Can you point me to a post where someone asked the South to apologize for anything?
The South as an entity apologize? No, not as I can recall. But posts aspersing the Southern leadership from 1789 to 1865, because many of them held slaves? These threads touching upon any theme of the era are replete with such aspersions.
My rhetoric referred to those aspersions. Let me translate it for you. No Southerner, today, need apologize because his ancestor held slaves, or had friends who held slaves, or risked his life to preserve the independence of his State to decide the questions involved in his time, or any time, for themselves. Nor need any New Englander to apologize if his forebear helped Cotton Mather hang "witches." It is not fit for one generation to smugly judge the accepted morality of an earlier generation. And, very frankly, the public morality of this generation does not compare very favorably at all with the generations that held slaves or hung witches.
What a lot of hubris we see among the South bashers!
I cite the sudden revival of the slavery issue as an example of the lack of rational context in the way some issues are addressed, in an essay that will be formally posted tomorrow, at my web site. (Context--The Essential, Nearly Lost, Attribute Of Reason)
William Flax