If you can’t acknowledge that the Civil War was about slavery, maybe you shouldn’t be in government.
By: Conor J. Kelly
In an unforced error, presidential candidate and GOP primary challenger to Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, seemingly forgot what caused the Civil War on Wednesday evening. In a town hall in Berlin, New Hampshire, the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations was asked by a voter what she thought caused the Civil War, and instead of giving the correct answer, she seemingly demured in the worst way possible.
Haley’s Terrible Answer
Despite a massive amount of experience in government and a sound mind, former Ambassador Haley failed to address the issue of slavery in the Civil War adequately. In her answer, Haley explained, “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 or argument?”
Her response, of course, resulted in the questioner noting their astonishment that Haley failed to mention slavery. Instead of acknowledging such an important component of America’s deadliest war, Haley seemingly threw the comment away by responding, “What do you want me to say about slavery?”
Such a brazen disregard for the basic facts of the Civil War is not only surprising, it is downright insulting. The historical record has consistently demonstrated that the Civil War was directly tied to and was fought over slavery. Haley has to address that reality.
The Easiest Answer on the Planet
When faced with the cause of the Civil War, one must remember the explicitly stated positions of the Confederate states themselves. As southern states were leaving the Union, many of them explicitly stated that they were leaving the Union because of the North’s anti-slavery position. Georgia’s declaration of secession directly lambasted the North, saying:
For twenty years past the abolitionists and their allies in the Northern States have been engaged in constant efforts to subvert our institutions and to excite insurrection and servile war among us. They have sent emissaries among us for the accomplishment of these purposes.
Georgian Declaration of Secession, 1861.
Nor were they the only ones condemning anti-slavery activity. While the North was not abolitionist, as it was more anti-slavery and moderate at the time, the South was convinced that they had to fight tooth and nail to defend their so-called ‘peculiar institution.’ Mississippi infamously stated in its secession declaration that:
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.
Mississippi Declaration of Secession, 1861
South Carolina and Texas, along with many other Southern states, were also thoroughly and overtly convinced that slavery was under attack, with South Carolina’s legislature warning 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.” Simply put, slavery was a central component of secession and, therefore, a central component of the Civil War. To say otherwise is nonsense.
So What?
While it is easy to discard this as a fluke, Haley has a strange and disturbing history with Civil War history. In 2019, Haley faced another controversy surrounding her comments about the Confederate battle flag. In an interview with Glenn Beck, Haley claimed that the flag, which was used by white supremacist shooter Dylann Roof, represented “service, sacrifice, and heritage” and that Roof had “hijacked” its meaning.
This is false.
For one, the flag in question is actually the Confederate battle flag, not the flag of the Confederate government. Its modern usage, outside of the context of the Civil War, has always been racist, as it was used by the infamous Dixiecrats in the election of 1948 as a means to oppose Civil Rights and integration.
It has also been consistently used by pro-Confederate propagandists such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans, all of whom promote the Lost Cause, a pseudohistorical deception that claims that the Civil War was not about slavery. This organization, through almost half a century of indoctrination of American youth, helped pave the way for white supremacy’s return in the South from Reconstruction to the early to mid-20th century.
These organizations were not merely deceiving the public. They were actively involved in promoting racial violence. The United Daughters of the Confederacy explicitly did so through their Lost Cause myth, with one of their main writers promoting the Ku Klux Klan in her book, The Ku Klux Klan or Invisible Empire (1914). The book by Laura Martin Rose praised the “valor” of former confederates and the Klan. Simply put, the flag has been tied to and used for an explicitly violent and racist movement throughout American history.
Former Ambassador Haley’s failure to fully appreciate the importance of the most basic historical factors of the Civil War is an indictment of her character and her bid for the Oval Office. Her history of equivocation, deception, and outright falsehood regarding the Civil War is not merely a failure of her education but is a sign of her grotesque irresponsibility.
Remembering and reiterating the basic reality that the Civil War was about slavery serves as a reminder of the centuries-long violence that was perpetrated against Black people throughout our history and serves as a refutation of the violent ideology that attempted to hide that bloody history. No matter where you stand on the political spectrum, it is beyond unacceptable for anyone to deny or even equivocate about the moral failings of the Confederacy and its successors in the Klan. If Haley wants to be taken seriously as a presidential candidate and a person, she should apologize immediately.
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