Rick Green: 0:12

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture, WallBuilders Live, where we talk about today's hottest topics on policy, faith and the culture, always from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. My name is Rick Green. I'm America's constitution coach and a former state legislator. I'm here with David Barton. He is America's premier historian, and the founder of WallBuilders. And Tim Barton's, with us, he's a national speaker, and pastor, and President of WallBuilders. Most importantly, we're glad you are with us, and you are going to love today's program, it's going to be very exciting. But before we get to that, I want to encourage you to visit our websites WallBuilders.com and WallBuildersLive.com . At that WallBuildersLive.com website, there is a ton of information, including archives of the program from previous weeks. If you missed those, you can grab them right now at our website and get caught up, some great interviews in there, some great presentations, lots of good information to equip and inspire you to be a good citizen and help us restore America's constitution. And one of the best ways you can do that is click on the contribute button there at WallBuildersLive.com and make that one time or monthly donation. It's how this program works. We're a listener supported program. So thank you, all of you out there from all across the nation, so many different places that folks contribute and help us do this. Thank you for doing that. And for those of you that haven't done that yet, and have been thinking about it, now is the perfect time, we would sure appreciate it. Alright, David and Tim, let's jump into our questions. First one is from Nadine from Iberia, Missouri, and Nadine this is going to be a little bit long. But let me read this to you guys. And then you can think through. One of these, I've been curious about myself, I had read about this Ona Judge, which was a runaway slave from Mount Vernon. And there's some quotes from George Washington about that, that people often bring out. And so there's a couple of great questions in here. So I'm going to read her whole email. Here we go. Hello, I want to thank you for the passion and love you have for accurate history and for sharing it with the world. The more I've learned about early American history and our founding fathers, the more I'm amazed and interested in knowing more. I've been doing some research on George Washington because I'm going to be teaching an elementary age history class at our co op next school year. And I'm going to be dressing up as a different characters. So I was looking at some things Mount Vernon has on display, found some articles that were a little confusing, and I was wondering if you could clarify some things for me. First, there's a section talking about Ona Judge, a runaway slave from Mount Vernon, and several of the claims that don't sit well with me. But this one especially is very interesting quote, she was among the enslaved people whom Washington secretly rotated out of the latter city in order to evade the 1780 Pennsylvania emancipation law. Washington asked his secretary to accomplish this rotation, quote, under pretext that may deceive both them and the public, unquote. This is referring to a letter Washington wrote to Tobias Lear, and is in the National Archives. I read through the letter a couple times, but didn't feel I was fully understanding it and would love for you to interpret it for me. Secondly, she said it also talks about Washington being okay with physical correction quote, when necessary. And this is the quote from what she read. In 1793, farm manager Anthony Whitting accused Charlotte and enslave seamstress of been imprudent by arguing with him and refusing to work. As punishment, he whipped her with a hickory switch, a reprisal Washington deemed very proper. It goes on to different clothes from Washington that seemed degrading towards slaves. Are these claims accurate? I'd been under the impression that Washington treated as slaves well, taught them to be literate, thought of them as family, fed and clothed them well, and that the only reason why he hadn't freed them sooner was because of Virginia laws. I realized it was a different time back then. But I also want to make sure when I teach my class that I'm giving an accurate portrayal of Washington from all sides. Thank you again for sharing your passion with the world and igniting a new love for history in me and a desire to share it with the coming generation. Nadine, first of all, thank you for teaching. Thank you for doing the co op that you're doing, thank you for diving deep, thank you for being hungry for truth, and being willing to ask, what are tough questions and dealing with things, you know, we're all of our perspectives are very different today than they were back then. David, Tim, what do you think?

David Barton: 3:56

Well, it's a tough one, and we're going to give some answers. But I'm going to say this caveat up front, so nobody misunderstands. The answers, we're going to give will mitigate what some of the claims are. But that's not in an effort to approve of slavery or say it wasn't bad or say that this was a good situation. It just right up front, slavery is wrong. It's bad. We're not condoning it. We're just going to tell you what was going on in the context both of state law and of Washington's thinking, because while there is a short quote, out of each of these paragraphs you read, you read the paragraph, and what people can't see is the quote is only four or five, six words long in that paragraph. So it's somebody else summarizing and pulling one quote out of the paragraph. When you read the full letter and read the other letters and read what's going on at the time, it's a whole different picture. But again, that's not in any effort to say slavery wasn't a bad deal or anything else. So let's just take the first part. The first part deals with the 1780 Pennsylvania law and what happened was When the Capitol was set up, and... in the US Capitol, it was in Pennsylvania. It was in New York the first year and then Pennsylvania for the next 10 years. So George Washington's president of the United States. And at that point in time, the presidential mansion, whatever it was, was in Philadelphia, and the 1780 emancipation law that was passed in Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvania was one of those early states to get rid of slavery, once we got out from under Great Britain, Pennsylvania's a state that said, we don't want slavery. And so all the northern states had passed a law ending slavery by 1804. By 1804 they'd all pass laws that were going to end slavery. So that's where Congress is meeting in one of those states that is saying we don't want slavery, we had it under the British, we don't want that. The law also said that if you bring a slave into the state, and you reside more than six months, that slave is automatically free. So what would happen is slaves from Mount Vernon would go up with Washington, would serve him there at the Presidential mansion. So Washington rotates the slaves out every five or five and a half months to avoid what happens under that Pennsylvania law, which would have created real problems with him back home. Because the slaves live in Virginia. Washington has expressed that he wants slaves to be freed. And we have various letters along the way where he's trying to free slaves. And there was a law that was passed in 1782 for Virginia, that said, okay, there's one condition in which you can free your slaves and that's when you die in your will. You can't free them until you die, in your will. And so, that was for Washington's slaves. There were about 300 slaves, 316, 317 at Mount Vernon, and about 130 something of those belonged to Washington, and just under 200 belong to Martha. Now, here's the deal, Martha slaves... lets back up a minute. Martha was married to a man before she was married to George, he was one of the wealthiest guys in Virginia, and he ended up dying, she becomes a widow, then George Washington meets her and they get married. Well, when her husband died, she became the heir from her husband of one of the wealthiest estates in Virginia, and she inherited a bunch of slaves, 200 [or] whatever it was. So she inherited the slaves. At the point she inherits slaves, Martha inherits slaves, they are now called dower slaves. Don't know why dower but that's the word, dower. And a dower slave in Virginia law is not allowed to be freed, period. Can't do it. So Martha can't set them free. When she marries George, she and George can't set them free. When Martha dies, she can't set them free in a will. They go on to the children. So dower slaves are completely out of their control. So there's two types of slaves Washington had to deal with...

Tim Barton: 7:46

Hey, dad, let me point out too that in these dower slaves, part of the significance even in this conversation, not only could they not free them, they were responsible for the... for every individual of those dower slaves to be handed down to the next generation. And so if one gets away, you are liable for the one that got away legally, because you're supposed to hand down all of that, what was viewed, right, at that time as the property. The slaves were property. You're supposed to hand down all of those slaves as part of the quote unquote, property to the next generation. And so if one gets away, you also have a level of liability under the law for what you are not giving legally to the next generation. So they couldn't free them. They were legally required to give every one of them down. And this again, according to Virginia law. It's different from Washington slaves, that he legally could free them on his death through his will but could not do any of that with a dower slaves and was legally required to hand all of them down to the next generation,

David Barton: 8:42

And so Ona Judge is one of Martha's slaves, is with Martha in the house. Martha thought they were good relations together. And then Ona judge escapes. Now, Martha was perplexed about that, why would she want to leave? We've been such good friends together. Well, I can tell you why she wanted to leave, she wanted to be free. That's real simple. No matter how well you treated her. Nobody wants to be a slave.

Tim Barton: 9:04

And in that letter that you're referring to, from Martha, she says, I treat her like one of my children, I treated her so well. I loved her. And really, in this letter, she is pouring out emotion where she was connected, because she, on some level, felt very motherly. Now Dad, as you're saying, that doesn't mean that Ona felt the love from Martha or that she wanted Martha to be her mom. And, you know, obviously there can be a disconnect. But for Martha, in the letter, she talked about how much she loved her and how well they treated her and how well they took care of her. And so in Martha's mind, this is something that she can't comprehend, because of how well that that family had treated her. And this is part of what she expresses to George and, you know, good, bad or indifferent, every husband knows that if something is really, really, really important to your wife, it better be pretty important to you or you're not going to have a great real lationship with your wife. And so when Martha sends this information to George and says, You got to do something, you have to find her. George, right? Both legally, according to Virginia law, because this was a dower slave. And now because it's a big deal to his wife, he says, okay, I'll see what I can do. Right? We'll see if we can find her. And this is where he hires someone to go start that process, seeing if they can track down Ona who has run away.

David Barton: 10:25

And after a bit of time, the guy comes back, can't find Ona. And is like, do you want somebody else to try? And he's like, yeah, okay. And so a second one goes out. And they never get Ona back. And he's never particularly concerned about it. There's nothing that shows that he was upset that that happened, and nothing to shows that he was vigorous in trying to pursue Ona or get her back. He made a effort on paper, if you will, he made a showpiece effort to do something. But that's a whole different story from choosing one line out of a article and taking one line of a letter, because when you put it in context of all the laws he had to deal with... And he makes it very clear that he doesn't like slavery. He worked earlier in the Virginia Legislature trying to end slavery, he passed resolutions trying to end slavery, when he's elected to the Continental Congress, he took resolutions there, trying to end slavery. His record's really clear. He's in a situation he doesn't want to be in. And so when he dies, he frees all of his slaves. Now, the other interesting thing, certainly there's people like Ona judge and others that ran away from the plantation, they didn't want to be slaves, no matter how well you treat them. I understand that totally. But there's another side of this, it's fairly interesting is some of the slaves that Washington freed were interviewed, several years after Washington died. And one of those slaves particularly talked about how much easier it was to live on the plantation, to be taken care of by Washington, who they called a good and kind master than to be free and have to take care for himself. And that kind of surprised everybody. But by the way, that's [a] very common thing for a lot of narratives. Booker T. Washington, indicates some of that same feeling with the slaves he knew when he was a slave, that some of them really thought it was better. It was an easier life for them when they were in slavery, if they had a kind master and George Washington, apparently was one. And then what's called the slave narratives that were done in the 1930s by the WPA, under FDR. They went [and] interviewed people who had been slaves. And the same story comes through time and again, that those that had a good master, it was so much easier to be a slave than take care of ourselves. So having said that, Washington dies, and there were occasions when passerbys would come by Mount Vernon even years later, and find former slaves out there taking care of Mount Vernon, and taking care of the grounds and taking care of Washington's burial site. And it's like, why are you doing this? Washington is dead. Yeah, but our loyalty to Washington. So there is certainly, you know, again, this is in no way to condone slavery, or say it wasn't as bad as people say. Look, nobody wants to be a slave, even though life may be easier. And so to take a couple of examples of Washington and take a couple of lines out of letters, when this guy is responsible for tens of thousands of letters, and there's so much else and so many other things said about Washington. I would say the tone is wrong on that. The letters are right, the letters said what they said, and he said what he said in those letters, but the tone is what's not right. When you put it all in context, and look at all the other writings, all the other statements by other slaves, look at what was going on. I think you should come away with a different tone than what's communicated in just those two excerpt quotes. And by the way, how do I say this? Uh, you guys are all younger than me. So I don't know, I don't think we have any Gen Z's, but we got some Gen X and Gen Y. And my grandparents very clearly told me that if I didn't behave, they're gonna whip me with the hickory stick. And so getting whipped with a hickory stick was... there's a generation where that's no big deal. You know, the teachers did that all the time...

Rick Green: 13:58

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. My grandmother made me go pick out the stick. I had to go get the switch and bring it, and if it wasn't strong enough, she made me go back and get another one.

David Barton: 14:09

Yep, there you go. So, you know, it sounds like violent abuse of a slave. And again, take it in context. They said a hickory switch. And, you know, again, I'm not trying to put words in their mouth, but it's not as bad as maybe Gen Zs today might think it is.

Tim Barton: 14:27

Well, you know and guys, too, as we're talking about taking these in context. You know, could have been worse than we're imagining. Yeah. But could it have been, right, not nearly as significant as people are pretending like it is? Absolutely. And so this is where, one of the things we used to understand, even though we know nobody's perfect, our starting place, first of all as Christians, is that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, that nobody's perfect. The reason Jesus came is because none of us are perfect. We also understand, historically, as we look at heroes, everybody that we can honor for doing something great, we know they also had their weaknesses. They had strengths and weaknesses. They had good moments and bad moments. And we also... I would even say, as a Christian, we know nobody's above the flesh. So looking, is it possible that George Washington had a bad fleshly moment in one occasion, and something... Like, totally it's possible. But it's also something that if you're basing it on one phrase, one time, and that phrase can be taken more than one way, right? Maybe we're not getting the whole story. Maybe we're reading too much into this. And this is where even, you know, as Christians, we can talk about what's the difference between exegesis and eisegesis. And the way we interpret Scripture, are you reading it and taking out what the Bible says? Or are you trying to put things into what the Bible says? Well, there's a right way to do that. And there's a wrong way to do that. And in history, it's very similar that at times, we can read it and we can try to make it say something it doesn't necessarily say, and when you read history in context, it doesn't always excuse the behavior. In fact, sometimes it's more incriminating when you keep it in context. You go, wait a second. They did what? To who? When? What were they thinking? But if you look at the picture as a whole, when you measure the character, the nature of the individual, and you see the consistency of their life, and then you have a moment, like we're reading about now, was this as bad as the accusations? I don't think nearly as bad as what the accusations are. Is there a chance it could have been bad? Yeah, there's a chance it could have been bad, because we know no one's perfect. No one's above the flesh. But also, if... and I don't think it was, but if we said, right, this is an example where there was a failure in Washington's life, that's totally possible, that does not dis validate who he was. It doesn't dis validate his character, the contributions he made to America. All it would do is point out that he's a little more human, a little more like us, maybe sometimes than some people recognized or identified historically. But I see this very much as one of the attacks that we see sometimes against guys, like whether it be a Christopher Columbus or Thomas Jefferson, or some of the people that we should look back and we should really be grateful for. We should honor them for the contributions they made, while acknowledging they weren't perfect, but also recognizing that they're not guilty of most of the sins and the crimes they're accused of, today. I definitely think that's true with George Washington. This is just one of the latest of many attacks to diminish maybe his contributions by saying, look, he wasn't as good as you guys think. I never thought this dude was perfect. I think the reason Jesus came is because none of us are perfect. And yet, again, when you read this in context, there is at times more than one way to read it. Dad, as we pointed out, even with the story of Ona Judge, you know, running away and Washington is trying to track her down. Well, I mean, kind of, but maybe not for the reasons people are thinking. When he's legally obligated to, when he's held liable for not handing down all the slaves that are part of the dower slaves, and it's a big deal to his wife. So he's like, you know, Martha, okay, hey, I'll... we'll go look and see what we can find. A lot of this makes sense in context. And sometimes the context is not what the accusation is. So there's not always an easy answer. But if you look at the individual as a whole, it certainly doesn't seem that Washington fits the narrative of the modern accusation, even of this incident.

David Barton: 18:18

And one other thing, probably ought to go into this as well is, when you look back at the records, there's a lot of people who visited Mount Vernon. There are times when he would have several dozen people a night staying at Mount Vernon. A lot of visitors came through. A lot of people he never knew, never met came through. They just wanted to spend the night at George Washington's place. And that was common back then. That was... there was a night that Thomas Jefferson had 50 people staying at Monticello after he retired as president, he didn't know most of them. It got so bad that Thomas Jefferson actually built a different house, so he could live in a place of privacy while all these people came visited his house. So from the neighbors, we have a couple of accounts of neighbors who talked about Washington was a really mean guy, he was really mean to his slaves. He wasn't nice at all. And then we have so many accounts of other neighbors, and those who came and visited about how Washington was so nice and so respectful. It's still slavery. We're not trying to justify slavery. But you do have conflicting accounts. There are some that say, oh, yeah, he's a really mean guy. But the overwhelming parts they, no he wasn't. And so which do you go with? Well, maybe on some days, he wasn't a great guy. And maybe most of the time he was, but also, when you look at the slaves after they were freed, there was a couple that were really bitter about Washington. But the overwhelming majority just thought he was great. And they wanted to come back and serve even after he was dead. So there are some examples out there you could point to, but when you take the whole overall bulk of evidence. Don't think you can come up with the tone that those two selected quotes come up with and justify it as the normal lifestyle for George Washington.

Rick Green: 19:58

Alright guys, well, obviously a long question and a long answer necessary. I mean, we could spend weeks and weeks and weeks just on this subject. Really this one you write a whole book about, for sure. But really great answers. And, just good context for all of us to recognize. We're going to take a very quick break, we'll come back and get one more question before we close out today. Stay with us. It's foundations of freedom Thursday. You're listening to WallBuilders.

Tim Barton: 20:28

Hey, this is Tim Barton with WallBuilders. And, as you’ve had the opportunity to listen to WallBuilders Live!, you’ve probably heard the wealth of information about our nation,  our spiritual heritage, religious liberties, and all the things that make America exceptional. And, you might be thinking As incredible as this information is, I wish there was a way that I could get one of the WallBuilders guys to come to my area and share with my group. It might be a church, a Christian school, public school, or some political event or activity. If you’re interested in having a WallBuilder speaker come to your area, get on our website at www.WallBuilders.com. There’s a tab for scheduling. And, if you”€™ll click on that tab, you’ll notice there’s a list of information from speakers bios, to events that are already going on. Then, there’s a section where you can request an event to bring this information about who we are, where we came from, our religious liberties and freedoms. Go to the WallBuilders website and bring a speaker to your area.

Rick Green: 21:22

We're back here on WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us on this foundations of freedom Thursday. Next question comes from Joel. He said aloha, so I'm assuming guys, he's from Hawaii or he's from Hawaii but living somewhere else in the US, but Joe aloha back at you or mahola, or what... How do you say it when you respond? You guys have been to Hawaii a lot more than I have.

Tim Barton: 21:46

Yeah, it's still aloha but you're thinking of the word mahalo, which is not quite right.

Rick Green: 21:51

Mahalo. What does that mean? Is that when you say bye? Or that's a different, totally different thing.

Tim Barton: 21:57

I think mahalo is more of like a thank you.

Rick Green: 22:00

Leave it to Rick, to totally derail us from our question today and figure out how to talk when we go to Hawaii. Okay, anyway, back to Joel's question. He said, We know that the KKK and Jim Crow laws... by the way, and that's probably just for all of our listeners to know if you can get me to Hawaii, I need to spend more time there, so that I know how to say these words. We know that the KKK and Jim Crow laws were started by the Democrat party, you point this out to people and they say that the parties switched, which indirectly admits that it was the Democrats. What are the best arguments outside of protection to refute the party's switched argument? Thanks. Alright guys, so did the party's just suddenly switch? And now all of a sudden Republicans are anti black people and pro slavery? I don't know any Republicans that are any of those things. But go ahead, guys.

Tim Barton: 22:43

Yeah, this is one of the old accusations. It's been around, really for a while. So Democrats have tried to explain why they're not really the bad guys anymore. They used to be, now it's the Republicans because we all know about the great switch. And this is one of those examples that we would point people to when someone makes a statement, when someone makes a claim, the impetus is not on us to prove them wrong. The burden of proof is on them to defend their position. And, right, maybe in this situation, we're just kind of exploring the thought of well, how would you answer this or what is actually true? But this is where fundamentally, if someone's saying the parties switched, alright, so explain this to me. And I would start off with well, what year did they switch? Which seems like this should be pretty simple, right? Well, I mean, it was really over time. Oh, well, like over what timeframe? Well, you know, it's 1930s or the 1970s. Well, those are two pretty different timeframes, who were all... and this is, right, kind of follow up questions, who were all of the Republican leaders that became Democrats? And who were all the Democrat leaders that became Republican? And they'll be like, well, I mean, I don't really, I don't know all the names, but it was like all of them. No, in fact, it was like none of them. Historically, you can find one or two individuals that switched parties, but that's not a lot different than even the movements today. Today, you can see individuals switching parties. Even in US Senate, we have seen people switch parties, so to speak, leaving the Democrats becoming independents or something of such nature. But this is where, historically, people are making claims that are fundamentally not true. And they are asking us to believe it so that they can defend their party's own bad, racist, oppressive history. And again, fundamentally, it just... the parties didn't switch. What did happen is in the 1930s, under FDR, there were a lot of black individuals that began voting Democrat for the first time because FDR was the one in the Great Depression who was offering food kitchens and things to help people in need. And so there were individuals saying, hey, we need this guy because he's going to help take care of us. Also, in the move forward, 1960s, '70s there were more black individuals that begin voting Democrat, but part of this was LBJ and this is something that you can look up, it's very clear, where LBJ said that he was going to do things to help They make black people begin voting Democrat. And he actually used some very derogatory words. He said, I'm gonna have them voting Democrat the rest of their life. And this is where the Democrats begin buying the votes of individuals in the black community. Well, just because more black individuals begin voting for Democrats in those two general eras, doesn't mean the parties actually switched positions. They never did. The Democrats fundamentally have always been the party that was abusive of individuals, that took away their rights, that use them for their own gain, power, and benefit. That's still a lot of what we're seeing today.

David Barton: 25:33

And I would add to that a political side, because this is a thing that happens in politics a lot. They make broad sweeping claims and throw them at you. And Rick, you may remember this, but in political training, there was always a thing of, and here's a hypothetical question, Rick, when did you stop beating your wife, Kara?

Rick Green: 25:49

Right, exactly.

David Barton: 25:50

Invariably you say, beat my wife Kara? I've never beat my wife Kara. Why would you say I beat my wife Kara? And you go on and on and on and you deny so much they go boy, Rick sure talks about beating his wife Kara a lot. And so the right thing to do, is you say, why in the world would you accuse me of such a lie like that? You throw it back on them and make them answer, and that's what Tim's talking about. Rather than answering that, make them answer it because they made the claim, make them stand by it. The more you deny the claim, the more you're repeating their message, and the stronger it becomes in their favor.

Rick Green: 26:21

Yeah, good stuff, guys. Good stuff. Great answers to a lot of great questions today. Folks, there's going to be more of this next week and you can send your questions in to radio@wallbuilders.com , that's radio@wallbuilders.com . You've been listening to WallBuilders.