Kelly Was Half-Right About the Civil War

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly kicked over our national hornet's nest last week when he said "the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War." Historians took him to task for misreading the cause of the conflict, but in fairness: Kelly was correct, just not in the way he meant it.

Kelly suggested there was a lack of compromise between North and South, when in fact the whole history of the country up until 1860 had hinged on such compromise: the three-fifths compromise, counting slaves as less than full persons; the Missouri Compromise, extending slavery west but limiting its spread; and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, giving settlers in those territories "popular sovereignty," the right to decide the question of slavery for themselves.