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Re: Haley knew what she was talking about (Jan. 4)
To the editor:
It's disheartening that this letter to the editor is even necessary, but given recent defense of Nikki Haley's whitewashed response to the cause of the Civil War, it's important to note that there is no doubt that the cause of the Civil War was slavery. Don't take my word for it. Take the words of the state of Mississippi, the second state to secede from the United States in 1861. As "A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union" puts it, "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery--the greatest material interest of the world."
Or take the words of Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens in his 1861 Cornerstone Speech. Stephens criticizes Thomas Jefferson and "most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old (1787) constitution" for thinking that "the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically."
"Our new government," says Stephens of the Confederacy, "is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone 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."
It's sad that the Republican party, the party of Abraham Lincoln, the party that freed the enslaved, has a prominent candidate for president who apparently is so fearful of losing the support of the white supremacist part of the Republican base that she won't immediately say that the cause of the Civil War was slavery.
Brett Gaul
Marshall