SOUTHERNERS STARTED THE CIVIL WAR TO PRESERVE SLAVERY

I agree one hundred percent that the motives of northern soldiers are not at issue when the effect was the end of slavery. For that matter, many of them went to war singing John Brown's body:

Old John Brown’s body lies moldering in the grave,
While weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save;
But tho he lost his life while struggling for the slave,
His soul is marching on.
(Chorus)
John Brown was a hero, undaunted, true and brave,
And Kansas knows his valor when he fought her rights to save;
Now, tho the grass grows green above his grave,
His soul is marching on.
(Chorus)
He captured Harper’s Ferry, with his nineteen men so few,
And frightened "Old Virginny" till she trembled thru and thru;
They hung him for a traitor, they themselves the traitor crew,
But his soul is marching on.
(Chorus)
John Brown was John the Baptist of the Christ we are to see,
Christ who of the bondmen shall the Liberator be,
And soon thruout the Sunny South the slaves shall all be free,
For his soul is marching on.
(Chorus)
The conflict that he heralded he looks from heaven to view,
On the army of the Union with its flag red, white and blue.
And heaven shall ring with anthems o’er the deed they mean to do,
For his soul is marching on.
(Chorus)
Ye soldiers of Freedom, then strike, while strike ye may,
The death blow of oppression in a better time and way,
For the dawn of old John Brown has brightened into day,
And his soul is marching on.
(Chorus)

This is one of various versions, almost all of which have the burden of going to war to end slavery as the theme. There are precious few saints and legions of sinners in all such efforts.

I can see that. Additionally, the so-called Southern Heritage seems to me to be a dodge to avoid confronting the reality of why some (and certainly not all) southerners fought for the Confederacy.

What is really sad is that entire regions of the south opposed the war, and many of them in arms in the United States Army. Desertion rates were very high (in one study, the rate in North Carolina was put at 23%), and draft dodgers were very common (the Confederacy instituted conscription a year before the United States--they weren't getting the troops they needed with volunteers). Today, many right-wing, racist southerns are likely to be descended from southerners who did not support the war, and who served for the U. S. Army, or deserted or headed for the hills to avoid the draft.

Thanks, that post was useful to me. I'm fairly ignorant about the south and those who were non supporters of the Confederacy.
Also, thanks for your good and long commentary re R E Lee.

Maybe this West Point Colonel can explain it in a way that's palatable:

However, if any "ulterior motives" resulted in a wealthier North (taking over the defunct Southern banking system - slaves had mortgages on them) the question then could become whether slavery was a pretext for fighting the South, if there was a profit motive for waging the war? Slavery was a sin morally. The fact that only thirty years earlier, some Northern states finally understood that muddies the moral high ground of the fight. That being that it took three decades to decide to end a moral sin in another part of the country? Sounds slightly specious?

I think the ambiguity of that time, compared to moral views today, can be correlated to the average man in the street in 1939 believed the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was an actual factual account. It took a Holocaust to make many (not all) realize Jews just want to live their lives quietly.

There were three states along the border that remained with the UNion, yet were slave states.

Therefore...?

Please don't feed that disgusting, lying troll Miller/Foofie. I don't want it in my thread.

The media having more for each news cycle, with different states/municipalities taking their confederate memorabilia out of the public eye, I just think a resurgence of Civil War/Confederacy popular interest could be the result. Sort of like the moral to the fable, "King Midas' Touch." That being, one should be careful what one wishes for, one might get it.