Then I'm having trouble reconciling your hyperbolic descriptions. The South is "the land of the whip and the lash" (LoTW&TL), but it is part of the United States which is "one of the islands of freedom". There seems to be a bit of cognitive dissonance here. Was the South only bad in comparison to the North but still much better than elsewhere?
Perhaps you need to look at the definitions of “justify” and “explain”. Cultural differences often in history lead to massacre and genocide that FACT does not mean it was something good. Islam murdered and looted across the Christian and Persian lands because of such differences, you think I justify that?
That detached explanation is as satisfactory as saying "Technological differences often in history lead to enslavement". Either both issues belong under the common heading 'Stuff That Just Happened' or not. I hope that you'll agree that both cases were unjustifiable.
If you want to start a thread on the crimes of Whites against the Indian that might be useful but it is irrelevant to the issues here.
I don't think this thread was initially about slavery, either. Did I violate the thread-jacker's code?
Was there a federal tyranny directed against the South in 1860?
I don't think so: The courts were working, representatives were seated, legislatures operated unfettered, roads were open and sea lanes were clear, laws were enforced and contracts were upheld. I would trade the government of 1860 for the government of 2012 in a heartbeat.
But I believe that it is the unconditional right of a people within a constituted state to exercise their sovereignty and withdraw from a political union with other people within other states. I support a state's right (a state's people's right, really) to secede at the drop of a hat on a whim.
To the extent that the Slavers were not able to negate the US Constitution the South was (for White people) preferable to most places. Maybe not England though Dickens paints an often dismal picture of London. Though Slavers dragged down the overall degree of freedom in the nation they could not eliminate it entirely for whites. It has nothing to do with “the South” per se but the ruling class of that region. Had the North been entirely under its control it would have been just as bad.
Indeed, enslavement was the result of power disequilibrium. Look at who were slaves in Rome, they were often Greeks superior to the Romans in education, culture and historic importance but not militarily. Of course, earlier it was the Greek who were culturally, militarily and politically superior to most of those surrounding it. And the Arab slave traders had similar advantages to the Africans they enslaved.
Since there would have been no Civil War without slavery discussions of it and secession are entirely appropriate.
OK, there was no “tyranny” in 1860. Since that was the basis of secession it means it was based entirely upon a LIE. As I have repeatedly said.
So it would be acceptable/reasonable in your world for Communist operatives to agitate for secession and build a movement in Iowa or Nebraska to secede from the US, sign a treaty with the Red Chinese and allow missiles to be based there?