US Republican Party Presidential hopeful Nikki Haley was in a damage-control mode on Thursday (Dec 28) after her apparent avoidance of linking the American Civil War with slavery drew flak from public, her opponents from within the Republican Party and even US President Joe Biden.
“Of course the Civil War was about slavery, that’s the easy part,” said Haley on The Pulse of NH, a radio show
“Yes, I know it was about slavery. I am from the South.”
Earlier, on Wednesday, Haley held a town-hall in the northern state of New Hampshire during which she was asked by an audience member what she thought was the cause of the Civil War.
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Haley paused before saying,”Well, don’t come at me with an easy question.”
“I mean, I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run, what you could and couldn’t do, the freedoms in what people could and couldn’t do,” she said.
There was some back-and-forth between Haley and the audience member after which he said, “In the year 2023, it’s astonishing to me that you answer that question without mentioning the word ‘slavery.'”
Historians and scholars agree that the issue of slavery was deeply associated with the American Civil War which was fought between 1861 and 1865 after southern states seceded from the union opposing efforts of the northern states to limit slavery.
The backlash
Haley’s opponents within the Republican Party jumped at the opportunity to criticise her.
“If Nikki Haley can’t answer this basic political 101 question and then it takes her over 12 hrs to sloppily attempt to clean it up, she just isn’t ready for the bright lights of the nomination process,” wrote David Polyansky, senior advisor to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Polyansky made a post on X.
DeSantis is also trying to win the Republican presidential nomination.
US President Joe Biden quoted a post on X which had video of Haley’s interaction during the townhall.
“It was about slavery,” wrote Biden.
Haley has a history of defending some aspects of the Confederacy, as the seceded states were known. From 2011 to 2017, Haley was governor of South Carolina, the first state that seceded.
(With inputs from agencies)
