On the teaching of history

“We live in the past by a knowledge of its history: and in the future by hope and anticipation. … It is not fit that the land of the Pilgrims should bear the shame (slavery) any longer.”

This quote was made by one of the greatest early American statesman, Daniel Webster, on “Forefather’s Day,” the 200th anniversary of the Pilgrim landing in Plymouth Rock. This early American celebration was made in 1820, some 40 years before the Civil War. A war in which over 800,000 Americans, white and Black, lost their lives fighting slavery. You won’t find these quotes in any current popular revisionist histories written in the last three decades. Why? Not because of some paranoid far right fear of history, but because revisionist, whether “white” (Howard Zinn, James Loewen and others) or “Black” (the 1619 Project, Critical Race Theory) are selective in their historical narratives.

What is more revisionist, properly speaking, are not scholarly historians to begin with? They are sociology majors, journalists, law students and social activists. Their so-called facts are far from the total picture of what our forefathers were made of. Webster also elaborated in his famous speech saying that the unique traits of the Puritans, their most important values, selfgovernment, private property, Christian morals, industry and sense of liberty all contributed to the creation of the United States. The purpose of history is not to venerate the past, nor should it be a revisionist denigration for a current political agenda.

Vincent Casanova Killingworth