[Ohioan]

"a movement, driven by hatred for dissent" -- That's what the Confederacy was, and it led our country into civil war.

The ascent of opinionated hot-heads, both North and South, prior to the War, was initiated by Northern Abolitionist attacks on Southern society and Southern rights. That some responded to these, in kind, does not change the fact that the Ante-Bellum South as a whole, was less driven by hatred than any other region. Southern leadership was primarily Jeffersonian, and was thus very understanding of intellectual eccentricity, etc.. (And please do not illustrate your own motivations with any more slurs against Jefferson! Show some respect to the author of the Declaration of Independence, and father of religious toleration in America; you "enemy" of the hate-driven.)

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

[Grand Old Partisan]

Southerners nearly completely dominated American politics -- even through "doughface" stooges like James Buchanan and Franklin Pierce -- for decades prior to the Civil War, and when the Republican victory of 1860 put an end to their ascendancy, the worst element of southern society, the slave-holding elite, led the secession movement so as to protect their power.

Slave-holders then and their apologists now-- bullies.