Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., came under fire online Tuesday evening after he posted an Independence Day tweet that included a false claim and a false quote. The self-proclaimed expert in manliness tweeted a quote he claimed to be from Patrick Henry, one of the nation's Founding Fathers and an enslaver best known for his "give me liberty or give me death" quote, that stated the country was founded on Christianity: "Patrick Henry: '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. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here,'" the tweet read.
But Henry never said the quote — nor did any of the other Founding Fathers — and the United States, as established in the First Amendment, was not founded as a Christian nation, HuffPost notes. Twitter users, instead, traced the quote back to a 1956 article in The Virginian about Henry's faith, which had been clarified on debunking site Fake History in 2009, and called out the conservative senator, who saluted the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan.6 with a fist pump, across the platform: "You will be unsurprised to hear that Patrick Henry never said this. It comes from a 1956 article in a magazine called The Virginian. But what's a fake quote between friends?" James Surowiecki, a contributing writer for The Atlantic and editor at Yale Review, tweeted in response.
You will be unsurprised to hear that Patrick Henry never said this. It comes from a 1956 article in a magazine called The Virginian. But what's a fake quote between friends? https://t.co/PZCEhfNlqW
— James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) July 5, 2023
