Nobody here, except Lost Causers, is "obsessed" with slavery, if anything our "obsession" is to correct the lies upon lies upon lies you people keep telling us about it.
Ohioan: " Much of what you cite in it, is true; but no one denies the factual, historic part."
Oh, yes, but you certainly do, in virtually every post.
Ohioan: "It is your posturing in a pretense of moral rectitude that is ridiculous.
Who do you claim ordained you to pass judgment on the posterity of the Founding Fathers--in a clear departure from the mutual respect in 1789?"
OK... suppose, only for sake of making my point, that I were a Nazi making the same statement to you defending the American & allied cause in WWII -- how would you answer?
Would you say, "yes, Mr. Nazi, you're right, we can't make moral judgments about people back then, and I'm so, so, soooooo sorry my Dad's generation beat the crap out of yours back then."
Would you say such a thing?
Of course not, that's insane.
So how was the Civil War different?
Well... I can list some important differences, but I can also list some similarities, enough to make your presumed answer to "Mr. Nazi" just as ludicrous for the Civil War.
But here's my bottom line: I pass no particular moral judgments on Confederates who declared and waged war against the United States -- they did what they though was right for reasons which seemed adequate at the time.
But I have a very different attitude towards those today who attempt to defend Confederates by telling lie after lie, most especially in demonizing Abraham Lincoln.
You people know better and yet still lie about it.
Why?
Ohioan: "Your obsession does not give you the moral right to determine... "
Clearly, the obsession here is all yours, especially your obsession with lying about it.
Ohioan: "...when other folks whom you had a moral duty to respect, once you took an oath to support the Constitution, might decide to modernize their labor system?"
You see, there's another lie, you just can't post without lying, can you?
Northerners didn't declare secession over slavery, Confederates did, and not to protect slavery in their own states, which was never threatened by Republicans, but because Republicans promise to limit expanding slavery into western territories.
And Northerners didn't declare war to abolish slavery, Confederates declared war on the United States, May 6, 1861, to defend the "integrity" they felt "assailed".
Lincoln merely responded to Confederates' military aggression against the United States.
Which you well know, but continue to lie about it, why?
Ohioan: "The people you accuse of lying are far more familiar than you with the moral priorities of the Old South--perhaps the last truly Chivalric civilization on earth."
It might surprise you to learn that most Confederate leaders were not Lost Causers after the war.
They never lied about the war, but the Lost Cause was a lie from the beginning -- a political lie whose purpose was simply to reunite the old Southern/Northern Democrat alliance.
Northern Democrats were happy to buy into Lost Cause lies about "Ape" Lincoln and his "Black Republicans" as their very small price to pay for political reconciliation.
But Republicans are a very different breed of political animals and we don't like your lies, not even a little bit, pal.
Ohioan: "They are rich in its literature, its human interaction, customs, laws & leadership; well aware that the principal difference between the Old South & others in that long, many thousand year history of that labor system, was the element of Christian kindness between Master & Servant."
Sure, understood, but Deep South Fire Eaters first declared secession to protect their peculiar institution, then declared war on the United States to defend their "integrity" which they felt "assailed".
Abraham Lincoln and Republicans generally merely responded to Confederate aggressions as any normal people would.
Ohioan: "Get off the arrogant pretense of a moral high ground.
You do not occupy such; just caught up in the parochial strut of egalitarian fantasy seekers. "
Rubbish, you are no judge of "arrogant pretense" since that is, in fact, your own middle name: Ohioan, the "arrogant pretense" Lost Causer.
There's no pretense in the facts and no arrogance in the truth, they simply are what they are.
As for your alleged "parochial strut of egalitarian fantasy seekers" -- boy there's a mouthful if I've ever heard one.
How long did it take you to dream that up?
Or did you "borrow" it from some unnamed source?
It's ludicrous, of course, except possibly as applies to you Lost Causers -- "parochial strut"? Lost Causers, absolutely.
"Fantasy seekers"? Totally, pro-Confederates seeking to sell their historical lies to Republicans!
"Egalitarian"? Well, hard to accuse Lost Causers of egalitarianism, after all, "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal", seemingly does not apply to your own view of things, right?
But in another sense, isn't "equality" what the whole Lost Cause mythology is all about -- restoring the old "equality" between Southern & Northern Democrats, where Northerners practiced something called "Doughface" in dealing with their Southern masters?
Isn't that the "equality" you'd like to restore with Republicans?
Ohioan: "And stop pretending that Reconstruction was benign or beneficial to anyone but scoundrels."
Reconstruction ended as a result of the 1876 presidential election when Republicans agreed to withdraw Union troops from the South and allowed Southerners to effectively nullify the 13th, 14th & 15th amendments.
That virtually eliminated Republican African-American influence in Southern legislatures and the US Congress.
It certainly made ex-Confederates happier, and black feelings didn't matter anymore.
Ohioan: "If you were really familiar with the social statistics, you would know that the actual "benefit" to the ex-slaves was an enormous, but well- documented set back of outrageous proportions."
I am familiar with some statistical claims that tens of thousands died of starvation or neglect, but I've seen no actual historical reports to that effect.
As to whether the South was better off after the war than before, that is not even debatable -- of course all Southerners, black & white, were worse off economically & politically after the war, though Deep South cotton exports continued to grow -- iirc, nearly doubling in 50 years.
So it was not a total economic collapse.
But none of that has anything to do with the reasons why Deep South Fire Eaters declared secession and war on the United States in 1861, does it?