Last month, David Barton delivered a presentation at Calvary Chapel in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he falsely claimed that the Founding Fathers denounced slavery in the Declaration of Independence.

“Great Britain would not allow us to end slavery,” Barton said. “A number of the states passed anti-slavery laws and King George III struck them all down, said, ‘No, no, no, you’re part of the British Empire, as long as you’re part of the British Empire you’re going to have slavery,’ which is why a number of Founding Fathers got involved because they did not want slavery. That’s why the Declaration of Independence had two clauses condemning slavery as a reason we were leaving Great Britain. Now, we always hear about taxation without representation, that’s one clause, but twice as often in there you’ll hear about slavery being an issue. We don’t cover that.”

Of course, anyone can read the Declaration and discover for themselves that “the final document makes no mention of slavery or African Americans.”

What Barton conveniently failed to mention was that while the original draft did contain a passage on slavery, it was removed from the final version, as the Heritage Foundation explains: