I apologize if I insulted. It is difficult and wrong to place modern morals upon a people so long ago. People of the south I am sure were generally good people. However, there were also many who knew that Negroes were people and yet continued to believe in the institution of slavery. While they understood the importance of individual freedom and agreed that it was a right granted by God they persisted with taking away those rights from others. I cannot explain this evil, but it did exist. It was not a southern trait...it was a trait throughout mankind. There were many in the north who believed slavery was a fine tradition.
I was glad to read what you said about General Jackson as he is a distant relative. I cannot guess how you or I would have thought or been back then. I would like to believe that we would understand that no people are free unless all are free. No nation is just unless we are all treated with equal justness by our government.
An interesting aside (actually on topic of my original post) is how democrats today still strive to make some groups (who support them) more equal. Like their Affirmative Action policies which openly discriminated by race and by their special rights and privileges they grant to unions. The democrat party is corrupt and evil still. This is not a trait of the South, but a trait of an evil philosophy by some.
It's not a question of insult, exactly, but more of a concern that you not smear categories of evil together. I don't question that slavery was just as evil when southerners were doing it as when others were doing it. The only point is to avoid what I see as the hypocrisy of comparing people who were doing the works of their fathers with totalitarian socialists who were doing even worse things, while proudly proclaiming that they were above tradition.However, there were also many who knew that Negroes were people and yet continued to believe in the institution of slavery.Among Christians, the southern slaveowners were just uniquely situated to be the last ones to embrace the understanding that an institution which had existed from time immemorial was now understood by the rest of Christendom as being immoral.
Another thing to understand is that slaveowners were no better off, certainly, than Queen Victoria of Great Britain (1819-1901) - yet if you look at all the engineering/medical advances which are now accessible to the general public but did not even exist in her lifetime, you can understand the assertion that an American secretary today would not do well to trade circumstances with her. So if you would feel put upon if the "liberals" manage to force you to do without electricity, petroleum, and good medical care, maybe the slaveowner's unwillingness to give up their traditional property which made their lives almost as comfortable as your own can be understood if not condoned.
Rationalization is a powerful tendency in everyone.