Bill O’Reilly Shredded for Botched Comments on Slavery: Imagine Writing So Many History Books ‘Without Knowing Any’

Ken MeyerJun 24th, 2019, 4:41 pm
 

Bill O’Reilly got blasted by online critics for suggesting that slavery was not, in fact, a significant component of America’s founding.

The history book writer and former Fox News host took to Twitter on Monday to rail against Democrats for their talk about government reparations to African Americans descended from former slaves. To that end, he wrote…this:

Let’s break this down.

While the founding fathers endeavored to end or put limits on slavery during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention, the fact of the matter is that slavery continued to exist in America for almost another 80 years, until the end of the Civil War. On top of that, several of America’s most prominent founding fathers were slave owners, including George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson.

It wasn’t until the passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments that African Americans were legally recognized to have citizens rights, equal protection under the law, and voting rights. Before that, African-Americans faced systematic discrimination in almost every facet of American society, and slaves in the southern states were only recognized as three-fifths of a person due to the ramifications of the infamous Three-Fifths Compromise.

Since these little details apparently flew over O’Reilly’s head, online critics took it upon themselves to fill him in.

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