Nikki Haley walks back Civil War comments after backlash

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,

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.

MxM111, (edited )
MxM111 avatar

How by seceding they were hoping to enforce the slave rights into northern states? This makes not sense to me.

EDIT: Did some digging. The only enforcing of slaves rights on northern states they were looking to do is the Fugitive Slave Laws. The rest was to preserve slavery in their own states and allow slavery in newly formed states - that's want they wanted to do by seceding. In a sense it WAS about their right to have slavery.

chaogomu,

Another fun fact, the south fired the first shots, and they had fully planned on conquering the Northern States to fold them into the new Confederacy, with slavery forced by the Confederate constitution.

The First battles didn't quite go as well as they'd hoped, and then the Union army started swelling, which then made the Southern Leaders start pretending that they just wanted their own little slice of slave owning heaven. They even had plans to tie the value of their currency to slavery.

Ranvier, (edited )

They were trying to enforce slave owner “property” rights prior to seceding, through passing federal laws like the fugitive slave act, that northern states were doing their best to avoid cooperating with. In their letters of secession, they complained that according to the constitution and federal laws, the northern states should have been forced into recognizing slave owner “property” rights. They go on to state that the northern states not complying with federal laws has nullified the constitution, so they’re effectively their own country now, deal with it. To paraphrase.

The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. 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.

A geographical has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of the President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery

Things like tariffs or taxes that some people bring up aren’t even really mentioned in the letter. And it’s quite long, so they had plenty of space. Goes on and on for a while about why they should be able to secede, and then just dives into not only their “property” rights to hold slaves and that they should be able to enforce slave laws in Northern states too.

“property” always in quotes in my comments here, because of course in these letters they are always abhorently referring to people as property.

Here they go on and on again about their grievances with each northern state, and how they believe this releases them from the union:

The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

Notice the grievances are all about former slaves not being extradited back to southern states of course, or about other states not recognizing people as property. But to answer your question, I’m not saying South Carolina thought leaving the union would improve its control over Northern states, that wouldn’t make a ton of sense, but that is what they were trying to do prior to leaving though. Maybe they thought they’d be able to have stricter flow of people or better bargaining position with northern states as an independent country. I’m pointing all this out because they didn’t leave because of some sort of idealogical stance about “state’s rights” as some people say. It was all about slavery. And they had no problem pushing to trample states’ rights when it came to slave laws, including in their own constitution they eventually wrote for the confederacy.

MxM111,
MxM111 avatar

Yes, there is certainly a hypocrisy in them advocating for “property” rights and at the same time advocating for confederation (rather than federation) and freedom of states. But Fugitive State Laws was not the primary reason of civil war nor was the primary reason for secession, as you noticed yourself. So, maybe initially they were for enforcing the federal laws. And after failure they become pro-separation and state rights. But characterizing that they were against state rates is just wrong and misleading.

Ranvier, (edited )

Saying the civil war was about some principle of state’s rights is precisely what’s misleading and wrong.

The southern states who later seceded were the ones pushing the fugitive slave act, trying to impose their will on the northern states, a direct contradiction to the idea of “states’ rights.” And as you can see if you read the letters to secession yourself, they directly cite their inability to enforce slavery laws in northern states as the reason why they should be able to leave the union. No consistent high minded principle about state autonomy. All about maintaining slavery, however possible. And the threat of an anti slavery president was the last straw for them. Later when they wrote their own constitution, there was nothing about states’ rights to decide on slavery laws, the new confederacy deemed every state must allow slavery and wrote it into their constitution. Again, not “states rights.”

MxM111,
MxM111 avatar

Yes, about state right to preserve slavery. They would not go to war just to impose slavery in northern states, it was never their goal. They wanted their “property” to be returned. They only insisted on that, but even that was not the reason for war. I agree that saying simply that they were for state rights it is also misleading, but less so than stating that they were against state rights.

TheChurn,

Slave states attempted to force Free states, through the fugitive slave act, to send back escaped slaves. When the Free states exercised some "states rights" to refuse to comply, the Slave states rebelled.

This whole "Lost Cause" mythology of valiant Southerners fighting a desparate war against an oppressive government in defence of state autonomy is post-war propaganda. The truth is an oligarch class of slaveholders threw a fit when their ability to own, abuse, and rape their fellow humans - while profiting from their agony - was threatened.

Madison420,

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.

Ranvier,

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.”

Madison420,

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.

GreyEyedGhost,

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.

Madison420,

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.

Omega_Haxors,

States’ rights to what-!? [bwah wawa wawa, wawa wawa]

Numerol,

Btw,Nikki Haley is such a pornstar name.

Pratai,

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.

SlowLoudEasy,

“It was about states rights to own and enslave human beings”

themeatbridge,

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.

SlowLoudEasy,

Fuck yes this. Thank you for writing that out so well.

shiveyarbles,

She really comes off as a corporate puppet. Moreso than the usual Republicans.

newtraditionalists,

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.

stolid_agnostic,

Yep. This is all a PR machine like what W had.

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