“How often have we all angrily defended something that, deep-down, we know is wrong? I’ve done it — perhaps you have, too”
Well, I at least try not to, have always thought a good measure of a person is someone who will defend an adversary when they are right. Now that this has devolved into the civil war, I have something to run by you ... not sure I fully agree with it.
Once read an article, don’t remember by whom, that showed the Civil War as an ethnic struggle that was displayed not only in the lifestyle differences between north and south, but also in the manner in which they fought. Could this be, at least partly, the reason you get exchanges such as you see here. I know before the Civil War that Georgia, South Carolina wielded significant political influence and that was gone after the war. The balance of power shifted to the north (though understandable some needed balance was lost) and it is fairly obvious that any advantage this shift held has now subsided. You can refer to me as an Ethnic Southerner or an Irish-American.
Once read an article, don’t remember by whom, that showed the civil as an ethnic struggle, that was displayed not only in the lifestyle differences between north and south, but also in the manner in which they fought. Could this be, at least partly, the reason you get exchanges such as you see here. I know before the Civil War that Georgia, South Carolina weilded significant political influence and that was gone after the war. The balance of power shifted to the north and it is fairly obvious that any advantage that held has now subsided. You can refer to me as an Ethnic Southerner or an Irish-American.
I think I read the same thing ... something akin to Southern culture having an essentially Celtic basis, with an emphasis on personal and family honor; whereas the North had a more Anglo-Saxon background, with an emphasis on broad principles and a greater comfort with "large group" organization. There's probably some truth to that, on a broad cultural level, and it ran both broad and deep in the south. (In his Battle Cry of Freedom, James McPherson convincingly lays out a similar story of cultural divergence between north and south, though he doesn't tie it tightly to Celtic vs. non-Celtic sensibilities.)
I think, though, that if you take it from a contemporary perspective the underlying reason was much more materially-based. The Southern economy depended almost entirely on the export of cotton and, to a lesser extent, tobacco and other crops. And they depended on slave labor to produce them.
The prospect of abolition directly threatened the South with economic ruin. Southerners were left with a choice of maintaining their wealth by propagating the moral wrong of slavery; or to fall into poverty if they did the right thing by freeing the human beings they held in bondage.
Our natural response in such situations is often to protect what we currently have, even if it's morally wrong; we'll find reasons to rationalize our wrongs, rather than to deal with the great discomfort that would arise from addressing our wrongdoing.