Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin entice conservative Americans by unraveling the cloak of history, the perceived mandate of the Founding Fathers to create a nation based on Christian principles as defined by the evangelical right. To do this, they resurrect the heroes of the past. But what is presented as a mantle of Constitutional truth, is becoming more and more a shroud that questions how much American history these political leaders actually know. In that vein, presidential candidate Bachmann flubbed her way through the issue of slavery and the Founding Fathers.
Bachmann’s Educational Resume
Bachmann should know better: she graduated with a law degree from Oral Roberts University. She graduated in 1986, the same year, according to The Minnesota Independent (August 27, 2008), the law school closed and affiliated with Pat Robertson’s Regent University, which was not ABA accredited until 1996. In 1981, the ABA “yanked” Coburn’s accreditation (the Coburn Law School was part of Oral Roberts University).
Karl Bremer’s Independent article includes a footnote indicating that Bachmann’s husband, Marcus, received his Ph.D. through a mail-order school. MSNBC reported June 28, 2011 that as a clinical psychologist, his clinic received $137,000 in Medicaid funds, significant because Rep. Bachmann is critical of Medicaid and has called for a roll-back of “Obamacare” funds associated with federal health care payments.
Ignoring the Historical Record
Like Palin, however, Bachmann’s education failed to look critically at the very American History truths both Tea Party leaders cling to. An unrepentant Palin in early June 2011 insisted that her erroneous version of the Paul Revere story was true. Bachmann has stated that the Founding Fathers “fought tirelessly to end slavery…” (ABC, June 28, 2011). It would be difficult to reconcile this with historical facts, even if John Quincy Adams was factored into the equation.
George Washington, perhaps the most revered Founding Father, owned slaves and only emancipated his personal slaves when he died. As President, he hired men to find and return an important fugitive slave belonging to his wife Martha. While in Philadelphia, President Washington rotated his slaves between Mt. Vernon and the nation’s capital to avoid a Pennsylvania law that would eventually free them. One of his last acts as commanding general at the end of the Revolutionary war was to demand the return of freed slaves from disbelieving and clearly exasperated British commanders.
The “Virginia dynasty” was steeped in slavery, Jefferson owning hundreds of slaves. Any talk of ending slavery was swiftly quashed by the Southern plantation elites. Slaves were property, taxed on the basis of the three-fifths compromise. Even Northern political leaders refrained from any serious attempt at emancipation. Throughout the Revolutionary century, the Atlantic slave trade was very lucrative for ship owners in New England.
Ira Berlin writes that, “Some slave holding Patriots recognized the hypocrisy of their war for liberty,” and mentions James Madison’s emancipation of a slave “Billy” who had fled to British lines. But that emancipation may have been prompted by the fact that Billy would no longer fit in with the other slaves because he had been “thoroughly tainted.”
Political Leaders Should be Role Models of American Historical Truth
Countless books have been written about American slavery and how it became entrenched in a nation that proclaimed all men are created equal. Lincoln himself would agonize over this proclamation, explaining it as a future reality. For Bachmann to misrepresent such an integral part of American History should create questions about our national leaders. If we expect our students to know American History, our political leaders must be the role models. Michele Bachmann has a long road to travel on this score.
Sources:
- Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries Of Slavery In North America (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998)
- Peter Kolchin, American Slavery 1619-1877 (Hill and Wang, 1993)
- Henry Wiencek, An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003)
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