During an interview Monday night on Fox News, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said that “the lack of the ability to compromise led to the Civil War.”
His comment was swiftly countered by confounded observers, who pointed out that the Civil War was fought over slavery and that compromising on slavery would be morally unconscionable — and that the country did strike such compromises for decades and they did not, in fact, prevent war.
Kelly’s remarks came after host Laura Ingraham asked about a church taking down historical plaques, implicitly raising the larger issue of the removal of Confederate statues and monuments across America. (The exchange begins around the 5:27 mark in the video.)
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