Topic: CNSNews.com
An anonymously written July 16 CNSNews.com article reads:
The resolution that has been proposed in the House of Representatives to condemn President Donald Trump for racism holds up two slave-owning Founding Fathers as philosophical role models whose understanding of America should be emulated.
The first paragraph of the resolution states:
“Whereas the Founders conceived America as a haven of refuge for people fleeing from religious and political persecution, and Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison all emphasized that the Nation gained as it attracted new people in search of freedom and livelihood for their families;[...]
As reported by the Encyclopedia Britannica, both Madison and Jefferson owned slaves while Hamilton did not.
A report on “Slaveholding Presidents” by Gleaves Whitney for the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies indicates that Jefferson owned “about 200” slaves and Madison owned “more than 100.”
That's a curious attack, given that CNS in the past has sought to deflect from criticism of Jefferson's slaveholding.
For instance, CNS published a July 2017 syndicated column by Walter E. Williams criticizing attempts to "rewrit[e] American history" by taking a more critical view of slavery: Slavery is an undeniable fact of our history. The costly war fought to end it is also a part of the nation's history. Neither will go away through cultural cleansing. ... Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, and there's a monument that bears his name — the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. George Washington also owned slaves, and there's a monument to him, as well — the Washington Monument in Washington. Will the people who call for removal of statues in New Orleans and Richmond also call for the removal of the Washington, D.C., monuments honoring slaveholders Jefferson and Washington?"
Williams similarly complained in an October 2017 column published by CNS, calling attacks on Jefferson an evil liberal plot: "What goes unappreciated is just why America's leftists' movement attacks the Founders. If they can delegitimize the Founders themselves, it goes a long way toward their agenda of delegitimizing the founding principles of our nation. If the leftists can convince the nation that men such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were good-for-nothing slave-owning racists, then their ideas can be more easily trashed. We find the greatest assaults on our founding documents on the nation's college campuses."
A June 2017 column by the Heritage Foundation's Jarrett Stepman complained about the "savage attacks" against Jefferson over his slaveholding "show how little distinction is made between various politically incorrect historical targets out of step with the milieu of the time." And in August 2017, CNS eagerly touted the views of close personal friend and right-wing radio host Mark Levin that removing statues of Jefferson over slavery would cause the country to "be divided in ways that I’ve never even contemplated."
But because a Democratic-led resolution invokes Jefferson, CNS must now suddenly reject its previous rhetoric and denounce Jefferson as a slaveholder. Way to own the libs, CNS!
