FILE - In this Oct. 12, 2017, file photo, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly calls on a reporter during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington. Kelly told Fox News host Laura Ingraham in an interview that aired Oct. 30, 2017, that Confederate General Robert E. Lee was “an honorable man” and applying current thinking on social issues to figures in history is “very, very dangerous.” The former Marine general was responding to a question about a Virginia church’s decision to remove historical markers for Lee and George Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 12, 2017, file photo, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly calls on a reporter during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington. Kelly told Fox News host Laura Ingraham in an interview that aired Oct. 30, 2017, that Confederate General Robert E. Lee was “an honorable man” and applying current thinking on social issues to figures in history is “very, very dangerous.” The former Marine general was responding to a question about a Virginia church’s decision to remove historical markers for Lee and George Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is backing chief of staff John Kelly’s defense of Confederate monuments and his assertion that the Civil War was caused by a failure to compromise.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters Tuesday that Kelly’s calling Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee “an honorable man” was an attempt to point out that “history isn’t perfect.”

Sanders cited historian Shelby Foote to back up Kelly’s claim that the “lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Congressional Black Caucus Chair Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., criticized Kelly, saying he “needs a history lesson” for minimizing the role of slavery in bringing about the Civil War.

Kelly also said in an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham that aired Monday night that the removal of monuments to the Confederacy shows “a lack of appreciation of history.” The retired Marine Corps general was responding to a question about a Virginia church’s decision to remove historical markers for Lee and George Washington.

Kelly said that applying current thinking on social issues to figures in history is “very, very dangerous.” He said the Civil War was sparked by “the lack of the ability to compromise.”