Lee's opposition to slavery was tepid at best and as late as January 1865 he was saying that slavery was the best place for blacks in the South.
The problem with the Longstreet quote, that the South should have freed the slaves and then seceded, is that he never said it. It's a quote from Michael Shaara's "The Killer Angels" and Tom Berringer said it in "Gettysburg".
This country was taken over (effectively) by an armed coup by the Lincoln Republicans and abolitionists and northeastern industrialists, and the southern states decided to leave, and the north invaded.
How can you compare a Constitutional election for president with an 'armed coup' and keep a straight face?
We were a conquered and oppressed and humiliated people during reconstruction.
Because you started a war and lost. I'm sorry if the outcome isn't to your liking but those are the risks you run when you choose war to achieve your aims. And if you are an oppressed and humiliated people then you certainly are a whiny lot because I would defy you to name a single country where the people who launched and lost a bloody rebellion were incorporated back into the body politic and positions of governmental power faster than the Southerners were.
Now do not think that anyone can call my ancestors treasonous and come away without my vehement response. The Supreme Court advised against the prosecution of Jefferson Davis for treason, because they knew the case would be lost, and the proof would have upset the entire legality of the war. This is history.
That is myth. The only member of the Supreme Court involved was Salmon Chase, and the only reason why Davis wasn't tried and convicted for treason is that with the ratification of the 14th Amendment Chase saw a trial and punishment as a violation of Davis's 5th Amendment protections against double jeopardy.
The north had the draft riots, and I do not believe the south had the draft.
You would be wrong. The South instituted conscription in April of 1862, the same time that they forcibly extended the enlistments of the confederate soldiers for the duration of the war. By the end of the rebellion somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of confederate soldiers were draftees.
By the way, I will argue for my ancestors until the day my own great great grandchildren die. And no doubt they will cling to the same cause lost myths that you do.
Steve Newton’s “Lost for the Cause” does a thorough breakdown of the Confederate draft (to the extent the surviving figures allow), and finds that the number of draftees was always much less than the number of volunteers. Best estimates have the total number of Confederate soldiers at around 1 million, and many joined up prior to the institution of the draft. The head of the Confederate Conscription Bureau, General Preston, estimated that about 1/3 of the army additions after April 1862 were draftees.