“And also to impoverish him, by rendering valuless a lot of choice real estate. It was self-righteous Northern spite.”
Self-righteous Northern spite? Lee, Davis, and all the Generals and Politicians and most of the plantation owners should have been hung for treason. Getting off with having your house taken away seems pretty lenient a punishment for rebelling against your country to fight a war waged solely for the purpose of keeping an entire race of people in bondage so plantation owners can make a few extra bucks by keeping a cheap workforce. I find it despicable that any one would try and defend these men and their actions when they lied to their populations by telling them that the Federal Government was somehow trampling their rights as free men. What about the rights of slaves? And aside from the Federal Government trying to abolish slavery in all states what other state rights were being threatened? None. The Civil War was the most pointless catastrophe in U.S. history.
You are either playing dumb or being dumb.