Trump Administrations '1776 Report' Justifies Slavery, Three-Fifths Compromise

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day , only two days before President Donald Trump leaves office, the Trump administration released a report from its 1776 Commission that excuses slavery, justifies the racist Three-fifths Compromise and rails against socialism and identity politics.

The 1776 Commission formed by Trump in September in direct response to The New York Times 1619 Project on Americas deep roots in slavery and racial injustice released a report Monday that was meant to provide a definitive chronicle of the American founding.

The 45-page report reads in places like a right-wing manifesto: It makes excuses for slavery and the Three-fifths Compromise that declared slaves counted as less than full humans. It decries socialism and identity politics, celebrates the right to bear arms and calls the anti-abortion movement one of the nations great reforms.

The report notably defends the countrys Founding Fathers, who owned slaves , arguing that slavery was not a uniquely American evil and urging that the institution be seen in a much broader perspective.

The report goes on to justify the Three-fifths Compromise in which white lawmakers from Northern and Southern states in 1787 agreed to count Black people as three-fifths of a person for congressional representation saying that this was just that: compromises, and that, as a question of practical politics, no durable union could have been formed without a compromise among the states on the issue of slavery.

Historian and slavery scholar Daina Ramey Berry said the report advocates teaching a narrow patriotic history of America and aims to muzzle those who seek to teach a full and accurate history of America, including journalists of The New York Times 1619 Project .

From a historians vantage point, the report cannot be taken as a solid piece of historical work: It seeks to justify slavery and its damaging aftermath in order to indoctrinate yet another generation of American students, Ramey Berry, chair of the history department at the University of Texas at Austin, told HuffPost.

The last four years, underscored by the last few weeks, have demonstrated how fragile our embrace of truth can be and the consequences of purposeful disinformation, she added.

So this Commission releases a report on #MLKDay2021 says that educating us that many of our Founding Fathers enslaved human beings is MORE damaging than THE FACT that many of the Founders enslaved human beings #TrumpLogic #1DAY17HOURS02MINUTES until the most racist POTUS in the https://t.co/ITsvttQ92a

Peter Groff (@petercgroff) January 19, 2021","type":"rich","meta":{"author":"Peter Groff","author_url":"https://twitter.com/petercgroff","cache_age":86400,"description":"So this Commission releases a report on #MLKDay2021 says that educating us that many of our Founding Fathers enslaved human beings is MORE damaging than THE FACT that many of the Founders enslaved human beings #TrumpLogic #1DAY17HOURS02MINUTES until the most racist POTUS in the https://t.co/ITsvttQ92a Peter Groff (@petercgroff) January 19, 2021\n\n","options":{"_hide_media":{"label":"Hide photos, videos, and cards","value":false},"_maxwidth":{"label":"Adjust width","placeholder":"220-550, in px","value":""},"_theme":{"value":"","values":{"dark":"Use dark theme"}}},"provider_name":"Twitter","title":"Peter Groff on 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So this Commission releases a report on #MLKDay2021 says that educating us that many of our Founding Fathers enslaved human beings is MORE damaging than THE FACT that many of the Founders enslaved human beings #TrumpLogic #1DAY17HOURS02MINUTES until the most racist POTUS in the https://t.co/ITsvttQ92a
Peter Groff (@petercgroff) January 19, 2021

The Trump commissions report says that the current political divisions among Americans call to mind those between the Confederate and Union forces in the Civil War a war that was fought over slavery. It goes on to tout the right to bear arms, saying an armed people is a people capable of defending their liberty no less than their lives and is the last, desperate check against the worst tyranny.

Earlier this month, Trump incited an armed mob of his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol , where lawmakers were voting to certify the results of the presidential election, which Trump lost and yet repeatedly lied about it being fraudulent. A week later, the Democratic-led House of Representatives impeached Trump for inciting an insurrection making him the only president to ever be impeached twice.

Trumps 1776 Commission report, which includes several photos of Martin Luther King Jr., criticizes affirmative action , calling it preferential treatment, and says todays identity politics are the opposite of Kings hope that his children would live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin.

Just days earlier, Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., shared a clip of the civil rights icon on Twitter in which King skewers America for freeing Black slaves in 1863, then giving them no land or resources to get started on, all while giving away land to white settlers.

When white Americans tell the Negro to lift himself by his own bootstraps, they dont look over the legacy of slavery and segregation, King says in the clip. Its a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.

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The Trump commissions report also rails against socialism as leading people down a dangerous path of wealth redistribution and cites anti-Communism and the Pro-Life Movement or anti-abortion movement as some of the great reforms of the countrys history.

It concludes that universities are hotbeds of anti-Americanism, libel and censorship, and warns against any teaching that shames Americans by highlighting only the sins of their ancestors and teaches claims of systemic racism. It also recommends K-12 schools reject any curriculum that demeans Americas heritage.

The administration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, who take office on Wednesday when Harris becomes the first Black, first Asian American and first female vice president will likely do nothing with the report. The incoming administration has repeatedly committed to root out systemic racism.