enumerated: "I did read the entire piece - and that section about hatred of the South - that was exactly the part I was calling yankee propaganda - because it WAS yankee propaganda."
No, it's an editorial, an opinion piece -- an argument in support of some idea or cause, and clearly labeled as such.
An honest editorial is not "propaganda" and this particular editorial seems entirely honest to me.
The editorial addresses a claim made innumerable times on FR CW threads -- that Northerners "hate" the South and Southerners.
The editors rightly say, in effect: that's nonsense, that Northerners showed the highest respect for Southerners before 1861 and even in 1861 tolerated secessionist seizures of Federal properties, until Fort Sumter.
Now that the Confederacy declared war on the United States, Northerners require Southerners to give up loyalty to Confederates and return to the Constitution, or face Union armies marching to the Gulf.
Those are the Times' strong editorial opinions, but they were also facts, not propaganda.
“No, it’s an editorial, an opinion piece — an argument in support of some idea or cause, and clearly labeled as such.”
I don’t care how it’s labeled; the only “argument” being supported here is the North’s argument - claiming that the South’s argument is a myth and a lie.
You can call it whatever you want - I call it pre-war propaganda.
The South’s claim of anti-South hatred was a legitimate reaction to hit pieces like this one, where Northern “editors” were attempting to turn Northern opinion against the South, leading up to the war.