"They could forsee a generation of civil war"
So they started one? By the way, a civil war is a situation in which two factions are fighting for control of a nation. The South never tried to take control of the US, nor would they have. They just wanted self-government.
"the distruction of national institutions, the intervention of foreign powers."
The US without the Confederacy would still have been stronger than in 1789, and national institutions would have remained...just without southern participation.
"So naturally they were alarmed."
I'll grant that the US with the southern states is stronger than without. After all, most of our good soldiers have been Southerners. And at least three really *bad* presidents. Just think, if Lincoln had let the South go, you wouldn't have been afflicted with Johnson, Carter, or Klintstone.
"I simply argue that there was some honor and justice in their cause as they saw it."
As they saw it, of course. But which is the higher good: preserving the Union, or the God-given right to self-government?
"So many people here are so in love with the Southern cause that they don't credit the other side with honorable motives."
I don't think that's true at all. IMV, so many are in love with the image of the north fighting to free the slaves that they don't credit the South with any valid, much less honorable, motives.
The men who actually fought for the north had a much higher opinion of the South than is mainstream today.
"just that they had a case that many people haven't heard or don't acknowledge."
I regard it as inconceivable that there is a single American today who hasn't had that case rammed down his throat like a goose being fattened up for pate.
"A lost cause always wins a lot of romantic support from people who imagine that things would have been much better had it succeeded."
I don't imagine that. I'm pretty confident that we're better off today than we would have been had the South prevailed.
What I object to is the way some people attempt to reduce the complex issues involved to slavery alone, and on that basis deny that the South had any honorable motives, then demonize not just the WNA-era South, but Southerners and the South today.
I also object to the hagiography of the north. The southern states voluntarily ratified the Constitution, many on the specific condition that they had the right to withdraw. It should be noted that, even if Lincoln's decision to precipitate a bloody war resulted in the better outcome, he had no legal or moral right to do so.
And one thing that really bothers me is that people who bleed buckets over what Sherman did to the Indians shed nary a tear over what he did to Southern non-combatants. People who weep themselves dry over maternity leave at factories in Bangladesh sneer at the abuses of reconstruction.
I just want things seen for what they were, not some fantasy of angelic northerners smiting demonic southerners.
Noble words. Too bad the confederates didn't live up to such sentiments when it came to the loyal Union people of East Tennessee. But the rebels refused to allow East Tennessee to secede and remain in the Union. Failing at that, they did not even respect East Tennessee's wishes to at least be "left alone". I guess such desires are only deemed legitimate for the slave owning aristocracy and not for ordinary Americans.