How Nikki Haley Should Answer the Inevitable Question about her Civil War Answer at Tonight’s CNN’s Debate

I wrote at length about this in my January 2 blog post, so my position is well established. But the upcoming CNN debate between Haley and Ron DeSantis, scheduled for January 10th, will almost certainly require her to once again address it. Here’s how I think Haley should respond:

“Well, of course the Civil War was about slavery. I made that clear if you take all of my comments on the subject in full context. Ok, I didn’t mention it in my initial answer. I jumped into the underlying philosophical issues that underpinned the slavery issue—America’s Founding as a free country. I didn’t realize people needed to be reminded of it

“Some history. That slavery precipitated a Civil War did not happen in a vacuum. The Late 18th and early 19th Centuries gave rise to history’s first meaningful moral and political opposition to slavery. Why? Because that was the period that gave rise to the revolutionary Enlightenment ideas that formed the foundation the United States of America—the principles of political equality for all, universal practice of inalienable individual rights, and the discovery that the purpose of government is, as stated in the Declaration of Independence, “to secure these rights.” Those principles obviously are totally incompatible with slavery, and lay at the heart of the philosophical battle between the pro-slavery intellectuals and the Abolitionists that ultimately led to a the Civil War.     

“My opponents and critics leave out the full context of my position. Shame on them. Let me be clear. Of course the Civil War was about slavery. Slavery was about the principles of individual freedom and good government. That’s what I said. I could have said it better. But that’s what I believe. Remember that Abraham Lincoln never mentioned slavery in his Gettysburg Address, considered one of the greatest political speeches of all time. But everyone knows that the “unfinished business” he speaks of is extending American freedom to the slaves. That's the spirit that animates my position on the Civil War.”

That’s the gist of it. Haley should go on the offensive. Stop kowtowing. Haley should give her critics and political opponents a history lesson. They need it.

Related Reading:

Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln, delivered November 19, 1863 in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

What Nikke Haley gets Right, and her Critics Wrong, about the Civil War