You guys think that the ownership, murder, rape, and whippings of slaves is OK.
for dixie,sw
No, I do not. Nor does any defender of Confederate heritage I know. The most I can and will say about slave ownership is that it was constitutional in 1860. Murder and rape were not. What I do say is that not every anti-slavery action is correct, nor are they all constitutional. And THAT, my friend, is the point. The southern States generally, and Virginia in particular, said to the abolitionists, you can be anti-slavery all you want, but when you let your anti-slavery passions convince you that you no longer need to comply with the provisions of the US constitution, then we will disagree (e.g. so-called personal liberty laws, refusal to extradite fugitives from justice, financial and moral support to those inciting servile insurrection, etc.). When your party takes control of the Federal government, and indicates that anti-slavery fervor will lead it to ignore and subvert all the provisions of the Constitution that abolitionists (and their neo-merchantilist allies) do not like, then we will part company. So they left.
They did not try to "destroy America" as you say. Abraham Lincoln was free to establish any "free-labor" neo-merchantilist paradise he wanted to. The South wanted only "to be left alone" (to quote Jefferson Davis).
Respectfully, D J White