Haley, in retreat, says ‘of course the Civil War was about slavery’
Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and Republican presidential hopeful, on Thursday walked back her stumbling answer about the cause of the Civil War, telling a New Hampshire interviewer, “Of course the Civil War was about slavery.”
Her retreat came about 12 hours after a town-hall meeting in New Hampshire, a state central to her presidential hopes, where she was asked what caused the Civil War. She stumbled through an answer about government overreach and “the freedoms of what people could and couldn’t do.” He then noted she never uttered the word “slavery.”
“What do you want me to say about slavery?” Haley replied. “Next question.”
Speaking on the radio show The Pulse of New Hampshire on Thursday morning, Haley, who famously removed the Confederate flag from the grounds of the South Carolina Capitol in Columbia, said: “Yes, I know it was about slavery. I am from the South.”
But she also insinuated that the question had come from a political detractor, accusing President Biden and Democrats of “sending plants” to her events.
In recent polls, Haley has surged into second place in New Hampshire. To win the state contest Jan. 23, she will likely need independent voters. But the Civil War gaffe may have crimped that strategy.
“I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run,” she said Wednesday night. The answer echoed an argument from segregationists that the Civil War was fundamentally about states’ rights and economics, not about ending slavery.