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Originally posted by SergeantX:
In a related story, read here about one of my favorite bands.... and have a sense of hum, mmkay?

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The South fought for their independence, from Northern tariffs and Northern insensitivity to their economic plight, while at the same time fought to maintain slavery.

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I wonder how many African Americans or Lincoln supporters know he made this statement. I wonder why the history books omit it.

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I'm displeased to see individuals portray either side of that war as devils. Quite honestly, the person I have the most respect for in all of history is Robert E. Lee, because his reasons for fighting was for of his homeland, and he was one of the most noble of gentlemen and generals to the very end.

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The south is slowly loosing its heritage because we are "backwards" according to the more "intelectual" of society. The complain about the shape the world is in, yet for some reason we don't have all these problems in small southern towns. I wonder why that is? Yes we finally have a decent southern President and it is about time, but if you think for one instant the Government has ever been controlled from the South you need to look again, because if it where then God would not be being taken out of our schools and courthouses, courtesy and respect would still be taught in school at the end of a paddle, and folks who just want to farm and live would not be taxed into extinction.

Yes I am American, and Southern, and Texan. And if it were up to me all this PC garbage that goes on every day would be thrown out the window and we would get back to good old Southern values.

My 2 cents, sorry for the rant

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Even today we still consider ourselves as Yanks and Rebels, but above all that, we see ourselves all as Americans, and I think that's what matters the most.

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I have been to college and listened to professors from the north proclaim Texans and Southerners ignorant and unable to take care of themselves. These same people who have so little opinion of me count on me to keep all their computer systems up and running 24/7.

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Originally posted by BrownCoat1:
Growing up, I remember men holding doors for ladies, people waving to one another & giving one another the greeting of the day. Now people seem so self involved they do not even register your existance, and if you say "Good Morning", they look at you as if you are about to mug them, or you have just grown a third eye in your forehead. Many men do not hold doors for a woman now, & I know when I do, less than a 1/3 of them even acknowledges the courtesy with so much as eye contact. It does not prevent me from doing it, but it is disheartening at times.

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The fundamental problem with this analysis is that it treats the South as a separate nation, instead of part of the Union at the time of the firing on Fort Sumter. South Carolina, and the South in general were still part of the Union, still part of the United States of America.

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As Fort Sumter was a Federal military installation, whether South Carolina wanted it or not, is beside the point. It would be the equivalent of you shooting at a police officer patroling in the town you live in, just because you want his car.

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As for tariffs and such, it should be remembered that tariffs were the principle means of financing the federal government, as there was not direct taxation at the time. The point remains that the South lost those votes, those decisions, and instead of accepting the will of the majority, they decided to break up the entire system. While the North did little to protect the rights of the minority South, it was the South that decided to dissolve the contract, and the Constitution on this and other points.

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And we do disagree as to whether slavery was a major issue. Not the sole issue, I think we can both agree. But it was a serious issue and the election of Lincoln, along with support from the North, made the abolition of slavery, with the incumbent chaos it would cause in the South, all that more a tangible problem.

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And you are right, the North would not have let the South go, so the South had no legal recourse if it wanted to leave. But again, there is the problem of destroying the democratic system, if it were allowed to leave legally, or rebelled openly. Either way you did it, you were asking for the destruction of the democratic system, the basis for government in the first place.

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You see, you talk about tariffs and such issues, but what you don't point to is any Constitutional violations comitted by the North against the South. They lost the votes in Congress. And so, the South decided unilaterally to dissolve the Union. Because they did not get their way, they rebelled.

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You like to think about the "what if" as do I. Which is one of the reasons I find this subject fasinating. Think of all the things that would not have happened if the South had won. Would the west have been tamed? Would Alaska still be part of Russia? How would that have affected the Cold war?

Would there have been more wars later on, as Northern abolutionists smuggled run away slaves out of the South, or over western territories? Would Texas have ceeded from the Confederacy and become its own nation again?

How would the concept of democracy have faired elsewhere in the world, once the United States showed it did not work?

Without a strong United States to aid Europe during WW1, how would that have played out? Or WW2, would France be a German province today? What about Japanese expansionism, how would that have been stopped? Or would it only at the Texas border?

To say nothing of domestic race relations, and the increasing tyrannical laws the South required to prevent slave revolts.

Whether you want to call it war, invasion, rebellion or whatever, really matters little. As horrific as that war was, it did prevent far worst wars and tradegies down the line. A strong US was able to intervene in WW1, and 2, and prevent a Soviet invasion of Europe, as well as ICBMs parked in Alaska. And democracies are breaking out all over.

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So, all in all, no matter how right the South thought they were, they weren't right enough to win, and the planet as a whole is better off that the South lost the Civil war, than if it had won.

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Guess if you win, you are justified and no one questions the legality actions.

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First off, a rebellion is always against the law. No government can survive if folks were free to simply disobey laws they disagreed with, or shoot federal soldiers trying to enforce those laws. Asking for a legal rebellion is a contradiction in terms as well as suicidal to any form of government.

So, the South's rebellion was illegal. It was against the law. And the South's position was not a legally justifiable one.

Now on more philosophical grounds, you might have an argument. But if you want to argue law, you lose.

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As for the police officer example, it is quite apt. The South did not want a federal garrison in South Carolina. You admit this. They wanted the cop somewhere else, and they wanted the fort. So they shot at the troops in that fort.

If the government no longer has the power to enforce its own laws, then it ceases to be a government at all. Whether one agrees or disagrees, lobbies for or against, once the votes are taken, all folks in a democracy agree to go along with the will of the majority. Should I be allowed to violate or rebel from a law I think is unfair, that I voted against, but the majority overruled? Can you imagine how that would work out, if everyone did that?

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Rebellion is treason, but in practical fact, it is so only when it fails. It is making war on the government, but if the South had succeeded, we would not be having this discussion. They didn't. They lost the debate in the halls of Congress, and they lost it on the battlefield as well. And at that point, which lets face was almost a 150 years ago, the argument was settled.

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Trying to compare the South's actions with those of all of the colonies is a bit of a stretch. The Union troops were not billeted in Southern homes prior to Ft. Sumter. There was no violation of rights or constitutional guarentees. As you note, it was about the price of cotton in Europe. Wanting a better price, or not willing to pay taxes that one had a vote in, are hardly the same as what the Brits were doing to the American colonies prior to the Revolution.

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As for "fair market" price, I am not at all sure where you are coming from here. In free market economics, the seller and the buyer both agree to a price, and that is the fair market price of the product. No one was forcing the South to not sell to Europe. There was an export tax, yes, but that is hardly the same thing as forcing one not to sell.

The problem was that the price of cotton in Europe was not that high, and I think one of the reasons for that was competition from other sources (like Egypt). The South wanted more money, but all buyers want to pay less. That is not force, no matter how you try to dress it up.

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As to Lincoln, all this clouds the fact that slavery was still wrong. The slave holding South still depended on that labor. Lincoln did want to free the slaves, this is apparent from a great body of his writings and works. But if it meant risking the dissolution of the governmental system we had, that is something he wanted to avoid.

After the war was on, the point was moot. And as for the timing of the Emancipation proclaimation, this was related to Northern battlefield victories, when it looked like the North was going to win. Which makes sense, as declaring freedom for the slaves when one had no hope of ever accomplishing it. Freeing the slaves in the North, that had already been accomplished. It was the slave holding South that required Emancipation. And when the South was winning, such a proclaimation would have simply looked foolish, and ineffective.

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Well I would agree with the sentiment on practical grounds. That this is what happens, IF you win. But here you are, despite 150 years of history, despite the fact the North won, still questioning the legality of the action.

In practical terms this is what happens, right wrong or indifferent. And in a general sense, this is far from a bad thing.

I am not saying that Might makes Right. I will say the opposite. That Right makes Might. In combat, this is easiest to see. The side with the better intel on their opposition, a more accurate perception of the oppositions position, strengths, weaknesses, as well as his own, generally, that is the side that win the battle.

The side with the better understanding of nature, is able to build better weapons. The side with a better understanding of battlefield psychology has an edge. The side that feels it is morally right, has an advantage over those who might question the morality of dissolving a democracy because they lost a vote.

And the South did lose, on both counts. Both in Congress, and on the battlefield. Whether one believes it was the "right side or not" becomes irrelevant. And after such losses, one does have to question whether it was the right side or not.

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As far as the blockade of Southern ports, this is not a good argument, Basically it is admitting that the North were more effective militarily. Lack of resources and available manpower, well, that makes going to war, firing on Ft. Sumter all that much more ineffective an action. Not anticipating Northern tactics, not being right about how the North would respond, well, that does begin to question the rest of the South's beliefs before the war.

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If Lincoln did not recognize the Confederacy as a separate nation, and believed them part of the Union in open rebellion, then any order or proclomation given, regardless of time would have been seen as valid.

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1) You keep harping on Northern representatives representing Northern interests, to the detriment of Southern ones. Yet exactly who were these elected officals supposed to represent? The folks that elected them? or the folks that didn't.

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2) 87% is a lot. And as you know, the seller is not the one that pays this (exactly). Its covered in the price he sells it at. Any time there is a tax on a product, that gets passed on to the buyer. While the seller may make more money, and reduce his prices if the tax was not present, still, if he don't sell, the government don't see a dime.

If the South was paying 87% of the tax in 1860 alone, that means they were doing a booming trade REGARDLESS of the export tariff.

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3) You talk about Northern tyranny, but yet again, you seem to ignore a credibility problem when you do so. The South was still running under the slave/plantation system, and supporting that. So arguing that the North was being tyrannical to the South, when the South was subjecting a segment of their own population to far worse, is not an effective argument.

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The last thing that has always bugged me was Picket's Charge. Gettysburg in effect broke the back of the South, and it was Picket's charge up the middle, that really broke the South in that battle. Looking at it, granted hindsight is always 20/20, it looks like an incredibly stupid move on Lee's part. Why did he do that?

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I don't think we will ever know for sure why Lee ordered Pickett's Charge, only that this is point where the war was lost for the Confederacy

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What he did not realize was that the rolling hills of the battlefield hid a Union battery from his view beyond Cemetary Ridge. He also did not know of the split rail fence at the Emmitsburg Road his men would have to cross to reach the Union lines, as it was hidden by a dip in the land.

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Of course Northern reps should look after Northern interests, but that was not my point. My point was (and perhaps I did not clearly define it) was that the Federal gov't placed Northern interests above those of the South. Last time I looked, the gov't was supposed to look out for the whole country, not just the special interests of the North.

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Were they doing a booming business? I realize that a seller generally builds the cost of export taxes into the final cost of his product, but let's look at it this way. Generally the South would be able to sell let's say, a bail of cotton for a set price. That price is a bit lower than the cost Egypt charges, so the buyer is apt to buy the Southern cotton. Now add the cost of the ridiculously high tax set by the Federal gov't to keep the cotton in the U.S., to twist the arm of the South to sell to Northern industry, and the cost is now higher than the Egyptian cotton. No brainer, the English merchant buys from Egypt, forcing the Southern merchant to go home empty handed. Rather than let it rot in a warehouse in Charleston, he takes it North to sell at a cost far less than Europe was willing to pay just so he has something to show for his effort.

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A large portion (in this case 87%) of tax does not necessarily equate to a large profit. Many companies look extremely busy one week, then go out of business the next because they are operating at a loss. You can only control costs so much.

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Yes, the South had slaves. I believe that point is a matter of fact and not in dispute, at least not from me. Less than 1 in 10 Southern homes had a slave. What you seem to forget is that the North had slaves too! I am not sure what the percentage of Northern homes were that owned slaves, but rest assured I will try to find that number.

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It is clear, that those who attack the Confederate flag as a reminder of slavery are overlooking the most guilty and hateful of all reminders of American slavery, the U.S. flag.

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I don't think we will ever know for sure why Lee ordered Pickett's Charge, only that this is point where the war was lost for the Confederacy.

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Browncoat1 wrote: It is clear, that those who attack the Confederate flag as a reminder of slavery are overlooking the most guilty and hateful of all reminders of American slavery, the U.S. flag.

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Drakon Wrote: Now why do you think that is? Because during the civil war, it became the flag of those liberating the slaves, rather than the flag of the status quo ante. You get a mixed bag there, and if none of your later actions make up for your previous sins, well, we all got a problem.

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Good show Drakon, that is an excellent response.

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Quite a few historians have said that Lee was convinced of his army's invincibility. Frankly, they had earned this trust. They had done what he asked of them so often that he didn't believe they could fail.

Besides the charge was only part of his tactics. Lee did not throw everything into the charge up the center. He sent JEB Stuart around the Union Army with instructions to hit it from the rear. He was hoping for a hammer and anvil effect. Stuart didn't make it though; he was stopped by a Union calvary brigade.

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Lee knew about the Union artillery on the Cemetery Ridge, but he thought they were nearly out of ammunition. In fact the Union guns answered the Confederate guns for a short time and then went silent, as if to confirm that the were out of ammunition, only to open up again when the Confederates drew closer.

He must have known about the fence at Emmitsburg Road because Longstreet had crossed the road the previous day.

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I have no doubt you will. But you have to admit that smuggling slaves is far different from open importation. Smuggling is illegal, a violation of the law, and contrary to the governments position on the issue.

It is my understanding that all the northern states, with the exception of Maryland had outlawed slavery by the time of the Civil war. No doubt you will correct that perception.

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I think the foremost reason that the Confederate flag is viewed by many as it is, is due to the fact that some ignorant hate group like the KKK "adopted" it as a symbol.

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but I do not think Lee thought of his army as "invulnerable". Lee knew full well the capabilities of his army, and their limitations. To say that Lee's judgement was faulty by some misconception of "invulerability" is pure speculation w/ no basis in fact.

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Most of this thread is speculation. The fact is Pickett's Charge was a longshot. Lee took a lot of chances, dividing his forces in the face of a numerically superior foe, etc. I think he had to (less manpower, etc). But they worked out many times. When things break right for you so often it's got to affect your judgement.

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Originally posted by BrownCoat1:
Perhaps, but it avoids the fact that slaves in the U.S. suffered for more than 200 years under Old Glory and only 4 years under the Stars & Bars.

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As an individual, I can accomplish many goals without the aid of others. Yet there remain many goals I cannot reach. I do not have the resources or the physical ability to accomplish these tasks, yet they remain important to me. Also, though I would wish it otherwise, I cannot protect myself completely from outside harm. Harm can come from nature, such as a tornado or flood, or from other individuals, such as thieves or ruffians. To provide for such resources for my goals, and to protect myself from hostile individuals, it is advantageous to align myself with other like-minded individuals whom I can trust to support me in my endeavors. And they trust me to support them in their endeavors and to help protect them as well should they need my aid. This is a simple example of a grouping, one that aids and supports the other members of the group. If individual members of a group repeatedly refuse aid, or act as obstructionists to the needs of other members, then those members are removed. In the case of a majority of members interfering and even harming the interests of a minority, the minority leaves the group to create their own grouping elsewhere. Without mutual advantage, there is no benefit to remaining with the group.

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To summarize: Is slavery wrong? Yes.
Did the Civil War end slavery? Yes, indirectly.
Was it the reason for the Civil War? No.

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I will welcome your response, please don't patronize mine.

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This is probably the most disingenous argument I have ever heard.

First off, the US had only come into existence in 1789. It was not 200 years old when the Civil war broke out, let alone had the Stars and Stripes as its flag.

Second, slavery was an important institution in the South. As had been noted earlier, almost all of the Northern states had outlawed it at the time. So the part of the US that was still slave holding, was exactly the part that ceded and flew the Stars and Bars for 4 years.

As noted earlier, slavery was part of America before America was a nation. It was part of our inherentence from England. Yet, it was English ships, under the Union Jack that first put pressure on the Atlantic slave trade to stop it.

Even though slavery in America began under the English, the English corrected that mistake, and took steps to end it, both at home and overseas. Even though slavery started before the Union was formed, it was the Union that put an end to it. To correct that sin, Northern boys fought and died. Southerners fought and died too, but no matter how many great leaders of the South wanted to end slavery, they did not. And ended up fighting to preserve the system.

Slavery poisoned the Confederacy's ideals, and its moral standing. It kept the British and French from supporting her, and rendered her arguments about tyranny and tariffs on the federal level unpersuasive. And even, on the verge of getting the slave system, which at the time was their economic livelyhood, protected by both Supreme Court ruling, and a constitutional amendment, the South still shot at federal troops and ceded from the Union that had bent over backwards to protect their unique way of life, despite the fundamental hypocricy it posed to the foundational principles of this nation.

Slavery made the Confederacy the "wrong side" and ruined any good that might have come from her. It was a fundamental contradiction to the very ideals the revolution of 1776 proclaimed and needed to be removed, if the US was ever to be the kind of nation the founding fathers dreamed it should be. The North saw that, and many southerns did too. But the Confederacy still fought on the losing and wrong side of that issue.

So the flag gets adopted by hate groups, and sullies it name. Sorry to hear that. But it was the South that had brought it upon itself. Whether Sumter was a trap or not, is beside the point. South Carolina blundered into it boldly. It was the Confederacy that lost the votes, and fired on the fort, lost the debate, and the war. Almost 150 years ago.

Whether you like it or not, the single most defining characterisic difference between the North and the South was the slave system. And it was that system that the Stars and Bars represented. You can talk about States rights, and export tariffs till you are blue in the face, but the nagging question of slavery still haunts, and damages, the reputation of the Confederacy. The Union ended it. The Confederacy did not. You can argue they "did not get a chance," all you like. But it just doesn't fly.

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You are correct that slavery was not in America for 200 years. The truth was it was here alot longer. If I remember correctly, the first slaves were brought here in the 1600's. Slavery, as an institution, wasn't a new thing even then. It was around for thousands of years before anyone had ever heard of the New World. Did many people of the world, such as the British you mention, find the notion of slavery so abhorrent they banned it from their respective nations? Sure did, quite a while before the USA even considered it.

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Why didn't the Union abolish slavery long before the Civil War? I think it had something to do with economics. Chills me to write this, but I think it boils down to that. The South produced the cash crops needed by the nation. The North, and the Federal government, was content to let slavery continue, so long as it kept the wallets full. When the South seceded, it removed a significant amount of revenue from the Union. While there was a growing movement to abolish slavery, it was still a small minority. Most either didn't care, or didn't want the former slaves competing for jobs. Politicians of the day felt blacks could never become citizens, so there was little impetus (aside from moral outrage from the abolitionists) to free them.

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But I think there is a key problem with many of the arguments presented here. They focus on the period of the Civil War, but do not touch on the two decades prior to said war. People do not go to war overnight, there has to be a reason for the use of force. The reasons are numerous, and have been touched on in this discussion, but are irrelevant for the discussion. There was a more fundamental reason for the war, and it wasn't the notion that whites should own blacks (though it seems Drakon wishes to convince otherwise).

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As an individual, I can accomplish many goals without the aid of others. Yet there remain many goals I cannot reach. I do not have the resources or the physical ability to accomplish these tasks, yet they remain important to me. Also, though I would wish it otherwise, I cannot protect myself completely from outside harm. Harm can come from nature, such as a tornado or flood, or from other individuals, such as thieves or ruffians. To provide for such resources for my goals, and to protect myself from hostile individuals, it is advantageous to align myself with other like-minded individuals whom I can trust to support me in my endeavors. And they trust me to support them in their endeavors and to help protect them as well should they need my aid. This is a simple example of a grouping, one that aids and supports the other members of the group. If individual members of a group repeatedly refuse aid, or act as obstructionists to the needs of other members, then those members are removed. In the case of a majority of members interfering and even harming the interests of a minority, the minority leaves the group to create their own grouping elsewhere. Without mutual advantage, there is no benefit to remaining with the group.
Governments are simply the organized leadership of a group of individuals. The government is specialized to see to the needs of the group as a whole, while the individual memebers of the group pursue their own specific goals. Government occasionally asks for individuals to sacrifice for the benefit of the group, but individuals must be compensated later or convinced of the "rightness" of the reasons for sacrifice. If a governing body does not see to the needs of the members of the group, or favors a set of individuals over another (such as those with wealth, or those of a certain religion, or even those of a certain race), then the governing body must be corrected. If the governing body cannot be corrected, or refuses to allow such corrections, then that body must either be changed by force or abandoned.

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The Southern states were in a minority in the Union, both by population and ratio of Southern states represented to Northern states represented. The states of the South felt the government (the Union) was favoring the states of the North. They made numerous attempts in the preceding decades to correct what they felt to be unfair. Seccession wasn't something which came overnight, nor was it something tied up in a single issue. It came when all other options had failed. It came when all the issues important to the South were ignored. The South, the minority (politically) of the Union, made a choice. The minority chose to abandon the group.

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As to the Civil War ending slavery, it did. But slavery was not the reason for the war. Slavery was used by the Union to remove support from the Confederacy, as other nations of the world made it clear that they would not aid a nation that supported slavery. The same slavery the Union turned a blind eye to when it filled the Union's coffers. It is very clear from writings of the time that many in the South felt that slavery should be removed, yet how to do that and still maintain a stable economy was an elusive problem. The North simply didn't care to aid the South with this problem. The South seceded, the North attacked and conquered the South.

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This next part is a bit of my speculation, but it seems to fit in with "human nature" and psychology to my mind.

The North had just defeated the South, yet there were many who felt that this was not enough. Add Lincoln's assasination into the mix, and this means alot of bitter feelings around Congress. The South couldn't be just defeated, the South had to be punished. History points out many injustices committed during the Reconstruction era. But even this isn't enough. In order to cow the South, and complete the conquest, the South must be convinced of how wrong it was. So the issue of slavery (which I have already admitted is abomniable, wrong and insignificant to the actual war) became the cause of a righteous crusade for the North. To keep the South (with its cries of "We shall rise again!") from ever contemplating secession again, the North villanized the Confederacy. The South could not take pride in its brief independance, for it was based upon a terrible evil. An evil the Union championed against to free an oppressed people. The Union attacked the Confederacy not simply to bring the South back into the fold, but to eradicate the South's wicked ways. The Union came, not to attack the South, but to free blacks from slavery and shine the light of Democracy upon all. Many believed this. The Ku Klux Klan began as a gentleman's club (bizzare, huh?) in the South, later took this to heart, and blamed the War on the blacks whom the North came to liberate. The KKK then became synonymous with bigotry, ignorance, and hatred and the defeated Confederacy.

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I have read most of these posts and am struck by the timing.
I just returned from Tifton GA where we buried my Grandfather. He was one of the (very) few remaining true sons of the Confederacy and was sent off with cannon and rifle salute, the piper played Dixie and my Grandmother was presented with the Confederate battle flag that draped his coffin. I cried, the Sons of the Confederacy in attendance (from 3 states) cried, even the grounds keeper that didn't know us from adam cried. I had never given much thought to "southern identity" before, except to hide it as it has way too much stigma attatched to it.
My Great-grandfather entered the GA militia at 14 and survived the war to sire my Grandfather at the age of 67...he never owned a slave and reportedly resented their use because it made it hard to compete with his little sugarcane/tobbaco operation.
After I had hugged and wept with every one of those strangers in their anachronistic uniforms I left with the realization that it must be a poor life indeed to live denying your heritage (with all it's flaws) and vowed never to downplay my feelings because a boy named Jasper went to fight just because he wanted to protect the land he loved. I'm glad, in the end, that he lost but I am wiping tears of pride because he fought.

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It has been said Southern identity is on the decline, and many welcome this. Southern identity has been linked to a terrible act, slavery, and thus with the removal of that identity is the removal of slavery in the USA. But this is a deliberate passing of blame for an entire nation's wrongs upon a small segment of its population. No one could muster the political support for abolition, even though many important people of the time felt the institution of slavery was wrong. It was simply too profitable to remove, both in the North and the South. What removed it was pure political expediency: the removal of support from the South and the appearance, in the eyes of the nations of the world, of the rightness of the North's cause. As I said, the North needed the economic strength of the South, and was willing to get it through whatever means necessary. As for aboltion, the abolitionists would not, or could not, provide for the transition of the blacks into the general population. The Emancipation Proclamation itself was greeted with riots in the North, fully two years after the start of the war.

Again, with the hindsight we have now, we know the wrongness of the enslavement of a race. But at the time, very few considered blacks to be people (or even human in some cases), so there was little reason (in their eyes) for freeing them. Disgusting and disturbing as it is, this was the mindset of most Americans of the time. Dressing up the North's aggresion as some sort of mission to bring freedom to a race is revisionism of the worst sort. It attempts to place blame for centuries of injustice squarely (and expediently) upon the shoulders of the defeated, as a means to justify the winners victory.

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Originally posted by BrownCoat1:
First off, relax. Talk about me arguing something until I am blue in the face. Pot, kettle. You are no more going to change what I believe & know, and it is obvious you will not see anything but your point.

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I do not deny anything the South did wrong. Slavery was wrong. Say it w/ me class.... We know it was wrong. Yes the South did not end it, but they could not abolish slavery without destroying their economy and impoverishing the entire South. If they did that, who do you think they would have turned to for financial aid? The Union, that's who.

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If there is blame, it lies on both sides of the Mason Dixon line.

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I concur, and I have tried to show that the problems leading up the War were far more than the issue of slavery, which was not a major issue, at least not as major as some might wish to believe.

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Exactly! They left a large group to pursue their own best interests and freedom, much as our forefathers did when they separated from England. Right or wrong is not for us to decide. We were not there nor did we have to deal with the issues and problems they did. It is easy to pass judegement against the South when most of our perceptions are based on history books written by the victor, books written in the North.

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Your point of the North revising history to place blame for slavery fully on the South is enitrely true. By placing blame on the South and villianizing them, they free themselves of any guilt or wrongdoing. They offer up the US flag as a symbol of freedom and a rallying point for the abolition of slavery, when it was that same flag that flew over north and south while slaves toiled away. Funny how people take the illusion offered instead of the truth before them.

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I find the assertion that it would bankrupt the entire south a bit hard to handle. As you noted earlier, only 10% of southerns owned slaves. I believe they may have been the more wealthy individuals, and do grant that wealthy folk have a greater impact on the region's economy than poor folk do, but would it have been that bad economically overall, if the South had followed their better instincts?

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But my point still stands. It was the US flag under which the liberation of slavery was accomplished. Not the Confederate one. You may see that as unfair, but think for a moment. If you were a slave, which flag would be more attractive to you? The one that comprise the slave states which had ceded from the Union, or the flag of the Union that ultimately freed you, regardless of reason or cost, or even if they had previously allowed slavery before. The person who figures out that slavery is wrong, even late and life and actually does something about it, or the person who knows its wrong, and does nothing?

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The south may have been fighting against export tariffs, and for states rights, but the more I look at it, I see the institution of slavery polluting the nobility of their cause, and aiding and abetting their defeat.

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Exactly! They left a large group to pursue their own best interests and freedom, much as our forefathers did when they separated from England. Right or wrong is not for us to decide. We were not there nor did we have to deal with the issues and problems they did. It is easy to pass judegement against the South when most of our perceptions are based on history books written by the victor, books written in the North.
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Well I disagree with whether one should make moral judgements about past actions. That is how one gets future actions aligned to what works or is right. By learning from the past.

As for the North being the victor, that says alot in and of itself.

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