[RedMonqey]

Many Southerners viewed the ownership of human beings to be a basic human right.

A sad but valid statement. An equally valid statement is that the majority of mankind at the same moment of time believed one man could own his fellow man.

Lest we forget. Liberty to be an individual born of inalienable rights was a radicleidea to most of the world and relatively new concept even in our country.

[cartoonistx]

That the “peculiar institution” was at the base of the seccesionist movement is the tragedy of the age. The Southern desire to uphold the principles of federalism designed by The Founders was forever tarnished and discredited by association with the great human evil of racial slavery. Were the same argument to have been joined over another, lesser issue we may well have preserved the America envisioned by Jefferson if not the Union. The better part of the rights of states contained in the Constitution was blotted out by the blood spilled in the Civil War!