Letters to the Editor: Nikki Haley’s Civil War answer was no ‘gaffe.’ She meant what she said

To the editor: While I can appreciate columnist Jonah Goldberg’s perspective of Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s answer to the question regarding the cause of the Civil War, I have to disagree with his premise that this was a gaffe, or a misstep.

As a former resident of South Carolina during Haley’s tenure as governor, I can assure Goldberg that this is simply who Haley is. Her answer completely embodies what she and the majority of South Carolinians believe: that slavery was not a major cause of the Civil War.

Having gone to high school at the beginning of Haley’s tenure as governor, I can shed some light on what is actually taught to students in South Carolina about the Civil War.

We were taught that the Civil War was sparked by a debate on states’ rights. We were taught that the Confederacy never signed a treaty to end the Civil War, and as horrifying as this sounds, we were instilled by those teaching us with the sense that the South can rise again.

To claim that this is a “gaffe” by Haley is preposterous. What she said is probably the most honest answer we could have expected from her.

AJ Shahin, Bakersfield

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To the editor: Goldberg misses the elephant in the room when discussing Haley’s so-called gaffe.

The Republican Party is on a mission to rewrite the history of our original sin, slavery, and its brutal legacy that is still experienced by African Americans. Furthermore, the party does not have the courage to rein its most rabid members.

We saw the Confederate flag inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. This flag has the same meaning for Black Americans as the Nazi flag has for Jews, and I do not recall a single Republican leader denouncing the desecration of our temple of democracy with the presence of this flag.

If you are a Republican, it takes courage to say that the current plight of African Americans is a direct result of slavery and the discrimination that followed it. The party of Abraham Lincoln is now the party of Jefferson Davis.

Rene Childress, View Park-Windsor Hills