By Houston, Gabriel, & Ezekiel Dillingham
September 15, 2022
For the last two years, we’ve taken Bradley Fish’s two history courses on the Ron Paul Homeschool Curriculum. The first class covered mostly ancient and medieval history, which was enjoyable and informative. However, his modern history was brimming with errors, partial truths, and neo-conservative takes on the events of the past 200 years. It’s shocking this class is coming from such a freedom-minded curriculum as Ron Paul.
Slavery and Ante-Bellum America
Starting with Lesson 33, Fish begins to talk about slavery. He said, “Slave labor was cheap and plantation owners had slaves because they didn’t want to pay employees.” Slaves were actually more expensive than paying employees, considering the healthcare, housing, food and water owners were required to give them. In fact, slaves in the South had longer lifespans than white factory workers in the North.
In the next lesson, he failed to mention that “Free States” didn’t mean that slaves were free there; it meant those states were almost entirely free of black people, since the people living there didn’t want blacks to live among them. He also claimed that slaves “ran the plantations” which is partially true. In some instances, a plantation could have had a black foreman, however owners still operated and oversaw their plantation.
Predictably, Fish began to paint Southerners as evil and Northerners as righteous and morally correct, setting up the false dichotomy. He stated, “[Northerners] were morally opposed to the idea that someone could own another,” and that Northern religious groups “worked hard to end slavery in the United States” and “often assisted slaves to freedom when they ran away from their masters.” Most Northerners didn’t care about slaves at all, and the myth that they assisted them to “freedom” is wildly exaggerated. In fact, Black Codes, many worse than segregation in the Jim Crow South, are what freed men found in the self-righteous North. Thus slavery was not a moral issue, since blacks were not only not welcome, but treated worse in the North than in the South.
He claimed that Southerners thought the North was attacking their “way of life” and were angry that “The federal government was not doing enough to keep their property from running away from them,” as if Southerners’ only complaint was solely about slavery. This pushed the naive and false narrative that the Southern world revolved around keeping blacks in bondage.
Fish called James Buchanan one of the worst presidents in American history and lists “his indecision over the secession of Southern states [as] among the worst decisions made by a President.” Buchanan actually did the right thing by not illegally invading the south like Abraham Lincoln. Personally, Buchanan opposed secession but understood that each state had both a legal and moral right to secede from the Union. Pushing the Lincolnian view, Fish proclaimed that slavery was “the main topic of the day” making it seem like it was the sinless North versus the racist South.
In reality, the North didn’t have any moral problem with slavery, but used it as a weapon since they wanted to tax and overpower the South. Moreover, slavery was absolutely an issue when it came to representation in Congress: if slavery were allowed in the new territories, it would result in republicans being overpowered at the federal level.
Fish “ranked among the worst Presidents of the United States” not only Buchanan, but also Taylor, Fillmore, and Pierce because of their “weakness and indecision on the main topic of the day.” In other words, he thought if these presidents had unconstitutionally or violently ended slavery earlier, there wouldn’t have been the War.
The Civil War and Reconstruction
Just like his pre-war lessons, Fish again portrays the South as evil and fighting for slavery and the North as liberators fighting to free blacks from Southern enslavement. In Lesson 63, he says, “As a supporter of keeping the Union together, [Lincoln] realized that one side of the slavery debate would have to come out on top sooner or later.” Slavery wasn’t going to “come out on top” because it had been slowly but surely dying out before the “Civil War” began. Southerners understood that immediately emancipating two million people overnight wasn’t such a good idea. Not only would slave owners not be compensated for their loss of property, but also slaves would not be properly educated or taught skills before being freed. In fact, gradual emancipation already existed in the south, but was complicated and costly.
Slavery was primarily a political issue. If Southern slave states were outnumbered, the North would vote to put tariffs on the South’s main exports of cotton and tobacco, thus raising taxes on Southern citizens. In contrast, the North’s taxes wouldn’t be raised at all and Northern factories would still benefit from Southern products, giving the industrial Union a drastic economic edge. This is obviously contradictory to Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 of the US Constitution, which states, “all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;” After a while, Southerners had enough of this and exercised their Constitutional right to secede, leave the United States, and form their own country. When Lincoln “saved the Union,” he actually launched a completely unconstitutional and devastating war that lasted 4 years, killed over 700,000 Americans, and caused strife and resentment that still lasts today.
Doubling down, Fish remarked, “By 1863, many of the freed slaves had organized into their own regiments and joined the War on the side of the Union.” Sure, colored regiments in the Union army did exist, but he forgot to mention that there were also colored regiments of free, volunteer blacks in the Confederate Army. Contrary to popular belief, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation didn’t free a single slave anywhere. The Proclamation only applied to areas where the Union Army wasn’t present. Slaves in the Union-occupied South were kept in bondage so they could be used as labor for the Union war effort. It had the dual purpose of stopping Great Britain, who abolished slavery in 1833, from supporting the Confederacy and to inspire slave uprisings in the South, where women, old men, and children remained. This never happened below the Mason-Dixon Line, but ironically it did start riots in the North, where angry Northerners protested the newly instituted draft and the Emancipation Proclamation, by lynching hundreds of blacks for three days in the streets of New York City. No slaves were freed until the 13th Amendment was added to the Constitution in 1865.
Yet another half truth, Fish referred to Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest as the “grand wizard” of the Ku Klux Klan. While it is true that Forrest was involved with the Klan, this is false as the KKK originated as a social movement for Confederate veterans, who were more focused on reacting to radical reconstruction and military occupation than hating blacks. It was completely different from the KKK of the 20th Century. Forrest wasn’t the grand wizard of the KKK either, but merely loaned his name to the group. When the Klan turned violent in resistance to the corrupt Freedmen’s Bureau, the placement of blacks as puppet politicians, and carpetbaggers, he even disassociated himself with it.
20th Century
Fish wasn’t just wrong about the War Between the States and slavery, but he also made many mistakes about the 20th century, especially World War I, which he began discussing in Lesson 96. He said, “President Wilson finally asked Congress to declare war in April 1917, when Germany repeatedly ignored US neutrality and sunk American ships.” Germany only sank one ship with American citizens on board, the RMS Lusitania.
In addition to carrying passengers, the Lusitania carried military weaponry and supplies to the Allies in Europe. Despite claiming he wanted the US to stay out of the war in Europe, Wilson and many others in Washington wanted war with Germany and the Central Powers. The Lusitania can’t be considered a passenger ship if it was carrying military aid to the Allies.
Moreover, the Zimmerman Telegram was actually the final straw that made the US declare war on Germany. A message supposedly sent from Germany to Mexico asking the Mexicans if they would attack the US, was intercepted by the British. Wilson needed a reason to go to war with Germany, so he used the Lusitania as an excuse. There would’ve been no reason to enter the conflict if the US had acted as a neutral country and not provided military aid to a power directly involved in the conflict.
Fish constantly referred to Germany during World War I as “Prussia.” From 1871-1918, it was called the German Empire. At that point, the Kingdom of Prussia was within the German Empire. That would be the equivalent of referring to the United States during World War I as New York. Other similar examples of him using incorrect terms are him calling the Russian Army during WWI the “Red Army” and calling Germany an Axis power during WWI; both are simply wrong.
Fish failed to mention the British naval blockade of Germany, which deprived the German people of food during a European-wide famine throughout and even after the war. Some 770,000 German civilians died because of this. The British only lifted the blockade after the Treaty of Versailles was officially agreed upon, meaning Germans were still starving after Germany sued for peace and signed the armistice with the Allies.
Shockingly, Fish called the Treaty of Versailles and all its conditions “very just.” He goes on, “When you wrong someone, you should be forced to repay.” A fair assessment is that there wasn’t one country that was totally in the right during WWI; all of the countries on both sides wronged each other. The only reason the Germans had to pay reparations was because they lost. He stated, “Germans were only angry and resentful over the terms of the Treaty of Versailles because they had not been forced to do this on many occasions.” He then failed to give examples of these other occasions. Why should the German people be punished for something their government did even if they supported or approved of it?
How was Germany the “instigator?” Every country in Europe was looking for a reason to go to war with each other. Germany wasn’t any more at fault for the war than Britain or France. The Nazis most likely wouldn’t have risen to power if it hadn’t been for the Treaty of Versailles and what it did to the German people. There would have been no WWII if the Allies didn’t punish the Central Powers with humiliating treaties and arbitrarily split up their lands amongst themselves.
Moving on to WWII, he called Manchuria an island, which is definitely not true. He also said that when Japan conquered Manchuria, it was in Russian possession. Actually, it was Chinese when they invaded in 1931.
When talking about the Civil Rights Movement in Lesson 133, Fish associated segregation and discrimination with each other. While there was discrimination, it wasn’t because blacks had to drink out of different water fountains or stand in the back of the bus. Rather, segregation wasn’t one sided since whites had to stick to the segregation laws just as much as blacks did. While forced racial segregation isn’t just, well neither is forced integration. People should be able to mix or disassociate with whomever they want.
In Lesson 151 when discussing Bill Clinton, Fish mentioned the Lewinsky scandal and the president’s impeachment, but didn’t even mention Waco or Ruby Ridge. These tragic instances of unlawful murder of American citizens both occurred during Clinton’s tenure.
21st Century
In more modern history, Fish stated that the United States declared war on Afghanistan in 2001, which is false. There was no declaration of war by the US Congress, so the “military action” was unconstitutional. Consequently, 9/11 set the stage for the supposed War on Terror that’s still going on today. It’s been used as a pretext to start illegal wars, grow the government’s power, and diminish liberty ever since.
The 2003 war in Iraq had nothing to do with finding the people who planned the 9/11 attacks because Iraq wasn’t harboring any of them. Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction was the reason given for the invasion. This would be an unjust cause in the first place (apparently America is allowed things other countries can’t have), but no such weapons were ever found in Iraq. The war was really about finally overthrowing Iraq’s president, Saddam Hussein, making money for US politicians and increasing the surveillance state through the Patriot Act.
In the reading for Lesson 159, Fish claimed there was Russian interference in the 2016 election – a laughable assertion since there is no physical evidence for it. It’s also funny that he mentioned “Russian collusion” but when discussing Biden’s election in 2020 didn’t mention it was obviously stolen with there being actual evidence and videos showing fake ballots being counted. And because of the loose regulations with voter ID, people were able to vote twice and get away with it. He pointed out, however, that Trump didn’t attend Biden’s inauguration ceremony, implying that he was a sore loser. In the daily reading, Fish wrote about January 6, 2021: After Trump’s speech, “a violent mob stormed the Capitol; five people died,” pushing the whole “incitement of insurrection” myth. With instructors like this, public schools ain’t looking so bad.
Bradley Fish teaches on a conservative website, but for some reason pushed normie/neo-conservative narratives. Although some of his lessons are quite good, like the ones on economics, it’s as if he used Wikipedia or CNN as his main source for too many of the modern history lessons. I urge the Ron Paul Curriculum to check their instructors a little more before they hire them instead of helping to spread fake history to families who are fleeing government schools and are desperate for quality classes. The garbage that Fish teaches definitely isn’t what the great freedom-fighter Ron Paul supports nor is it what curriculum supporters deserve.