RNC Speakers Madison Cawthorn and Lara Trump Botched Facts About American History

The Republican National Convention featured a number of inaccuracies on Wednesday when the third night of speakers made several mistakes while invoking America’s history.

President Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law and campaign adviser, Lara Trump, used part of her address to invoke a quote that she claimed came from Abraham Lincoln.

“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”

Slight problem: the sixteenth U.S. president never actually said that.

The closest historical record of Lincoln saying anything resembling the quote Mrs. Trump used can be found in Lincoln’s Lyceum Address, where he spoke on the matters of enslavement, mob violence, and the peoples’ demand for law and order:

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

Politifact determined that the distorted version of Lincoln’s words that Mrs. Trump used came from a meme that circulated on Facebook for at least a year. This wasn’t Wednesday night’s only historical inaccuracy, however.

Madison Cawthorn, a 25-year-old businessman and North Carolina congressional candidate, used part of his speech to remark on how young people have shaped America’s history.

“If you don’t think young people can change the world, then you just don’t know American history,” said Cawthorn. “George Washington was 21 when he received his first military commission. Abe Lincoln, 22 when he first ran for office. And my personal favorite: James Madison was just 25 years old when he signed the Declaration of Independence.”

Madison was not among the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. He did sign the Constitution, however, and went on to be America’s fourth president.

Watch above, via CNN.