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Your comment can be applied to virtually every war in human history. Actually no one at any time understands all of the (even major) consequences of any significant conflict, civil or military. You could make up an interesting parlor game as to any major event, having your guests compete as to whom can identify the most unintended &/or unstated consequences.

So can we finally stop saying that one comment in one letter written towards the beginning of the war gives the one and only one reason for the fighting and the whole meaning of the conflict?

As someone who's family was on both sides...

I can understand southern pride......

but then my other side chimes in with "you lost butter cup...suck it up and join us in the 21st century"

So can we finally stop saying that one comment in one letter written towards the beginning of the war gives the one and only one reason for the fighting and the whole meaning of the conflict?

Find any place in the archives, either of Free Republic or at my web site, when I ever suggested such a thing. The conflict to which you refer had a multitude of causes; and the participants on each side had a great many different motivations, some, obviously, more important than others.

Now that you and I have acknowledged context & complexity, perhaps we can turn the discourse back to a reasoned philosophic analysis, which does not seek to demonize those either of us disagrees with on historic issues. While I profoundly disagree with many aspects of Lincoln's approach to the issues in 1860 to 1865, you will not find where I demonized or denounced his motives or integrity. I only weigh in to these threads, when I see supposed Conservatives demonizing Southern & Conservative icons or role models, whom I respect; that is, I respond to aggressive attacks on people who fought for their heritage.