Nikke Haley has gotten herself into some hot water by the way she answered a question concerning the causes of the Civil War. Unfortunately, her initial answer didn’t mention slavery. Although she clarified her views within hours, her unfortunate wording opened the door to attacks by Democrats and Republicans, Progressives and conservatives, Left and Right alike.
Her initial answer promoted the ideals of individual freedom and limited government that America stands for. Subsequently, she stated unequivocally that “Of course the Civil War was about slavery,” apparently surprised that anyone should believe otherwise or that that fact needed to be stated. This, of course , was her mistake. She subsequently pointed to the link between America’s ideals and slavery, which denied a whole group of Americans the freedom that those ideals promised. As I will explain, the two issues, America’s ideals and slavery, are linked. But she should have linked the two in her initial response, rather than assume that slavery’s primary role in causing the Civil War is so well taken for granted that it didn’t need to be reiterated.
That said, taking all of her comments in their totality, it’s clear to the philosophically astute what she was trying to convey, as I will elaborate on below. But philosophical astuteness is a virtue that is widely and dangerously absent in our political culture. Thus, Haley’s slipup led to an avalanche of criticism. Perhaps the worst has Haley’s critics erroneously claiming that her remarks represent “dog whistles” for the “states rights” defense of slavery. Yet nowhere does Haley mention or imply any support for states rights as relates to the slave question. She pointedly speaks of rights as belonging to individuals and their freedoms, not governments. She makes clear her support for the American ideal that governments are there to protect the rights of individuals, not grant states the “right” to enslave whom they please—which, of course, was the pro-slavery Democratic Party’s position prior to the Civil War. '
We’re going to look at three articles covering the hoopla over Nikke Haley’s Civil War remarks, featuring some excerpts and my posted rebuttal comments.
In a New York Times piece, Nikki Haley, in Retreat, Says ‘Of Course the Civil War Was About Slavery’, Jonathan Weisman and Jazmine Ulloa write:
Ms. Haley’s remarks echoed a 150-year-old argument from segregationists that the Civil War was fundamentally about states’ rights and economics, not about ending slavery. “I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run,” she said on Wednesday night, “the freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do.”
Where’s the connection to “states rights?” She’s talking about individual rights and the role of government as rights protector, as she makes plain . . .
Ms. Haley on Thursday walked back her answer about the causes of the Civil War, telling a New Hampshire interviewer, “Of course the Civil War was about slavery.”
She tried to walk back that interpretation on Thursday, asking: “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 relive it. Never let anyone take those freedoms away again.”
My emphasis. Do the authors not see the contradiction in their own biased reporting?
I posted these comments:
There is no contradiction in Haley’s remarks. Yes, the Civil War was about slavery. Why? Because slavery violates the Founding principles of this country—to wit, the equal rights of all individuals to their own life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (“what people could do”), the rejection of the tyranny of man over man, including the enslavement of some by others (“what people can’t do”), and the proper role of government to secure the unalienable rights of all (“basically how government was going to run”).
Yes, of course the Civil War was about individual rights. Yes, of course it was about the proper role of government. Yes, of course it was about ending slavery. These issues are inextricably linked, not mutually exclusive. If they are not linked, then the Abolitionists didn’t have a leg to stand on, because their whole battle to end slavery was precisely about what Haley said it was about—extending the principles of America to all of its citizens. The idea that Haley has anything to “retreat” or “walk back” from is a sad commentary on the philosophical and historical ignorance of so many of America’s supposed thought and political leaders, including the author and editors of this shockingly shallow article.
Similarly, Jim Geraghty opines for the Washington Post in Nikki Haley goes on Civil War autopilot, runs over her own campaign. He first gives us Haley’s comments in full:
Decide for yourself if there was anything tricky or unfair about the question [referring to Haley’s snarky suggestion that the question “was ‘definitely a Democrat plant’”], or if — as someone is certain to complain — Haley’s words are somehow being taken out of context. Here’s the entire exchange verbatim:
Questioner: What was the cause of the United States Civil War?
Haley: Well, don’t come with an easy question or any — I mean, 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. What do you think the cause of the Civil War was?
[The questioner’s answer is inaudible.]
Haley: I’m sorry?
[The questioner gets a microphone.]
Questioner: I’m not running for president. I, I, I wanted to see what your —
Another person: It’s a good thing!
Questioner: — on the cause of the Civil War.
Haley: I mean, 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. It was never meant to be all things to all people. Government doesn’t have to tell you how to live your life. They don’t need to tell you what you can and can’t do. They don’t need to be a part of your life. They need to make sure that you have freedom. 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.
Questioner: Thank you. And in the year 2023, it is astonishing to me that you answered that question without mentioning the word “slavery.”
Haley: What do you want me to say about slavery?
Questioner: No, um, you’ve answered my question. Thank you.
Haley: Next question. [My Emphasis]
Clearly, as I stated, Haley’s conviction is with individual rights, not states “rights.” And the end indicates her apparent astonishment that anyone would need to be told that the Civil War was about slavery. “What do you want me to say about slavery?” she asks, apparently believing, wrongly, that people could make the abstract connection that slavery could not exist if the government properly secured the individual rights of all.
To be fair, Geraghty does attempt to cut her some slack. After opining that “the answer stinks. It’s gobbledygook,” and suggests the dangers of being on “verbal autopilot” by repeating her “usual stump speech” instead of giving a thoughtful answer, he states:
This is going to lead to a lot of accusations that Haley is some sort of neo-Confederate or slavery apologist, which is tough to align with the fact that in 2015, as South Carolina’s governor, she chose to remove the Confederate battle flag from the statehouse grounds.
After Geraghty rightfully criticizes Haley for not mentioning slavery in her initial answer, he gives us her clarification:
Thursday morning, Haley appeared on New Hampshire talk-radio host Jack Heath’s show. In addition to complaining about Democrats planting questions at her town halls, Haley declared, “Of course, the Civil War was about slavery, that’s the easy part. Yes, I know it was about slavery. I am from the South.” Funny how doing the easy part was so hard the night before.
[My emphasis. Once again, we can detect Haley’s astonishment that the truth that the Civil War was about slavery had to be reiterated. Doesn’t everybody know that?]
I can’t argue with Garaghty that Haley’s initial answer was bad. But again, taking her comments in their totality, I think what she was trying to convey, albeit clumsily, was spot on. This will be crystal clear, if it’s not already, by the end of this post.
I posted these comments.
Count me in Haley’s corner.
Haley understands what all of her critics don’t—that a clash of political philosophies led to the Civil War. The driving force of the Abolitionist movement was the conviction that the Founding political ideals underpinning America are incompatible with slavery. Why did the Confederate states secede from the Union? Because they understood that universal individual rights and constitutionally limited government whose purpose is to secure these rights is incompatible with slavery, and that the only way to save slavery was to reject those principles.
Haley’s answer could have been better polished. But she didn’t “forget” slavery’s fundamental role in the Civil War. She made that plain. She understands that America’s political philosophy was fundamental to the fight to end slavery, and thus fundamental to the Civil War: the equal rights of all individuals to their own life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (“what people could do”), the rejection of the tyranny of man over man, including the enslavement of some by others (“what people couldn’t do”), and the proper role of government to secure the unalienable rights of all (“basically how government was going to run”).
Yes, of course the Civil War was about individual rights; and about the proper role of government; and about ending slavery. These issues are inextricably linked, not mutually exclusive. The Abolitionists understood this. The Confederacy understood this. I understand this. And Haley apparently understands this. What stands out for me is the philosophical/historical ignorance of her critics. Haley’s wording and political calculations notwithstanding, she should be commended for making these integrations. It’s shocking that so few thought and political leaders can’t—or won’t.
Finally, we have another Washington Post column, Haley acknowledges Civil War ‘about slavery’ after facing backlash, by Meryl Kornfield, Maegan Vazquez and Hannah Knowles. Here, she further clarifies her position:
First during a radio interview then again later during a campaign stop, Haley, a former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor who has risen in polls of the Republican race, made remarks that departed from what she said a day earlier. When asked about the cause of the war at a Wednesday town hall, she made no mention of slavery, which scholars agree was central to the conflict. That initial exchange attracted widespread attention and criticism in both parties that continued Thursday.
“Of course, the Civil War was about slavery. We know that. That’s unquestioned. Always the case. We know the Civil War was about slavery,” Haley said at a town hall in North Conway. “But it was also more than that. It was about the freedoms of every individual. It was about the role of government. For 80 years, America had the decision and the moral question of whether slavery was a good thing. And whether government economically, culturally, any other reasons, had a role to play in that. By the grace of God, we did the right thing and slavery is no more.”
“I say that as a Southerner. I say that as a Southern governor who removed the Confederate flag off the State House grounds,” she added to applause.
[My emphasis. There’s that astonishment again.]
Later in the article, they authors report:
Haley has shown particular strength among centrist and independent voters who play an outsize role in New Hampshire and she has focused heavily on pointing to polls showing her performing well against President Biden. But on Thursday, she was looking to move past a difficult chapter.
“I want to nip it in the bud. Yes, we know the Civil War was about slavery. But more than that, what’s the lesson in all this? That freedom matters,” Haley said on “The Pulse of NH,” a local radio show. “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 [to] never relive it, never let anyone take those freedoms away again.” [My emphasis]
Here, she finally and unequivocally links the political philosophy of this country with the slavery issue. To repeat, taking her observations in their totality, notwithstanding her unfortunate wording, I don’t think there’s anything difficult about Haley’s understanding of the causes of the Civil War—unless, of course, you have a political motivation to cut her down, especially from Republicans who should know better. Some have said she gave the right answer to a different question. But the question to ask is, why was slavery the cause of the Civil War? After thousands of years in which slavery was ubiquitous across the world, with little resistance? Why then? Why in the 19th Century did slavery cause a Civil War? Desantos and Christie should remember the words of the first Republican president, who full well understood the most fundamental issues behind the Civil War:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us,that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Note how Lincoln began his famous Gettysburg Address—by pointing to the Founding and the freedoms it promised, “Four score and seven years ago”—exactly, in so many words, how Haley began her response. Nikke Haley, echoing President Abraham Lincoln, understands that the battle to end slavery was underpinned by the necessity to rededicate to “a new birth of freedom” as understood by the Founding Fathers, and that it has to do with a government that protects the rights of all of its citizens, everywhere, equally, and at all times. Why in the 19th Century? Because the 18th Century was the century of the Enlightenment—and the ideals that spawned America. Haley’s answer was not the right answer to a different question. It was the right answer, just not in the right order. The fight to end slavery was a fight to extend the principles of individual liberty and limited rights-protecting government to the slaves. The fight to preserve slavery was the reactionary rejection of those principles. That philosophical battle explains why slavery caused a Civil War in that unique period, the period between the Founding of America and the Civil War. Haley assumed that everybody knew that slavery caused the Civil War. She attempted to explain why that was. Wrong assumption. Her mistake was not to avoid the answer to the question why slavery caused the Civil War, but that she didn't explicitly connect the ideas to slavery from the get-go—a relatively minor rhetorical error but, because of the philosophically deteriorated state of today's politics, with major political implications.
I posted these comments, slightly edited, which are a restatement of the previous comments except for a different opening line:
Haley’s subsequent “acknowledgement” about slavery and the Civil War didn’t depart “from “what she said a day earlier.” They supplemented it.
Haley understands what all of her critics don’t—that a clash of political philosophies led to the Civil War. The driving force of the Abolitionist movement was the conviction that the Founding political ideals underpinning America are incompatible with slavery. Why did the Confederate states secede from the Union? Because they understood that universal individual rights and constitutionally limited government whose purpose is to secure these rights is incompatible with slavery, and that the only way to save slavery was to reject those principles.
Haley’s answer could have been better polished. But she didn’t “forget” slavery’s fundamental role in the Civil War. She made that plain. She understands that America’s political philosophy was fundamental to the fight to end slavery, and thus fundamental to the Civil War: the equal rights of all individuals to their own life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (“what people could do”), the rejection of the tyranny of man over man, including the enslavement of some by others (“what people couldn’t do”), and the proper role of government to secure the unalienable rights of all (“basically how government was going to run”).
Yes, of course the Civil War was about individual rights; and about the proper role of government; and about ending slavery. These issues are inextricably linked, not mutually exclusive. The Abolitionists understood this. Abe Lincoln knew this. The Confederacy understood this. I understand this. And Haley apparently understands this. What stands out for me is the philosophical/historical ignorance of her critics. Haley’s wording and political calculations notwithstanding, she should be commended for making these integrations. It’s shocking that so few thought and political leaders can’t—or won’t.
In conclusion, read Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address once again. LIncoln speaks of “a new nation, conceived in liberty.” He speaks of the “unfinished work” for which the dead soldiers fought—the unfinished work of living up to “the proposition that all men are created equal.” He calls for resolve that “these dead shall not have died in vain,” and that their lives were given so that America will see “a new birth of freedom.” Yet through Lincoln’s ultra short speech—one of the greatest speeches ever given by any American president—the one word that hangs over the entire address, yet is not even mentioned, is . . . slavery! Yet it is obvious that Lincoln had slavery in mind, and that the “new birth of freedom” demanded the emancipation of the slaves.
I believe that Nikki Haley’s response to the Civil War question, albeit lacking in the eloquence of Lincoln, nonetheless was given in the spirit of Lincoln. To reiterate, taken in their totality, and with some understanding of the context in which Haley had to come up with an answer, Nikke Haley’s take on the causes of the Civil War are spot on.
Related Reading:
Which Was the More Fundamental American Liberty Achievement, Abolition vs. Women’s Suffrage?
The Confederate Statue Controversy vs. the ‘alt-Left’s ‘Effort to Cleanse American History’
A New Textbook of Americanism — edited by Jonathan Hoenig
The Southern Slave Economy Was Anti-Capitalistic
“I Have a Dream”: Martin Luther King Urges Consistency to Founding Principles
Order from Chaos by C. Bradley Thompson
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