Nikki Haley Dodges Slavery As The Cause Of The Civil War
INSIDE: Lauren Boebert ... Jack Smith ... Tom Smothers
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
We’re Still Doing This In 2023?
Nikki Haley – a former governor of South Carolina, the first state to secede in 1860, who removed the Confederate flag from the state Capitol – couldn’t bring herself to mention slavery when asked at a campaign event about the cause of the Civil War.
The remarks Wednesday evening while campaigning in New Hampshire, which did not secede from the union, were a tacit acknowledgment that the party of Lincoln has settled comfortably into its status as a revanchist minority-white rump Trumpist party.
When the audience member asked the question, Haley raised her eyebrows, spun around and retreated upstage before turning back around and facing the audience with a smile: “Well don’t come with an easy question. 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. What do you think the cause of the Civil War was?”
After a bit of back and forth, Haley engaged in some additional nonsensical meandering that was non-responsive to the question.
When the questioner expressed surprise that she had not mentioned slavery, Haley asked: “What do you want me to say about slavery?”
“No, you’ve answered my question, thank you,” the questioner responded.
After the 2015 massacre of nine black churchgoers at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, in whose harbor the first shots of the Civil War were fired, then- Gov. Haley responded to growing public pressure by reversing course and signing a bill to remove the Confederate flag from the state Capitol in Columbia, bringing an end to a long-running controversy over the placement of the flag.
Amusing … Or No?
News accounts of Nikki Haley’s remarks awkwardly shoehorned in the basic fact-check that, yes, the Civil War was fought over slavery:
Politico: “While there were a number of contributions to the outbreak of the Civil War, the conflict, which was the deadliest in U.S. history, was fought predominantly over the South’s desire to see the preservation of slavery.”
WaPo: “Haley’s answer did not include any mention of slavery, which scholars agree was the main driver of the conflict.”
ABC News: “While several political and economic factors ultimately contributed to the start of the American Civil War, slavery was at the center of the nation’s tension.”
The NYT provided admirable context for the remarks in its writeup, but perhaps inadvertently telegraphed how bedeviled by racism we remain, calling the question “simple yet loaded.”
Almost 160 years after the end of the Civil War, asking a presidential candidate to affirm its root cause remains a “loaded” question.
Biden Gets The Last Word
Lauren Boebert Flees Her Own District
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), facing long odds of reelection in her home district, announced Wednesday evening via Facebook video that she will instead run for the open seat being vacated by Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO).
Colorado GOP Brings Trump DQ Case To SCOTUS
The Colorado Republican Party was first out of the gate in bringing the Trump Disqualification Clause case to the Supreme Court. Trump, too, is expected to ask the Supreme Court soon to consider taking the case and overruling the Colorado Supreme Court decision declaring him ineligible for the presidency.
An important early indicator will be how the Supreme Court frames the issues if it accepts the case. Here’s how the Colorado GOP wants the court to frame it:
Whether the President falls within the list of officials subject to the disqualification provision of Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment?
Whether Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment is self-executing to the extent of allowing states to remove candidates from the ballot in the absence of any Congressional action authorizing such process?
Whether the denial to a political party of its ability to choose the candidate of its choice in a presidential primary and general election violates that party’s First Amendment Right of Association?
Jack Smith Is Probs Overdoing It Here
Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations and prosecutions of Donald Trump have been mostly sober and stunt-free, except for this one little game he’s playing in the Jan. 6 case in DC: continuing to file motions and act as if the case is still active even though it’s been stayed while Trump appeals his outlandish claims of presidential immunity. It does sound a discordant note even if the the signal he’s trying to send about being ready for a March trial and the importance of keeping the case on track is itself legit.
Joyce Vance unpacks the latest motion from Smith.
Working The Refs Ahead Of The 2024 Election
TPM’s Kate Riga on Republicans’ current two-pronged attack on the Voting Rights Act.
House Ethics Committee Opens New Probe
Not many details available but the House Ethics Committee has opened a probe into whether Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL) has violated campaign finance laws.
Important Case
In what may end up being a landmark case on artificial intelligence and copyright laws, the New York Times has sued Microsoft and OpenAI in federal court in Manhattan claiming they are unlawfully using NYT stories to train chatbots.
Herb Kohl, 1935-2023
The former Democratic senator from Wisconsin who founded the eponymous department store chain and was the majority owner of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks, has died at age 88.
RIP Tom Smothers
Tom, of Smothers Brothers fame, has died at age 86:
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Nikki Haley continues to embarrass herself in trying to preserve the media-bestowed - *cough-cough* - "momentum" by pandering to tRumpy-minded voters whilst courting the "responsible" GOP right-wing. A transparent phony running for a distant second-place finish amongst a field of rank losers...feh!
For those unclear on the cause of the Civil War, here is Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States of American, telling you in his speech of March 21, 1861, what the "cornerstone" of the new nation is (that's why it's called The Cornerstone Speech):
“The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."
“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.”
And if that is insufficient an education, consider the fact that EVERY SINGLE ONE of the eleven Declarations of Secession names the threat of the federal government to the maintenance of chattel slavery in that state as the Number One Reason for secession.
Even someone stupid enough to pass the IQ test low enough to qualify for membership in today's "Republican Party" should be able to understand these words. Stephens is even a fellow South Carolinian, so if Haley had been there, she'd have been able to understand his mushmouthed bullshit without need of a translator.