Interesting about the cotton states. Maryland grew tobacco, a crop that depleted soil so rapidly that new fields had to be plowed all the time. They were always starting over, in a sense, draining more swamps, pulling more stumps. Yes, with great hope.
Today, as Condi Rice is announced as Secretary of State, my cousin is retiring as supreme court justice in a western state. Black and white, we all got to this day with impossible hardships, dreadful setbacks, chrushed dreams, broken hearts, lost loved ones, inhuman labor. Slavery was unbearable. So was trudging after wagons along rutted trails, burying your young-uns on prairies you'd never see again.
Story of America, my friend. Aren't we great!
Condi Rice's best friend as a little girl was blown apart by the Birmingham Church Bombers who believed the South was right and blacks had to be kept in their place. Thank God these killers did not get her as well.
I love America all of it including the South since most of my family remains there. It is a great country but not because of the actions of the slavers in trying to destroy it.
I can have sympathy for the common man of the South caught up in that horrible conflagration but cannot pretend that he acted with full knowledge as to why it occurred. Such folks were kept poor and ignorant by a ruling class as vile as ever existed. Their interests were diametrically opposed to those of the slavers since slavery kept THEM poor even if they did not understand it. It was a system which was condemned to death and its adherents seemed to be completely unaware of that fact. It wore out the land, destroyed the environment, crippled the white race and exploited the Black. Nothing noble or just in it as the Founders ALL recognized.