What is it with people who ostensibly identify themselves as conservatives venerating a bunch of Dixiecrats?
Most people want to be proud of their ancestors, their heritage. It's natural for a person to feel that the conduct of his ancestors somehow reflects on him. Many Germans feel the same way about parents or grandparents who were Nazis.
I respect very much those who happened to live in the South and even those who fought (unsuccessfully) for the Confederacy. However, the primary motive of the "secessionist" leaders was to protect slavery and I think it should have been more clear to those leaders that they were trying to row upstream against an overwhelming historical tide. "Secessionist" leaders also should have known that they were proceeding on a bogus view of the fundamental political structure of the United States and the meaning of the U.S. Constitution. Unfortunately, the South was just plagued with relatively weak and incompetent leadership at the time. I think many of those leaders predicted that Lincoln would be as impotent and submissive as President James "Miss Nancy" Buchanan. They guessed wrong, of course.
Never knew a Dixiecrat that was not a conservative. How this country would have been a much better place if the great
Strom Thurmond had been elected president.