Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley on Thursday sought to clarify her failure to mention slavery when prompted about the Civil War at a town hall in New Hampshire.
The remarks by Ms. Haley, who trails front-runner Donald Trump by double digits but has seen a rise in the polls in early primary states, came three weeks before New Hampshire primary voters head to the ballot box Jan. 23.
“Of course, the Civil War was about slavery. We know that. That’s the easy part of it,” she said on the radio program “The Pulse of NH.” “What I was saying was what does it mean to us today? What it means to us today is about freedom. That’s what that was all about. It was about individual freedom, it was about economic freedom, it was about individual rights. Our goal is to make sure we never go back to the stain of slavery.”
Ms. Haley, prompted Wednesday at a town hall by an audience member about the cause of the Civil War, offered a different explanation but that also centered on “freedoms.”
“Well, don’t come with an easy question or anything,” she responded. “I mean, 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.”
The former South Carolina governor then asked the attendee to answer his own question, to which the man responded that he was not the one seeking the White House.
“I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are. And I will always stand by the fact that I think government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people,” she said. “Government doesn’t need to tell you how to live 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.”
The questioner said it was “astonishing” Ms. Haley’s answer omitted slavery.
“What do you want me to say about slavery?” she responded before moving on to another question.
