Resign, Nazi.

Guaranteed 6 more years of this jerk. He’s the he worst of an awful bunch.

The lazy asses who kept slaves could have gotten off their asses and done their own work instead of living on the backbreaking labor of the human beings they bought and sold.

Instead of relying on crops like tobacco and cotton that needed large amounts of cheap labor, the colonies could have developed a more dispersed economy of crops and industries that allowed more self sufficiency.

Part of the reason for the American Revolution was that Britain did not allow the colonies to have mills to spin and weave their own cotton. Instead, the cotton had to be sent to England and Scotland where the cotton was processed and cloth was made. Then that cloth was sent back to the colonies - not just the Americas but other British colonies needed it. Much of the cloth processed in the UK was poor quality intended for slaves' clothing - so even the slaves were dependent on British industry for their necessities.

If the colonies from the beginning had rejected the slave system - which became the norm when European indentured servants either did not survive the diseases in the colonies or worked their way to freedom too quickly to be profitable - and had simply set up a system that allowed small farmers and small industry to develop separately from what the British overlords would allow, our entire economy would be different. Instead they became reliant on the trade of goods to Britain and to and from other British colonies.

Somewhere I read a study that compared the economies in the Americas that began with slavery versus those that began without it. Pretty much those without the slavery base are now much healthier. I do not right now remember which countries they compared.

until Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in the 1790s. Before that, it was just too difficult to process by hand. Most plantations in colonial times grew cash crops like tobacco, indigo, or rice. I've read some histories (including, IIRC, Chernow's bio of Washington) that seem to think that post-revolution the plantation system and with it slavery was in decline since the big crops could be grown in other British colonies. Then an easy and cheap way to remove seeds from cotton bolls was invented, and the plantation system revived, with a brand new main crop. There's a book, "This Vast Southern Empire", that explains how almost all of US foreign policy before 1860 was in pursuit of getting more land -and slaves - for cotton plantations.

Tom Cotton seems to need constant reminders that this is 2020, not 1820.

of raw materials and market for finished goods. Despite all the human suffering they created they, in most cases, did leave behind good judicial, political and educational systems on which to build. Slavery will forever be their greatest shame.

...the per capita GDP, not counting their slaves in the numbers, was inferior to the free states.
So, it was a crappy business model too.
Free labor with a continuous supply made them less prosperous.
Man, that's some terrible business acumen.

if you don't have to pay your workers.

That just evil laziness.

is appropriate.

Future history class. Teacher: "Senator Cotton of Arkansas in 2020 said that slavery was a necessary evil."
Student: "Don't you mean 1820 sir?"
Teacher: "No, I kid you not, 2020."

History rhyming again.

What’s the difference between Tom Cotton and slavery?

Cotton says slavery was a necessary evil while Cotton himself is merely evil.

This racist warmonger Nazi will have a substantial voter base ushering him into the Oval.

he's been positioning himself for years. Bet on it.

What? He is not ok with that? It’s only 6 years.
If he survives it he can go back to the senate.

Except I would never let him breathe freely for the rest of his life. He deserves nothing less.

Slavery had to be kept in order for the union to be created and held together. The South would have never gone along with the Constitution without assurances that their system was protected. This wasn’t a controversial or even arguable thought at the founding. It isn’t even arguable now. That’s what happened. And, of course, what created the union ultimately threatened its extinction.

Let’s not sacrifice historical literacy for the sake of taking a shot at a racist, right-wing asshole. A lot of anti-slavery founders went along with it in order to create a stronger federalized system. Remember, they were coming off the disastrous experiment with the Articles of Confederation.

What he’s saying isn’t wrong. The Union we have today would not have been formed unless abolitionists bowed to Southern slave pressure when writing the Constitution.

yet went along with it anyway. Any nation or business can be successful if you don't have to pay your workers.

So give us an estimate of how much is owed for 250 years of dawn-to-duck, stolen labor for million of enslaved humans? Considering the principle of compounding where money doubles every seven years, if reparations were to be paid, it would bust the treasury. But since the nation depended on it to be successful, we should I guess forget about it?

Why couldn't the founding fathers at the time work themselves or pay their workers? Oh, they wouldn't have been as successful you say, that nation either you say?

Hypocrites all. And then they slept with their "property".

which shoots down Cotton's main point, which he's trying to use to cut federal funding from any school using the 1619 Project: he claims that the modified position of the Project - 'preservation of slavery, it now states, was a key motivator for just “some of the colonists”' - is wrong, and he calls that "anti-American rot" and "teaching America’s children to hate America".

So he acknowledges the validity of the position he says is intolerable.

...and people who don't. Oh, just fuck them.

Slavery is/was approved by the Christian Bible.

The Bible has not changed.

Southern Baptists split off due to their own support for slavery.

It gets complicated, eh?