Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley faced backlash Wednesday night after she answered a voter’s question on the cause of the Civil War without mentioning slavery.
Haley, the former South Carolina governor, was speaking at a town hall event in New Hampshire Wednesday night when a voter asked her, “What was the cause of the United States Civil War?”
“Well, don’t come with an easy question, right?” Haley said. “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.”
Haley then asked the voter what he thought was behind the deadliest war in American history, to which he responded, “I’m not running for president.”
Haley then added, “I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are. And I will always stand by the fact that I think government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people. … We need to have capitalism. We need to have economic freedom. We need to make sure that we do all things so that individuals have the liberties so that they can have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to do or be anything they want to be without government getting in the way.”
The voter wasn’t impressed with Haley’s answer, however, and slammed her for not mentioning slavery in her response.
“Thank you. In the year 2023, it’s astonishing to me that you’d answer that question without mentioning the word ‘slavery,'” he said, as reported by The Washington Examiner.
“What do you want me to say about slavery?” Haley shot back before moving on to the next question.
“What was the cause of the US civil war?”
Nikki Haley: “Well, don’t come with an easy question!”
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) December 28, 2023
Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., was immediately criticized by both the Left and the Right for her remarks. President Joe Biden posted the clip on X Wednesday night, commenting, “It was about slavery.” The campaign for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is neck-and-neck with Haley in the polls, also responded to Haley’s comments.
“Yikes,” the DeSantis campaign wrote. “Local New Hampshire stations are already covering Nikki Haley’s disastrous town hall tonight where she declined to mention ‘slavery’ when asked ‘What was the cause of the Civil War?’”
On Thursday morning, Haley was on local New Hampshire radio shows to comment on the town hall Q&A and the answer she gave on the Civil War.
“Yes, we know the Civil War was about slavery,” Haley said. “But more than that, what’s the lesson in all this? That freedom matters. And individual rights and liberties matter for all people. That’s the blessing of America. That was a stain on America when we had slavery. But what we want is never [to] relive it. Never let anyone take those freedoms away again.”
Haley also said the person who asked her the question at the town hall was a “Democrat plant,” adding that she is facing heat because Democrats want to run against Trump.
“Why are they hitting me? See this for what it is… They want to run against Trump. In town halls, I answer every question, and they are planting questions there,” said Haley, according to the New Hampshire Journal.
Haley has faced criticism in the past for her comments and actions related to the Civil War and the Confederate flag. In 2015, the then-governor of South Carolina signed a bill removing the Confederate flag from being displayed in front of the statehouse after nine black Americans were killed in a church by a white shooter who espoused racist ideology. Then, in an interview with conservative radio host Glenn Beck four years later, Haley said the Confederate flag represented “service, sacrifice and heritage” to South Carolinians, but the church shooter “hijacked” it.
The backlash to Haley’s comments at the New Hampshire town hall comes less than a month before the state’s voters will go to the polls in the first-in-the-nation primary. Haley — who is enjoying a recent rise in primary polls — currently sits in second place in New Hampshire, trailing former President Donald Trump by around 22 points, according to the Real Clear Politics average.