John Kelly: 'The lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War'

[highplainsdem]

Source: CNBC

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly on Monday said, "the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War."

Speaking to Fox News, Kelly offered a view of history in which both sides of the Civil War — a pro-slavery Confederacy and the opposing Union — were made up of "men and women of good faith."

-snip-

Kelly then explained his view of the Civil War: "[Confederate General] Robert E. Lee was an honorable man who gave up his country to fight for his state," Kelly said. "One hundred and fifty years ago, that was more important than country — it was always loyalty to state back in those days. Now it's different. But the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War, and men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand."

Kelly did not elaborate about what compromise would have prevented a war fought over the future of slavery in the United States. Southern U.S. states began seceding from the Union in December 1860, following the election one month earlier of President Abraham Lincoln, whose Republican Party had strong anti-slavery sentiments. The economy of the mostly agricultural South was at that time dependent on massive-scale, slave labor.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/30/john-kelly-a-lack-of-ability-to-compromise-led-to-the-civil-war.html

---

The article goes on to say that CNBC has asked the WH "to clarify what compromises Kelly believes were lacking in the lead-up to to the Civil War."

Apparently no response so far...

I'm so disgusted by Kelly.

GD thread about this, started after I first saw tweets about what Kelly had said:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029773702

[DURHAM D]

1. Another General who is nuts. Great... nt

[LovingA2andMI]

2. FUCK RACIST ASS JOHN KELLY!!!

Fuck Him! Period. Racist Ass....

[The Wielding Truth]

3. It's clear that the attraction to Kelly by Trump is their mutual

bigotry.

[Sneederbunk]

4. Lee fighting for his state did not work out too well.

Two years after the start of the war, 1/3 of Virginia was conquered and made into a new Northern state. No other state lost territory in the war.

[LexVegas]

32. How's that new state working out?

[hibbing]

5. Has Ed Gillespie chimed in yet?

He's running the most vile campaign since, well, since the current resident of the White House. Never forget he was the Chair of the Republican National Committee. Blatant racism alive and well in that putrid party as it has been for decades.

Peace

[truthisfreedom]

6. omg. the lack of intelligence and/or awareness on the part of every member of this administration

is record-breaking. they're just off the charts batshit crazy.

[dawg day]

7. Robert E. Lee was a serving military officer

I think if General Kelly had an officer in his command who took up arms against the US military, he would order a court martial.

Robt. E. Lee was a handsome man who looked great in uniform. He should have been hanged for treason. If General Kelly doesn't understand that, it's good that he's retired and working for another traitor.

[mahina]

9. Hey dawg day, welcome to DU!

Really good point. I find that pretty consistently, the right advocates for actions without asking how they would feel if it were happening to them.

See you around DU. Aloha.

[lapfog_1]

8. I wonder what he would "compromise" to avoid the civil war?

Slavery legal 3 days a week and alternate Sundays?

The North's only mistake after winning was not insisting that every slave owner and wannabe slave owner be exiled to Brazil along with the Conferderados.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederados

without their slaves

[yurbud]

34. and/or requiring owners make reparations like dividing up their land and giving it to the slaves

[Yupster]

46. He was probably referring to the Crittenden Committee

It was a committee of senators who met in Washington after Lincoln's election. The purpose was to find a compromise that would keep the southern states from seceding.

During the election campaign of 1860, Lincoln said over and over again that he was no a threat to the south's slavery. He wanted to stop it from expanding to new territories but vowed not to try to end it where it existed.

Therefore, the Crittenden Committee to convince the south that Lincoln was not trying to take their slaves.

John Crittenden led the committee. He was from Kentucky, a border state and the home of the original Great Compromiser, Henry Clay. William Seward led the republicans on the committee and the most famous southerner on the committee was former Secretary of War and current senator from Mississippi Jefferson Davis.

The committee met until Christmas but it was a failure. Seward kept asking Lincoln for directions as to what the President-elect would accept. He said he could give no advice as he was not yet president. Back in those days you got elected in November, but you didn't take office until the next March. As the southern states seceded, their senators made tearful goodbye speeches on the senate floor and went home.

This is one of the criticisms of Lincoln. He gave Seward no instructions on which to negotiate. Another criticism of Lincoln is how he spent the November to March period touring the big cities of the north holding victory rallies. At the same time, pro-union forces in Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee were fighting to keep their states in the union. The criticism is that he should have been in Knoxville fighting to keep Tennessee in the union rather than in Buffalo.

[hoping4betterdays]

10. Men & Women of "Good Faith" Certainly Weren't Worshipping God

I'm so sick of all this patriotism fake patriotism mumbo jumbo. We've got a society of fake Christians & fake patriots who worship idols & not God. Stop worshipping the flag, the anthem & this land it means nothing without God. And the second saddest part is that so-called patriots came here and stole this land, turned around and made rules that they broke over & over. So-called Christian & patriots kidnapped slaves beat, whipped, raped & bred them like animals. How does that happen when you pledge your allegiance to a flag that says "liberty & justice for all" & "One Nation Under God". What God would condone racism when HE teaches us to treat thy neighbor as thyself, I will not make my neighbor my footstool". Did all these fake Christians & fake patriots ever think about our Father with all of this hate in their hearts? Just save the fake patriotism, the real ones serving God know it's just a ploy to keep people especially the black people in there place, give them some rules to live by here if they want to stay, don't do as we say then go back to Africa. Patriotism is fake.
God Before Country Always

[SammyWinstonJack]

22. That's a whole lot of god speak.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

23. There is no god. So placing religious practices above country and human rights is wrong wrong wrong

[dawg day]

11. Compromise: Indentured servitude!

I wonder what "compromise" he thinks would have been better than, you know, emancipation.

"You aren't enslaved for your whole life! Just your productive years. Then when you're 60, if you live that long, you'll be free."
Yeah, great "compromise."

We already made a huge compromise when the Union didn't hang every confederate politician and general and put their heads on pikes around the White House.

[vkkv]

12. He's FULL OF CRAP - It was racsim and white superiority! CORNERSTONE SPEECH anyone?

Stephens stated that advances in science proved that enslavement of African Americans by white men was justified, and that it coincided with the Bible's teachings. He also stated that the Confederacy was the first country in the world founded on the principle of racial supremacy:

""" Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. """

[cstanleytech]

13. The Democrats for the most part were always willing to compromise John its the Repugnants who

have largely refused to and have been the party of our way or the highway since Clinton took office.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

25. Kelly (highly political) is calling for a phony investigation of Democrats. . . . nt

[dalton99a]

14. Compromise like a change from full-time slavery to half-time slavery

Fuck John Kelly

[Yupster]

47. Lincoln ran on the platform of

not threatening slavery where it existed. He didn't want it expanded into the territories.

He claimed that he was not a threat to the southern slates slavery. Therefore they had no reason to secede. The southern states didn't believe him.

[SHRED]

15. All that is missing is his white hood and robe

[Justice]

16. Profoundly disturbing but better to know it than to allow him to hide behind the mantle of "savior"

[Blue_Tires]

17. Make no mistake, this is John C. Calhoun making veiled threats in 1849

[C Moon]

18. This civil war would be a bunch of bone-headed racists being used by the mega-rich.

It's not a civil war, it's a class war—and the rich are trying to bury that fact.

[canetoad]

19. There's a great deal of hyperbole in this thread

That serves no useful purpose.

Let us be clear about the definition of slavery. A slave is a person who is the legal property of another and is forced, by law, under threat of punishment, to obey their owner.

Great Britain used slaves to further the interests of wealthy men. In 1833 a law passed through both the Lords and House of Commons to abolish slavery and, with exceptions, became the law of the land.

These so-called heroes fought for the right to own, legally another human being. There are no excuses for them.

[icymist]

21. I deleted the above post because I don't know.

[weissmam]

24. my inigtial opinion of him is now gone

what a ass whole

[7962]

26. Well, the south wouldn't compromise on slavery. So bad move on them.

Best thing that ever happened to the South was LOSING the civil war. This comes form someone who had 2 ancestors fight on the southern side.
Although, contrary to popular southern stories, neither were fighting for slavery. According to my grandparents, neither even knew there WAS a war going on until they were "drafted" at home and sent off to fight. One was shot in the arm.

[Soxfan58]

27. Comprimise?

Would the south have giving the slaves freedom on weekends?

[moonseller66]

40. Sort of like today?

When you think about it, aren't many Americans basically indentured to their corporate masters Monday through Friday with "Free Weekends off?"
Of course the real (lower) servants are those who must work schedules that don't allow a nice weekend, or 5:00 P.M. to 9:00 A.M. M-F sleep time...or holidays off!

The South may not have won, but Corporate America through the Industrial Revolution sure looks as though it did!

[LenaBaby61]

28. Not shocked.

When he made called Luis Gutierrez an "empty barrel" when he was Secretary of DHS, when he agreed with Fatso's Muslim ban, and when he gave his infamous LYING like a RUG "Take this backhand you "Empty barrel ni@@er woman" speech TO Representative Wilson (Now, she's getting death threats), I knew he was NO DAMN GOOD, and I don't give a crap if he is a Gold Star Dad, He doesn't have the right to LIE on somebody and try to ruin their reputation, while at the same time defending a racist, sexist, misogynistic, treasonous, mentally-ill piece of shit in tRumputin.

He's just like tRump, only smoother with his racist, sexist, misogynistic bull shit. That's all.

He's a tRump enabler, a RACIST PIECE OF SHIT, and a man with NO honor. My 79 year old friend whose a decorated Marine who lost his sight in his right eye during military service said that if Kelly or tRumputin were on fire, he wouldn't piss on them to put the fire out. Oh well

[zentrum]

29. We really

....do have a cabal of White Supremacists in the WH. This is horrifying.

What steps can we take to demand his resignation? Will the Dem leaders step into this?

It's beyond outrageous.

[HAB911]

30. I hope we get to see Kelly's perp walk

[JHB]

31. ...and one faction breathing and rebreathing its own hot air led to that inability...

...to compromise, if you want to accept his framing.

Kinda the way some people nowadays act when they frame centrist Democratic politicians as if they were leading members of the Symbionese Liberation Army.

[yurbud]

33. by itself, this would just be stupid. But piled on attack on Rep. Wilson, it's racist eom

[yurbud]

35. he made it worse by throwing in Columbus, who enslaved & committed genocide on Native Americans

[yurbud]

36. the only time the right wants to compromise is when they are losing.

[yurbud]

37. the left needs to take that into account when we have the upper hand

We do ourselves no favors by dragging vampires into the shade and opening a vein to feed them when we have them trapped in the sunlight.

[KatyMan]

38. And by compromise they usually mean

"do it our way"

[briv1016]

39. So 3/5ths wasn't good enough?

[Nitram]

41. The North did all the compromising until the South seceded.

[lark]

42. So, it's becoming more and more clear why drumpf hired him.

Misogynistic. racist, liar, who doesn't take responsibility for his own words and who condones and cheers torture, they have so very many traits in common. Both are totally despicable as well as deplorable.

[Paladin]

43. "...good faith on both sides..."

Fuck you, Kelly. Do the right thing and disappear.

[muriel_volestrangler]

44. A suitable compromise: Robert Lee could have been a slave from January to June

and then a slave owner from July to December. I'm sure he would have been happy with that, if only his uppity slaves hadn't shown a lack of good faith and demanded more ...

[steve2470]

45. Racist, stupid, ignorant, uneducated, what more do you want ?

Good god, THANKS TRUMP VOTERS FOR ELECTING THIS ABOMINATION.