Republican senator Tom Cotton says slavery was a "necessary evil"

In an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Arkansas Republican senator Tom Cotton said the "role of slavery can't be overlooked," and that America shouldn't be portrayed as "an irredeemably corrupt, rotten and racist country" but rather "as an imperfect and flawed land, but the greatest and noblest country in the history of mankind."

Cotton, who was seen as a possible presidential candidate for 2024, further stated: "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."