Yeah, it’s perfectly fair for Haley (or some other candidate) to say that the Civil War was triggered by a number of factors, and slavery was only one of them.
People who say slavery was the central/main reason usually want to make Northerners feel better about the North than it was, when the North wasn’t exactly black-loving either.
But wasn’t slavery the reason that the Southern States left the Union? That caused the War, as far as I know.
Bingo. Slavery was THE reason for the Civil War, because it’s preservation against a perceived threat from Lincoln’s election was the reason why the Southern states seceded. I can’t believe there’s still debate about this – southern politicians were open about why they were leaving the Union.
You could say slavery was the Cornerstone. The South definitely did.
To be clear: she never mentioned slavery.
An excellent book on that very point (among others), by a Virginian and career U.S. Army officer who became chair of the West Point history department: https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Lee-Me-Southerners-Reckoning/dp/1250239265
Yea, it was a master class in political question-avoiding. She tried to turn it into an opportunity to talk about her standard “Eagles and Apple Pie FREEDOM!” opinions, and then, when pressed for an actual answer, came back with, “What do you want me to say about slavery?”, in a tone of voice that clearly suggested, “Tell me what you want to hear and I’ll parrot it!”
You have to listen to the actual exchange, not just read a transcript, to get the full effect of how pandering this whole thing was. And on what should have been a softball question.
Actually, she did, as Horatius noted. Was she pandering, though, or being flippant?
For more: https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/28/politics/nikki-haley-civil-war-slavery/index.html
But that was only after being specifically prompted to discuss it. Had there not been a follow-up, she’d have been quite happy leaving slavery out of the answer entirely.
She said something like “government should exist to secure the rights of people…” On hearing that, I couldn’t help saying to my screen “you mean like the freedom to not be owned by somebody else?”
Yes, she didn’t mention slavery, at least not until the questioner specifically did first. That’s the easy headline. Her answer was full of “rights” and “freedom”. My thought was that yes, the Civil War was trying to grant rights and freedom to people that had been considered property. I wonder if that’s what Haley was trying to get at, but I kinda doubt it.
Today, she’s been backtracking, via some word salad:
She also accused the person who posed the question last night as being a Democrat plant.
If that’s what she was trying to “get at”, how hard would it have been to mention, “Hey, and slavery denied all that Freedom&Shit to a whole lot of people”?
For a politician on the national stage in the United States, this should have been an easy slam-dunk answer. She got the ball stuck in the rafters instead.
Sure, now that it’s blown up in her face, she’s put out a carefully curated statement saying that, “Obviously the Civil War was about slavery.” But what’s useful about this kind of “gotcha” moment is that it shows you were a politician’s instincts lie. And in that moment, her political instincts clearly told her, “Don’t say slavery.” Why would that be? What did she fear from giving that answer? Draw your own conclusions.
Moriarty posted, “To be clear: she never mentioned slavery.” She did. That’s all I meant.
Even though she showed some political courage as governor in ordering the Confederate flag removed from the South Carolina statehouse grounds after the Emanuel AME Church mass murder, she now has her eye on the White House, and that means not pissing off Southern GOP primary voters. Hence her minuet.
When someone serves up an easy pitch in batting practice, and you swing and miss, suddenly the pitcher is a Cy Young prospect whose mission is to make you look bad.
Perhaps that’s not entirely fair. I suspect the question was intended to put Haley on the spot to talk about something she really didn’t want to. She doesn’t seem to realize that that’s what questions from the public and the press are supposed to be. If you want to give speeches and never be challenged, knock yourself out. Asking tough questions is how we find out how you handle tough situations; the things you don’t want to deal with, but have to. You know, in case you have to face some tough choices as president.
But not when answering the question.
She has always done this dance.
Even then, she had to carefully parse her words to avoid offending many of the residents of her state.
Except for the GOP war on, ya know, freedom for personal decisions, like family planning, how to identify yourself, the ability to cast a vote, to read any book, use a recreational drug, explore the shards of our history…
She can visit the planned Civil Rights museum in South Carolina to score back points. She could, but I doubt she would. The museum will even mention her decision to have the flag removed.
My suspicion is that it’s related to conservative opposition to “critical race theory.” Many modern-day conservative white Southerners want to feel proud of their heritage and history (including the Confederacy), and doing so while also acknowledging the role that slavery played in the South’s history (and just how horrible slavery was) causes cognitive dissonance.
I don’t care for NH or her answer to this question, but I somewhat disagree with this interpretation of this specific sentence. If she did not think that slavery were an obvious topic for the particular forum, it seems to me that she was asking, “How do you wish to frame what sort of discussion about slavery? What aspects of slavery do you wish me to address.”
Not, “Tell me your opinion so I can parrot it.”