I like to break out the Cornerstone speech on these ‘let’s continue to fight the Civil War, which was not about slavery at all’ threads, as it does lend some perspective about what the actual actors in the drama were thinking. That’s how I was taught to learn history, read what the contemporaries were saying and reading at the time the events happened.
Walter Williams was not there. Alexander Stephens was. In a position of authority in the Confederacy, and surely well equipped to speak of how it came into being and what its philosophical underpinnings (its cornerstone, if you will) were.
No intent to disprove (which is hard to do given we are all spouting opinion), just want to inject some contemporary words into the record.
The thing about reasonable people is we agree to disagree.