Berlin, New Hampshire - Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley was called out by a voter after she refused to list slavery as a cause of the Civil War.

During a town hall event in New Hampshire on Wednesday, Haley was asked by a voter in the audience, "What was the cause of the United States Civil War?"

"Well, don't come with an easy question or anything," Haley joked in response.

"I mean, I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how the government was going to run," she argued. "The freedoms and what people could and couldn't do."

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Haley then deflected by asking the voter for their view, to which they responded, "I'm not running for president."

"I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are," Haley continued. "I will always stand by the fact that I think government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people. It was never meant to be all things to all people."

Unsatisfied with her response, the voter clapped back, "In the year 2023, it’s astonishing to me that you answer that question without mentioning the word slavery."

"What do you want me to say about slavery?" Haley responded, before brusquely adding: "Next question."

It's not the first time Haley has played down the slavery as the main cause of the Civil War.

In a 2010 interview with an activist group, she described the conflict as two sides fighting for different values, one for "tradition" and one for "change."

Haley also insisted the Confederate flag was not racist, but a part of the South's "heritage" and even proposed a Confederate History Month.

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While Haley served as governor of South Carolina from 2011 to 2017, the state received national attention in 2015 when a white supremacist opened fire in a church in Charleston, killing nine African Americans. Despite her initial very vocal opposition, Haley eventually acceded to demands to take down the Confederate flag flying at the state's Capitol building.

But in 2019, she once again defended the flag in an interview with Glenn Beck, saying it represented "service, sacrifice, and heritage" before the Charleston shooter "hijacked" it.

President Joe Biden shared a video clip of the Haley's confrontation with the voter on social media along with the caption: "It was about slavery."

"Of course the Civil War was about slavery," Haley said in a radio interview on Thursday morning. "We know that. That’s the easy part of it. What I was saying was what does it mean to us today? What it means to us today is about freedom. That’s what that was all about."

She went on to accuse the voter who posed the question to her of being a "Democrat plant."