Nikki Haley Refuses to Say Slavery Caused the Civil War

During a recent campaign event in New Hampshire, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley was asked about the cause of the American Civil War. Her response? Not slavery, but the role of government.

It was a surprising response from a prominent politician in 2023 aspiring to be president of the United States—though perhaps it shouldn’t have been, given the Republican Party’s renewed open flirtation with an openly racist segment of its base.

A member of the audience asked Haley the question. She began with a chuckle and joke: “Well, don’t come with an easy question!”

“I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was gonna run. The freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do,” she continued before attempting to throw the question back at its asker, “What do you think the cause of the Civil War was?”

The audience member, off screen, declined to answer, simply responding that he’s not running for president. 

“I mean I think it always comes down to the role of government,” Haley continued.

The asker was outraged, expressing his shock that a person could answer that question in 2023 without mentioning slavery. 

“What do you want me to say about slavery?” Haley replied tersely before adding, “Next question.”

The American Civil War was fought because the governments of southern conservative states wanted to preserve their legal right to cruelly own black people as chattel. 

When the election of President Abraham Lincoln suggested abolition was on the horizon, the rebellious Confederacy attempted to secede from the United States, triggering a war which would kill more than half a million Americans before Lincoln crushed the rebellion. 

The ratification of the 13th Amendment freed American slaves.

(Video credits)