Yessir. I said, “Yee.”

“Haw.”

Vice President Biden drew a tough retort from Mitt Romney’s campaign Tuesday after telling a Virginia audience that the Republican presidential candidate’s plan to lift financial regulation would “put y’all back in chains.”

Romney’s campaign responded by claiming the rhetoric marked a “new low” in the 2012 race.

Biden made the remarks during a stop in Danville, Va. He took a swipe at Romney’s plan to ease financial regulations, by recycling a Romney bank analogy and creating an analogy of his own.

“He said in the first 100 days, he’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules,” Biden said. “Unchain Wall Street! They’re gonna put y’all back in chains.”

The remark’s context is unclear. Some conservative blogs claimed Biden had just made a reference to slavery. Danville, aside from being the last capital of the Confederacy, is racially split — the city is nearly half black and half white. The crowd at Tuesday’s event reflected that makeup.

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