White House chief of staff John Kelly spoke highly of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee calling him "an honorable man."
And he said the Civil War was sparked by a "lack of ability to compromise."
Kelly's comments came in a Monday interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox News.
"I would tell you that Robert E. Lee was an honorable man," Kelly said. "He was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state which 150 years ago was more important than country. It was always loyalty to state first back in those days.
"Now it's different today. But the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War. And men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had to make their stand."
Kelly was asked about attempts to remove Confederate monuments.
"History is history," he said. "And there are certain things in history that were not so good and other things that very, very good. I think we make a mistake, as a society and certainly as individuals when we take what is today accepted as right and wrong and go back 100, 200, 300-years or more and say what Christopher Columbus did was wrong."
CNN noted racial tensions have grown in recent months after white supremacists protested the removal of a statute of Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia.
President Donald Trump has called the removal of Confederate monuments "foolish," the news network said.
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