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Thank you for speaking for George Washington. Are you channeling him or is he speaking in your ear?

No need to, Washington left written words that show his beliefs. Read his Farewell Address where he said, "For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes." Washington would not have understood those who rebelled against the United States, or who placed loyalty to state above loyalty to country. And I doubt that he would have supported a rebellion in the defense of slavery.

Not only do I agree with the rebuttal in post 487, I must add that George Washington was free of the vision problem that affected many Confederates. Too many Southerners could see no farther than the slave shack and plantation mansion and realize that there was a big world out there full of malevolent powers who wanted nothing better than a big say in running North America.

With the educational backwardness of much of the South, the ordinary Southern farmer could be excused in thinking that fighting for Southern dismemberment of the Union was patriotism. But the "elite" should have known better to think such presumptuous thoughts such as the notion that Virginia was a "country" that could stand in the world doing what she pleased as an independent entity. Even if the US had lost will and allowed separation, a backward state like the CSA would not last long in the modern world.