Liberty Expose: Conservatives Answer To Nikki Haley's Blunder

NBC

As a presidential candidate, much of your time is spent in front of video cameras, where any mistake can become a headline. This was confirmed recently, as presidential candidate Nikki Haley received mainstream attention for her terrible answer to a simple question.

During a rally, Haley was asked a seemingly simple question: What was the cause of the civil war? Her response is frankly embarrassing. Her answer did not include the correct answer, which was slavery. Instead, she spouted a generic political answer about the importance of Americans living however they choose.

The purpose of Nikki Haley’s non-answer is because she was afraid to alienate two schools of thought that are the causes of the civil war: slavery or state rights.

The corrected answer that Nikki Haley failed to give is that the civil war included both and that these are not mutually exclusive. The words she should have said were, "The civil war was about state rights, and what was the biggest issue at the time? Slavery.”

Nikki Haley was fully aware of her mistake because she corrected herself on television days later, willing to say that the true course of the American civil war was in fact slavery.

This presents an opportunity to discuss the true cause of the American Civil War with those who are confused by what has been understood for a hundred years. There are several pieces of background information present before the start of the civil war, including the economy and the federal government's policy to fight against slavery.

Economy

In terms of economic power, the North was far superior to the South. The North can be thought of as entering the industrial age, while the South was still focused on agriculture. In terms of production, the north produced far more. At the start of the war, the Confederacy had only one-ninth the industrial capacity of the Union. The North also had twice as many railroads per square mile.

In terms of the war front, the north produced far more military arms. In 1860, the North manufactured 97 percent of the country's firearms, 96 percent of its railroad locomotives, 94 percent of its cloth, 93 percent of its pig iron, and over 90 percent of its boots and shoes.

This is important to recognize because access to slaves did not make the south more economically viable than the north.

Addressing Slavery

There is an argument to be made that states have the right to have authority over themselves. The argument is that southern states wanted to have the autonomy of self-government, as they were being pushed by the United States federal government to adopt laws that go against their culture or values. However, the laws that the South wanted to keep were their right to own slaves.

Slavery had been an issue that most people did not want to talk about or ignore; however, the federal government did, in actuality, take steps to end slavery through the police. The original outline of the Declaration of Independence provisions discussed the ugliness of slavery. Thomas Jefferson included a 168-word passage that condemned slavery and all of its horrors.

"violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or incurring miserable death in their transportation there."

In order to appeal to southern states and help unify the nation, Jefferson's anti-slavery passages were removed.

In the 1800s, Congress passed a law that made it illegal for any new slaves to be imported into the United States. The act did not take full effect until 1808. It also gave the government the authority to seize ships that were transporting slaves into the country. This would have ended slavery, as overtime no new slaves were able to enter the country, except that slaves were still getting smuggled into the country as late as 1860.

The issues of slavery were ensconced in the country so much so that disputes between pro- and anti-slavery states were resolved. Bleeding Kansas was a conflict in 1859, before the Civil War, that saw 55 Americans killed over the argument and issues of slavery.

There was also the Missouri Compromise, which was established in 1820 in an attempt to solve the problem of slavery through legislation. The resolution stated that any newly established lands west of the Mississippi as slaves and north were free. This was an attempt to limit the spread of slaves in the country.

While it seems more complicated, in actuality, the issue of slavery ran through a ton of issues that led to the division of the North and the South and the inevitable civil war. While economics did decide half the country, the south’s lag was based on the use of manpower, while the north entered the early stages of the Industrial Revolution. New laws and policies were being passed that could be considered infringing on their sovereignty; however, that issue is slavery, and Americans have a moral obligation to abolish it.

Conservative Solution

The American civil war does include problems of all sorts, but what was the most pressing issue at the time? It was slavery. The truth about ending slavery in America is favorable for conservatives.

This is not a controversial answer for conservatives. It is universally agreed that the primary factor in the civil war was slavery. However, Nikki Haley’s weak answer perpetuated the lie that conservatives are split on the cause of the American civil war or that we are rooted in racism.

This should never be a mistake that political figures should make. The idea of what started the civil war is not controversial; conservatives are not split on the fact that slavery was not the core issue. These comments by Nikki Haley allow mainstream news outlets to run hit pieces against themselves and conservatives.

Conservatives need to have confidence in themselves that they can speak the truth and not fear being alienated. Thankfully, this was a lesson Nikki Haley was able to understand, and conservation rallied and rightfully criticized her. The American Civil War included a lot of context, but first and foremost, it was about slavery. A lesson is that when the truth is on your side, you don't have to be afraid to say it.