- Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, citing the Founding Fathers, described slavery as a “necessary evil” in an interview with the Arkansas Democratic Gazette.
- Cotton was defending a bill that he proposed would cut funding for schools that adopt the New York Times “Project 1619” as part of their curricula.
- Project 1619, launched last year, seeks to explore the history of racism and the legacy of slavery in the United States.
- The project won a Pulitzer Prize, but some conservatives have attacked it as ideologically driven.
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Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas described slavery as a “necessary evil” in an attack on a New York Times bill that explores the legacy of slavery in the United States.
Cotton in an interview with the Arkansas Democratic Gazette defended a bill he intends to present to Congress that would propose cutting federal funds to schools that adopt The Times’ “Project 1619” as part of their history curriculum.
The project was launched in a special issue of The New York Times Magazine last August to mark the 400th anniversary of the onset of slavery in what became the United States.
In an introduction, The Times said the project was intended to place “the consequences of slavery and the contributions of African Americans at the center of our national narrative.”
Cotton disputed the project’s premise, which he argued argued “that the United States is at the root, a country that is systematically racist to the core and hopeless.”
Then he described the United States as “a great and noble country founded on the proposition that all humanity is created equal.” He continued: “We have always struggled to fulfill that promise, but no country has done more to fulfill it.”
Later, he said: “We have to study the history of slavery and its role and impact in the development of our country because otherwise we cannot understand our country. As the Founding Fathers said, it was the necessary evil on which the union It was built, but the union was built in a way, as Lincoln said, to put slavery on the road to its final extinction. “
Project 1619 has sparked political controversy amid America’s struggle with its history of racism. Senator Kamala Harris of California praised it as “a powerful and necessary calculation of our history.”
But it drew criticism from Republicans who claim it is ideologically driven. Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives who has been an ally of President Donald Trump, said in a 2019 tweet: “The NY Times Project 1619 should make its slogan ‘All the propaganda we want to brainwash you with.’ ‘.
Nikole Hannah-Jones, the journalist who came up with the idea for the project and won a Pulitzer Prize for her introductory essay, responded to Cotton’s characterizations in a tweet on Sunday.
“If chattel slavery – the heritable, generational, permanent, race-based slavery where it was legal to rape, torture, and sell human beings for profit – was a ‘necessary evil’ as @TomCottonAR says, it’s hard to imagine what that it cannot be justified if it is a means to an end, “he wrote.
Some historians have questioned whether any of the Founding Fathers described slavery as a “necessary evil”.
—Jonathan Hunt (@JRHunTx) July 27, 2020
Cotton later said he had been describing “the Founders’ views,” rather than citing them as part of his own argument.
But Hannah-Jones challenged him to repudiate the opinion he attributed to the founders, that slavery was a “necessary evil.”
—Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) July 26, 2020
“Were the founders right or wrong, @TomCottonAR, when they called slavery a ‘necessary evil upon which the Union was built’?” she asked. “Because you agree to their assessment of slavery as necessary or admit that they were lying and that it was an evil and dishonorable choice. Which one?”
Cotton has not yet responded.
