflammatory title School Bans History Materials Referring to God. I won’t devote any space to critiquing media accounts of this incident. Over at About.com, there is actually a pretty good article titled Declaration of Independence Banned? which debunks the reactionary conclusion that God has been “banned” from this San Francisco school. What I want to quibble a bit with is the following Boortzian statement:
Those men who signed The Declaration of Independence put their lives and their fortunes on the line. Some were killed for their treachery. Others lost their families. Many lost all that they owned.
What Boortz says here is a restatement of a common Conservative belief. There was an email that used to circulate on this very subject a few years ago. Snopes.com has the text of that email on its website, as well as a pretty good critique of the claim itself. So does Boortz’s statement stand up to a fact check, then?
No, it does not, as snopes.com and several other sources make clear (The Price They Paid).
Certainly some Founding Fathers did suffer financially because of the American Revolution. A non-profit, the Independence Hall Association, provides brief biographies of the signers of the Declaration of Independence on its website, and it does detail how some of them were injured financially (usually with the conclusion that they “never recovered” and suffered ill health ever afterwards until they died; which is, if you ask me, a dubious attempt to attribute their death to their financial loss and thus to their having signed the Declaration). However much they suffered financially, it remains an undisputable fact of history, Mr. Boortz, that none of them was executed for having signed that document. The few who were actually captured by the British suffered no more than the average prisoner of war. That suffering might have been considerable, but why exaggerate it to the point of declaring that “some were killed for their treachery?”
Interestingly, one of the signers who suffered some harm was Richard Stockton, but his official biographies often leave out this interesting tidbit. Stockton was indeed imprisoned and tortured by the British, though not necessarily as a direct result of his signing the Declaration of Independence. Under the harsh conditions of life as a POW, Stockton repudiated the Declaration and swore allegiance to King George. Stockton later repudiated that repudiation, but it is an ignominious fact conveniently left out of conservative revisionist accounts that exaggerate the very real sacrifices of the Founding Fathers.
The emphasis in Boortz’s statement on the financial losses of the signers of the Declaration of Independence is a telling detail. It’s almost as if this myth holds particular power for those of wealth in our society because it glorifies the sacrifice of the wealthy in creating our nation, to the exclusion of the commoners who actually did give up their life for the Revolutionary cause. Would the Founding Fathers themselves have approved of such a post-hoc beatification of themselves?
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Very interesting. Like some of the stuff you bring up. Stuff I might not be reading otherwise.
Comment by Mel B. — Monday, 29 November 2004 @ 1:08 pm
The founding fathers are part of our mythology, our view about ourselves. I felt like crying when I saw the Declaration of Independence…it was almost a religious experience. In times of trouble, we seek our heros and our articles of faith. For me, at least, the Declaration is an article of faith — we will get back to our ideals, we will have leaders worthy of following some day. Who cares if the founding fathers would have appreciated it? Americans need their heros.
Comment by Zesmerelda — Monday, 29 November 2004 @ 1:33 pm
The problem is that exclusionary myth-making in this way is partly what allows us to harm others. By “exclusionary” I mean that one group of people is glorified above the rest, perhaps justly, perhaps not. The people who took great risks in founding this country were great people. However, exaggerating their sacrifices in order to make a political point in the way Boortz does is inexcusable. It’s easy to use people long dead as straw men in an argument. But facts are uncomfortable things that have a habit of cropping up at inconvenient times. This isn’t a harmless myth equivalent to Washington chopping down the cherry tree; it’s a pernicious myth that allows Republcians to justify the consolidation of power within the hands of the few rather than the many.
Comment by Matthew — Monday, 29 November 2004 @ 1:47 pm
I’m of the opinion that the revolution was essentially about economics. Yes, there was a thin veneer of idealism, but by and large the revolution was grounded in monetary concerns. This revolution was conservative at best and not radical in the way the French revolution was. All of which to say: the framers of the nation risked their money in order to get MORE. That is hardly a motive worthy of respect in my book.
Comment by Todd — Monday, 29 November 2004 @ 3:11 pm
I don’t know. I’d ask you to explain how you came to be of that opinion. If you read the Declaration, the reasons for the colonists declaring their Independence are of the mundane/practical variety, but not necessarily of the ecomonic kind. Of course there was “taxation without representation” and the fact that George had blockaded America’s ports and prevented trade with any other nations. But there were also reasons for declaring independence that seem a bit arcane to me: e.g., “He (King George III) has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.” O.K., what the heck does that mean in modern terms?
I don’t know enough about the French revolution to compare it with the American. It came a few years later and was influenced by the American, though, and it was far from noble in its end result. Remember it devolved into what was called “The Reign of Terror.” So I would not hold it up as any kind of paragon of what a Revolution should be.
Comment by Matthew — Monday, 29 November 2004 @ 3:25 pm