‘But many continue to rationalize that horror’
I don’t rationalize the horror. It was a shame that the root causes had to be addressed via war. I don’t cringe at the result.
‘Might did not make our system any “righter” after the deaths of 640,000 people.’
If conserving the Union was the goal, which it was IMO, it was “righter”
I suspect we will have to disagree on this.
I think the word you meant was preserving, and that was the singular goal of Lincoln and the banking/shipping/manufacturing/insurance and trading organizations. “Preserving” meant continuing the control of the flow of cotton which produced 95% of the revenue of the US Treasury.
As I said, might did not make right. There was nothing noble about the actions of the Union army and its president.