In the 1750's or '60's the Virgina legislature approached the King of England with a petition to stop bringing slaves into the colony. When did the Northerners start to address such ideas? And don't forget, many northern states had slavery. 10,000+ in the state of New York at the time George Washington died, according to the 1800 federal census.
What is your point? It was a great humanitarian achievement -- in advance of Britain's emancipation. It was something that was within Virginia's power to do at any time. Yes, it was a gradual emancipation. But neo-Confederates and Southern nationalists are always saying that the South could have put through a gradual compensated emancipation and should have been "allowed" to do so. Why condemn Northerners for doing precisely what your friends argue that the South was always on the verge of doing?
If New York had not abolished slavery it is condemned. If it had it is still condemned. If they made visiting Southerners give up their slaves or leave them at home, the New Yorkers are condemned for abolitionism. If they let you keep them, they are condemned for not being abolitionists, and therefore being hypocrites. One suspects the New Yorkers' guilt has more to do with you or with the South than with anything they did or did not do themselves.
America honors those Southerners who tried to do away with slavery. I'd go further and say that it still honors those who tried to ameliorate the damage that institution did, and even those who fought for a cause they thought was right. Why is it so hard for you to see virtue or positive qualities in those on the other side?
The present generation recognizes that slavery and "racism" are a common heritage in the US, and maybe in the world. No one is going to be shocked by the fact that some Westerner somewhere may have owned or traded slaves. Very few would argue some special guilt of the South in these matters. But demonstrating that the guilt is wider than that doesn't mean that somehow the South has a special innocence. No one puts you or me in the docket because of what our ancestors may have done. But by the same token, our "innocence" or "anti-racism" doesn't mean that others in previous generations shared our views entirely. What they did is no reflection on you personally, but what you do or believe can't be attributed to Lincoln or Davis, Jackson or Stephens, without a preponderance of textual evidence to back it up. I'm not interested in judging, condemning or vindicating past generations so much as I am in seeing them as they were and understanding what they did and why.
If you want to make life a permanent tribunal on the sins of the past, that's your problem. An impartial judge would be as severe on your heroes as on those you want to put in the docket. And the sins of those you accuse, don't make the sins of those you glorify any less. And vice versa of course.
These "debates" reach insane dimensions, as the article we are responding to indicates. Every Southerner who might have had a qualm about slavery is an indication of Southern virtue. Every Northerner who might not have been zealous in his opposition to slavery is seen as a black mark against the North -- but also as a vindication of the South. And every Northerner who was fully passionate in his attack on slavery is also seen as a villain, a threat to the South and a justification for rebellion, and sometimes of slavery. Until you recognize impartial standards and realize that history is not just regional or personal pride, the "debate" will go nowhere.