By NANCY WEST, InDepthNH.org

GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley explained Thursday why she didn’t mention slavery at a town hall gathering Wednesday night in Berlin as the cause of the Civil War, saying the man who asked the question was a “plant” in the audience.

Gov. Chris Sununu, who has endorsed Haley, didn’t respond to questions from InDepthNH.org about her response to the question and the publicity it caused.

Haley who formerly served as South Carolina governor and UN ambassador, first responded to the publicity on Jack Heath’s radio show Good Morning NH Thursday and again later in the day at a campaign event in North Conway.

“Haley told The Pulse of NH this morning ‘of course slavery was a cause of the Civil War’ and claimed the voter question came from a Democratic plant who attended the event. She claimed the political operative was sent by President Biden’s camp,” according to Heath’s website.

Ray Buckley, chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, posted a photo on Twitter Thursday of the unidentified man who asked the Civil War question in Berlin next to a potted plant.

“Hey@NikkiHaley, left is a Democratic plant (it’s my grandma’s Xmas cactus in office) and right is not a Dem plant (it’s a random NH voter asking you a simple question). You shouldn’t be potus if you don’t know the difference or that Civil War was about slavery. #NHPolitics,” Buckley said on Twitter.

Berlin Mayor Paul Grenier said he had never seen the man in the photo in New Hampshire.

In a news release, Haley said: “I was asked, last night I was asked about the Civil War. And what I think of the Civil War, what was the cause of the Civil War. Of course the Civil War was about slavery. We know that. That’s unquestioned, always the case. We know the Civil War was about slavery.”

“But it was also more than that. It was about the freedoms of every individual. It was about the role of government. For 80 years, America had the decision and the moral question of whether slavery was a good thing and whether government, economically, culturally, any other reasons, had a role to play in that.”

In Berlin on Wednesday, an unidentified man asked her what caused the Civil War.

Haley didn’t mention slavery and said: “I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run, the freedoms, and what people could and couldn’t do. What do you think the cause of the Civil War was?”

The man told her he wasn’t running for president and was astonished in 2023 Haley could answer his question without mentioning the word slavery.

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