A resolution congratulating Barack Obama on his election as president was rejected by a committee of the Arkansas House of Representatives after lawmakers objected to language in the measure that referred to the United States as"a nation founded by slave owners." Eight of the 11 members of the panel, the State Agencies Committee, who opposed the resolution were Republicans, and one Republican joined five Democrats in supporting it. Two Democrats abstained. Opponents said the measure inaccurately presumed that all the nation's founders were slaveholders. The resolution's sponsor, Representative Stephanie Flowers, Democrat of Pine Bluff and the daughter of a pioneering black Arkansas lawyer and judge, said that"it's unfortunate that we can't accept the truth of our history," and that she saw"no reason" to rewrite passages that some Republicans said were"divisive.".