Loy Mauch is the latest Republican member of the Arkansas House of Representatives found to have written letters in support of slavery.
According to reports from the Arkansas Times, Mauch defended slavery in one of his letters to the editor of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette in 2009, saying:
“If slavery were so God-awful, why didn’t Jesus or Paul condemn it, why was it in the Constitution and why wasn’t there a war before 1861? The South has always stood by the Constitution and limited government. When one attacks the Confederate Battle Flag, he is certainly denouncing these principles of government as well as Christianity.”
The former Sons of the Confederate Veterans chapter leader’s letters to the editor did not stop at his strong support for the slavery and the Confederate South. He also fashioned attacks against Abraham Lincoln, calling the 16th president a “fake neurotic Northern war criminal” while comparing him to Karl Marx.
The revelations about Mauch’s letters come days after it was reported that fellow Republican state representative Jon Hubbard wrote a 2010 book that said slavery “may have been a blessing” to African-Americans.
The Arkansas Republican Party has condemned Hubbard’s comments, along with comments by Republican legislative candidate Charlie Fuqua, who has advocated expelling Muslims from the United States.
Mauch, a first term legislator, wrote the letters starting in 2000. In one, he called the Confederate flag is “a symbol of Christian liberty vs. the new world order.”
Mauch is a member of the Sons of Confederates Veterans and the League of the South, which has been described as a “neo-Confederacy” group advocating for second southern secession.
Mauch is a former bull rider and retired cable splicer from AT&T.
He believes, among other things, that Lincoln should not be honored in Arkansas and that the Confederate flag is a symbol of Jesus Christ and biblical government. Mauch is a Tea Party supporter.
