When he said history is bunk, he meant that we were all led by tradition and were not looking forward with development. He believed that we should live in the present times and look towards the future and not just blindly stick to tradition and historical beliefs. He added that the only history that's worth is the one made today.
It was a way to show the reason why students do not know the past. Saying that history is foolish Ford declares itself an eternal teenager. He says that only an immature person can be incapable of imagining the past and not even being curious about it. But also to say that history is silly, you are right, because why know what happened in the past? It has no utility or profitability. Many of our ancestors have been left with bad qualifiers, for example, subversive, revolutionary, inopportune, among others.
Northern members supported it because their debts were largely unpaid. Southern members, including Madison, opposed it because southern states had paid off a significant portion of their debt.
