Throwback Thursday: Nikki Haley Once Claimed Civil War Was About ‘Tradition’ Versus ‘Change,’ And the Confederate Flag Wasn’t Racist

Nikki Haley has come under fire over her comments about the Civil War, and the scrutiny has prompted renewed intrigue for her past stances regarding the war and the Confederate Flag.

The uproar began when a town hall questioner in New Hampshire asked her what she thought caused the Civil war — and she chalked it up to disputes about freedom and the role of the government. The questioner promptly called her out for declining to mention slavery in connection with the Civil War’s origins.

Haley has devoted her Thursday to damage control, taking multiple opportunities to clean up her comments — acknowledging slavery’s relevance to the war, and claiming the Civil War question came from a Democratic “plant” who wanted to make her slip. As it turns out, Haley has faced Civil War history questions throughout her political career, and this isn’t the first time she made the widely panned comment she did on Wednesday night.

When Haley was running for governor of South Carolina back in 2010, she sat down with the Palmetto Patriots — a Confederate heritage activist group. When asked why the Civil War was fought, Haley glossed over slavery in order to describe it as a battle between those fighting for “tradition” and those fighting for “change.”

I think that as we look in government, as we watch government, you have different sides. And I think that you see passions on different sides. And I don’t think anyone does anything out of hate. I think what they do is they do things out of tradition and their beliefs and what they believe is right.

I think you had one side of Civil War that was fighting for tradition, and I think you had another side of the Civil War that was fighting for change. You know, at the end of the day, what I think we need to remember is that, you know, everyone is supposed to have their rights, everyone’s supposed to be free. Everyone’s supposed to have the same freedoms as anyone else. So, you know, I think it was tradition versus change is the way I see it.

As the Associated Press pointed out, “South Carolina’s Ordinance of Secession — the 1860 proclamation by the state government outlining its reasons for seceding from the Union — mentions slavery in its opening sentence and points to the ‘increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery’ as a reason for the state removing itself from the Union.”

At another point in the conversation, Haley pushed back on those who see the Confederate Flag as a racist image, and wasn’t going to try having it taken down from government buildings.

It’s not something I see as a priority right now. I think right now we need to be focusing on jobs and our economy and our education.

You know, for those groups that come in and say they have issues with the Confederate flag, I will work to talk to them about it. I will work and talk to them about the heritage and how this is not something that is racist. This is something that is a tradition that people feel proud of, and let them know that we want their business in the state, and that the flag where it is was a compromise of all people that everybody should accept it by South Carolina.

The Confederate Flag was removed from South Carolina’s State House after the Charleston church shooting five years later, and Haley often talks on the campaign trail about how she led her state through the aftermath of the massacre carried out by a White supremacist.

Watch above.