Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
This is actually about a year old but I missed it when it was posted. SBH, a frequent commenter here, managed to track down that famous fake quote from Patrick Henry and show where it came from. Here's the quote as usually offered by the Christian Nation apologists:
It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ!
And here is the original source of the quote, with a picture of the page of The American Mercury where the quote is reprinted from The Virginian in 1956. It begins with a quote from Patrick Henry's will, then the rest was written by the author of the Virginian article:
"I have now disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian Religion. If they had that and I had not given them one shilling they would have been rich; and if they had not that and I had given them all the world, they would be poor."Patrick Henry, Virginia,
His WillThere is an insidious campaign of false propaganda being waged today, to the effect that our country is not a Christian country but a religious one--that it was not founded on Christianity but on freedom of religion.
It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by 'religionists' but by Christians-not on religion but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity and freedom of worship here.
In the spoken and written words of our noble founders and forefathers, we find symbolic expressions of their Christian faith. The above quotation from the will of Patrick Henry is a notable example.
The first modern source for the quote is likely David Barton, who apparently saw this article and mistakenly thought that the third paragraph was a quote from Patrick Henry rather than a statement by a fellow Christian nation advocate writing about Patrick Henry.
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Many years ago I emailed a site that contained the now infamous bogus Madison "ten commandments" quote and gave them all the documentation needed to prove it false, but the response I got, almost verbatim was, "Even if Madison did not say it, it is close enough to what he believed, so I'm keeping it on my web site."
I am not making this up. This was the actual response from a wingnut after being given the documentation to show the quote was bogus. Rather nice support of the thesis put forth by the Sullivan reader re: Palin, eh?
Posted by: Skip | July 3, 2009 9:47 AM
Barton was awfully weasly in how he conceded his lack of a source for the fake Henry quote, where he stated, "this quotation is consistent with Henry's life and character". He did the same for at least the false quotes he published and distributed about James Madison, which is astonishingly dishonest on his part, and how much he depends on his audience remaining delusional sheep to maintain his credibility with them.
Th Barton 'concession' page does not correct the record as Ed does via SBH do here.
Thanks for this correction to the record.
Posted by: Michael Heath | July 3, 2009 9:56 AM
Ed:
"And here is the original source of the quote, with a picture of the page of The American Mercury where the quote is reprinted from The Virginian in 1956."
You aRE sucH a usEFul idiot!
It was child's play for the FDRTri-Lateral Illuminazi CIA to plant that fake page from the American Mercury in 1956. Heck, they needed to practice that sort of stuff, so's they could make the fake Obama birth certificate look genuine.
WWJD ROFSIT (Rolling On Floor, Speaking In Tongues)
Posted by: democommie | July 3, 2009 10:03 AM
If you're rolling on the floor and speaking in "tongues", you might want to get to an ER. The sooner you catch a stroke, the better your chance of survival.
Posted by: NYCMike | July 3, 2009 10:38 AM
The American Mercury/Virginian article in historical context is an example of the problem with civil religion. Whose civil religion? During the 1940s and 50s civil religion was ecumenical. The emphasis being Judeo-Christian and "anything but an atheist." The author thought that wasn't enough. What these Christian nation advocates like David Barton et al. fail to realize is that if America gets another state sponsored civil religion it won't be so sectarian and it will discriminate against them the way it discriminates against atheists.
Posted by: Bill in NC | July 3, 2009 10:47 AM
I still don't get out Henry's stance makes a difference one way or the other. He was an anti-federalist who attempted to block the constitution and failed. He argued in favor of making the country more "Christian" and failed. They could have paintings of him doing double back-flips while reciting bible verses, it doesn't have any impact on the Constitution.
Posted by: dogmeatIB | July 3, 2009 11:02 AM
It bears mentioning also that Henry's most famous line, "Give me liberty or give me death!" was also fabricated (by a Christian pastor known as Parson Mason Weems) decades after he supposedly spoke it.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | July 3, 2009 11:14 AM
dogmeatib stated:
Your point is a good one assuming people know their history. As ignorant of history as social conservatives are, lumping all founders together as near-equal architects to our form of government is an assumption I think most Americans share, not merely social conservatives served up a steady dose of revisionism. Therefore one can take an opponent of the Constitution as Henry was and use his rhetoric on most Americans without their having a clue how disingenuous that would be.
Posted by: Michael Heath | July 3, 2009 11:19 AM
Two thoughts popped into my head upon reading this post.
Henry was probably a Christian, though not of Barton's ilk. Yet he was able to see that his faith really had nothing to do with the governance of the United States. Being a Christian did not require him to insist the nation be Christian also.
Secondly, Barton, like a lot of other conservative revisionists, cannot read very well, if he took the commentary following Henry's signature as part of Henry's own thoughts. We already know he's a sloppy historian. Now we have some inkling why he's so sloppy.
Posted by: wheatdogg | July 3, 2009 11:26 AM
Nice piece of historical detective work. I love stuff like this!
Out of curiossity, I just looked in Barton's "Myth of Separation" to see what his footnote for this quote was, and it's not the American Mercury or the Virginian. It's a 1988 book called "God's Providence in American History" by Steve C. Dawson.
I found the the original source for another of Barton's "unconfirmed" quotes when I was debunking the history lies in the National Council On Bible Curriculum In Public Schools a few years ago. The one that I found the source for was the alleged Jefferson quote:
"I have always said, and will always say, that studious perusal of the sacred volume will make us better citizens."
This one isn't from anything written by Jefferson. It's from a letter written by Daniel Webster, a big advocate of Sunday schools, in 1852, recounting a conversation he had with Jefferson twenty-five years earlier about Sunday schools. What's interesting about Webster's letter is that he also said that Jefferson said Sunday schools were "the only legitimate means, under the constitution" for teaching religion, reinforcing that Jefferson didn't want religion taught in public schools.
The whole story is in a post I wrote at Talk2Action:
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2007/3/10/111937/740
Maybe someone should email Barton and tell him that the real sources of these two quotes have been found, and see if he updates his "Unconfirmed Quotes" list.
Posted by: Chris Rodda | July 3, 2009 11:31 AM
Your point is a good one assuming people know their history. As ignorant of history as social conservatives are, lumping all founders together as near-equal architects to our form of government is an assumption I think most Americans share,
Valid point, every two-three years I have a student who quotes Barton or references his garbage to support their claim that the US is a Christian nation™, we end up having a discussion of these issues, Madison's actual statements, the Jefferson quote that Chris brought up actually has popped up along with the claims regarding public schools in Washington, etc., Patrick Henry, and one of those floating E-Mails that put together a bunch of Barton garbage in a "did you know" format. All of these conversations have shown me is that a sizable chunk of the conservatives and Christian conservatives fall under the Palin and Bachman posts Ed made today. Reality isn't that important when compared to what "feels" good, or what they think or believe should be right.
I literally had a student tell me after I debunked the Barton email that they didn't care if Barton was wrong, they liked his version better so they were going to believe it. Perfect example of suspension of reality for a chosen belief.
Posted by: dogmeatIB | July 3, 2009 12:05 PM
I have seen that quote before, nice to see what the original source of the fake quote is..
Posted by: Goldbrick4 | July 3, 2009 1:37 PM
But - but - but- but - I swear I've heard David Barton claim that professional historians use secondary sources and he's the only one who reads primary material! How can this be?
Posted by: Scott Hanley | July 3, 2009 2:37 PM
"Henry was probably a Christian, though not of Barton's ilk. Yet he was able to see that his faith really had nothing to do with the governance of the United States."
Henry could be considered a Christian of Barton's ilk. He favored maintaining the tax supported state Anglican state church in Virginia and opposed the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.
Posted by: Bill in NC | July 3, 2009 3:56 PM
Bill in NC - there's a huge amount of un-trampled upon ground between the quote your refer to and your own, "[Henry] could be considered a Christian of Barton's ilk", where "ilk" appears here regarding matters of church-state relationship given your examples being Henry's support/rejection of certain church-state VA legislation in the 1780s.
While Barton clearly supports a Christianist form of theocracy that is best described as fascist if actually implemented, Henry was in no way that radical, he was in fact more traditionalist regarding church and state, and was open to insuring his tax levy didn't disenfranchise non-Anglicans. While Henry opposed ratification of the Constitution and can not be defined as a framer given his somewhat energetic opposition, he's certainly nowhere near Barton's "ilk" when it comes to church-state matters.
Henry's primary opposition to our Constitution's promotion of federalism was his fear of a monarchical executive and the Constitution's initial lack of a Bill of Rights. After ratification and some years later, Henry became a Federalist himself and was an ardent supporter of Chief Justice Marshall, the definitive federalist. In other words, he adapted his politics as he learned and as conditions changed, other attributes Barton and his ilk lack which is a defining attribute of their faith.
Posted by: Michael Heath | July 3, 2009 4:17 PM
Michael Heath --
Thanks for the evidence to support my rather dim memory of Henry's political philosophy.
As far as I know, the idea of a "Christian Nation" -- of the kind that Barton (and his ilk) conceive -- is a modern invention. The idea would have repelled the "Founding Fathers" and probably most of the population at the time. I'm thinking of the Catholics in Maryland and the Quakers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, among others, here.
Posted by: wheatdogg | July 3, 2009 7:39 PM
Chris:
Thanks for the reference given in Barton's "Myth of Separation"; presumably then the mistake was Steve C. Dawson's (or his source's)--always assuming this isn't another phantom like that Harold Lane book. One of my many annoyances at the moment is that I don't have access to Barton's "Myth of Separation".
dogmeatIB:
I've had that same experience; some people have even insisted that all history is really anecdote anyway, so they prefer to believe the versions of events that make them feel good, no matter what the evidence shows. Okay. That's a different game from the one I play.
Michael Heath:
Thanks for the reminder that Patrick Henry was a more complex individual than the easy labels make him seem. I've been guilty myself of oversimplifying his views in attempting to make the point that there is no way in hell he could ever have said the "religionists" statement no matter how consistent it may be with his life and character.
Pierce R. Butler:
Both the "give me liberty or give me death" and the "if this be treason" speeches go back to reconstructions first published in William Wirt's 1818 Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry. How accurate they are likely to have been after such a long passage of time is anybody's guess; there is however a contemporary version of the "treason" speech that both confirms and contradicts Wirt's account in some important aspects.
Posted by: sbh | July 3, 2009 10:17 PM
"I've had that same experience; some people have even insisted that all history is really anecdote anyway, so they prefer to believe the versions of events that make them feel good, no matter what the evidence shows."
As taken to its logical extreme in 1984's Ministry of Truth
Posted by: Mithandir | July 4, 2009 5:07 PM
Thank you for this research.
Your documentation is solid and helpful.
As a pastor and a firm believer in the Judeo-Christian roots of our blessed country, I am incensed at those sloppy preachers and speakers who will quote anything that appears to support their views without the simple research that I have done today.
I fear I am as diametrically opposed to your position as a person could be, but I must give credit where credit is due.
I see from the comments above that there are as many uneducated on your side as mine though, and that is reassuring.
The truth is powerful enough.
It does not need my embelishment.
Thanks again.
Posted by: Joshua Margerison | July 4, 2009 11:02 PM
Joshua Margerison says: "I see from the comments above that there are as many uneducated on your side as mine though, and that is reassuring."
I fail to see how you draw that conclusion. Can you support the statement? I see one joke post, but the majority are both cogent and fairly clean in terms of grammar and spelling. In fact, I see no evidence of a lack of education in any of the posts, even the joke.
I assure you, based on my extensive experience with a great many people who are "firm believer[s] in the Judeo-Christian roots of our blessed country," those who swallow that great big whopping lie tend to be poorly educated.
At the very least, they have no familiarity at all with the primary souces. No one who has read Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, or Adams could give any credence whatsoever to the notion that our country was intended to be anything other than a secular democracy.
For that matter, no one who has actually read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights can fail to see how carefully the Framers created a completely secular form of government.
You can support the argument that Christianity has been an important cultural influence. But to go as far as claiming the form of government is based on either Jewish or Christian tenets . . . that's completely false.
Posted by: Leigh Williams | July 5, 2009 5:30 AM
Joshua Margerison says: "I see from the comments above that there are as many uneducated on your side as mine though, and that is reassuring."
Yahhh very reassuring. Let's hear it for many uneducated on your side as mine. Three cheers for that. I'm just so reassured by that too. Yay.
Posted by: 386sx | July 5, 2009 6:52 AM