Biblical Citizenship in Modern America, Week 2 Pt. 4 – Truth About Slavery: Why do so few Americans know about true black heroes of American history? Why is it important to understand how racist Woodrow Wilson was and how that relates to history books he promoted? Was America EVER a leader in the global slave trade? What nation does not have slavery in its history? What nation has done more that virtually any nation in the world to end or oppose slavery? What was the first nation in the world to sign a law banning the slave trade? Tune in to hear surprising facts on slavery and more, as we continue Biblical Citizenship in Modern America, Week 2!

Air Date: 03/03/2022

Guest: Tim Barton and Bob McEwen

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith and the Culture

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. This is WallBuilders Live, we are taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. You can join us at our website wallbuilderslive.com, it’s a great place to get the archives of the program. In fact, this week we’re doing a four part series and today is part four. That’s okay if you missed the first three, you’re still going to enjoy the content today. 

But if you want to get the other three parts, they’re available at our website, wallbuilderslive.com. You can go into the archive section there. You can also go back a few weeks. You can listen to some of the Good News Friday programs, the Foundations of Freedom Thursday programs, the interviews we have with folks. It’s all available in the archives at wallbuilderslive.com.

The other thing you can do at wallbuilderslive.com is make a donation. We would love for you to come alongside us, lock shields with us. It takes money to do these things, to train the pastors, train the young people, train the legislators, to get on radio stations all over the country, to share this good news and to equip our fellow citizens to restore America’s constitutional republic. 

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Alright, we have been in the middle of this series, as I said today is part four, it’s called Biblical Citizenship in Modern America. What we’re actually airing is the second week of an eight week course. So it took us four days this week just to air that one particular week, but we’re sharing some great information. 

As you already know, if you’ve been listening this week, Tim Barton’s response to the 1619 project, so many other great things that you learned this week in the course. And I just want to encourage you if you want to do the full course, it’s entirely free at biblicalcitizens.com. But let’s jump in where we left off yesterday. You’re listening to Biblical Citizenship in Modern America.

James Armistead

Tim:

James is the guy who learned that Lord Cornwallis was going to be moving a large section of troops and going to Yorktown. Actually, James Armistead gets Lafayette the information. Lafayette writes a letter to Washington, where he says I have a spy in the camp who’s just given me information that Lord Cornwallis is going in and moving his troops in. And this might be the time we’ve been waiting for to capture and conquer him, and maybe in the war. Well, this is exactly what happened.

The Americans were able to surround Yorktown and this is a painting depicting the surrender of Cornwallis. James Armistead is a guy largely credited with the intelligence that led to the capturing of Cornwallis, who’s the commander of all the British forces. And this major victory arguably led to an end of the American Revolution. Now why does this matter? Because James Armistead is credited with the intelligence that led to this victory. So this victory, the last major battle that’s considered to have won the revolution would not have happened had it not been for a black patriot who was a spy in the revolution.

And not only that, if you look at the military intelligence that we have today, it goes back to people like James Armistead. Now, why this matters is if you think big picture American Revolution, when we think of how did the revolution began, we might look at the shot heard around the world. But John Adams says the revolution actually began in 1770, the Boston Massacre because that’s when the British shed the first American blood and that’s when the war actually began.

Well, if you remember the Boston Massacre, there was a man killed in the Boston Massacre, who’s considered the first bloodshed in the Revolution. Well, that man was Crispus Attucks. And there were many famous depictions and paintings done of Crispus Attucks and the black man being killed by the British. If you look at the Revolution, the Revolution arguably began with the death of a black patriot. And the Revolution was won, arguably because of the intelligence of a black patriot.

What this means is you can’t even fully tell the story of the American Revolution without including the contributions of black heroes and black patriots in American history. And I’ve only given a few examples. We have entire history books of just black heroes from the American Revolution, from the War of 1812, from the Civil War throughout American history, and yet today, very few Americans know anything of these black heroes. Why don’t we know these black heroes today?

The Truth About Woodrow Wilson

Well, you can back up to a guy like Woodrow Wilson, who’s, I would argue, the biggest culprit of why we don’t know so many of these black heroes. When Woodrow Wilson was a professor at Princeton University, he wrote a new history series. And actually, it was considered kind of this chronological history of America from the beginning all the way up to that point. It was a five volume set. And it was believed to be the most scholarly history book ever done. Well, in this he became so prominent and well-known because of this, that he became the president of Princeton University.

And then not long after he became the President of the United States of America, well, Woodrow Wilson was also a very racist man, very racist man, so much so that when he became the President of the United States, one of the things that happened under his watch and leadership was the rebirth of the KKK. Not only that, Woodrow Wilson showed the very first ever film on the White House, which was the birth of a nation. It was a recruiting film for the KKK. And some of his administration actually marched in the marches for the KKK, even in Washington, DC.

So, Woodrow Wilson, very racist guy, very bad guy. And actually, this is depicted even in his history books. Because if you back up to his history books, he removed every single black person from American history, not just the heroes, every black person in general, in his history books, he not only ignores every black hero. By the way, how do you talk about the Civil War and leave out Frederick Douglass or the mass 54th? There’s so many examples we could give, he leaves them all out. And yet in his history book, he wants to make sure that if you don’t know about black people, he wants to show you what black people look like.

And if you look at this, if you’ve ever seen the scales of evolution, where it goes from goo to you, one of the things that it shows is, is kind of like these Neanderthal images. Well, why in the world would Woodrow Wilson have incredibly racist images in his book? If you back up to some of the leading scholars and scientists of the day, you have people like Charles Darwin, and Charles Darwin, in his early book, we know it as the Origin of Species, but actually, there’s a subtitle to it, and it’s :The preservation of favorite races and the struggle for life”.

Rick:

Alright, friends, got to interrupt for just a moment, we’re going to take a quick break, we’ll be right back. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

A Moment from AMERICAN HISTORY

This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. America is a special and unique nation. The average length for a Constitution in other countries is only 17 years. But we’ve had ours for over two centuries. And our 4% of the world’s population produces 24% of the world’s gross domestic product. And every year, we produce more inventions and technology than the other 96% of the world combined.

In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville of France came to America, travelled the country, and in his famous book, “Democracy in America” reported, “The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. This is the origin of the phrase ‘American Exceptionalism’ and affirms that America is unique because of the distinctive ideas on which we had been based, including inalienable rights, individualism, limited government, and the importance of religion and morality.”

For more information about American Exceptionalism, go to wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live, jumping right back into Biblical Citizenship in Modern America.

1619 Lies

Tim:

Charles Darwin actually argues in his writings, that the lighter your skin, the more evolved you are, and the darker you are, the less evolved you are, or the more Neanderthal you are. And this was largely accepted in academic circles, which remember, Woodrow Wilson was a professor, he was the President of University, this was academically and scientifically accepted.

Which by the way, some of those notions today when people say, well, trust all the science? I don’t trust all the science because I know not all scientists are right. But this is exactly what happened in American history.

And because of this, because of these kinds of notions, what happened is most Americans today, because of guys like Woodrow Wilson that removed all these heroes, most Americans have never heard of these heroes today. And yet, it’s very easy when you look at original historic documents to identify that had it not been for the contributions of many of these black patriots, America would look and would be very different.

And yet today, we don’t learn about so many of these heroes and the contributions or even how black and white people work together to do great things to advance equality and civilization and how America was leading the way in this. What we hear is no, no, America was really, really bad, right.

1619 project is what’s promoting that idea so much today. And because of that, there’s articles that are coming out every single month about how America was rooted in slavery, and all of America is about slavery and slavery. And this is what we hear so much.

So let me just finish by giving a few thoughts related to slavery. First of all, it’s worth noting that America was not ever a leader in the global slave trade. That’s a big deal, because today we hear that America was one of the biggest leaders and perpetuators of the slave trade. That’s just not historically accurate. And if you back up and look at this, the North Atlantic or the African slave trade lasted from roughly 1501-1875. And during that time period, approximately 12.7 million slaves were taken out of Africa.

Scholars have gone back in research to identify where those 12.7 million slaves arrived when they went off continent. And what they discovered is that if you look at those 12.7 million slaves 43% went to Portugal and Brazil in their holdings, 24% went to Great Britain, 15% went to Spain, 11% went to France, 5%, one of the Dutch, 2.5% went to United States and 1% went to Denmark. What does that mean? America absolutely did participate in something that was very, very evil. But America was nowhere close to a leader in this which is what is argued today.

And it’s also worth noting, at this point in world history, every single nation in the world had slavery because it was a global condition. One of the arguments today is that America is evil because we had slavery in our past. I would point out, every nation in the history of the world had slavery. In fact, every single people group, at some point was enslaved, and at some point enslaved other people, because this is the history of humanity.

It goes back to the notion we started with is that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, nobody’s perfect. So everybody has done bad things at some point. Every nation has done bad things at some point. That’s part of the history of slavery. Even with that being said, America still done remarkable good when it comes to the story of slavery, so much so that America was the very first nation in the history of the world to sign a law banning the slave trade. Thomas Jefferson signed that law on March 2nd, 1807. England signed a law very similar three weeks later on March 25th, 1807. But America was the very first nation to sign a law banning the slave trade.

America was the fourth nation in the history of the world to actually ban slavery. We did it in 1865. Now we were the fourth nation. England did it before us in 1833, and then Denmark, and then France and then America. At that time in world history, there were 128 nations in the world, and America was the fourth nation to actually end slavery. And I would argue, America paid a higher price in ending slavery because slavery in America ended at the end of the Civil War, which was one of the bloodiest conflicts we’ve ever seen in American history, with more than 600,000 Americans that died in that conflict. And at the end of that conflict, we ended slavery in America.

And I’ll go even further, because if you look today, slavery still exists today. This is the map depicting the nations of the world and the different colors are showing nations who are doing better or worse jobs with slavery. Now, to give you context, there’s 193 member nations of the UN, and that number actually changes every year. It was 191 and 195, and 193. It changes based on who’s gone to war with who or who’s conquered who, who’s captured who. But just recently, of those 193 member nations, 94 of those nations had not passed laws banning slavery in their nation. In many nations, the world slavery to this day is still legal. And that’s why it’s estimated there’s more than 40 million people in slavery in the world today. That’s more than any time in world history.

And this is even in Africa today, there’s more than 9.2 million people legally enslaved in Africa. There’s people legally enslaved in China and India and Indonesia. This is actually not unusual for much of the world. And yet, with that being said, one of the things that the global slavery index does is not only it shows the nations that are doing a really poor job with slavery, it shows the nations that do the best job.

And right over here, it shows the nations taking the most action to end slavery in the world. And the nation doing the most is the Netherlands. The nation in second place is the United States of America. America is doing more than virtually every other nation in the world to oppose slavery. And here’s the key takeaway.

If you look at America, one of the things you can know about America as America started legal opposition to slavery before any other nation in the world, March 2nd, 1807. And that’s America as a whole. That’s not even including the states up in New England.

Rick:

Hey, for its quick interruption here, we’re going to take a quick break, we’ll be right back. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live. We’re airing Biblical Citizenship in Modern America.

PATRIOT ACADEMY

Have you noticed the vacuum of leadership in America? We’re looking around for leaders of principle to step up and too often, no one is there. God is raising up a generation of young leaders with a passion for impacting the world around them. They’re crying out for the mentorship and leadership training they need.

Patriot Academy was created to meet that need. Patriot Academy graduates now serve in state capitals around America in the halls of Congress, in business, in the film industry, in the pulpit and every area of the culture. They’re leading effectively and impacting the world around them. Patriot Academy is now expanding across the nation and now’s your chance to experience this life changing week that trains champions to change the world.

Visit patriotacademy.com for dates and locations. Our core program is still for young leaders 16 to 25 years old, but we also now have a citizen track for adults, so visit the website today to learn more. Help us fill the void of leadership in America join us in training champions to change the world at patriotacademy.com

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Good to have you back with us. Thanks for staying with us, we’re going to jump right back into our special for this week called Biblical Citizenship in Modern America.

BIBLICAL CITIZENSHIP IN MODERN AMERICA

Tim:

Every single state in the north, back in the pre-Civil War days, actually, at the end of the American Revolution, every single Northern State did begin passing laws to outlaw and eradicate slavery in their states. So even before as a nation, we took steps to outlaw slavery, we had northern states that were doing things to end slavery. And so this is where before anybody else in the world, America is doing things legally to oppose slavery. America also paid a higher price in ending slavery than any other nation in the world because of the Civil War. And America does more than virtually any other nation today to oppose slavery.

When you look at America, it’s true that America definitely has the sin of slavery as part of our past. But it’s also true that America has one of the most exceptional anti-slavery records of any nation in the history of the world. And that’s something that doesn’t get reported today. And on top of the fact, it’s also worth noting that America largely could not have become America without the contributions of black patriots. And this is what today has been so lost. We don’t know these stories anymore.

And yet, at WallBuilders, we try to do a lot to retell many of these stories to reintroduce people to some of these heroes they’ve never heard of before. And I will point out that there are dozens if not hundreds of other examples we could point to. It’s just today we don’t know the history. And so when people look at America today and think America is so bad, it’s because we don’t know the history of America, or even though America is not perfect, how well America did at overcoming the sins in her past.

And I would point out, if you look at any atrocity in American history, if you simply ask the question, how did it end in America? What you will always find is the reason those atrocities ended in America is because Christian stood up and said, we can’t do that anymore. We have to stop those things in America. And that’s why America corrected and stopped those evils and those sins faster than virtually any other nation in the history of the world. And that’s why America largely should still be celebrated today.

Rick:

Okay, wait, Tim, I got to jump in here on you, man. There was so many times you were dropping truth bombs, I mean, things that people have never heard before, I’ve never heard before. And I’m thinking to myself, wait a minute, you just changed the whole narrative on America as bad and evil and we’re the worst. In other words, you basically reset the table said, okay, everybody was bad. But America was leading the charge, instead of being dragged along, which is what we’ve been told for the last year.

Tim:

Right. We know so little of history, both World History and American history that we think America was the only people group that struggled with sin, or did anything bad or evil. Well, that’s just silly.

Rick:

It’s everybody.

Tim:

Every single nation in the history of the world has done bad things. And when we look specifically at what America did, America consistently was at the forefront of leading the charge to correct those problems and evils. And it’s not to say that America didn’t do bad things. Absolutely, America has done many bad things in our past. But America also, because of the influence of Christianity, because of so many pastors and churches and leaders who have stood up and said, we have to stop this, so many patriots, America has corrected those problems faster than almost any other nation in the history of the world.

And that’s why if we’re going to tell the honest story, tell the story that America did some very bad things, but tell the whole story that America fixed and changed those things faster and sooner before virtually anybody else. And that doesn’t mean that America doesn’t still have problems today. We recognize a lot of problems that we want to solve today, which is why we’re doing what we’re doing.

Rick:

But isn’t the reason that America was leading the charge on that is the very thing we’re talking about in this course, because of biblical citizens, because people in America were saying like you were saying, pastors were saying, this has to change; and even all the way back to the declaration that the principles that have been laid in place from the beginning, are what made us want to provide that freedom?

Americans Who Have Done the Most Were…

Tim:

Yes. What you will see consistently throughout history is the people who have done the most to correct the problems in America were people who knew the Bible, who were patriots, who followed the constitutional principles, those declaration values. And when they applied those things, and they fought for those things, they helped change those problems in the nation. And that’s really where we are today. We need more of those patriots, biblical-minded, constitutional-thinking, declaration-value promoting citizens standing up and saying, we need to solve these problems.

And when we get involved, we’re really the only hope, like it’s kind of silly that we think something’s going to change without our involvement. Because it’s always been the biblical-minded people standing up for those right principles and values fighting to change where there needed to be equality, where there needed to be equal rights, where there needed to be major steps forward. This is where again today we need those biblical-minded constitutional citizens to stand up and saying, we’re going to make a difference.

Rick:

Okay, so short answer to the question. Is America we’re saving? Absolutely, yes. So this value system is worth preserving. And if it’s going to be preserved, it’s up to the folks that are watching this to be biblical citizens and continue this spread of freedom.

Tim:

You’ve said it, you got to be biblical citizens.

Guest 1:

You ask the question that everyone has to address. That is if America is so terrible, why is it that everybody wants to come here? America accepts more immigrants than the rest of the world combined. You talk about refugees, more refugees than the entire rest of the world. I met with some Iranian folks, they were quoting the New York Times about how America was closing its doors. We take more than the entire rest of the planet. Why would people come to a place that was racist? Why is it that over 90% of the people that come here are people “of color”? If America was even thought about doing such things, those people aren’t foolish, they’ve learned that if they want to accuse America something they can deny some special privilege.

Rick:

Alright, folks, sorry to interrupt, but we got to take a quick break. We’ll be right back. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

AMERICA’S HISTORY

This is David Barton with another moment from America’s history. The key to a self-governing nation is self-governing people, and the key to personal self-government is to live by the standards in God’s word. If someone cannot control himself by those standards, then our Constitution certainly will be unable to restrain him. Understanding this, John Adams declared, “We have no government armed with power capable of continuing with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Greed, ambition, revenge, or seduction would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

John Adams believed that successful government rested not upon our great Constitution, but rather upon moral and religious people. For more information on God’s hand in American history, contact WallBuilders at 1808REBUILD.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for joining us today or staying with us today, I should say. You’ve been listening to a special program this week all throughout the week. In fact, today is part four of Biblical Citizenship in Modern America. We’ve been in the second week of that eight week course all throughout this week. We want to share that with our WallBuilders Live audience. And we want to actually give you an opportunity to do the whole course, it’s free, at our website, biblicalcitizens.com. But for now, let’s jump in for the conclusion of week two of biblical citizenship. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

BIBLICAL CITIZENSHIP IN MODERN AMERICA

Guest 2:

If I’m doing something wrong, and you catch me, I immediately want to point to something else. And for those that are trying to undo our country, they rather than face what they’ve done about burning down a building or stealing from someone else, they want to point over their shoulder, while you’re looking there, they grab your wallet and run. Of course, America is not a racist country. I tell you this.

Find any place on the planet where ethnicities live as cooperatively as they do in America. It is the example for the rest of the planet. My daughter spent a year in Rwanda, those folks you cannot tell them apart, 80% of Hutu, 20% of Tutsi. When 80% voted to kill the other 20%, they chopped a million people to death with machetes. But it’s estimated that a fourth of the people that they killed were really Hutus. Now that’s what the rest of the world is like when it doesn’t have the freedom of respect for life that comes from respect for God, which is what America is.

Rick:

Today is really special. We’re going to actually open up the vault of history.

Tim:

We have over 100,000 documents from George Washington and John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin.

Guest 3:

A library was going back in time…

Rick:

All kinds of incredible documents and weapons, great treasures from the Revolutionary War.

Guest 3:

It’s so cool and you actually see and you’re actually feeling it. And for the Green family, it’s better than going to Six Flags or SeaWorld.

David:

Can you smell the smoke in it? That’s smoke from American Revolution.

I mean, all of this kind of stuff.

Tim:

We’re able to go back and see what they actually wrote what they said so we know what they believed.

David:

When I read the actual documents, it totally contradicted what I’ve been taught by teachers about those documents.

Guest 3:

We live in an age where we need a revival of patriotism in our younger generation.

Guest 5:

A bunch of kids don’t even know about this stuff.

Guest 3:

And realize it that’s what we do. You know, we learn about this, we study and then we go teach it and hopefully get to inspire other people.

Guest 5:

Jesus said you know the truth and the truth will set you free.

Biblical Citizenship in Modern America, Week 2 Pt. 4 – The Truth About Slavery

Tim:

Most of the time people just don’t know the truth very well.

Rick:

Well, that’s it for week two of Biblical Citizenship in Modern America. What a wonderful opportunity we had tonight to go into the WallBuilders Museum and Library and learn about the spheres of government and learn about the fact that America is worth saving. Now next week, we’re going to be right back in this classroom learning about trends truth and courage and then we’re even going to head out to the very room where the Constitution and the Declaration were created, the cradle of liberty, Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. You don’t want to miss week three of Biblical Citizenship in Modern America.

Rick:

Alright, friends, we’re out of time for today. That was Biblical Citizenship in Modern America. It was actually the second week of an eight week course. If you’d like the entire course, it’s available at our website, biblicalcitizens.com. That’s where you can sign up to be a coach and host the class in your home or at your church again for free. Everybody that registered for the course gets a free digital workbook. It’s a great time of fellowship. It will equip people in your family, in your neighborhood, in your church to help us restore America’s constitutional republic.

If you’d like to get the DVDs, the workbooks, those were available at that same website or wallbuilders.com. It’s just a great way to get equipped. Again, this week, we’ve been actually listening to the second part of that eight part series for Biblical Citizenship. We encourage you to take the whole thing because it will equip you and it’ll give you hope. I’m telling you, we hear it all the time. People are always telling us, I found that I’m not the only one, I found out the principles still work, I found that there’s things I can do to restore the Republic. That will apply for you as well if you get that course. Be sure to check it out today at biblicalcitizens.com.

Thank you so much for listening. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.