Coincidental Timing: Mitch McConnell’s Ancestors Slave Owners; McConnell Challenger Announces
[guest post by Dana]
Last night, NBC News published their version of a “big” story.
Like former President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s ancestors were slave owners, and like the former president, McConnell is opposed to reparations:
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.
Asked about the reparations issue, McConnell, R-Ky., said he was opposed to the idea, arguing it would be hard to figure out whom to compensate.
“I don’t think reparations for something that happened 150 years ago, when none of us currently living are responsible, is a good idea,” he said June 18, a day before the House reparations hearing. “We’ve tried to deal with our original sin of slavery by fighting a civil war, by passing landmark civil rights legislation. We’ve elected an African American president.”
Coinciding with this “big” story, is news that Kentucky DemocratAmy McGrath is challenging McConnell for his Senate seat in 2020:
Kentucky Democrat Amy McGrath, a former fighter pilot who rose to national prominence last year in her failed campaign for Congress against Republican Andy Barr, is turning her sights on a new target: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
In a three-minute video released Tuesday, McGrath said McConnell has “bit by bit, year by year, turned Washington into something we all despise.”
“I’m running for Senate because it shouldn’t be like this,” McGrath added.
McGrath’s candidacy marks a significant recruiting coup for Democrats. She emerged as an unlikely fundraising juggernaut in her congressional race, bringing in millions of dollars after her campaign released a biographical video that went viral, and becoming a Democratic celebrity in the process.
Three things to consider: Not since 1992 has Kentucky had a Democratic senator, President Trump won Kentucky by nearly 30 points in 2016, and Rep. Andy Barr beat McGrath in the Kentucky House race by 3 points.
Also, McGrath has a history of saying some pretty eye-popping things :
The one quote that McGrath…will likely have the hardest time explaining on the campaign stump in deep, deep red Kentucky is her comparison of the election of Donald Trump to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, which claimed the lives of an estimated 3,000 Americans.
“And then, of course, the results of the election, we have a new commander-in-chief,” the failed congressional candidate said at a Meet the Candidates Series event on Nov. 20, 2017. “And that morning I woke up like somebody had sucker punched me. I mean, I felt like, ‘what has just happened to my country?’”
She added, “The only feeling I can describe that’s any close to it was the feeling I had after 9/11. ‘What just happened, where are we going from here?’ and it was that just sinking feeling of sadness, and I didn’t know what to do.”
Here is McGrath’s video announcement:
I’m running to replace Mitch McConnell in the U.S. Senate. Everything that’s wrong with Washington had to start somewhere—it started with him. With your help, we can defeat Mitch and defend democracy. Join us: https://t.co/c4b0WAp4ji pic.twitter.com/DNLjFkHGua
— Amy McGrath (@AmyMcGrathKY) July 9, 2019
Team McConnell wasted no time in “welcoming” McGrath to the race:
Welcome to the race, Amy. #KYSen pic.twitter.com/VdmKfFvTpI
— Team Mitch (@Team_Mitch) July 9, 2019
(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)
–Dana
I wish the media weren’t so embarrassingly obvious.
Dana (bb0678) — 7/9/2019 @ 8:29 amI think McGrath has the makings of a great politician: She lost a major race, and is coming back to run against someone in an even more powerful position and thinks she can win. Swamp mentality, indeed.
Dana (bb0678) — 7/9/2019 @ 8:35 amThe media can’t help themselves. They don’t care to.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 7/9/2019 @ 8:40 amWow, you mean the MSM and the Democrats are going to call a Republican a racist! Shocking. Will Mittens weigh in?
rcocean (1a839e) — 7/9/2019 @ 9:09 amFelicia Sonmez
@feliciasonmez
Sen. Mitch McConnell’s great-great-grandfathers owned 14 slaves, bringing reparations issue close to home
__ _
T. Becket Adams
@BecketAdams
whoa
there are Democrats in McConnell’s family line??
harkin (58d012) — 7/9/2019 @ 9:19 am__
I suspect NBC News started digging when Mitch made his reparations statement, figuring it was an easy way to target him, and that Ms McGrath’s announcement had nothing to do with it.
Kishnevi (4777d8) — 7/9/2019 @ 9:33 am[Face it: anyone who had an ancestor who lived in the antebellum South has a good chance of having a slaveholding ancestor.]
I guess genetic ancestry matters after all.
Munroe (8e3726) — 7/9/2019 @ 9:41 amI just think all these reparation talks is straight up unconstitutional.
In Article 3, Section 3, and it deals with treason. It says that “no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture, except during the life of the person attained.” Does this only means the crimes of treason? Or does this means in effect that whatever the “sins of the fathers,” they not be imputed to future generations?
whembly (fd57f6) — 7/9/2019 @ 9:48 amRight, the attack on Thomas Jefferson, having nothing to do with defending bill clinton
Narciso (23765c) — 7/9/2019 @ 10:07 amIn Article 3, Section 3, and it deals with treason. It says that “no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture, except during the life of the person attained.” Does this only means the crimes of treason? Or does this means in effect that whatever the “sins of the fathers,” they not be imputed to future generations?
Not.
First of all, that clause deals with punishment for criminal acts, specifically treason. Even if it applies to other crimes, that does not exclude compensatory payments. It is common to sue the Estate of someone deceased for compensation of some kind. (Suppose John Doe caused a car accident and caused thousand of dollars in damages. Then he dies. Shouldn’t his estate have to pay?)
And secondly, the reparations are not directed at any one person or persons. It is the taxpayers as a whole that are going to pay an reparations.
Which is why the whole McConnell’s-anscestors-were-slave-owners meme is a total non-sequitur. McConnell is not going to pay anything. The U.S. treasury, funded by all the taxpayers, would pay. And that includes taxpayers, probably the vast majority, whose ancestors never owned slaves, and may not even have been in the U.S. before the Civil War.
Bored Lawyer (998177) — 7/9/2019 @ 10:08 amWhere a reparations scheme would have Constitutional problems is that it would likely be based on race. What would qualify someone to get reparations? Black skin? African American ancestry?
How would it deal with mixed-race people — like Barack Obama, whose mother was white and father black? Or black people who came him after the Civil Ware (ditto on Obama — his father was from Kenya and came here in 1960 and married Obama’s mother in 1961.)
Bored Lawyer (998177) — 7/9/2019 @ 10:20 am@ whembly (#8): I think this synopsis of Article III, Section 3, is correct, but materially incomplete in its final paragraph:
What’s missing is a discussion of the term “attainder” (aka “bill of attainder”) for which the introduction to the Wikipedia entry concisely gives the necessary historical context:
To answer your specific question, the limitation in Article III, Section 3, clearly applies only to treason, as defined exclusively therein, and not to other crimes that could result in fines or criminal forfeitures.
BUT: The restrictions of Article III, Section 3, are mostly duplicative of Article I, Section 9, which in expressly limiting the powers of Congress, declares:
That’s the belt. The suspenders, of course, is the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause.
As for “sins of the father”: In general, and at least as to criminal punishments (imprisonment, fines), you’re right that those can’t be imputed to future generations. But it extends beyond kin to, in general, anyone not himself or herself individually convicted after due process.
HOWEVER (which you knew was coming, right?): Congress and state legislatures can and do pass “civil forfeiture” laws, which courts have upheld even though they can result in property forfeitures vastly exceeding criminal fines, and with little to no due process. The excuse for that is that the legislature is not convicting the property owner of a crime (i.e., attainting him or her through legislation) without due process (as through a bill of attainder), but is instead focusing on — and essentially, weirdly, punishing not the person but the property — based on, for example, its use in the commission of another crime. That’s why those civil forfeiture cases are generally styled, for example, “United States of American versus $4,325,000 in $100 bills with nonconsecutive serial numbers as contained in a steamer trunk seized by the DEA on September 19, 2018.” It harks back to an ancient common-law distinction between a court’s “in personem” jurisdiction, which is over persons, and a court’s “in rem” jurisdiction, which is over things (including ships, real property, and cash and other personal property).
Beldar (fa637a) — 7/9/2019 @ 10:24 am*personam. Mea culpa.
Beldar (fa637a) — 7/9/2019 @ 10:26 amI agree with Bored Lawyer that any reparations scheme would, of constitutional necessity, have to be funded by Congress, and not through criminal or even civil forfeitures of private property. McConnell’s at no more risk than, say, Colin Kaepernick or any other taxpayer.
Beldar (fa637a) — 7/9/2019 @ 10:28 am@Bored Lawyer and @Beldar…
Thank you. The things I learn and your participation on this site is one of many reason why I come here every day.
whembly (fd57f6) — 7/9/2019 @ 10:33 amOh, you’re welcome. You ask very interesting questions, whembly. And there are indeed some very sharp legal minds who comment (or blog!) here; I learn from them, too!
Beldar (fa637a) — 7/9/2019 @ 10:47 amI suspect the Old Snapping Turtle danced a private jig upon Amy McGrath’s announcement of her campaign, and he’s thrilled to give her more publicity. He didn’t even have to beg her not to throw him into this briar-patch!
Beldar (fa637a) — 7/9/2019 @ 10:54 amKishnevi @ 6,
You give the media the benefit of the doubt with your statement. I don’t see any reason to do that, given the coincidental timing of both news items.
Dana (bb0678) — 7/9/2019 @ 11:41 amIt’s akin to the media not reporting on Biden’s segregation views over the years after Obama named him running mate.
Dana (bb0678) — 7/9/2019 @ 12:04 pmI’ve been lurking I’ll second Whembly’s comment. This type of summary is educational and I apprecaite the work.
Time123 (89dfb2) — 7/9/2019 @ 12:05 pmHeh:
Dana (bb0678) — 7/9/2019 @ 12:10 pmTypical liberal whining as calling cocain mitch a corporate stooge has no effect on older voters. Yelling racists only gets through as older black people don’t hate trump they way older white clintonista democratic lib?dykes do.
lany (f3f423) — 7/9/2019 @ 12:28 pmShe lost a winnable race (KY-6) in what was supposed to be a Democrat year, in a district targeted by the DCCC as one they could flip. Now she thinks she can take out Cocaine Mitch?
Sorry, kids, I just don’t see it. He beat a far stronger opponent in 2014 by 15.5 points.
Jeff Lebowski (5afc39) — 7/9/2019 @ 12:29 pmThe only thing better would have been if Mitch had added ‘Democratic’ to slave owners.
IleanaE.
@FilleGitane
You come at the King you best not miss.
_
harkin (b7bcc1) — 7/9/2019 @ 12:31 pmthe turtle does occasionally snap:
https://www.marshallnewsmessenger.com/opinion/columns/ann-coulter-was-thomas-jefferson-on-the-duke-lacrosse-team/article_20eed382-a05a-11e9-bcb0-436538f714c4.html
if it looks like a coincidence it isn’t,
narciso (d1f714) — 7/9/2019 @ 12:35 pmSo Amy McGrath is trying the MJ Hegar strategy?
Stacy0311 (3d63e6) — 7/9/2019 @ 1:26 pm“Hey I’m a female Democrat, veteran with a great military record, who only lost by 3% in a Democratic year. I can TOTALLY take on John Cornyn for Senate.” Let us know how that works out MJ
Logan Dobson
@LoganDobson
[paraphrase]
Tapper: You compared Trump’s election to 9/11. Can you explain that?
McGrath: Um, well, I only meant that, uh, they were both… very surprising
harkin (58d012) — 7/9/2019 @ 5:22 pm_
Cocaine Mitch knows his way around the Twitter.
Paul Montagu (fc91e5) — 7/9/2019 @ 5:35 pm