U.S. Capitol Building under construction in 1858

The House of Representatives voted 399 to 1 yesterday for a resolution expressing gratitude to the slaves who built the United States Capitol Building, which said, in part:

Whereas enslaved African-Americans provided labor essential to the construction of the United States Capitol;

…Whereas enslaved African-Americans performed the backbreaking work of quarrying the stone which comprised many of the floors, walls, and columns of the Capitol;

Whereas enslaved African-Americans also participated in other facets of construction of the Capitol, including carpentry, masonry, carting, rafting, roofing, plastering, glazing, painting, and sawing…

And:

Whereas the Statue of Freedom now atop the Capitol dome could not have been cast without the pivotal intervention of Philip Reid, an enslaved African-American foundry worker who deciphered the puzzle of how to separate the 5-piece plaster model for casting when all others failed…

In addition to the expression of gratitude to slaves who have been dead for a century or more, the resolution also instructed the Architect of the Capitol to place a marker in Emancipation Hall in the Capitol Visitor Center acknowledging the role of slave labor in the Capitol’s construction.

So who was the lone wolf who felt the slaves’ force labor in the construction of the capitol of freedom did not warrant gratitude and a bronze plaque?

Rep. Steve King, a Republican, of course, who has represented western Iowa since 2002 — and who vies with Rep. Michelle Bachman, R-Minn., for the title of nuttiest wingnut in the House. Since even Rep. Bachman voted for this resolution, Rep. King is officially the title-holder, at least for now.

A few hours after the resolution passed, King’s office released a statement explaining his vote:

“Last night I opposed yet another bill to erect another monument to slavery because it was used as a bargaining chip to allow for the actual depiction of ‘In God We Trust’ in the [Capitol Visitors Center]…

“Our Judeo-Christian heritage is an essential foundation stone of our great nation and should not be held hostage to yet another effort to place guilt on future Americans for the sins of some of their ancestors.”

In his statement, King also rewrote the history of the Civil War era, falsely claiming that white “Christian abolitionists gave their lives by the hundreds of thousands to end slavery.”

It’s true that hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers died in the Civil War, but the percentage of them who self-identified as abolitionists was very small. It’s also historical fact that the primary objective of the United States in waging war against the Confederacy was to preserve the Union, not free the slaves.

King made news during the presidential campaign last year, when, in a March 2008 radio interview in Iowa, he said that terrorists would be dancing in the streets if Sen. Barack Obama were elected president:

KING: “I don’t want to disparage anyone because of their race, their ethnicity, their name, whatever the religion of their father might have been. I’ll just say this, that when you think about the optics of a Barack Obama potentially getting elected president of the United States, I mean, what does this look like to the rest of the world? What does this look like to the world of Islam? And I will tell you that if he is elected president, then the radical islamists, the al Qaida and the radical Islamists and their supporters Will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11th.”

Of course, there was dancing in the streets when Pres. Obama was elected, but it wasn’t terrorists overseas, it was tens of millions of normal Americans rejoicing that the dark days of the right-wing reign of error were over.

Here is a roundup of King’s outrageous statements and positions from ThinkProgress:

– King compared immigrants to “livestock” in proposing an electrified fence for the southern border.

– He has called undocumented immigration a “slow-moving terrorist attack.”

– King said that each senator who votes for the comprehensive immigration reform bill should “wear a scarlet letter A for amnesty.”

– King said the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib amounted to little more than “hazing.”

– King refused to vote for an innocuous House resolution commending the Muslims on the Ramadan holiday. (To attack those who did, he turned around and proposed a resolution commemorating Christmas.)

– King has decried an “assault on Christmas” from “secularists” who want to “eradicate Christ from Christmas.”

– King released a “report” baselessly claiming that undocumented immigrants have murdered more Americans than the combined death toll of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002.

– King praised Joe McCarthy as “a great American hero.”

– After the terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed, King derisively said he was now at a place where there are 72 virgins who “probably all look like Helen Thomas.”

In April, after Iowa became the third state to legalize gay marriage, King warned that the state would become a “gay marriage Mecca” — ignoring the fact that, if so, it would drive millions of dollars in new business to the state’s hospitality and other wedding-related industries. Here’s a roundup of some of his homophobic statements, also from Thinkprogress:

– King compared gay people to unicorns and leprechauns. “Unicorns, leprechauns, gay marriages in Iowa — these are all things you will never find because they just don’t exist.”

– King sought to uphold anti-gay employment discrimination. “The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) would force employers to hire homosexual employees.”

– King insisted homosexuality was just a “behavior.” Declaring that “homosexual marriage is not a civil right,” King said sexual orientation “is a self-identified behavior, not an immutable characteristic.”

It’s important to note that Steve King does not speak for all Iowans. There is a strong ideological divide in the state. Three of the state’s five representatives in the House are Democrats, for example, and its senators are Tom Harkin, the liberal populist, and Chuck Grassley, the right-wing corporatist toady.

And, finally, it was Pres. Obama’s win in the January 2008 caucuses in Iowa — a state that is 96.4 percent white — that opened the way for his campaign and eventually his election as president.