Massa Tom Cotton says that slavery was, “necessary;” and I think that I would have to agree. But, not in the way Boss Tom means! Necessary for what? To stay alive? That’s ridiculous. If you can devote thousands of acres to growing cotton and sugarcane, then you can certainly grow enough food to eat. But all that land, AND SLAVE LABOR, were necessary to maintain their lavish standard of living. Look at the difference between a Planter’s plantation house and a slave’s shack. Or the clothing they wore.
Look at the revered, “mint julep.” It was a monument to slavery. The ice was harvested in winter, north of Boston. Then it was freighted by wagon, pulled by mules and many slaves, across the country from Charleston where it was stored in icehouses. Then, in the heat of summer, it finally made it into the crystal glass of a cavalier gentleman, with mint, sugar, and whiskey. I imagine, knowing the South as I do, that the partakers were aware with every sip of how much human labor and misery went into the making of it.
It was kind of Massa Tom to admit that slavery was an: “evil.” That’s a start, legally speaking. It’s an admission of guilt, and it names both the crime and the perpetrator – and even the motive: laziness and greed. Unfortunately, the statement is self-contradictory and profoundly anti-Christian: evil is not necessary, it is chosen.
I would like, especially, to thank the astute Senator for making such a convincing argument for reparations, for both African-Americans and Native Americans! If their labor was necessary to BUILD this country, and they were compensated NOTHING for their labor or their land, then they are owed something. How much is a life worth? If it was necessary for life, then that defines its value. The value of a white person’s life.
Cotton has made it his mission to rewrite history to suit his racist political beliefs. There is no sense or reason in his rants, but he would have every schoolchild in the United States be forced to learn it as an exclusive truth, and punish anyone who teaches anything except racism. He would make himself God. The definer of truth. But Cotton doesn’t define truth, he defiles it. And he is an embarrassment.
What an absurdly ridiculous argument! What a laughable line of reasoning! If Massa Tom is correct, and slavery was necessary, then I would like to add something to the definition of “necessary:” it is something required in order to feel like a human being.
Let’s say it straight out: Tom Cotton is a racist. He condones slave labor but assigns it no value. He would never have freed a single man, but he would use bigot law to punish anyone who even holds a different opinion.
It comes to mind that no expletive truly serves to define Cotton or Trump today. Their thoughtless, anti-rational, hate-filled, cowardly, violent, insurrectionist, vengeful, and uninformed attitudes towards life can only create divisions and completely destroy education or progress. And Cotton would call that progress. Pretty soon, the only thing that will satisfy these Defectives as being progress, will be to kill someone.
How sad is it that THESE PEOPLE are willing to devote their whole lives to spinning fantasies in the hope that they can destroy reality. They will succeed, I should think. But only in their own minds.
Sen. Tom Cotton has already divorced himself from reality. It shows: he has just empowered for a generation the “Reparations Movement,” and he doesn’t even know it.
Okay, Tom old boy, if slavery was necessary – then was it wrong? That’s simple, isn’t it? Tom won’t answer that. He makes headlines making highly dramatic statements, but he does not have the courage to answer that one simple question: TOM, WAS IT WRONG? No, don’t expect an answer, never in a million years!
Actually, I think Tombo has answered the question. What he is really saying is that slavery was right. He, and many like him, contend that slavery is part of our history, a natural part, and should be honored. I wonder how he would feel if his children were being driven to market in shackles, or with iron collars? He calls himself a Christian, but can’t even conceive of how people must feel, black and white, when they hear a rich white man justifying slavery, as a benevolent “invention” of the Founding Fathers and Abraham Lincoln? To men like Cracker Tom, when they justify slavery, they justify their own hate.
Have you ever been to Arkansas? It is pathetic! Pathetically, United States Senate members exist almost entirely to bring money, and improvements into their state. But there are practically no industries in the state. It’s been that way since Reconstruction. Plantation crops: cotton, peanuts, soybeans, and row cropped pine trees for paper that are completely automated dominate entirely. The schools are devoted underachievers as a rule.
DID YOU KNOW THAT THERE ARE, RIGHT NOW, STILL PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN ARKANSAS THAT HAVE ESCAPED DESEGREGATION: THEY JUST REFUSED AND HAVE NEVER CHANGED. ARKANSAS HAS NEVER ADOPTED STATEWIDE ANTIDESCRIMINATION LAWS, AND RANKS 50TH IN QUALITY OF LIFE 50TH IN HEALTHCARE. ARKANSAS, AND THE “BIG THICKET” WERE ALWAYS A PLACE TO ESCAPE THE LAWI GUESS CRACKER TOM REALLY DOES REPRESENT ARKANSAS. BUT, YOU KNOW: IF THAT’S ALL THEY EXPECT…
Yes, Senator Cotton is wrong, as was Lincoln to the extent that he said slavery was a necessary evil. By using the qualifier, “necessary” with the word evil, one makes the evil the right thing because the end justifies the means.
But this is the part the USA must come to grips with. MOST white Americans either think EXACTLY like Cotton, or they can tolerate it, again because the end justifies the means.
It is the same “logic” trump supporters use when they claim they don’t approve of trump’s racist, misogynist, bigoted character, but they support him because he has the business acumen to make the country and them prosperous. I won’t even get into the fact that trump has the business acumen of a two-year old.
Acknowledging that their orientation is that slavery was a necessary evil, white Americans must accept that racism is a by-product of that orientation. One huge question that arises from that is, can capitalism actually work without something like slavery? The reality is that part of the exceptionalism of the USA is yet to be proven.
From the inception of this great experiment in multi-ethnic capitalism, the dominant ethnicity has exploited others, whether African slaves and extending through Jim Crow and beyond, Native Americans, immigrants of various ethnicities or even cheap labor in other nations as is done TODAY. Without slavery or a derivative thereof, would there be one single billionaire in the USA today? This is WHY white Americans have been comfortable with the notion that slavery was a necessary evil, or the end justifies the means. And they can even distort their “religion” to justify slavery, racism, misogyny, bigotry.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/tom-cotton-s-false-claim-reveals-an-appalling-truth-opinion/ar-BB17fZtb?ocid=msedgntp
A Child Race:
Actually, Lincoln didn’t “say,” “necessary evil.” He did say the words several times, but he was referring to a “set thing.” A fellow named Sydney (His surname should be erased from history), had said that slavery was a necessary evil because black people hadn’t the ability to care for themselves. The argument is ancient. Most scholars, on both sides of the “pond,” were against the clearly racist opinion. Lincoln detested it. Many of the Founders were actively discussing the idea, including TJ. and others formerly. And Clay, notably.
Lincoln was absolutely not promoting the idea of Africans as a child race. That is what the phrase refers to. He was, of all those actively involved in the conversation, the most dead set against the idea.
I think Tombo scanned the first two paragraphs in Wiki, and called that reading history. Ha, Ha, Ha. And also, ha ha.
Republican scholar. And Tom wants to curate the content of what we teach in schools. He can’t even spell it.
Didn’t you just know that this would turn out to be taken out of context. Cotton completely removed the actual context and replaced it with empty-handed blather. Cotton has accused Honest Abe of something he was the leading opponent of. Read!
I have to say that I am shocked, that this topic was written about by so many, but none knew the background story.
You would think that a U.S. Senator would have better support staff than this.I wonder: did they all go to school in ARKANSAS?
I didn’t take the time to research if Lincoln actually said what Senator Cotton said he said. I should have known better.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/review-of-politics/article/lincoln-and-the-necessity-of-tolerating-slavery-before-the-civil-war/881B1C11F1C703A496D920F52619A9C3
Understandable. But then, Trump is a professional.