Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) faced criticism on Sunday after he claimed that the Founding Fathers viewed slavery as a “necessary evil” as part of the country’s founding while discussing his bill that would reduce federal funding for any school that includes The New York Times’s 1619 Project in its curriculum.
In an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the senator accused the 1619 Project, a series of pieces by writers for the Times that examines the history of slavery in the U.S. and its role in the country’s founding, of being “left-wing propaganda.”
“Even a penny is too much to go to the 1619 Project in our public schools,” Cotton told the news outlet. “The New York Times should not be teaching American history to our kids.”
Later in the interview, the Arkansas Republican addressed how he thought the legacy of slavery should be handled in America.
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. 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 Lincoln said, to put slavery on the course to its ultimate extinction,” he said.
Continued in: The Hill