Ben Carson says slavery is 'nothing to be ashamed of' while campaigning for Trump

Former United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson suggested slavery was "nothing to be ashamed of" while campaigning for Donald Trump.

While stumping for Trump in Iowa Thursday, Carson downplayed the importance of slavery in U.S. history.

"And interestingly enough, you look back to the beginnings of this country and our founders, a lot of people are trying to denigrate them now, saying that they were horrible people, maybe because some of them had slaves, and that America is a horrible place because we had slavery," Carson argued. "People who say stuff like that obviously don't have a good grasp on world history, because every society has had to deal with slavery, and there are more slaves in the world today than there have ever been at any point in time."

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Carson pointed out that the U.S. fought a civil war over the institution of slavery.

"And if there's anything unique about the United States, if there's anything unique about the United States and slavery, it's that we had so many people who were vehemently opposed to it that we fought a bloody civil war to get rid of the evil institution," he said.

"And that's what we should teach our children," he added. "Our history is nothing to be ashamed of."

"There's good, there's bad, and there's ugly, as there is in every society inhabited by human beings, which is why we need a savior."

Carson has a history of referring to enslaved people as immigrants.

"Hundreds of years before that, other immigrants came here in the bottom of slave ships," he wrote in his book in 2000. "They worked even harder for longer hours for even less. They too had a dream. That one day their great-grandchildren could pursue the dream of freedom and happiness in this land."

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