John Kelly: Civil War started because of a ‘lack of ability to compromise’

White House chief of staff John Kelly weighed in on the Confederate statue debate Monday night, suggesting that the Civil War was caused by a “lack of an ability to compromise.”

Kelly argued during the debut of Laura Ingraham’s new Fox News show, “The Ingraham Angle,” that “history is history” and the Confederate statues should stay.

“There are certain things in history that were good, and other things that were not so good,” Kelly said. “The lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War, and men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand.”

{mosads}Kelly’s assertion echoed Trump’s comments made after the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in August, when the president said that people on “both sides” were to blame for the violence. The Charlottesville rally was spurred by a movement to remove a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee.

Kelly late Monday also weighed in on Lee specifically, calling him an “honorable” man.

“Robert E. Lee was an honorable man, he was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state, which 150 years ago was more important than country,” Kelly told Ingraham. “Now, it’s different.”