The “Necessary Evil” of Slavery: Tom Cotton’s Nero Complex

Tom Cotton’s rehearsal of the founding father’s acceptance of Southern slavery reveals a persistent pathology in American attitudes towards race

According to Tom Cotton, “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.”