Very few Yankees, even self-styled conservatives, fail to appreciate the balancing effect that the South and West have had on the Northeast and the Midwest.
These are the same people who bitch and moan about the socialist governments of Massachusetts and New York, the excessive taxes in the US in general and loss of a sense of freedom and self-reliance among the "sheeple" - yet they imagine that without the South there would be any freedom left in America.
Without the South America would be in the same spot England is in now.
God bless the Confederates.