Texas school history books incorporate an interesting slant

on history, for those eager to hew close to the words of the Founding Fathers. Jefferson is absent from the book. No mention of his authorship of the Declaration of Independence, I'm not even sure they mention him as the third president. There is a clear assertion that "the separation of Church and State does not appear in the constitution, despite the clear intent of the First Amendment and most of Jefferson's subsequent writings.

"Randall Balmer, a professor of American religious history at Barnard College and writer of the documentary ?Crusade: The Life of Billy Graham,? told me: ?David Barton has been out there spreading this lie, frankly, that the founders intended America to be a Christian nation. He?s been very effective. But the logic is utterly screwy. He says the phrase ?separation of church and state? is not in the Constitution. He?s right about that. But to make that argument work you would have to argue that the phrase is not an accurate summation of the First Amendment. And Thomas Jefferson, who penned it, thought it was.? "
http://positiveliberty.com/2010/02/new-york-times-on-the-texas-school-controversy.html

They apparently include the Declaration of the Confederate States of America as co-equal with the Declaration of Independence despite its non acceptance by the Congress and Senate in general.

These have been the books in Texas since the Bush Administration in Washington, though I haven't investigate any connection between Bush and the legislation.

There has been much contempt displayed here for academic historians and their supposed 'twisting of the facts". I don't think that any liberal historian would attempt to make the Third President and author of the Declaration of Independence an "un-person" in the sense Orwell, a socialist, meant it, in a High School text book.

"Ye may know them by their works."

Rob