Several years ago, author and historian David Barton published a book about Thomas Jefferson. For four weeks it remained on the New York Times bestseller list before being pulled by the publisher. Why? Progressive liberals who didn't want the truth revealed about Thomas Jefferson complained heartily, scaring the publisher into thinking the book was full of nonsense.
Encouraged by Glenn to address every issue raised by those skeptics, David Barton has returned with The Jefferson Lies, an historically accurate account supported by original documents. This compelling and fact-based new book gives an account of Jefferson's beliefs on a variety of issues---including healthcare, big government, marriage and Christianity.
"I went through and listed 15 specific things Democrats are doing right now that Jefferson would go through the roof over," David Barton said Tuesday on The Glenn Beck Program. "Not the least of which Jefferson had very clear opinions on healthcare and who should and shouldn't do healthcare. And the federal government was not to do it. It was to be in the states."
Jefferson's stance on the separation of church and state is also widely misused by liberals to undermine faith in public schools. Some even use it to mischaracterize Jefferson as an atheist. But his views on faith were clear:
No nation has ever yet existed or been governed without religion, nor can it be. The Christian religion is the best religion that's been given to man, and I, as chief magistrate of this nation, am bound to give it the sanction of my example.
Glenn praised Barton's new book, calling it a must-read for every American.
"The book is about Thomas Jefferson. And the book is called The Jefferson Lies. Everything the left has said about Thomas Jefferson that is an out-and-out distortion and lie, backed up with the facts," Glenn said.
David Barton will discuss The Jefferson Lies with Glenn tonight on TheBlaze TV at 5:00 ET.
Listen to a complimentary segment from The Glenn Beck Program:
Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors:
GLENN: I want to tell you a story about how truth in America gets squashed. And somebody who comes up off the rope and says, "Oh, really?" There was a book that came out about, three years ago. And some -- some liberal wannabe geniuses got together and decided that they had a way to get this book off the New York Times list and to get the book pulled off the shelves in America.
Believe it or not, pulled -- a New York Times best-seller, pulled from the shelves. Why? Because these liberal professors got together and scared the publisher and said, "This is -- these are all -- this just isn't even true." And they scared enough people to where it was pulled off the shelves.
I happen to know the author. And I happen to know the research the author does. And I called the author while this was going on, and I said, "What the hell is happening?" And he explained it to me.
And I said, "But I know you well enough to know and I know you have the actual documents to prove this and back this up."
He said, "Yes."
I said, "You know what you should do? You should take all of their concerns, all the things they said and you should add them to this book. And you should use the original documents that shut them down and then republish."
That's exactly what this author has done, and it is even stronger than it was before. And the reason why they wanted it pulled in the first place is not because the facts aren't right, is because this gentleman that he's talking about in this book is revolutionary. This book is about, if you don't take this guy down, you can't destroy America.
The book is about Thomas Jefferson. And the book is called The Jefferson Lies. Everything the left has said about Thomas Jefferson that is an out-and-out distortion and lie, backed up with the facts. The author is David Barton. And he's with us now. Hi, David.
DAVID: Hey, Glenn.
GLENN: I can't tell you how happy I am that you've published and put this out. Do you want to get into at all what happened before and what --
DAVID: I'll go where you want to. But I want to pile on what you said. Because people have to get rid of Jefferson on the left if this is going to work. And they've done such a good job that we've been hearing recently the calls for Jefferson to be taken off Mount Rushmore, for him to be taken off the nickel, for them to tear down the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC. The Democrats are saying, "No more Jefferson/Jackson HEP dinners. Jefferson has nothing to do with who we are."
GLENN: Andrew Jackson does.
DAVID: Andrew Jackson, that's a good guy to get rid of.
GLENN: Yeah, he's a good guy -- yeah, I would be for getting rid of Jackson.
DAVID: Absolutely.
GLENN: They will stand around and love Jackson, who was a horrible guy. But you got to torch Jefferson.
DAVID: Yep. You got to torch Jefferson. And, man, his ideas are so opposite to where they are today and where most folks in government are.
GLENN: When I was growing up. It was the Jefferson dinner. The Jefferson/Jackson dinner for the Democrats. And the Lincoln dinner. And they have now -- we still embrace Lincoln. But they are divorcing themselves from Jefferson. Let's go through some of the policies that you say are exactly the opposite, based on facts.
DAVID: Well, I went through and listed 15 specific things Democrats are doing right now that Jefferson would go through the roof over. Not the least of which Jefferson had very clear opinions on health care and who should and shouldn't do health care. And the federal government was not to do it. It was to be in the states. He has very clear --
GLENN: Wait. Wait. Give me some examples on that, David.
DAVID: Let me read you a quote from Jefferson.
GLENN: Because you don't think of health care as something they even debated back then, but they debated abortion back then.
DAVID: That's right. All of these issues. Nothing new. Jefferson says -- here's what he said between the role of federal and state governments on health care. He said, the federal government is to certify with exact truth for every vessel sailing from a foreign port the state of health which prevails at the place from which she sails.
So if you're coming from overseas, you have to be healthy to come to America. But the state authorities are charged with the care of the public health. So health goes to the state level. It's not a federal thing. It's not one of the 15 enumerated powers. It goes to the states. So there's a role for the feds, only with the borders. Once it's inside the borders, everything inside the borders for health care belongs the states.
GLENN: Okay. Give me the next.
DAVID: Let's take -- debt. How about debt? That's a real easy one.
You know, it's -- so many things here to deal with. But let me take debt. Or even federal growth. Listen to this. Federal growth.
I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary. There are too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. The multiplication of government offices, the increase of expense beyond income, the growth of the public debt, these are all indications that we need a pruning knife in government. Small government.
GLENN: You say that he also is dead-set against what the Democrats are doing with the LGBT.
DAVID: Right. LGBT, he came out very clearly, and he said, the law of nature. Creator. Bible. And by the way, he actually introduced a bill that said that laws should be those that are recognized by the Bible. Marriage should be based on biblical recognition. So he said marriage has to be defined by what the Bible defines it as. That's the law that he introduced.
He also said that sexual relations were designed for procreation, not for entertainment. And, therefore, in that basis, that's how you define marriage, is procreation. So sexual relations was designed by the creator, throughout a law of nature for procreation. Anything that violates that, violates the laws of nature.
And he came up also on the issue of marriage and he said, "Taking from the states the moral rule of their citizens and interrogate to the federal government would break up the foundations of the union." You love it at the states, not the feds.
GLENN: Let's go to gun control.
DAVID: Gun control. He has that going tonight in the State of the Union.
GLENN: State of the Union.
DAVID: So let me just take the gun control. Here's what he told youth, young people. See if we get this from a Democrat.
A strong body makes a strong mind. As to the best species of exercise, I advise the gun. It gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks.
GLENN: Holy cow.
(laughter)
DAVID: That's for young people.
PAT: I think Barack Obama said that, what, three times last night.
DAVID: Yeah.
GLENN: So this is not necessarily what the book is about. The book is about the lies. Let's start with -- chapter number one is about Sally Hemings.
DAVID: Right.
PAT: That's the agonizing one.
GLENN: The number one thing people use to discredit, well, he had children with a slave.
PAT: Yeah.
DAVID: Back in November of 1998, that came out in the middle of the Clinton impeachments. And I was talking to a group of law students the other day at a law school. I said, how many of you have heard that Sally Hemings -- HEP that Jefferson fathered children with Sally Hemings? 98 percent of them raised their hands.
And I thought, that's interesting because here we are now 20-some-odd years later still saying this thing. Why would we say it now? Why does it matter, except to trash Jefferson?
Here's the problem with that. 221 news outlets ran with that story when it came. Six weeks later, the story was retracted. Only 11 news outlets carried the retraction. Now, why would they retract the story?
We actually called and talked to the DNA researcher who did it, Dr. Eugene Foster, talked to him twice. And he said, "Actually that's not what I showed them in my research. That's not what my research said." But the guy who did it, Joseph Ellis, was a defender of Clinton. Had just helped run a full-page ad in the New York Times defending Clinton from impeachment and said, this would really help him. Because if we can say Jefferson had a sexual tryst, then we can say what's the big deal with Clinton. So he comes out and he says --
GLENN: Unbelievable.
DAVID: You know, you would think that if -- if you want to check DNA, you would want to check Jefferson's DNA. They never checked Thomas Jefferson's DNA. They checked his uncle's DNA. Field Jefferson. There were 26 Jefferson males living at the time. They never checked Thomas Jefferson's. And that's why the researcher said, I told them it wasn't Thomas Jefferson's.
GLENN: No. Told them that it wasn't for sure Thomas Jefferson's, right? It's one in like --
PAT: One in 26.
DAVID: One in 26. What they can do -- to test DNA generations later, you have to test the white chromosome which remains the same in male descendants. So you have to have a male descendant. Thomas Jefferson had a son who died when he was one. He has no male descendents. There's no way of testing his DNA. They say, "Well, the Jefferson family, all the Jeffersons in the United States maybe." So they take an uncle of Jefferson, Field Jefferson is his name, they tested him and it was all based on the first child of Sally Hemings. I actually have the newspaper over there. 200 years ago, a guy named James D. Calendar wrote an article that said, Jefferson fathered Tom through Sally Hemings. And she called him Tom because his father was Thomas Jefferson.
And so for 200 years, that's what everybody said. Tom. Well, they tested the descendents of Thomas Woodson, and there's no Jefferson genes at all. Not any at all. Not Thomas'. Not Fields'. Not any of the 26. None.
GLENN: Wait. Wait. So the guy that they said was his son --
DAVID: And they've said it for 200 years.
GLENN: And the reason why they checked the DNA.
DAVID: Is because of this guy, Thomas.
GLENN: And they've checked his DNA, his descendants --
DAVID: His descendants. And there's zero.
PAT: So he's not even one of 26.
GLENN: So where did we get the one in 26?
DAVID: Well, Sally had five children, and the fourth child is shown to have some Jefferson genes. So it could be one of the 26.
Now, historically they have always said it was Thomas Jefferson's brother Randall HEP because he lived there at HEP Monte Chello. That's what everybody still says, is there was none in what was believed to be Thomas', but Randall HEP was believed to have an affair with Sally Hemings. And there is some Jefferson DNA in that fourth child, Eston HEP Hemings. So there's absolutely nothing that points to Jefferson.
By the way, after this was done and all this scandal broke and they recalled it and nobody talked about the recall, you know, they pulled the story, they got a whole bunch of research together. All these Ph.D. guys from Harvard and Kentucky University and Indiana. And they were guys that got together and said, we think Jefferson did it. And they looked at all the historical research and unanimously came back and said, we don't think Jefferson did it. Once you look at all the history, Jefferson didn't do it. That didn't make the news either. So it really has not helped the political agenda to exonerate Jefferson from 200-year-old charges that have been out there. But that's what the evidence has been. That's a lie about Jefferson.
GLENN: What was the case when the book was pulled that they said, "Well, you didn't address this -- how did you strengthen this case even more, David?
DAVID: Well, what we did -- it's interesting that when this thing was done. Thomas Nelson had the book, and they never even talked to me about it. They just pulled the book and never even told me they pulled it. I told them ahead of time, here are the professors that are going to come after you. Because these guys on the left have been doing this for a while. Here's two cases of research documents to show you everything that I say is documented historically. And when they come after you, you'll know it. Well, they never did anything. Came after them, they pulled the book.
GLENN: Cowards.
DAVID: So in this particular book, we never had to do anything to that particular lie because the academics didn't even touch it. They left it alone. They went after all the other things we said. So the seven lies we pulled out, even the academics were scared to touch that one because it's too well-documented. They'd much rather have people think that Jefferson is morally impugned than to have him exonerated. So they never even went after that lie.
GLENN: So let's take separation of church and state. Because this is so well-documented.
DAVID: Yeah.
GLENN: So well-documented. And we always go to, name the document.
DAVID: Yeah.
GLENN: But beyond that, in his letters and the things that you outline in the book, it is crystal clear, crystal clear that's not what -- it's not what he meant the way they're using it today.
DAVID: Well, see, they use it today as saying Jefferson is a secularist. A lot of writers say he's an atheist. And so they derive that because he wanted separation of church and state. Well, let's define it the way he did. And let's also look at his actions. So when you looked at the way he defined it, he did not want a state-established government church that was telling you what denomination to belong to. And that's what he made really clear. This is a denominational issue. We don't want what we had in England. Because in his state of Virginia, the Anglican church was the state-established church, and they literally persecuted the Baptists, the Presbyterians, the Methodists. Threw them in jail. Killed them. Fined them. Whatever. He didn't like that. Was he a secularist? No. Not by a long shot.
The thing I love to point to is that when he gets -- he helps build the US capitol -- as Secretary of State under Jefferson -- under George Washington. 1795 is their building. They start having church services on the grounds of the US capitol every Sunday.
Then when he becomes vice president under John Adams, as vice president, they vote and they say, we want the largest building in the capitol, the brand-new building to be a church building. So Jefferson not only helps to enact that. He starts going to church there every Sunday. And as president for eight years, he goes to church there every Sunday. And I love the quote, let me just read you a quote that -- because somebody said, "Why do you go to the church at the capitol? Why is it that you're so faithful there?" And even his political opponents that were in the other party, talked about how that he never missed a church service at the capitol, even if it was raining, sleeting, snowing, whatever. He jumped on his horse and made it there. And asking him, "Why is it that you do this?" Here's his response.
I want to read the exact quote. Sorry here, guys.
GLENN: It's all right.
DAVID: Here's what he says. This is what he told the guy.
They were walking to the capitol church together. He says, no nation has ever yet existed or been governed without religion, nor can it be. The Christian religion is the best religion that's been given to man, and I, as chief magistrate of this nation, am bound to give it the sanction of my example.
There's no way I'm going to miss church. I have an example to show to the nation, and I'm going to make sure we have church here at the capitol. He starts church in the War Department and the Treasury Department every Sunday. So if you want to go to church in D.C., you can take the Capitol Building or the War Department or the Treasury Department.
GLENN: Jeez.
DAVID: While he's president of the United States, he sets aside on three occasions property so that it can be used to propagate the Gospel among Indians. Federal property. He approves -- I have it over here in the folder. The actual treaty with the Gascasi HEP Indians where he sends money so they can have priests, and he builds them a church in which they can worship. He directs the Secretary of War to give federal money to a religious school in Tennessee. He told a Christian school in Louisiana that it would enjoy the patronage of the government. I'm just going through the list of stuff he did.
GLENN: Jeez. At 5 o'clock today on the TV show, David is going to join me. He has all the documents.
DAVID: I have the documents.
GLENN: So he will show you. It's always great to watch David. He has the documents. How do you argue --
PAT: You can't.
GLENN: And he'll just take out the documents tonight, and he'll show them all to you. And you don't want to miss it. That's tonight, 5 o'clock. Only on TheBlaze TV. Back in just a second.
Featured Image: Screenshot from The Glenn Beck Program
