McConnell’s Ancestry Is Irrelevant to the Reparations Debate

NBC News offered some “exclusive news” on Monday when they reported that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s great-great grandfathers owned 14 slaves.

Because of this, it brings the “reparations issue close to home.”

Corky Siemasko of NBC News writes:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said recently he opposes paying government reparations to the descendants of American slaves, has a family history deeply entwined in the issue: Two of his great-great-grandfathers were slave owners, U.S. census records show.

The two great-great-grandfathers, James McConnell and Richard Daley, owned a total of at least 14 slaves in Limestone County, Alabama — all but two of them female, according to the county “Slave Schedules” in the 1850 and 1860 censuses.

The details about McConnell’s ancestors, discovered by NBC News through a search of ancestry and census records, came in the wake of recent hearings on reparations before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. 

First, a news organization taking the time to troll through census records from 1850 and 1860 demonstrates an agenda. This information is not news; it is advocacy. There is no reason to write this piece except to someone shame the senior Republican senator from Kentucky to allow the reparations debate.

Second, McConnell is not responsible for the sins of his great-great-grandfathers and his argument against reparations is not suddenly void as a result.

Reparations are a colossally bad idea. The only time they could have reasonably been considered is when slavery was abolished. Today it is nothing but another form of wealth redistribution. I can’t believe what was seen as a fringe issue just a few years ago has become mainstream within the Democratic Party.

This article provides yet another example of why there is a growing mistrust of the mainstream media.