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This has been a good discussion about the war of northern aggression. Pennylinn in good style has added historical perspective and relevant comments; the data from both sides of the antebellum s***e population issue has been illuminating. Any expertise that I might contribute has to do with the war itself. I published a paper some years ago on the battle of Bull Run; leadership mistakes caused the Confederacy to not win the war there as it did in other places during the war.
Douglas Southall Freeman (Lee’s Lieutenants) would have us believe (correctly) that in general the upper command of the Confederacy was superior to that of the Union—at least until the resources of the Union outstripped the South; Grant’s and Sherman’s generalship also contributed mightily at the end. The passion that the southern soldiers had for Lee and Jackson was unbelievable and contributed to the length of the war in my opinion. I cannot understand why Lee, with a smaller army and less materiale, consistently used the frontal attack thereby wasting precious man power. He could have learned from Jackson who was a genius at flanking, but who unfortunately had to do his own reconnoitering which cost him his life.

In order to make some contribution to the discussion about s***ery and the past-war aftermath, I need to try to convince that I occupy a neutral position based on the fact that I have spent as much of my life in the South as in the North thereby having the opportunity to see both if not several sides of the results of the war.
I was born, raised, and educated in a Midwestern county that was and is as Republican as Orange County. At 17 I enlisted in the Marine Corps, and upon release from active duty matriculated to a state university in Texas: two degrees in Texas, one degree from a university in Arkansas. I have rounded up sheep and sheared them in West Texas; lived in Austin; raised Arabian horses and Brahman-crossbred cows in central Texas; worked for a major oil company in Houston; worked in the woods of central-south Arkansas for a decade; lived in the mountains of Eastern Tennessee (where I saw a completely different attitude of warm friendship to the point of familiality of European Americans (EA) with African Americans (AA) than I experienced in the plantation-like fields of western Tennessee). I spent the better part of two years teaching college courses in Virginia (where I heard much about the war of northern aggression). I am in my 80th year, and have spent at least half of my pre-retirement life in the South.

The following observations may be offensive to both Southerners and Northerners, Republicans and Democrats, and rural folks and city dwellers as I draw general conclusions about large groups of people. I will take that as an indication of self-proclaimed neutrality.
1) Northerners rarely think about the war. The war lives on in the minds of (many) Southerners. This obviously is not due to the old saw about history being written by the victors. There is something more compulsive about the memory of a lost war after half a century and the uniting effects of two world wars. One possibility is the fact that the unaltered states-rights part of the Constitution has replaced the amended s***ery part of the Constitution in the minds of southerners as the real cause of the war.

2) Northerners completely reject the confederate notion that AAs were better off in America as s***es than they were living in Africa. Hard to fathom a s***e being beaten or having his neck about to snap at the end of a lynch rope saying, Sure glad I am in America. Even Jefferson Davis’ household s***es, who were not beaten or mistreated,were later found to be forwarding information to the northern army.

3) The affection and passion that the southern grunt soldier had for Lee, for other generals, and for the Confederacy itself is difficult for Northerners to understand since few of the southern rank and file soldiers themselves had s***es and were often poor, sometimes as poor as s***es. The North was motivated by abolition. Northerners wonder what motivated the rank and file of the South to bleed for a system that did not benefit them that much.
Some Northerners find the answer in the words of a contemporary Southerner that if applicable now were certainly valid in the antebellum South: “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he will empty his pockets for you,” said Lyndon Johnson.

4) Northerners chuckle when they hear Southerners talk about the War of Northern Aggression rather than call it the Civil War. That is because Southerners view it as an invasion of their homeland when they tried to leave the Union over an issue that was legitimately theirs according to the Constitution. Southerners ask, What would you have done if we in the mid-nineteenth century with our strong political coalitions had passed laws that outlawed your factories because of the excessive profits resulting from immoral use of human labor---especially children?

5) EAs in the South today wonder why the North would want to take away the remaining symbols of the war. The f**g and the statues, while admittedly offensive to AAs, are reminders of the glory days of the confederacy. We lost the war, but why do you try to make us forget our heritage? they ask.

6) The North likes to point to r****m in the South while completely ignoring their own brand of r****m. The r****m of the North is covert, tied up in very real local laws involving zoning. real estate, and equal educational opportunities. The overt r****m of the South is at least not hypocritical. My (Northern) father was r****t in words and attitude toward any European immigrants that emigrated after his group left the old country. However, his attitude would never allow him to reveal his r****m at an open protest activity.
(P.S. There is r****m in the West where I now reside).

7) The differences that I saw between North and South was more a divide between rural and city
outlooks rather than North versus South attitudes. This is playing out in contemporary v****g patterns. Come to think of it, that is the overview picture of the war between the states.

I do not take time to read alternative history speculations. But I wonder what would have happened if s***ery had not been allowed and justified in the Constitution. Clearly the southern states would not have joined the Union. The individual states could not have been kept free of European influence and authority, and the North and/or the South could well have been made individual colonies of European powers and the American experience would be quite different for AAs and EAs alike. So America has paid and continues to pay a heavy moral and practical price for its gross imperfections. How many generations and wars will it take to heal these flaws? It doesn’t feel that we are progressing much in that direction today.

There are conflicting views about whether or not Lee had one or more s***es flogged. What is not mentioned is that at that time and place, flogging was a common punishment in the military. Lee was a career soldier in an army that routinely had free, white soldiers flogged for disobedience and dereliction. If he did order a flogging it was no more or no worse than punishments visited on US Army soldiers for more serious infractions, and was not, at the time and place considered cruel or unusual punishment. S***es were far from the only people who suffered corporal punishment. White civilians were also still flogged on occasion during this time period. An attempt to make this seem heinous is disingenuous and dishonest when taken out of context of the time and place and circumstances.
Rumitoid's post is inflammatory and lacking in intellectual honesty, in that it is designed to display only one side of an issue which has multiple sides. It is also insulting and derogatory to an individual who, by the standards of his time and place in history was considered quite honorable. You cannot judge people of past times by the standards of today. They must be seen against the backdrop of the historical circumstances and moral standards obtaining at the time. Things that are today considered cruel or abhorrent were accepted as normal in times past.

It has, and continues to be an active and respectful discussion. I read your comment with interest. Mistakes were made by General Lee.... grave mistakes that most historians agree helped lose the war. Excuses could be made but the end result was the loss of more than individual battles. Yet, as you say, we still hold General Lee in high regards and resent the removal of memorials built to honor those brave men. As for the f**g, well what many see as the Confederate f**g is actually a battle f**g. The official f**g had a circle of stars, three stripes of alternating red and white. The battle f**g should be retired, with honors. Our monuments should be allowed to stand and be protected much like the memorials erected to honor Yankees. It is part of history.... and yes r****m, bigotry is part of our history. Something we should learn from, as the Germans did from their history filled with r****m and bigotry. Notice I did not say remember with p***e, but acknowledged and accepted that it happened but does not need to be part of the history we are now making.

I too often engage in the mind game of what if.... what if the new world had rejected s***ery from our conception. Would there had been a war? I am not unbiased, I am a southern woman born and raised in Virginia. I make no apology for my views, so this just may offend many sensitive people.

Yes in my opinion there still would have been a war, the North's say s***ery drove the North to war. After reviewing newspapers, books and diaries, is difficult to substantiate that claim. Despite the North’s stated antipathy towards s***ery, at the outbreak of the war most Northerners were content to let s***ery continue to exist in the South and, in the years leading up to the war, they did not have substantially different ideas about race and e******y than Southerners did. Abolitionists were a small fraction of the population and received tepid support, even in the North. In short, nothing about northern society indicated that Northerners were prepared to go to war over the issue of s***ery in the Spring of 1861.

One has to then dig deeper... if s***ery was not the major driving force, then what was? For one answer, one has to go all the way back to the 1790s when the real war started. As the country expanded westward, the sections battled over which would be able to get their citizens to the new lands first and in the greatest numbers, and thereby control the politics of the new states – for controlling state politics was the key to controlling the federal government. While s***ery was undeniably a point of contention, political power was the primary issue in the sectional conflict in the antebellum period.

When discussions of secession started to become a concern. Northerners reacted with offering concessions. Going so far as propose a constitutional amendment that, had it been ratified by the states, would have permanently protected s***ery in the South. Clearly, maintaining the Union was more important to northern officials than ending s***ery, a t***h they proved time and again, both before and after the war began. Even Lincoln is quoted as saying "Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you." Many historians agree that by property, Lincoln meant s***es, for those were the barbaric terms in which s***ery was often discussed at the time – not as a question about people, but about property. Lest he be misunderstood, Lincoln bluntly declared, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of s***ery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” But, he against the wishes of his Cabinet maneuvered the South into War to save the Union.... not an end to s***ery.

Historian James McPherson researched over 25,000 letters and diaries of Civil War soldiers, he found that roughly 30 percent of the Union soldiers in his sample mentioned s***ery as a motivation for their decision to fight. Significantly more wrote that they were fighting to suppress what they termed the South’s “r*******n,” echoing the words and actions of northern political leaders who made it clear that their official reason for going to war was to prevent southern secession, not to end s***ery. Indeed, it is unlikely that the war would have started if not for the North’s refusal to permit the South to leave.

The only good thing that came from the War of Northern Aggression was the end of s***ery in the South. The North North upheld all of the goals that northern leaders said they were fighting for, goals that were not nearly as laudable as bringing about the end of s***ery. Because the North’s victory crushed the the founders’ idea of a voluntary union, the relationship of the states and the people to the federal government was forever altered. No longer would the federal government’s powers be institutionally limited, no longer would states be able to protect individuals from its incursions into their lives and liberties. Most importantly, no longer would secession, the country’s foundational idea, be considered an option if the federal government became oppressive.

This was echoed by Lysander Spooner .... he wrote: "…the number of s***es, instead of having been diminished by the war, has been greatly increased; for a man, thus subjected to a government that he does not want, is a s***e. And there is no difference, in principle – but only in degree – between political and chattel s***ery. The former, no less than the latter, denies a man’s ownership of himself and the products of his labor; and asserts that other men may own him, and dispose of him and his property, for their uses, and at their pleasure."

Of note, Spooner authored a most impressive work entitled The Unconstitutionality of S***ery. If you have time, I highly recommend reading this.... he wrote it around 1840. In this he made the case that s***ery could be solved without war and needless bloodshed. After the war he wrote six more important documents, but three stand out: No Treason, No Treason: The Constitution, and No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority. Again, if you have time.... they are a fascinating view written by a Yankee and a Abolitionist.

I look forward to your reply.