Nikki Haley: The Civil War Was Fought Over “What People Couldn’t Do”

“Nikki Haley: “I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run. The freedoms and what people couldn’t do.””

– Nikki Haley, Republican Candidate for President

The Civil War was about slavery and its perpetuation.

The Southern States sought to continue the enslavement of individuals indefinitely.

From 1619 to 1865, the enslaved endured widespread murder, rape, torture, starvation, child separation, kidnapping, and deprivation at a national scale.

The ancestors of Black-Americans suffered unmitigated horror for 11-generations, something that is hard to appreciate, understand, or fathom.

The descendants of the enslaved did not gain the right to vote en masse until 1968.

Even though the franchise was guaranteed to Black males following the Civil War, in practice, it was very hard, if not impossible to practice this right, because of the racial terrorism and state laws that were prevalent at the time.

From 1882 to 1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the U.S., according to records maintained by NAACP.

“Lynchings were violent public acts that white people used to terrorize and control Black people in the 19th and 20th centuries, particularly in the South. Lynchings typically evoke images of Black men and women hanging from trees, but they involved other extreme brutality, such as torture, mutilation, decapitation, and desecration. Some victims were burned alive.“

The narrative of Black America is the story of America itself.

The indecent way Black-Americans continued to be treated shows we are far from the ideal of “liberty and justice for all”. As a society, we cannot go forward until this is recognized.

The prosperity of America today was gleaned from the stolen labor of enslaved Africans.

This truth is ignored, because to accept it, would mean some members of society would have to contend with their ancestors’ complicity in mass atrocities.

For some this is a pain too much to endure, so they would rather ignore it, minimize it, or say it didn’t happen.

So to Nikki Haley – The practice of holding individuals in bondage is antithetical to freedom; it is, by its very nature, slavery—the very opposite of liberty.

Haley has shown herself to be devoid of a moral compass or in possession of one perpetually stuck on what is demagogic and hateful.