Hey, Virginia lawmakers, the Lincoln-Douglas debates did not feature Frederick Douglass

After all, it is in the part of the proposal that defined what could actually be taught in history classes, not the myriad things that would be banned or the consequences teachers could face for teaching them, including prosecution and being fired.Section B3 of the bill, sponsored by Republican freshman Del. Wren Williams, defines what can be taught as “the founding documents,” like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, excerpts from the Federalist Papers, the writings of the Founding Fathers and Alexis de Tocqueville’s classic “Democracy in America.” Oh, and one more thing: “the first debate between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.”It is a clear reference to the famed Lincoln-Douglas debates, one of the high points in this country’s intellectual, moral and civic history, but there’s just one problem: Lincoln did not debate Frederick Douglass.By Friday morning, Frederick Douglass was trending on Twitter. When asked if Williams had an opportunity to proofread DLS’s draft before it was submitted, the spokesman declined to answer yes or no, instead saying, “It’s unprecedented for legislative services to make substantive changes to bills, and there was no reason to expect that they would do so.”But let’s not waste the opportunity for a history lesson.The Lincoln-Douglas debates took place in the late summer and fall of 1858, when Lincoln was the Republican candidate for Senate challenging Democratic incumbent Stephen A.