Speaking at a town hall in Berlin, New Hampshire, Wednesday night, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, the former governor of first to secede slave state South Carolina, was asked what the cause of the Civil War was. Haley gave a discourse about protecting people’s freedoms from government (which would have been an excellent answer to a different question). The answer stunned her questioner because Haley failed to mention slavery. When called out, Haley responded, “Well, what do you want me to say about slavery?”, and then moved on to another question.
Video of the Q&A has gone viral, being posted by the DeSantis campaign and the Biden-Harris campaign.
Transcript:
Q: “Thank you, Ambassador. Please, um, what was the cause of the United States Civil War?”
Haley: (Pauses) “Well, don’t come with an easy question or anything. I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run. The freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do. What do you think the cause of the Civil War was?”
Q: “I’m not running for president. I, I, I wanted to hear your view on the cause of the Civil War.
Haley: “I mean, I think it always comes down to the role of government, and what the rights of the people are. And we, I will always stand by the fact that I think government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people. It was never meant to be all things to all people. Government doesn’t need to tell you how to live your life. They don’t need to tell you what you can and can’t do. They don’t need to be a part of your life. They need to make sure that you have freedom. We need to have capitalism. We need to have economic freedom. We need to make sure that we do all things so that individuals have the liberties so that they can have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to do or be anything they want to be without government getting in the way.”
Q: “Thank you. In the, in the year 2023, it’s astonishing to me that you answer that question without mentioning the word slavery.”
Haley: “What do you want me to say about slavery?”
Q: “No problem. You’ve answered my question, thank you.”
Haley: “Next question.”
(Smattering of applause.)
Transcribed by TGP.
Pool video posted by WMUR-TV:
South Carolina seceded on December 20, 1860. A declaration of secession was adopted on December 24 that prominently mentioned disputes over slavery as the key reason for secession (excerpts):
The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
(Skip)
…These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.
We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.
For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.
This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.
On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.
The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy.
Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanction of more erroneous religious belief.
We, therefore, the People of South Carolina, by our delegates in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.
The Civil War started on April 12, 1861 with a successful attack by Confederate troops on the federal Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
In a post after the town hall, Haley did not address the brewing controversy, saying, “A little bad weather isn’t going to stop us! Berlin, thank you for a great night on stop one of five in New Hampshire!”
A little bad weather isn’t going to stop us! Berlin, thank you for a great night on stop one of five in New Hampshire! pic.twitter.com/qZKRceNFmh
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) December 28, 2023
This story originally appeared on TheGateWayPundit
