Mike Pence Discusses How to Approach America’s History
Mike Pence Discusses How to Approach America’s History
The former Vice President examines Robert E. Lee, other topics at student press conference.
Source: The Fund for American Studies
“Well, if you knew me, well, you would know I'm actually just a frustrated American history teacher,” former Vice President Mike Pence told The Spectator during a recent student press conference.
Mr. Pence has long been a student of American history, having earned a degree in history from Indiana’s Hanover College in 1981.
“There's almost not a day that I'm not reading some biography, some history,” Mr. Pence said, particularly works examining “the times around the American founding.”
The Spectator had asked Mr. Pence to explain how he addresses the rampant, fashionable self-hate that permeates attitudes toward American history. That trendy pessimism is perhaps best exemplified by The 1619 Project, which argues how slavery and racism are central to the American experience.
“Look, when we founded the country, we were not a perfect union,” he said. “That's why the founders said ‘in order to form a more perfect union,’ right? We understood the great sin of slavery, the difficulties that we face in the nation throughout our history.”
That said, Mr, Pence cites his profound belief in American exceptionalism: “I think more than any other nation on Earth, except maybe one, we've always aspired to what is right and what is true.”
“And I think we do an enormous disservice to your generation and future generations of Americans when we try and erase history,” he continued.
Mr. Pence draws his more charitable approach from lessons learned while a student at Hanover College.
“I had a professor there,” he reflects, who “said, ‘be very careful about judging people in the past, by your standards and your understandings today. Be very careful’.” The professor would then add how, “in 100 and 150 years, you would not appreciate people judging you by their morals, their understanding in our time versus theirs.”
“So I just think we should embrace all that's good about American history,” Mr. Pence concludes.
The former Vice President believes that the same perspective applies to the complex past of Washington and Lee University.
“At Washington and Lee, I remember speaking at Lee Chapel there and seeing the drape covering the final resting place of Robert E. Lee. And if you know, Robert E. Lee, led the Confederate armies, and they were fighting to defend the right to slavery, and we ought to teach that,” he told The Spectator.
But Mr. Pence also noted how the full story is more nuanced. Lee “also was a man that Abraham Lincoln asked to lead the Union army. He was the most distinguished soldier of his time and dedicated his life after the war to not only building that academic institution, but he played a pivotal role in the reconciliation and reconstruction in the country,” he said.
With that, Mr. Pence emphasized his main takeaway: “We ought to just teach all of it, we have to. It's all the good and all the bad. And that's the pathway forward.”
Doing so, Mr. Pence believes, will lend a greater appreciation of America and its past. By “understanding all of it,” he explains, “people see our steady march toward that more perfect union — that does inspire patriotism. The more I learn about American history, the more inspired I am and grateful I am to be an American.”
Source: The Fund for American Studies
Besides The Spectator’s question, Mr. Pence addressed topics ranging from anti-Israel student protests and geopolitics to abortion and Republican politics.
On the campus protests, Mr. Pence encouraged the student journalists in attendance to confront Israel’s detractors with the facts of the October 7 attacks.
When talking to anyone who thinks “that this is a moment to have some argument about Palestinian issues, you just need to say, ‘that's not what this is. You need to look at the video and then come and talk to me’,” Mr. Pence advised.
Mr. Pence went on to note his experience visiting a kibbutz ravaged by Hamas’ attack: “I was standing literally on bloodstained carpeting, [and] there almost was not a spot on the walls in any of the little homes I walked into that wasn't riddled with bullets,” he said. “It was an ISIS-level attack,” that left Israel “no choice but to go into Rafa they have to hunt down and destroy Hamas once and for all.”
As an example of successfully handled campus protests, Mr. Pence cited former Senator Ben Sasse, now president of the University of Florida.
Mr. Pence also discussed the importance of student journalism and a free press more broadly, noting how “a free and independent press is central to liberty.”
“There's a lot of times an antagonism between people in public life of every stripe and members of the media of every stripe,” he said, but ultimately, “a free and independent press is the only check on government power in real time.”
The chance for The Spectator and other student journalist outlets to speak with Mr. Pence was organized by The Fund for American Studies (TFAS), an organization that develops “courageous leaders inspired and equipped to protect and advance the ideas of individual liberty, personal responsibility, and economic freedom in their communities and throughout the world” by creating programs and other opportunities, according to its mission statement.
The Spectator is a member of the Student Journalism Association, one of the TFAS programs.
