When the Wallbuilders Build the House

Just because you have tools doesn't mean you know how to use them.

One of my retirement goals is to clean out my garage. I put it off for years, but lately I have been working at it. One of the things I have discovered is that I have a lot of duplicate tools. For example, I have four sets of socket wrenches. One set was left over from my father, but the others are in my garage because I bought new ones at some point in the past when I couldn’t find the old ones. In truth, I have more tools than I know what to do with.

Here’s another thing I discovered, well re-discovered: I have tools and gadgets and parts that I don’t know how to use. Some of those tools are left over from my dad and some seem to have just appeared unsolicited. I feel sure these stowaways meant something to me at some point in the past, but I now don’t remember what. The good news is that I have an impressive (to me) collection of gadgets, tools, and parts; the bad news is that I don’t know how to use many of them.

Wallbuilders’ Library

Clever readers may know where I am going. While I have been laboring away in the dust and grime of my garage, it occured to me that having many tools doesn’t mean you have the skills to use them well. I will admit that in my case, I don’t have the interest, training, or the aptitude to use the tools I have to the fullest advantage. However, people who only know what tools I have might think I am mechanically inclined and maybe even skilled in using a wide variety of tools. They would be wrong.

That brings me to David and Tim Barton and their Wallbuilders library in Aledo, TX. David is the father and Tim his son. David has been boasting about his library full of tools for many years, as if having a lot of old books and documents makes him a historian. Now his son has been elevated to president of their organization, Wallbuilders, and he is using the library in the same way, i.e., to suggest he knows what he is talking about because he has access to tools.

For instance, read the bio Tim Barton supplied to Moms for Liberty for their conference being held in Philadelphia, PA this very weekend.

Tim is an ordained minister and has worked in a variety of church staff positions, including as youth minister, worship leader, and assistant pastor. He now spends countless hours in WallBuilders’ library of tens of thousands of original documents, researching the truth of America’s founding and exposing the lies regarding our history that currently permeate our society. He consults with numerous state and federal legislators on policy and legislation and speaks to a variety of groups across the nation each year.

The younger Barton’s education consists of “a degree in Business Management and a minor in Biblical Studies.” However, according to him, he is qualified to expose what he calls lies of history because he spends “countless hours” (I bet we could count them) alongside old books and papers. Something seems wrong about this claim.

I could spend “countless hours” in my garage with my many tools but that wouldn’t make me a mechanic, or a plumber, or a top-notch handyman. Likewise, Tim and David Barton aren’t good historians because they own historical tools. Just because you own tools doesn’t mean you know how to use them.

Knowing How To Use Them

On the subject of using the tools, I don’t know as much about Tim as I do about his father. Along with my friend Michael Coulter, I wrote a book — Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims about Our Third President — about Barton’s use of historical tools. In his case, having access to a full set of historical facts didn’t make him a good historian. Consider this one example from our book (what follows is an excerpt from pages 235-236 of Getting Jefferson Right. Barton defended Jefferson as a defender of civil rights).

Was Jefferson unable to free his slaves under Virginia law?

In The Jefferson Lies, Barton writes:

If Jefferson was indeed so antislavery, then why didn’t he release his own slaves? After all, George Washington allowed for the freeing of his slaves on his death in 1799, so why didn’t Jefferson at least do the same at his death in 1826? The answer is Virginia law. In 1799, Virginia allowed owners to emancipate their slaves on their death; in 1826, state laws had been changed to prohibit that practice.[i]

Barton seriously misrepresents or misunderstands (or both) the legal environment related to slavery during Jefferson’s life.  In The Jefferson Lies, Barton cites Virginia’s 1782 law on manumission which allowed slaves to be emancipated.[ii] He does not, however, quote it in full to make it clear that slaves could be freed at any time, not just at the death of a master. He deliberately omits the section that indicates slaves could be freed by an owner with appropriate deed. In fact, many slaves were freed by other owners in this way.

Here is the section quoted by Barton:

[T]hose persons who are disposed to emancipate their slaves may be empowered so to do, and...it shall hereafter be lawful for any person, by his or her last will and testament...to emancipate and set free, his or her slaves.[iii]

Notice the elisions in Barton’s first edition. Those three periods hid a great deal of truth. Here is the entire first section of the 1782 law on manumission with Barton’s omissions restored to the text in italics:

[T]hose persons who are disposed to emancipate their slaves may be empowered so to do, and the same hath been judged expedient under certain restrictions: Be it therefore enacted, That it shall hereafter be lawful for any person, by his or her last will and testament, or by any other instrument in writing, under his or her hand and seal, attested and proved in the county court by two witnesses, or acknowledged by the party in the court of the county where he or she resides to emancipate and set free, his or her slaves, or any of them, who shall thereupon be entirely and fully discharged from the performance of any contract entered into during servitude, and enjoy as full freedom as if they had been particularly named and freed by this act.[iv] (emphasis added)

The crucial omission is this phrase:

...or by any other instrument in writing, under his or her hand and seal, attested and proved in the county court by two witnesses, or acknowledged by the party in the court of the county where he or she resides...

This section allowed slave owners to release their slaves by a deed. Emancipated slaves needed a document to prove that their former owners had freed them. This law allowed slave owners when they were alive to free their slaves. Thus, Jefferson could have freed many of his slaves within the law while he was alive.  In addition to The Jefferson Lies, Barton in a radio interview emphatically stated that after 1782 slaves could only be freed at the time of a slaveholder’s death.[v]   Not only was Jefferson legally permitted to free his slaves, he actually did free two slaves in the 1790s, Robert (1794) and James (1796) Hemings.[vi] Thus, he was able to do so. (End of excerpt)

…………………….

The Bartons are surrounded by tools but that fact doesn’t make them historians anymore than my tool collection makes me a mechanic. When you need a repairmen, don’t call me; and when you need a historian, call someone trained in the discipline who has demonstrated the ability to use the tools properly with care.

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[i] Ibid., 91.

[ii] Ibid., 92.

[iii] Cited in The Jefferson Lies, 92.

[iv] http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/xslt/servlet/XSLTServlet?xsl=/xml_docs/slavery/documents/display_laws2.xsl&xml=/xml_docs/slavery/documents/laws.xml&lawid=1782-05-02.  Accessed May 24, 2012.  This is the exact location that Barton cites for the text of the 1782 law (footnote 24, The Jefferson Lies, 237).  The text for the 1782 law on slavery can also be found in Hening’s Statutes of Virginia, retrieved from: http://vagenweb.org/hening/vol11-02.htm#page_39 Accessed May 20, 2012.  That slaves could be freed before one’s death is also demonstrated in Philip J. Schwarz, Slave Laws in Virginia (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2010): 54-55.  For even further proof that slaves could be freed by their masters before the death of that master, this website reproduces a deed of manumission:   http://www.virginiamemory.com/online_classroom/shaping_the_constitution/doc/drake

[v] He said this on “In the Market with Janet Parshall” on a show recorded on April 5, 2012.  http://www.moodyradio.org/radioplayer.aspx?episode=85866&hour=1  (This statement is made at 10:05-10:20)

[vi] Cohen, “Jefferson and the Problem of Slavery,” 519.  “For The freedom papers of Robert and James Hemings (dated Dec. 24, 1794 and Feb. 5, 1796 respectively see Betts, ed. Thomas Jefferson’s . . .Writings, 15.” Ibid, 519.  The freeing of Robert Hemings is also discussed here: http://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/robert-hemings (accessed May 24, 2012). Jefferson’s Deed of Manumission for Robert Hemings was executed on Dec. 24, 1794 reads: “This indenture witnesseth that I Thomas Jefferson of the county Albemarle have manumitted and made free Robert Hemings, son of Betty Hemings: so that in future he shall be free & of free condition, with all his goods & chattels and shall be discharged of all obligations of bondage or servitude whatsoever: and that neither myself, my heirs, executors, or administrators shall have any right to exact from him hereafter any services or duties whatsoever. In witness thereof I have put my seal to this present deed of manumission. Given in Albemarle one thousand seven hundred and ninety-four.” From Edwin Morris Betts, Thomas Jefferson’s Farm Book, (London: American Philosophical Society, 1953), 15.