Wait until he finds out who created the KKK.
The president of the United States questioned why the Civil War was fought. Virginia Lt. Gov. Ralph S. Northam was among many who answered.
“We had a Civil War because people owned other folks as slaves. Read a book,” read a tweet directed at President Donald Trump from Northam, who is in the midst of a tight race with Tom Perriello for the Democratic nomination to be Virginia’s next governor.
At the time of his May 1 tweet, Northam was not aware that some of his ancestors on Virginia’s Eastern Shore owned slaves. He recently called his father, retired judge Wescott Brownlee Northam, to ask.
“The news that my ancestors owned slaved disturbs and saddens me, but the topic of slavery has always bothered me,” Ralph Northam said in an interview. “My family’s complicated story is similar to Virginia’s complex history. We’re a progressive state, but we once had the largest number of slaves in the union.”
The Northams are from Accomack County, one of the two counties on Virginia’s portion of the Eastern Shore – the peninsula between the Atlantic Ocean and Chesapeake Bay known for its wondrous outdoors and waterways, farms and history.
Wescott Northam’s father, Thomas Long Northam, also was a judge and died when Wescott was 14. All the Northams before him were farmers, Wescott Northam said.
Wescott’s grandfather was Levi Jacob Northam and Levi’s father was James Northam – the great great grandfather of Ralph Northam.
The slave schedules with the federal census in 1850 and 1860 show James Northam owned eight slaves in 1860 and nine slaves in 1850. The 1860 slave schedule listed Levi Northam with three slaves, two of which he employed but were owned by others. The schedules listed the slaves’ ages – from 1 year old to 60 – but not their names.