Nikki Haley's Civil War Gaffe: Why It Still Matters Today

The GOP presidential hopeful stuck her foot in her mouth on the causes of the Civil War. And she revealed an ignorance about root causes that are still driving our national debate today.

Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, and U.N. ambassador, now running in the Republican presidential primary, recently put her foot in her mouth. When asked a question about the cause of the Civil War, she neglected to mention slavery as a reason. A day later, she attempted to do damage control and came up with an answer that can only described as a word salad.

Amazingly, in all of these long-winded attempts to explain the root causes of the Civil War, she never actually got to at least one of the real problems. Slavery was, of course, one of those causes. The overlooked part is that tariffs—taxes on foreign imports—were the other. Moreover, the twin issues of slavery and tariffs were inextricably linked—for reasons that still reverberate through our national debate today.

Free Trade and Slavery: The Confederate Recipe

The North and South had very different economic structures. The North was built on manufacturing power—a big reason they ultimately prevailed in the war. That power was built on high tariffs, which allowed them to control the domestic American market. The South, by contrast, relied on exporting cotton. They needed low tariffs abroad to compete in overseas markets. That meant they couldn’t afford the U.S. government imposing high tariffs, which would invite retaliation in foreign capitals.

As a region built on slave labor, the South had every incentive to move towards a tariff-free world. A business that uses slaves to produce its products has a built-in advantage in the competition for price point. When Great Britain abolished slavery throughout its colonies in 1834, the South had a further advantage. They could produce cotton dirt-cheap and sell it around the world—if only the North wouldn’t insist on high tariffs that interrupted the flow of trade.

The debates over tariff law were some of the most heated in the antebellum era (the period between the founding of the nation and the Civil War). The fact that one of the laws passed has its place in history as “The Tariff of Abominations” of 1828 tells us how passionate people felt. South Carolina, led by Vice-President John Calhoun, began exploring ways to “nullify” the law within their own state. President Andrew Jackson was on the opposite side.

It led to a memorable confrontation in 1830. At a dinner, Jackson raised his glass and said “Our Union. It must be preserved.” It was obvious he was directing his message to Calhoun. The Vice-President raised his glass and responded “The Union, next to our liberty most dear.” The battle lines were being drawn.

Two years later, in 1832, South Carolina’s state legislature passed an Ordinance of Nullification. Jackson responded that states had no right to take such action and vowed to collect tariffs at South Carolina ports by federal force if necessary. South Carolina threatened secession. Senator Henry Clay stepped in and brokered a compromise that would gradually lower tariffs. The crisis was averted for the moment. But it would, of course, continue to simmer.

The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 was the boiling over point. It’s worth noting that Lincoln was actually a pragmatist on the subject of slavery. To put it in a modern context, Lincoln’s coalition on slavery might be considered similar to Donald Trump’s coalition on abortion. You have those of us who are the abolitionists, combined with a broad swath of people who might not be completely with us, but do have a general sense of something being really off-kilter. Lincoln’s pragmatic view of slavery led him to adopt a position of saying he would leave it alone where it existed, but that new states admitted to the Union would be built on freedom.

Where Lincoln was much harder core was his position on trade. He was an avowed high-tariff man. He believed tariffs were necessary to facilitate the growth of manufacturing and the railroads, and that this growth was vital to prosperity that could reach into the working classes.

The connection between slavery and tariffs had built an entire economic structure in the South. Lincoln’s presidency was now an existential threat to that structure on both fronts. The structure’s beneficiaries would fight a war to protect it.

Why This Fight Still Matters

I believe getting a correct understanding of the full causes of the Civil War is more than just an academic history lesson. It’s a debate that is getting played out again today. Let’s consider the following:

*We have the rise of China, an economy built on slave labor, with more than a few influential people in the United States invested in Chinese success.

*We have the rise of multi-national corporations that want the freedom to set up shop anywhere in the world that has the cheapest labor costs, and then sell back into the United States.

*These forces have mostly had their way in the post-World War II era. The result has been fortunes made for the financial and legal sectors invested—the modern-day owners of the cotton fields. But at the expense of manufacturing jobs for people further down the economic ladder. There is an explosion of economic disparity and rising social tensions as a result.

*The issue of trade is one of the core issues (along with stopping foreign wars) that distinguish Donald Trump from most everyone else on the national political stage. This tweet remains one of my favorites:

*Trump, like Andrew Jackson, had a vice-president with whom he was completely at odds with. Mike Pence was always a part of the corporate free-trade wing of the GOP. Like Jackson and Calhoun, the tensions between Trump and Pence eventually boiled over. Unlike Calhoun, Pence isn’t honest enough to simply say that he has a real disagreement. He has to pretend his dispute with Trump is really about “democracy.” Whatever.

The issue of how to manage global trade is existential. It defines the very structure of economic life in a nation. In the postwar, free trade era, Republican candidates would offer voters tax cuts, while the Democrats offer them social programs. That debate was interesting enough and it has its importance. But it overshadowed what was really happening. That both sides were pushing a global free trade agenda that enriched their donor class, and left the rank-and-file in both parties viciously fighting over a handful of scraps that fell from the table.

That’s the dynamic that President Trump interrupted with his embrace of tariffs. It’s one reason—along with the profits made from foreign wars—that the political Establishment is so desperate to stop him. It’s a fight that we’ve seen before in American history. It’s a fight that leads to wars or serious civil unrest. There’s a lot of money at stake.

This would be the right answer for Nikki Haley to have given when asked about the cause of the Civil War. Based on the answer she did give, I now seriously doubt whether she’s smart enough to comprehend any of the above. Listening to her jumbled word salads reminds me of the fictional Kelly Kapoor, the ditzy woman in the iconic TV show, The Office.

But given that Haley is backed by the very forces that benefit from slave labor around the world, the truth would be an uncomfortable answer for her to give in any case.