WASHINGTON —
U.S. presidential candidate Nikki Haley faced a firestorm of criticism Thursday after failing to mention slavery as a cause of the American Civil War when asked what led to the conflict at a campaign event.
Less than three weeks before voting begins in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, it was the first major stumble for a candidate whose campaign has seen her propelled from an unlikely outsider to front-runner Donald Trump’s biggest threat.
The former U.N. ambassador told a town hall crowd Wednesday in Berlin, New Hampshire, that the cause of the bloody 1861-65 war was "basically how the government was going to run" and "freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do."
She added that "it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are."
Apparently caught off guard, she turned the question back at the questioner, who responded that he was not the one running for president and that it was "astonishing" that slavery had not come up in her answer.
Scholars agree that slavery was the main driver of the Civil War, and Haley’s obfuscation prompted swift rebuttals.
"It was about slavery," President Joe Biden said, responding on social media to video footage of the town hall.
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