Former South Carolina Governor and UN Ambassador, Nikki Haley, found herself in hot water on Wednesday during a campaign event in New Hampshire. A voter challenged Haley for omitting slavery from her explanation of the Civil War’s causes.
Haley, who famously advocated for the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the South Carolina statehouse grounds during her governorship, told the crowd that the war was primarily about governmental interference in individual freedoms. She stated, “I think the cause of the Civil War was essentially how government was going to operate. The freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do.”
This comment was made during Haley’s visit to Berlin, the first of five events in the Granite State as she seeks to narrow the gap with Republican front-runner Donald Trump ahead of next month’s primary.
When asked by the voter about his perspective on the Civil War’s cause, he retorted, “I’m not running for president.” Haley continued to defend her stance, emphasizing the role of government and the rights of the people. She added, “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.”
The voter then criticized Haley for not acknowledging slavery in her response. He said, “In the year 2023, it’s astonishing to me that you answer that question without mentioning the word slavery.” When Haley asked what he wanted her to say about slavery, he replied, “You answered my question,” prompting Haley to move on to the next question amidst applause from the attendees.
The incident quickly became a talking point for Democrats and President Joe Biden’s campaign on social media. Biden posted a video of the exchange on his campaign account with the caption, “It was about slavery.”
Haley’s public stance on the Confederacy has been complex, given her tenure as governor of South Carolina, the first state to secede during the Civil War. As reported by CNN’s KFile, Haley defended states’ rights to secede, South Carolina’s Confederate History Month, and the Confederate flag in a 2010 interview with a local activist group during her gubernatorial campaign. She also characterized the Civil War as a battle between two sides fighting for different values, one for “tradition” and one for “change.”
The 2015 shooting at a historically Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, led Haley to call for the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the statehouse grounds, where it had been since its removal from the state’s Capitol dome in 2000.