Who anticipated that historians and social studies teachers would be at the center of three of the greatest political storms in the history of the United States – all at the same time? Social studies teachers are grappling with how to teach about the Presidential election and the outcome, without appearing to be biased. Sometimes it seems that we are the only people in the United States who are not allowed to have an opinion.
With the release of the 1619 Project by the New York Times and the near hysterical response, social studies teachers are part of the debate over whether United States history begins with slavery in colonial Virginia, in 1776 with the signing of the Declaration of Independence, or with some other event.
President Trump’s response to the 1619 Project was the establishment of a 1776 Commission and a call for “patriotic history.” Given his, and his followers, refusal to accept the result of the 2020 Presidential election, this country could probably use a little “patriotic history,” but I doubt if we can agree on what it should include. Historians are a contentious bunch.
These are my suggestions for President Trump’s 1776 Commission. I propose organizing the entire United States history curriculum from elementary school through high school with students examining whether the United States has achieved the promises laid-out in two of the nation’s founding documents, the Preambles to the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. Of course it will be taught differently on different grades levels. Younger students can examine whether the things done by the United States to enslaved Africans, Native Americans, immigrants, and working people were “fair”?
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” – Declaration of Independence (1776)
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” – Preamble to the United States Constitution (1787)
In hearings for Trump Supreme Court nominees Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, the conservative judges placed a great premium on textual analysis. Critical analysis of primary source documents is an essential feature of state and national history standards and the Common Core, so I thought middle and high school students and teachers should start by analyzing the “text”.
What does “all men are created equal” mean? Does that phrase broadly mean “mankind” and include women? If all men are “created equal” how did the new nation defend the enslavement of one-fourth of its population and genocidal practices toward the indigenous population? While the 13th Amendment to the Constitution ended slavery 89 years later in 1865, certainly another document students should be familiar with, how does the country justify 100 years of legal racial discrimination and terrorist actions against African American, policies that still impact on the United States today?
According to the Declaration, there are “unalienable Rights” and “that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” If Americans have “unalienable Rights,” how do we explain a Supreme Court decision in 1857 denying that African Americans could be United States citizens, an Executive Order during World War II that sent 120,000 Japanese Americans into internment camps, and laws that denied freedom of speech to opponents of World War I and sent them to prison, interfered with the right of workers to form labors unions like the Taft-Hartley Act (1947), banned association during the McCarthy “Red Scare” period like the McCarran Act (1950), and placed Muslim Americans under suspicion like the Homeland Security bills following September 2001.
In the Declaration, Americans are promised “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” What do these very general promises mean? Enslaved Africans certainly did not have “liberty” and too many police forces in the United States have not respected the “Life” of African Americans. How should we interpret “pursuit of Happiness”? Does “happiness” equate with money and individual financial gain, or should other things be considered, like access to a quality education, protection from sexual harassment, and guaranteed jobs that pay a living wage?
Wording is important in a textual analysis. “Among” these rights are “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” but these are not the only unalienable rights promised Americans. Shouldn’t these other rights include a right to privacy, reproductive freedom, and the ability to marry the person of your choice as interpreted by the Supreme Court in recent decades?
The Preamble to the United States Constitution famously begins “We the people,” not we the white people, not we the states, and not we the business corporations. Why hasn’t the nation addressed the centuries of discrimination against Blacks, Latinos, and indigenous people that has left many trapped in poverty? Why do states still determine who can vote in elections and why are they permitted to get away with voter suppression? Why did the Supreme Court in its Citizens United decision grant basic rights to corporations when the Constitution clearly grants these rights to people?
The United States of America was formed to “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty. Have these goals been achieved? In terms of Justice, why are African Americans and Latinos more likely than whites to be arrested, tried, sentenced, and imprisoned, when they commit the same offenses at similar rates? In terms of domestic Tranquility, why are white supremacist groups permitted to arm and threaten people they disagree with and government institutions? In terms of “general Welfare,” why is the United States the only advanced economy that does not have a national health insurance plan, something definitely need during the COVID-19 epidemic?
So many questions students and teachers can explore, all part of “patriotic history.”
Note to Donald Trump and 1776 Commission members: Defence is not Twitter misspelling in the Preamble. That is an older British spelling. The thirteen states were originally British colonies.
Follow Alan Singer on twitter at https://twitter.com/AlanJSinger1.