Pointing out the nobility of the slave states. LOL!
Southerners, or some anyhow, practised slavery, moreover in a particulary egregious form. We recognize that practise todays as dreadfully wrong, but they did not. They were morally in error, but one can be morally in error and still be capable of noblity. So I find there to be no basis for your reported laughter.
It is entirely possible, if people like Peter Singer and his ilk get their way, that in a hundred years we will be as condemned for our carnivorous diet as southerners of 150 years ago are condemned today for practising slavery.