One of the defining characteristics of Christian nationalist activists is a willingness to misrepresent history, as time after time they spread blatant falsehoods in defense of their right-wing ideology. Often, this is rooted in their own ignorance about the Founding Era and the creation of the Constitution, as right-wing pastor, former mayor and city councilman Rob McCoy demonstrated during a recent appearance on "The Heidi St. John Podcast."
While insisting that the United States was created with "a Christian form of government," McCoy rattled off a series of completely false statements.
"When they did the Constitutional Convention and they were at loggerheads in 1787 and they broke for three days of fasting and prayer—and [Benjamin] Franklin's prayer is remarkable—but they come back and they come up with a brilliant idea of a bicameral legislature," McCoy said. "And they put the Three-Fifths Clause in there because they couldn't deal with slavery at the time but they had a sunset clause all established to get rid of it, and they did the Three-Fifth's Compromise so the slaveholding states couldn't have representation in the lower house if they weren't going to give Black Americans citizenship and the right to vote. So they were working through this."
"The only branch of government we could elect was the lower house, the House of Representatives," he continued. "They made them the most powerful branch of the government, or at least the most powerful half of a branch of the government, by giving them the purse strings. And then the House of Representatives would then appoint the senators for each of their states, depending on the number of representatives, they would appoint their two senators. And then the House of Representatives would also appoint the president—which is where we get the Electoral College—and then the president would appoint the judiciary. So this lower house was very powerful."
Literally nothing that McCoy said in here is true or accurate.
First of all, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention ignored Franklin's call for prayer and never "broke for three days of fasting and prayer."
Secondly, there was no "sunset clause" for getting rid of slavery in the Constitution, which explicitly prohibited Congress from taking any action against the slave trade for at least 20 years. On top of that, the Three-Fifths Compromise ended up granting significant political advantage to the Southern states by ensuring them additional seats in Congress, which those states used to protect the institution of slavery.
Finally, nowhere in the Constitution was the House of Representatives given the power to appoint senators; that power was reserved for the state legislatures (voters were eventually given the power to elect their own senators with the passage of the 17th Amendment in 1913). Nor was the House of Representatives given the power to "appoint the president" or establish the Electoral College. Article II of the Constitution established the Electoral College for the purpose of choosing the president, giving the House the power to select the president only in cases where no candidate received the necessary number of electoral votes.
It is remarkable how often Christian nationalist activists like McCoy, in attempting to sing the praises of the Constitution which they claim to revere, end up demonstrating just how little they actually know about it or its history.
