Nikki Haley Passes the History Test

Last week in New Hampshire, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley got ambushed with a question on, of all things, the Civil War. Here we go again.

When asked what caused the Civil War, Haley explained:

I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run, the freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do…. It always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are. And we — I will always stand by the fact that I think government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people.

Her questioner took the opportunity to express his “astonish[ment]” that “in the year 2023 … [Haley] answered that question without mentioning the word ‘slavery.’” 

Liberals pounced on her refusal to simply say that “slavery was the cause.” Joe Biden, who practically has his own room in the Foot-in-Mouth Museum, and who once bragged to an Alabama audience that his part of Delaware was for the South during the Civil War, was exultant at the prospect of not one but two race scandals in a single week — the other being Claudine Gay’s resignation from Harvard. With the help of a handler, the former Confederate-turned-Race-Baiter-in-Chief was able to pull up X and post, “It was about slavery,” before falling back asleep. (READ MORE: The Fake Martyrdom of Claudine Gay)

In the days since Haley’s so-called gaffe, the former governor has attempted to revise her comments, resulting in the inevitable charge of backpedaling. Her revision:

Of course, the Civil War was about slavery. We know that. That’s unquestioned, always the case. We know the Civil War was about slavery. But it was also more than that. It was about the freedoms of every individual. It was about the role of government. For 80 years, America had the decision and the moral question of whether slavery was a good thing. And whether government economically, culturally, any other reasons, had a role to play in that. By the grace of God, we did the right thing and slavery is no more.

But Bidenworld is not satisfied. Leftist outfits like the New York Times and the Washington Post, the very embodiments of White Privilege and Supremacy, have kept the Haley story on the front page. Two days ago, the ill-named Joy Reid replayed the original clip of Haley’s howler before her panel of “expert guests,” adding, “Keep in mind, as she’s speaking, she was the governor of South Caro-li-na!” Indeed she was. Ms. Haley is from South Carolina, as am I. Just as Miss Reid is from New York City, where I used to live, a place so positively awash in racial strife and general dysfunction that it makes my home state seem like Nirvana. 

Naturally, the historians on The View held a screaming match on the matter, with the charmless Sunny Hostin leading the charge, saying:

This is not the first time that [Haley] has been a hypocrite. She said, “I, as the South Carolina governor, took down the Confederate flag.” Nikki Haley, you took down that flag because you were forced to. Because I was there covering that shooting in South Carolina when all those people were murdered by Dylann Roof…. So you can kiss my grits when you try to say some nonsense about you don’t—You should have said slavery. Everybody knows slavery. She didn’t say it intentionally because 85 percent of Republicans are White.

Honestly, you would think the women of The View have never misspoken, gotten any facts wrong, or denied the Holocaust.

Anyhow, this is all just election-year politics. Those on the left depend on racial controversy to get their voters out. It worked for them in 2020, and they’re really going to have to depend on it in 2024, as they’re set to renominate a man whose numbers are tanking, who has wrecked the country, who is possibly a foreign asset, and whose amnesiac aura and verbal train wrecks make Nikki Haley seem like Clarence Darrow. They have reason to worry.

But why do Republican candidates always get asked the really hard test questions, about geopolitics, foreign policy, and other specialized topics while Democrats, supposedly the Smart People, get asked about ice cream and vacation plans?

Nikki Haley was asked a test question about American history that most people today cannot answer with any reasonable degree of effectiveness, much less dispassion. Politicians are no exception. They know about as much history as the women on The View, which is to say none, or next to none. Such word salads are what happen when a country forgets its history and even stops teaching it in schools. And we know what George Santayana said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” That’s where we’re headed if something doesn’t change. Civil War II? One hopes not.

There’s also the matter that while Haley’s response might seem artless given the extreme sensitivity and political correctness now about regarding anything race related, thanks mainly to a Marxist media, she may not have been incorrect to omit slavery as an official cause of the War between the States. It turns out that some very august historical voices agree with her view. Consider this little gem:

The sooner the national authority can be restored the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

That’s from a letter to one Horace Greeley, dated Aug. 22, 1862, penned as the Civil War raged by none other than President Abraham Lincoln. It creates enough doubt about Lincoln’s intentions regarding the role of slavery in the war to give Haley and her much-lampooned comment the benefit of it. That’s not revisionist history. It’s just — as liberals have often said here lately regarding the 14th Amendment’s being used to target Trump — “a plain reading” of things.

For now, Nikki Haley passes the history test while the fifth-rate Joe Biden and the left media fail it. Ms. Haley now moves, if not to the front of the class, at least into second place. 

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