Misquoted on slavery, Cotton says after furor

WASHINGTON — A day after the publication of his comments on slavery sparked a firestorm of criticism, U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas denied Monday he was insensitive, saying he had been recounting the views of the Founding Fathers — not his own — that slavery was a “necessary evil” toward creating the Union.

Appearing on “Fox & Friends” Monday morning, the Little Rock Republican accused people of misrepresenting his words, telling cohost Brian Kilmeade, “That is not what I said.”

Cotton’s comments about human bondage, which first appeared in Sunday’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, were quoted at length in that day’s paper and soon appeared on other news sites as well as social media.

The senator is not disputing the accuracy of the original story, his spokesman said later Monday.

In the article, which focused on Cotton’s efforts to block a new school curriculum centered on slavery and its consequences, the senator criticized its portrayal of American history while acknowledging the importance of its central theme.

“‘We have to study the history of slavery and its role and impact on the development of our country because otherwise we can’t understand our country,” he said.

“As the Founding Fathers said, it was the necessary evil upon which the Union was built, but the Union was built in a way, as [President Abraham] Lincoln said, to put slavery on the course to its ultimate extinction.”

After the article’s publication, the junior senator’s statements on slavery left him trending on Twitter, with more than 100,000 tweets.

Many were critical. “Slavery was unnecessary AND evil, @TomCottonAR,” wrote U.S. Rep. Alma S. Adams, D-N.C. “Either correct your statement with a sincere apology, or leave the Senate. Slavery apologists do not belong in the United States Congress.”

Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who served under then-President Bill Clinton, also condemned Cotton’s remarks.

“Republican Senator Tom Cotton calls slavery ‘the necessary evil upon which the union was built.’ This, my friends, is today’s GOP,” Reich tweeted. “Make sure they lose control of the Senate on November 3. In fact, make sure they lose control of everything. They’ve lost the right to govern.”

During Cotton’s “Fox and Friends” appearance, cohost Kilmeade read Cotton’s

comment about slavery being “the necessary evil upon which the Union was built,” adding, “Some say that was insensitive.”

“That is fake news, Brian. That is not what I said,” Cotton replied. “What I said is that many founders believed that only with the Union and the Constitution could we put slavery on the path to its ultimate extinction. That’s exactly what Lincoln said.”

The lawmaker believes his comments, though accurately reported initially, were subsequently mischaracterized, his spokesman, James Arnold, said.

“Senator Cotton’s comments were directed at the 1619 Project’s smears that claimed his statement was insensitive — not the Arkansas Democrat Gazette’s reporting,” Arnold said in a written statement. “Describing the Founders’ views is not endorsing or justifying slavery, and once again, the

1619 Project can’t get facts right.”

Cotton, who has been mentioned as a possible 2024 presidential candidate, has been sharply critical of the 1619 Project, a New York Times-backed reinterpretation of American history.

Launched on the 400th anniversary of the arrival of slaves in the Virginia colony, the project “aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.”

Spearheaded by journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, it includes essays, poems, photographs and short fiction by a variety of contributors.

A school curriculum based on the project has been released and is being used in all 50 states, according to the Times and its educational partner, The Pulitzer Center.

Cotton last week introduced legislation to prevent federal funds from being used to teach the 1619 Project curriculum.

The senator has argued that the project’s view of U.S. history is warped.

“Of course, slavery is an evil institution, in all its forms, at all times, in America’s past or around the world today,” Cotton told Fox & Friends Monday. “But the fundamental moral principle

of America is right there in the Declaration [of Independence.] ‘All men are created equal.’ And the history of America is the long and sometimes difficult struggle to live up to that principle. That’s a history we ought to be proud of. Not the historical revisionism of the 1619 Project, which wants to indoctrinate America’s kids and teach them to hate America, to believe that America was founded not on human freedom, but on racism, to think that slavery was not an aberration but the true heart of America.”

In a floor speech Monday, U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said nothing could ever justify enslavement.

“Slavery was not a necessary evil. It was a crime against humanity, anchored in kidnap, rape, torture, lynching and the systematic oppression and enslavement of people of African descent century after century after century. We are still living with its legacy today,” he said.

Hannah-Jones, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her 1619 Project work, also weighed in.

“If chattel slavery — heritable, generational, permanent, race-based slavery where it was legal to rape, torture, and sell human beings for profit — were a “necessary evil” as @TomCottonAR says, it’s hard to imagine what cannot be justified

if it is a means to an end,” she wrote on Twitter Sunday.

“More lies from the debunked 1619 Project,” Cotton tweeted back. “Describing the *views of the Founders* and how they put the evil institution on a path to extinction, a point frequently made by Lincoln, is not endorsing or justifying slavery. No surprise that the 1619 Project can’t get facts right.”

In a written statement Monday afternoon, Cotton clarified and expanded on his previous remarks.

“Slavery is an evil institution, in all its forms, in all places, whether in America’s past or around the world today. Of course, slavery itself is never ‘necessary.’ Most of the founders agreed with that. What was necessary in their view was a compromise at the Constitutional Convention for the sake of the Union and the Constitution, which they believed put slavery on the path to ultimate extinction, as Lincoln often said. Because without the Union and the Constitution, there would’ve been no America,” Cotton said.

“And without America, without a nation, as Lincoln put it, ‘conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,’ who would’ve freed the slaves in the nineteenth century? Who would’ve saved the world from fascism

and communism in the twentieth century? No one would have, that’s who. That’s the history we need to teach our children, the history of a great nation that has always strived, imperfectly but passionately, to live up to our founding creed and to defend human freedom at home and abroad. America is a noble nation, and we should teach our kids to be proud of it,” he said.

Ricky Dale Harrington, the Pine Bluff Libertarian hoping to unseat Cotton in November, said the senator’s comments are an embarrassment to Arkansas.

“I’m at a loss for words that, in 2020, someone would say that such a horrible institution was a necessary evil,” he said. “Being a descendant of slaves myself, I don’t think any slave would consider their life during that time to be necessary for the success of the United States of America.”

Cotton’s condemnation of the 1619 Project is unwarranted, Harrington said.

“The project is a step forward in trying to bring us all together to get a fuller picture of what went on in our country’s history,” he said.

“We need to bring to the surface the things we have allowed to remain hidden beneath the service. Because if we don’t bring it to the surface, we can never move forward,” Harrington said.