Nikki Haley says in retreat: ‘Of course the Civil War was about slavery’

Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and Republican presidential hopeful, revisited her stumble over the cause of the Civil War on Thursday, telling a New Hampshire interviewer: “Of course the Civil War was about slavery.”

Her retreat came about 12 hours after a town hall meeting in New Hampshire, a state central to her presidential hopes, where she was asked what caused the Civil War. She got through an answer about government overreach and “the freedoms of what people could and couldn’t do,” after jokingly telling the questioner he’d asked a tough question. He then noted that she had never uttered the word “slavery.”

“What do you want me to say about slavery?” Mrs. Haley replied. “Next question.”

Speak on the radio program The Pulse of New Hampshire On Thursday morning, Ms. Haley, who famously removed the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the South Carolina Capitol in Columbia, said: “Yes, I know it was about slavery. I come from the South.”

But she also insinuated that the question had come not from a Republican voter, but from a political opponent, and accused President Biden and Democrats of “sending plants” to her town hall events.

“Why are they hitting me? Just see this for what it is,” she said, adding: “They want to run against Trump.”

In recent polls, Ms. Haley has done just that rose to second place in New Hampshire, closer to striking distance from former President Donald J. Trump. To win the Granite State contest on Jan. 23, the first primary of 2024, she will most likely need independent voters — and possibly Democrats who have registered as independents. That’s how Arizona Sen. John McCain upset George W. Bush during the state’s 2000 primaries.

But the Civil War blunder may have nipped that strategy in the bud.

“I think the cause of the civil war was really how the government would function.” she said Wednesday night“the freedoms and what people could and could not do.”

The response reflected segregationists’ age-old argument that the Civil War was fundamentally about states’ rights and economics, not about ending slavery.

Late Wednesday night, even Mr. Biden rebuked the response: “It was about slavery.” he wrote on social media.

She tried to elaborate on her comments on Thursday, asking: “What’s the lesson in this? That freedom matters. And individual rights and freedoms matter to all people. That is America’s blessing. That was a stain on America when slavery still existed. But what we want is to never experience it again. Never let anyone take these freedoms away again.”

The episode also undermined her appeal to moderates and independents who sought to thwart Trump’s return to the White House by portraying Ms. Haley as a vehicle for compromise.

Her record as governor of South Carolina included blocking a bill to prevent transgender youth from using bathrooms that corresponded with their gender identity. Her effort to lower the Confederate battle flag came after the mass shooting of black worshipers at a Charleston church by a white supremacist. And she recently called for a middle ground on abortion.

“Haley’s refusal to talk honestly about slavery or race in America is a sad betrayal of her own story,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, Democrat of California.