president Donald Trump In a ham-fisted exposition of 19th-century American history on Friday, he told a crowd of supporters that the Civil War and Reconstruction were one and the same.
Trump held a rally in Corpus Christi, Texas, just days before the state’s primary election on Tuesday. The president used the opportunity to promote his energy policy. The president began his remarks by recounting a phone call he said he had with the governor of Texas. Greg Abbott (right):
You know, it’s interesting. The governor called me after the last election. He said, “You know, you did something that Republicans had never done. You won every border town and little border city, but every border town up and down, from one side to the other.” He said, “This is the first time that’s happened since” – he used the word “reconstruction,” right? I said, “By ‘Reconstruction,’ do you mean the Civil War? Is that what you mean?” That’s a fancy way of saying the Civil War. He said this was the first time this had happened. We won every vote, and it was mostly Hispanic votes. We love Hispanic voters. We love them.
Let’s be honest, “Reconstruction” is not “a fancy way of saying Civil War.” The term refers to the post-Civil War period during which former Confederate states rejoined the Union and were required to abide by the Constitution and federal statutes, specifically the newly ratified 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, which respectively abolished slavery, granted citizenship and attendant rights to all persons born in the United States (including former slaves), and prohibited the denial of voting rights on the basis of race. In some cases, U.S. troops are deployed to ensure that the law is followed.
Reconstruction ended in 1877 as part of an agreement to resolve the disputed presidential election of 1876. Since then, Southern states have enacted notorious policies of segregation, often using violent means to deny blacks the rights they had gained during Reconstruction.
Elsewhere in his speech, Trump congratulated members of the House. Tony Gonzalez (Texas Republican) For unexplained reasons, though, the congressman is facing calls to resign after one of his former staffers reportedly committed suicide after having an affair with him. The president also claimed that a police officer told him that sex was getting better because of the economy. Trump also said he would nominate a senator. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) An appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court will sail through the Senate because other senators think “he’s a nuisance.”
Watch above via C-SPAN.
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