Candidate for US president Haley refutes claims that slavery sparked the Civil War.

Later, in answer to a query from a campaign event participant, the Republican presidential candidate changed her statement.

Nikki Haley, the Republican nominee for president, has drawn criticism for omitting to address slavery when questioned about the reasons for the US Civil War, which saw a group of southern states that supported slavery seek to break away from the US.

Haley was questioned by a patron at a campaign event on Wednesday night on the reasons behind the Civil War. Her remark was criticized by Democrats and political opponents; she has now changed it.

The participant said, “It’s astounding to me that you answer that question in the year 2023 without mentioning the word’slavery,'” on Wednesday following Haley’s response that concentrated on “how government was going to run.”

Since then, the former governor of South Carolina has elaborated on her remarks.

In an attempt to address the omission, Haley stated on Thursday, “Of course, the Civil War was about slavery.”

Haley’s opponents ridiculed her statement, and US President Joe Biden shared a video of it on social media with the remark, “It was about slavery.”

David Polyansky, an advisor to fellow GOP presidential contender Ron DeSantis, stated, “If Nikki Haley can’t answer this basic political 101 question and then it takes her over 12 hrs to sloppily attempt to clean it up, she just isn’t ready for the bright lights of the nomination process.”

Although historians generally agree that slavery was the fundamental cause of the US Civil War, which raged from 1861 to 1865, US conservatives, particularly in the southern states, continue to support arguments to the contrary.

In recent years, such divides have become more apparent. Symbols of the Confederacy, whose major goals were the upholding of slavery and white supremacy, have come under fire as discussions over the country’s racist history continue.

These symbols include the Confederate flag, which Haley was previously attacked for characterizing as a symbol of “heritage,” and monuments honoring Confederate leaders, many of which were built during times of anti-Black violence long after the Civil War ended.

She did, however, sign a law in 2015 that removed the Confederate battle flag from the state capitol’s location after Dylann Roof, a white supremacist, shot and killed nine Black churchgoers.

Roof has shared pictures of himself touring Confederate historical places and brandishing the Confederate flag. While some said that Haley’s racist remarks were a true reaffirmation of the Confederacy’s beliefs, others felt he had “hijacked” the flag.

Source:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/28/us-presidential-hopeful-haley-fails-to-say-slavery-caused-civil-war

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