The former South Carolina governor instead said it was a dispute over how ‘government was going to run.’

The former South Carolina governor instead said it was a dispute over how ‘government was going to run.’

Nikki Haley declined to say that slavery was a cause of the Civil War on Wednesday evening, placing the blame, instead, on the role of government.

The former UN Ambassador and South Carolina governor, who has seen her star rise in the first-in-the-nation primary state, was appearing at a town hall event in Berlin, New Hampshire, when a voter asked her to identify the cause of the war.

“I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run,” she responded. “The freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do. What do you think the cause of the Civil War was or argument?”

The questioner, who could not be easily heard off camera, was apparently unpersuaded by Haley’s response. When she asked him what he believed the cause of the war was, he replied that he wasn’t running for president.

  • d00phy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    39·
    11 months ago

    I mean, it was about what people could and couldn’t do… Like buying, selling, & OWNING PEOPLE.

  • DominusOfMegadeus@sh.itjust.works
    271·
    11 months ago

    ”Government doesn’t need 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.”

    Except if you’re trans. Or any variety of LGBTQ. Or black. Or from another country (the shithole ones anyway), or if you’re a woman of child bearing years, or if you’re not Christian. In those fringe cases, the government needs to know things about your body, and they ABSOLUTELY can should and must tell you what to do. Unless you’re a capitalist with loads of money. Then I’m sure we can work something out.

    • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
      23·
      11 months ago

      Nah, she’s a nutjob. Nobody is suddenly going to vote for her because she has one normal take, but her (southern) constituency will absolutely take offense if she says anything beyond “states rights” or some such bullshit.

      • drmeanfeel@lemmy.world
        11·
        11 months ago

        Probably lost a few by not saying “I’m not familiar with the Civil War, perhaps you’re referring to the War of Northern Aggression?”

    • d00phy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      11 months ago

      She’s been positioning herself as a more sane version of Trump. She says slavery caused the war, and she has to change up her whole strategy because she would have lost any Trumpers considering her.

  • Altofaltception@lemmy.world
    111·
    11 months ago

    When she asked him what he believed the cause of the war was, he replied that he wasn’t running for president.

    Sounds like a man afraid of being lynched

  • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
    37·
    11 months ago

    Didn’t Lincoln and the other guys have slaves themselves? I thought the slavery abolition was just a reason to get the black people fighting on their side and even then it took quite a while for everyone to stop slavery

    Edit wrong

    • neptune@dmv.socialEnglish
      4·
      11 months ago

      This is a sophomoric interpretation.

      Yes, lots of northerners were NOT abolitionist, but that doesn’t mean the Southern fear of a loss of slavery didn’t drive secession.

    • AnneBonny@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      3·
      11 months ago

      Didn’t Lincoln and the other guys have slaves themselves?

      No.

      I thought the slavery abolition was just a reason to get the black people fighting on their side

      That is a half-truth at best. The Emancipation Proclamation didn’t free any slaves outside the confederacy.

    • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
      1·
      11 months ago

      The South seceded based on slavery.

      https://www.bing.com/search?q=Ordinance of Secession wikipedia&form=WIKIRE

      It doesn’t matter what Lincoln believed or planned to do; the south thought that they had to get out of they’d be forced to give up their slaves.

      Think of it this way. A cop walks into a bar to use the bathroom. A crook sees the cop, thinks that the cop is coming for her, and shoots the cop. The crook can’t say that the cop forced her to shoot. The South chose to leave because of slavery.