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.
My favorite part of this whole thing was when she acted like this was a hard “gotcha” question.
It’s an easy question if you’re not a cryptofascist; she just didn’t want to take a public stand that would piss off the white supremacist faction that makes up the GOP base.
Its a perfect question for exposing the game that cryptofascists like to play.
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.
I always use Mississippi’s:
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.
Oh, and boy does it go on from there.
Agreed, I don’t see how anyone honest could read any of the letters of secession and not instantly see how slavery is the primary reason. South Carolina’s letter (first state to leave) is a nice easy counter argument to the states’ rights crowd, since it goes on and on for pages explicitly denying the northern states rights and whining that the north should be forced to enforce slavery laws there by the federal government, and how dare the northern states disobey federal laws enforcing slave owner’s “rights.” And the eventual confederate constitution would explicitly ban any state from outlawing slavery. Doesn’t sound very “states’ rights” to me:
No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.
The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.
They see it as the primary reason they just veil it with pleasantries because it’s hard to deal with the fact that their forefathers were unequivocally racists, traitors and general bigots.
Agreed, I don’t see how anyone honest could read any of the letters of secession and not instantly see how slavery is the primary reason.
This is Republicans were talking about. Honesty is a disqualifying characteristic for the party.
I mean no, they’re not wrong it is about states rights in relation to owning people, it can be both and also a interstate b trade dispute which is why they wanted the federal government to step in.
Essentially “we’re losing in trade to x because slaves are running to x so they can be free” and then they asked the federal government to step in and say slaves that escaped to the States should still be seen as property and not granted freedom. The federal government took no stance and are largely at fault by inactivity.
Yes they did fight for the right for slavery to stay legal in their states, but they were totally against state’s rights when it came to other aspects of slavery. The fugitive slave law and other acts by the federal government attempted to impose slavery rights in northern states. It’s not that the southern states had some high minded principle of the autonomy of states or something. Only when it would result in something they wanted, like slavery. Otherwise they were happy to discard “states’ rights.”
Well no again, they saw it as a states rights thing on their end and an encroachment on those rights by neighboring free states. Sure, the feds did indeed make trivial attempts to squash the issue but tried to take a idiotic middle ground of appeasement when it should have been a military march into the slave holding states and an occupation thereof.
It’s a trade dispute, the trade is just morally wrong.
Your statement makes no sense. Think of the classical personal rights metaphor, “Your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose.” In more abstract terms, your rights should be uninpinged until such point that they impinge on my rights, premised by the agreement that our rights are equal otherwise.
Now let’s look at state’s rights. If state’s are required to allow slavery, that is giving more rights to the states that have slavery than it is to the states that don’t. If slavery are required to not allow slavery, that is giving more rights to the states that don’t have slavery. The stance that best reflects state’s rights as being equal unless they impinge on the other states is to allow those who want slavery to have it and to allow those states that don’t want slavery to abolish it. From a practical standpoint, that also means that bringing your slaves to a state that abolishes slavery frees them, otherwise the laws from your state have greater authority than the laws of the state you are actually operating in, which doesn’t meet the basis of equal unless they impinge. That also means if your slaves escape to a free state, it is your responsibility and not the free state’s to stop them from entering that state, and certainly returning them isn’t an obligation since that would violate their law that no person can be enslaved.
As has been pointed out previously, this was the state of things until a federal law was enacted to reduce the rights of the states who opposed slavery, which wasn’t enforced adequately (in the opinion of the slave-holding states).
So, if you want to use the fig leaf of the Civil War being about state’s rights, then the only way that makes sense is if the seceeding states wanted states to have fewer rights, not more. Of course, there is also the option of denying reality and saying whatever makes you feel best, facts and logic be damned.
I never said racism makes sense nor racists for that matter. What they believe and what is logical to believe clearly don’t match up so why are you trying to make the illogical logical.
“It was about states rights to own and enslave human beings”
It wasn’t even that. The states that seceeded were not fighting for states’ rights, they were fighting against them.
The Fugitive Slaves Act was federal law. The Wisconsin Supreme Court had found that the law was unconstitutional and rejected the requirement to return slaves. Vermont passed the Freedom Act which freed any escaped slaves who reached the state. Kansas had voted to adopt a constitution that prohibited slavery, although it wasn’t admitted as a state until after the Senators from the South resigned.
In their articles of secession, South Carolina specifically cited the federal government’s lack of effort in upholding federal laws, along with Lincoln’s pledge not to force slavery onto new territories added to the Union, as the primary reasons for attempting to leave.
Lincoln was not threatening to abolish slavery, and did not do so until 2 years into the war.
Bigots like to reimagine the Civil War as the scrappy farm-country folks fighting against northern aggression for the right of self-determination, when in fact the opposite was true. It was slave-owning fat cats and oligarchs who wanted to force their will onto abolitionists by way of bigger government and federal legislative overreach.
It was 100 years later when “state’s rights” because a conservative rallying cry, when Southern states were being forced to desegregate during the Civil Rights era.
Don’t let those fuckers continue to rewrite history, casting their forebears as the victims.
Fuck yes this. Thank you for writing that out so well.
How is it so hard to stick to the facts and truth in front of the conservative crowd? They all in their feeling about it when it’s basic history.
To them it’s woke history. A Republican from the north (eg. Chris Christie) might tell you it was the right answer, but if you’re from the South you can’t ever admit it.
She really comes off as a corporate puppet. Moreso than the usual Republicans.
Absolutely. It’s all so calculated, that there is suddenly a surge in popularity for a woman candidate. They can espouse all of their typical anti-social policies all while hiding behind claims of modernity. The murdochs are savvy, even if she ends up the vp on trump’s ticket, she is something they can always point to as a reason that republicans aren’t archaic monsters. And their voters will believe it and use it as their own shield.
Yep. This is all a PR machine like what W had.
States’ rights to what-!? [bwah wawa wawa, wawa wawa]
Btw,Nikki Haley is such a pornstar name.
Her first name is actually Nimarata.
Soooo… She has an even more zero chance of winning now? Seriously. Did anyone even remotely think she had a chance? Nothing she says will damage her chances to win if she has no chance to win.
