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Hannah-Jones’s behavior illustrates the absence of basic scholarly integrity from her approach to writing history.

People who believe that slavery is an efficient system of production are people who are ready to impose 100% marginal rates of taxation in the belief that doing so is economically harmless.

The 1619 Project sacrifices scholarly standards in the service of the ideological agenda.

The reputation of the 1619 project’s other essays, many of them entirely unobjectionable adaptations of scholarly insights for a popular audience, has suffered because of the NY Times’ inflexible refusal to address erroneous historical claims in the essays by Hannah-Jones and Desmond.

While Lincoln’s colonization remarks grate the modern ear, and evince a patronizing paternalism toward the program’s intended participants, they also reflect the sincerity of his anti-slavery beliefs and an accompanying recognition that white-supremacist violence would not end with the formal abolition of the institution.

Was the American Revolution fought in defense of slavery? Was Abraham Lincoln a racial colonizationist or exaggerated egalitarian? Did slavery drive America’s economic growth and the emergence of American Capitalism? Did the 1619 Project seek adequate scholarly guidance in preparing its work?

Far from representing non-white scholarly voices and introducing challenges to a previously stagnant historiography of slavery, the NHC school is actually a stunning embodiment of everything it charges against its critics.

In addition to not understanding our Constitution, Hannah-Jones’ article, like in most discussions of black history, fails to acknowledge that black Americans have made the greatest gains, over some of the highest hurdles in the shortest span of time than any other racial group in mankind’s history.

Slavery was not necessary for cotton, and cotton was not necessary for industrialization. Had chattel slavery never taken hold in the United States, we would very likely be richer than we are today.

Interest in the history of American capitalism is on the rise, although curiously this line of study is being advanced for anticapitalistic ideological reasons.

Condemning slavery is morally right. Slavery is an evil institution because it is a total violation of individual rights. However, before one judges America and its founding fathers, it is important to be aware of history.