Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley is facing backlash after she was asked on Wednesday what caused the Civil War and failed to include slavery in her answer, instead saying the conflict was about state's rights. On Thursday, she attempted to walk back the comments, saying that slavery was an "unquestioned" aspect of the Civil War. Her words come just weeks before the first presidential primary. Christina Ruffini reports from Washington, D.C.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley is facing backlash after she was asked on Wednesday what caused the Civil War and failed to include slavery in her answer, instead saying the conflict was about state’s rights. On Thursday, she attempted to walk back the comments, saying that slavery was an “unquestioned” aspect of the Civil War. Her words come just weeks before the first presidential primary. Christina Ruffini reports from Washington, D.C.

  •  Ranvier   ( @Ranvier@sopuli.xyz ) 
    22•6 months ago

    I know most people on here know this, but always bears repeating since this “states’ rights” nonsense always gets repeated so much to this day. Straight from South Carolina’s letter of secession:

    But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding states to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the general government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them.

    The confederates were anti states’ rights if anything, they were trying to use the federal government to enforce their slave laws in the northern states. If you’re going to take a “states’ rights” is the reason for the war approach, it was the northern states fighting for their right to disregard the slave holding laws of the south and of the federal government if anything. I guess you could maybe go super abstract and say they seceded to assert a right to secede or something, which seems awfully circular to me. But for anyone in doubt, the primary sources are all out there and easily accessible. Feel free to read for yourself and see slavery front and center in every letter of secession as the reason for secession.