Corey Stewart, a Republican running for the U.S. Senate in Virginia, said Monday that the Civil War was primarily a dispute over states’ rights, not slavery.
“If you look at the history, that’s not what it meant at all, and I don’t believe that the Civil War was ultimately fought over the issue of slavery,” Stewart said during an interview on Hill.TV.
“We have to put ourselves in the shoes of the people who were fighting at that time and from their perspective, they saw it as a federal intrusion of the state,” the candidate continued, explaining that “they didn’t fight to preserve the institution of slavery.”
He added that changing the names of buildings that were named for Confederates was “political correctness run amuck.”
Stewart has been criticized for his past associations with white supremacists Paul Nehlen, who in 2016 ran against House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Jason Kessler, the man who organized the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va.
“Now, you know, I need all my supporters, I want people to vote for me,” Stewart told MSNBC in June. “But at the same time, I don’t control what’s in their hearts and their minds. I only control what’s in my heart and my mind, and I don’t have a racist bone in my body.”
Stewart won the GOP nomination on June 12 to contest the general election against incumbent Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., on Nov. 6.
