The Myth of Freedom of Information

University of Louisville ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository Faculty Scholarship Spring 2014 The myth of freedom of information. John Chenault University of Louisville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.louisville.edu/faculty Part of the Library and Information Science Commons, and the United States History Commons Original Publication Information This article was originally published in Kentucky Libraries, volume 78, issue 2, in Spring 2014. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FEATURE KENTUCKY L IBRARY A SSOCIATION THE MYTH OF FREEDOM OF INFORMATION IN THE UNITED STATES BY JOHN CHENAULT ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, REFERENCE DEPARTMENT KORNHAUSER HEALTH SCIENCES LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE popular government, without popular infor- (March 4, 1809 to March 3, 1817). His birth- mation, or the means of acquiring it, is but a pro- day, March 16, is marked each year by an logue to a farce or a tragedy; or perhaps both. annual event sponsored by the American Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a peo- Library Association (ALA). ALA’s “Freedom ple who mean to be their own governors must arm of Information Day” recognizes individuals themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” and groups for championing access to govern- — James Madison, 1822 ment information and the “people’s right to know” with the presentation of the James Are the purported owners of the U.S. Madison Award (American Library Government, the citizens of the United Association). The quote from Madison cited States, also the owners of government infor- above appeared on the ALA “Freedom of mation? If so, are they entitled to unfettered Information Day” web page as recently as access to data, information, and documents 2006. However, on an undetermined date created or collected by government agencies shortly thereafter, the quote was removed and officials? Is the idea of “freedom of infor- from view. It apparently no longer serves as mation” embedded in the framework of the part of ALA’s awareness campaign, perhaps U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights? Or is it because it was misused as discussed below. one of the myths of a questionably “free” nation whose founding was circumscribed and It is not difficult to understand the evolution tainted by the legalization and institutional- of the Madison icon and its association with ization of racial slavery and other forms of the idea of freedom of information and all it social inequality? These questions provide the represents in contemporary discourse. As a backdrop against which this article will exam- rebel and revolutionary, Madison was acutely ine a pervasive idea in U.S. culture: that U.S. concerned about protecting citizens’ rights to citizens historically have had the right to free speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom information created by their government in of the press. As the “Father of the Constitution,” the course of conducting the people’s business. he conceived and included those freedoms in What is briefly argued herein is that federal the Bill of Rights because he viewed constitu- laws passed in the 1960s and 1970s, and polit- tionally guaranteed liberties, especially a free ical and technological trends and develop- press, as bulwarks against an oppressive ments that occurred during the latter half of monarchy or government. But Madison makes the twentieth century, especially in the 1990s, no mention of freedom of information in the may give the public a false view of how the nation’s founding documents. The oft-quoted government historically has treated govern- statement on “popular information” cited ment documents and regarded the people’s above is a comment made more than two right to know. decades after the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Moreover the quote, when used The quote cited above from founding father as a statement to advocate freedom of infor- James Madison contributes to a grand myth mation, is taken out of context. The opening about American freedom that has echoed sentence of Madison’s remark has been omit- across the centuries. Madison, who is known ted to make it congruent with the use to by the nickname “Father of the Constitution,” which it has been applied. The entire para- was the fourth President of the United States graph, which opens a letter dated August 4, 32 KENTUCKY LIBRARIES • VOLUME 78 • NUMBER 2 THE MYTH OF 1822 from Madison to William T. Barry, the to inconvenient truths. Is this judgment too F.O.I. …U.S. Lieutenant Governor of the State of harsh and too critical of the popular national Kentucky, reads as follows: narrative of American freedom? Let us briefly CONTINUED The liberal appropriations made by the examine this point from another perspective. Legislature of Kentucky for a general system of Education cannot be too much applauded Like many of his co-founding fathers, [emphasis added]. A popular Government, Madison spoke eloquently about liberty and without popular information, or the means the rights of man and did so fully cognizant of of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce the contradictions between his rhetoric and or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge the reality of his ownership of human beings. will forever govern ignorance: And a people Among his several notable remarks on the who mean to be their own Governors, must subject of slavery is the following excerpt from arm themselves with the power which a speech he gave on December 2nd at the knowledge gives (Madison “James Madison Virginia State Convention of 1829-30: to W. T. Barry”). It is due to justice; due to humanity; due to truth; due to the sympathies of our nature; Madison goes on to express his fond regard for in fine, to our character as a people, both the Commonwealth of Kentucky and its peo- abroad and at home, that they [enslaved ple, and to note the value and benefit of Africans] should be considered, as much as Kentucky’s State Plan of Education for its citi- possible, in the light of human beings, and zens. Nowhere in its contents does Madison not as mere property. As such, they are ever discuss freedom of information or the role acted on by our laws, and have an interest and responsibility of the government to its cit- in our laws. They may be considered as izens as a creator, collector or provider of making a part, though a degraded part, of information. Thus the view of Madison as an the families to which they belong (Madison advocate of “freedom of information” as we “Question of the Ratio of Representation in understand that term today, especially in refer- the Two Branches of the Legislature”). ence to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and access to government documents, Historians and Madison scholars have used has been conjured out of thin air by an act of such quotes to argue that Madison was a omission. This editorial sleight-of-hand benign and enlightened slave master. Dr. achieves its credibility due to the broad public Devin Bent, founder of the James Madison regard for Madison as the founder of American Center at James Madison University, offers freedoms. The false ideas that flow from it – this typical assessment of Madison’s character that Madison’s notion of “popular informa- in the matter of owning human beings: “To tion” and the people’s right to know is some- his credit, Madison was more troubled than how embedded in the founding of the nation most by slavery and by the hubris of the great and its founding documents – are the byprod- slave owners. He never seems as overtly racist ucts of a hagiographic construction of U.S. as Jefferson at his worst” (Bent). Bent but- history that intentionally ignores the contra- tresses his opinion with the following testimo- dictions inherent in the establishment of the ny from Paul Jennings, a man once owned by republic. The truth that rarely surfaces in pub- Madison, and who served as his body servant: lic education and in the public square is that Mr. Madison, I think, was one of the best the “land of the free” was built on the geno- men that ever lived. I never saw him in a cide of Amerindians, the foundation of chattel passion, and never knew him to strike a slavery, and the enactment of voting regula- slave, although he had over one hundred; tions that excluded the majority of its popula- neither would he allow an overseer to do it. tion from the franchise (women, indentured Whenever any slaves were reported to him servants, Native Americans, and most so- as stealing or “cutting up” badly, he would called free “Negroes”) by restricting the right send for them and admonish them privately, to vote mainly to property-owning “white” and never mortify them by doing it before males. The master narrative of the nation’s others (Bent). founding therefore is blind by design to its own omissions and historicist fallacies. The Madison never struck a slave, but he never whitewashed, sanitized, and sanctified past it freed one either. He inherited more than one serves up for public consumption remains pop- hundred slaves from his father in 1801, and in ular, nonetheless, in a society conditioned to 1809 he even purchased an indentured ser- prefer historical amnesia and selective memory vant from Thomas Jefferson named John 33 KENTUCKY LIBRARIES • VOLUME 78 • NUMBER 2 THE MYTH OF Freeman.

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