"The 'Other' Side of the Slavery Question" Topic

the secession impulse varied a great deal from deep south to upper south to border states. Why?

Because the economic and political make-up of each state was unique.

Yes, germ warfare has a long and dishonorable history, but if every European had been St Francis of Assisi the germs imported from Europe would still have killed millions. Nothing could have been done to prevent that.

But that comment is a distraction from rather than a reaction to the sermon I posted.

Doc.
Long ago, Bill had two boards for Religion on TMP. He removed both of them.
Stop posting sermons. This is not the place.

Balderdash, John. The accusation was that the Puritans were indifferent to the welfare of others. Winthrop's words show that they were not. Virtually everything the Puritans did, in old and New England, was informed by their religious beliefs, and the sermon was their (only) means of mass communication, first spoken and then printed and read. Puritans took notes during sermons so they could discuss it during the week. If you reject discussion of sermons, it is simply impossible to make sense of the Puritans.

If we were discussing the English Civil War, and Cromwell, and the New Model Army, we would want to read "A Mark of the Beast", a sermon preached by John Lilburn FROM THE STOCKS after he had been whipped through the streets of London. Lilburne ("Freeborn John") went on to become one of Cromwell's officers until his theology carried him somewhere else.

Much the same point would apply to almost any European War between 1550 and 1650 or so. Even when the issues were political or dynastic or economic, religion -- and specifically the competing forms of Christianity -- were the main language through which they were expressed.

Want to study the Crusades without talking about religion? I do not think so.

I think you know that and are just trying to divert from the topic.

No disrespect meant Doc.

I know, Tort, don't worry. I suspect that your view of the Puritans as "grim" is widely held. But would you agree that if their leader's public words are any guide, the Puritans truly WERE concerned about others, and would share under the worst circumstances?

We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of other's necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other; make other's conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body.

Can we talk about Beecher's Bibles? How about whether Benet pegged John Brown in this imagined prayer, the night before he went to Harper's Ferry?

John Brown's Prayer -
by Stephen Vincent Benet

Omnipotent and steadfast God,
Who, in Thy mercy, hath
Upheaved in me Jehovah's rod
And his chastising wrath,

For fifty-nine unsparing years
Thy Grace hath worked apart
To mould a man of iron tears
With a bullet for a heart.

Yet, since this body may be weak
With all it has to bear,
Once more, before Thy thunders speak,
Almighty, hear my prayer.

I saw Thee when Thou did display
The black man and his lord
To bid me free the one, and slay
The other with the sword.

I heard Thee when Thou bade me spurn
Destruction from my hand
And, though all Kansas bleed and burn,
It was at Thy command.

I hear the rolling of the wheels,
The chariots of war!
I hear the breaking of the seals
And the opening of the door!

The glorious beasts with many eyes
Exult before the Crowned.
The buried saints arise, arise
Like incense from the ground!

Before them march the martyr-kings,
In bloody sunsets drest,
O, Kansas, bleeding Kansas,
You will not let me rest!

I hear your sighing corn again,
I smell your prairie-sky,
And I remember five dead men
By Pottawattomie.

Lord God it was a work of Thine,
And how might I refrain?
But Kansas, bleeding Kansas,
I hear her in her pain.

Her corn is rustling in the ground,
An arrow in my flesh.
And all night long I staunch a wound
That ever bleeds afresh.

Get up, get up, my hardy sons,
From this time forth we are
No longer men, but pikes and guns
In God's advancing war.

And if we live, we free the slave,
And if we die, we die.
But God has digged His saints a grave
Beyond the western sky.

Oh, fairer than the bugle-call
Its walls of jasper shine!
And Joshua's sword is on the wall
With space beside for mine.

And should the Philistine defend
His strength against our blows,
The God who doth not spare His friend,
Will not forget His foes.

Charge, no, that does not follow. Yes, millions of deaths in genocides is more than/worse than the deprivation of freedom of millions. But the moral degradation of socialism/Marxism is far worse than under slavery.

The slaves, after all, were NOT morally degraded, or not much; or do you argue differently?

I do disagree. After communist regimes fall, the killing or the starvation stops and there is little to suggest that the persecution gets engineered against the former victims with renewed malice and vigor. The South made a conscious decision to discriminate and have blocked fixing the situation over and over.

The main economic loss of slavery fell on the slaves and secondarily on the poor whites and the whole south. The main political loss was obviously on the slaves. But the moral loss fell most heavily on the masters.

I often hear it was so expensive to clothe, feed and house slaves that it was bankrupting the Southern fat cats. Why then couldn't they just pay freed slaves a wage? You'd think they'd have been happy to do so. It shows you that slavery and racism were sometimes intertwined and sometimes separate.

There is a vast literature about "the Soul of Man Under Socialism." See the GULAG, etc. Slaves had Christianity, and generally were able to maintain stable families (though the threat of breakup was always there). They had HOPE; their music and understanding of scripture was built on it. "Time on the Cross." "Go down, Moses . . . ." Living under a socialist or Marxist regime is far more terrible.

Stable families? Hope, Christianity? White southerners had all those things, and more, in abundance and they still couldn't find their way out of a moral morass.

And no one took away or indeed could take away one's Christian beliefs under socialism. But I am not here to discuss socialism or Marxism or whatever as a get out of jail free for the CSA unless we can also discuss Nazi research on the Southern plantation and Jim Crow models.

All these selective songs and speeches but always leaving out some very well known ones like one called "Battle Cry of Freedom":

Oh we'll rally round the flag, boys, we'll rally once again,[6]
Shouting the battle cry of freedom,
And we'll rally from the hillside, we'll gather from the plain,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom.

(Chorus)

The Union forever, hurrah! boys, hurrah!
Down with the traitors, up with the stars;[7]
While we rally round the flag, boys, we rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

Notice use of the term "traitor" for the confederacy. Sounds like someone considered them traitors back then too and thus that's a contemporary judgment.

Charge, no, again, there is a vast literature, and a vast REALITY, about African American Christianity and music and culture. (White) theologians whom I respect tell me that the black church developed, out of oppression, some understandings and wisdom that are worth them sharing with white Christians, and the white churches listening. In contrast to the church under socialism, I think you will find that planters ENCOURAGED slaves to worship, while most Marxists despise religion and do all they can to suppress it. (Planters did not want the slaves to have their OWN churches or worship, for security reasons, but they existed in spite of that.)

Read the thousands of slave narratives (now online) and you will see how important religion was during slavery and after.

And you misunderstand about slaves not being morally degraded (much). Or do you blame the victim for the crime?

As to Battle Cry of Freedom, sure.

Hey, what's a jubilee? HMMMMM???

Thanks, you just made my point about slaves' hope.

link

According to the Book of Leviticus, Hebrew slaves and prisoners would be freed, debts would be forgiven, and the mercies of Yahweh would be particularly manifest.

Oh, and I do not fear for myself; I'm 75 and the USA will still be a mostly-free country when I die. And in any case my life and death, and that of the US, is in God's hands. My fear is for my grandchildren, who may NOT die in a free country.

Balderdash, John.

Nonsense. You're posting sermons that conform to your religious views.
But, you think you're special, because you have a PhD.
So you can get away with whatever you want.
And on top of that, you're violating the "3 paragraph rule". But that's ok. You're special.

But, you just think that because you're who you are that you have the right to hijack any and all threads.

Goodnight, Gracie.

Read the thousands of slave narratives (now online) and you will see how important religion was during slavery and after.

Why, will I see the light about slavery? The real history, as one man on here likes to proclaim, and not the Yankee propaganda?

OK:

link

link

link

First three pages I click on, former slave, Rachel Adams is talking about how her grandmother was worn out by slavery, her grandfather was sold off separately and three children were eating out of the same wooden bowl like dogs. And how they couldnt read, they had no religious meeting house, no bible and had to be invited to church because (N-words) weren't allowed their own churches. Yeah, no degradation there. Hey, maybe the communists copied their approach to religion from the antebellum south?

But perhaps I need to read all 2300 slave testimonies (or every scrap that was ever written in the old South) to be able to properly judge slavery?…yeah, 'cause I'm sure the slave owners would've read 2300 pages that I asked them to read. I owe those people nothing; not to understand them nor to give them a fair shake.

Notice use of the term "traitor" for the confederacy. Sounds like someone considered them traitors back then too and thus that's a contemporary judgment.

The Battle Cry of Freedom is an interesting song, in that Union soldiers could see it as both Unionist and/or anti-slavery.

Note that the 'traitors' epithet in the song is for seceding from the Union, not for slavery.

Why, will I see the light about slavery? The real history, as one man on here likes to proclaim, and not the Yankee propaganda?

I don't think anyone is proposing that slavery was GOOD, are they?

Stop posting sermons. This is not the place.

Quoting from a sermon that is relevant to historical discussion is allowed. Proselyting is not allowed on the main forum.

There is a board for religious discussion on the Blue Fez.

Ok, doc. I get it. You're Special.
Have a nice day.

Charge, yes, many of the slave narratives are similarly horrible. Do you think I don't/didn't NOTICE?

The best, not analogy exactly, but the best model for understanding slavery on an American plantation may be that slaves are helpless prisoners in a penal system (while having done nothing wrong!) and under the control of wardens and guards whose authority is near-absolute and ARBITRARY. The slaves have to do what they are told, whether it makes sense or not. Sometimes the guards are humane, perhaps even kind, and sometimes the guards are casually brutal, perhaps even deliberately cruel. Being imprisoned is ALWAYS bad, but HOW bad depends, not on anything the prisoners do, but on the character, or maybe the whims, of the guards. (I have mentored and taught for several years in a nearby prison.)

What the narratives show, if you read a lot of them, is how VARIED the experiences of slaves were, in addition to (of course) sharing many common conditions, mostly bad ones. With regard to religion, in particular, you will, if you read on, find a very wide range of situations and experiences.

ALWAYS bad to be a slave, but HOW bad, and bad IN WHAT WAY did vary a lot.

Also, Charge, I did say MORALLY degraded;

Rachel Adams is talking about how her grandmother was worn out by slavery, her grandfather was sold off separately and three children were eating out of the same wooden bowl like dogs. And how they couldnt read, they had no religious meeting house, no bible and had to be invited to church because (N-words) weren't allowed their own churches. Yeah, no degradation there.

The dog bowl account is certainly degradation, and horrible, but it is not MORAL degradation for the children, though it might well indicate how morally degraded the master was. And one of her complaints was not being allowed her own church, her own worship, which I noted was often the case; Nat Turner was a preacher and slave-only assemblies of any sort were viewed as threats. But her account also demonstrates how important the Bible was, how important worship was, to her. Why would that be? Why would she mention that? (Partly because the interviewers had a list of standard questions, before they pursued whatever was unique in a particular ex-slave's experiences.)

Now, it COULD be that Marx was right and religion was the opiate -- though it does not seem to be so in Rachel Adams' case. But what she -- and slaves generally -- would get from the Hebrew scriptures would be Moses, and that God is in control and acts in His, not our, good time. And what she would get from the New Testament is that suffering is redemptive -- "Time on the Cross." And that there WILL BE a jubilee year in which the slaves are freed. That is HOPE. And it matters.

If "moral degradation" – a highly relative and subjective notion – was greater in Communist countries, and less than in the Southern states because they allowed and followed religion, does it not follow therefore that the Taliban are far less morally degraded than the USA, or most other nations?

Religion rules every aspect of their culture and country. That must be good, correct?

Want to study the Crusades without talking about religion? I do not think so.

Yes, you can, at least for the cause and response.

The Eastern Roman Emperor went to the pope in the west for help against the Moslems, and it had nothing to do with religion, but because they were losing territory to the Moslem expansion.

The Pope used 'religion' to get everyone fired up and ready to go fight in the east.

The cause was political and religion was used as a catalyst.

Come on, Tony, you know better than that. "Religion" covers a wide spectrum of beliefs and customs and institutions. Can't lump them all together.

Of course the Taliban does indeed consider us morally degraded -- and vice versa.

Kevin, yes and no; the older interpretation of the Crusades was as you describe it -- younger sons under feudalism seeking land -- but more recent studies have tended to take seriously the Crusaders' religious zeal. In any case, I have said what is obvious, that religion can be used to motivate and to justify conflicts that have other (economic, etc) bases.

I've mentioned it before, but the best single book on slavery in the US remains Genovese's ROLL JORDAN ROLL.

link

A testament to the power of the human spirit under conditions of extreme oppression, this landmark history of slavery in the South challenged conventional views by illuminating the many forms of resistance to dehumanization that developed in slave society.

Displaying keen insight into the minds of both enslaved persons and slaveholders, historian Eugene Genovese investigates the ways that enslaved persons forced their owners to acknowledge their humanity through culture, music, and religion. He covers a vast range of subjects, from slave weddings and funerals, to language, food, clothing, and labor, and places particular emphasis on religion as both a major battleground for psychological control and a paradoxical source of spiritual strength.

A winner of the Bancroft Prize.

He was still a Marxist when he wrote it, though he later became a Christian, a Roman Catholic, together with his wife, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, another first rate historian.

RJR uses the slave narratives more thoroughly than any other historian has done. Others have followed him and several other more recent books (RJR was published in 1974, iirc) also make extensive use of the narratives.

There are obvious problems in using the recollections of very old people about the events of their youth, but they are an invaluable source, even so.

Genovese, btw, prefers a "Victorian extended family" model for the plantation, over the prison model, which had been articulated most strongly, years earlier, by Kenneth Stamp's THE PECULIAR INSTITUTION. Genovese and Stampp do not seem to have liked each other.

Of course Victorian families tended to be very authoritarian, feudal in their assumptions. I think some plantations fit one model, others the opposing model. And no doubt some can be best understood as efficient businesses, which is the argument made by TIME ON THE CROSS. All three models have been offered by top-rate historians and have won prizes and wide acclaim. They are often inconsistent with each other. The reason for that is the wide spectrum of experience with slavery. As within any human institution lasting centuries and affecting millions, it is very hard to make valid generalizations, except that slavery was evil. But people trapped in an evil system deal with it differently; some make it worse, others try -- with limited success --to ameliorate the evils.

One can also observe, or maybe just speculate, that the SOURCES each historian uses tends to shape his interpretation. Stampp used a lot of northern travelers' accounts, abolitionist tracts, newspaper ads for run-away slaves, and so forth, and described the plantation as a prison. Fogel and Engerman used lots of plantation records and described plantations as efficient businesses (which challenged LOTS of rival interpretations). And Genovese used the slave narratives, and saw the plantation as a strict paternalistic Victorian family. Having read and written about all three books, I think there is some degree of merit in each, but believe Genovese gets it closest to correct. You can say opposite things and still be correct FOR SOME CASES.

I wasn't really trying to lump all religions and beliefs together. I felt that you were implying that the degradation of morals in society corresponded to the lack of religion in a society. That the lack of morals in a Communist State was a direct result of the lack of religion.

So, by that definition, therefore, a full theocracy as Afghanistan has sadly become, should be a completely moral culture.

I quite disagree with that line of thinking. My apologies if I am misinterpreting.

By the definition of the Taliban/Al Quaeda/ISIS, they ARE a completely moral culture. The opinions of infidels are totally irrelevant.
Are Arab historical SOURCES concerning the Crusades valid?

John, yes, Arab sources would be valid and indeed necessary for a comprehensive account.

Tony, if we look at, e.g., Russia between 1920 and 1990, we see rampant alcoholism, a declining birthrate, widespread thieving and abuse of weaker persons, and so forth. Why could this not be attributed to a lack of religion?

A religion sets standards for human behavior and provides mechanisms for dealing with the inevitable failures to meet those standards.

The effects of an ABSENSE of religion is a different issue than differences between and among rival religions. Both are important questions, just different questions.

The PRESENCE of religion in Russia led to such things as the slaughter of heretical schismatics who made the Sign of the Cross with two fingers, rather than three. AND, the "correct" three finger method required that the fingers be bent properly.
See "Old Believers".
link
Not to mention pogroms against Jews.

Shall we bring up persecution of the Mormons in America? Which they were all too happy to reciprocate? America does not have a spotless reputation regarding either morality or religious tolerance. The Europe our ancestors fled was intolerant, and so were those same refugees.

Wars of religion in Europe?
"Cuius Rex, eius religio."

I'm sorry, doc. Religion does not guarantee morality.
The thing is that all too often, secular leaders hop on enforcing the "true" religion, and that religion is only too happy to comply. Chicken or egg?

Interesting question –
Is religion a social construct intended to formalize and validate fundamental human social moral values? Or, is religion a divinely rendered social and moral code handed down to instruct and indoctrinate an otherwise amoral human race?

At the end of the day, religion can only articulate a moral path; it cannot compel that it be followed. Power to compel observance/obeisance/submission rests with the Church and/or the State. Given that the Church, like the State, is an institution contrived by fallible humans and often corrupted by them, it follows that religion (as a spiritual belief system) and the Church (as a human bureaucratic institution) should not be considered synonymous. A further complication is that humanity honors many different religious belief systems whose derived moral codes are not necessarily consistent with one another.

IMO … religion cannot guarantee morality, but morality cannot exist in the absence of religious belief.

We are imperfect beings living in an imperfect world.

B

John, no, of course the presence of religion does not guarantee morality. Nothing does, that is human nature. But the ABSENCE of religion may guarantee immorality. I have said several times now that religion is often used to justify bad behaviors of other types.

Blut, yes, exactly so.

Tony, if we look at, e.g., Russia between 1920 and 1990, we see rampant alcoholism, a declining birthrate, widespread thieving and abuse of weaker persons, and so forth. Why could this not be attributed to a lack of religion?

An interesting thesis. More of a philosophical question than an actual social or psychological question, as attempting to disentangle the causes from the effects would be nigh impossible.

The only definitive answer is, yes, of course it could be attributed to a lack of religion. One could also attribute alcoholism to a reduced work week. A declining birth rate to the invention of birth control. Thieving to scarcity of certain products. Abuse of weaker persons (which would be damned difficult to define or determine in a real study) to living in at totalitarian society.

Anything can be proposed.

It is interesting to think that the US, from 1920 to 1990 also experienced the same situation with respect to alcoholism (or more generally substance addiction), declining birthrate, increased thieving (if one measures that by incarceration rates) and perhaps greater abuse of weaker persons. The latter is just so hard to define, that it really doesn't make sense to attempt to measure it.

But both countries did see a drop in religion, albeit Russia was much more precipitous. So perhaps if your examples are intended to show a loss in morals, is that because in both places Church attendance fell steadily (or abruptly) throughout that period?

If so, that morals can be defined by your criteria, if we look at modern day Europe, we find lower church attendance rates (using that as measure of religion) so therefore Europe is less religious than the current United States.

But Europe had lower crime rates (again using incarceration rates and per capita murder rates) and lower alcoholism rates. As for abusing those weaker, again I'm not sure how to measure that. Perhaps if we reverse the question – does Europe help those less fortunate more than the US then the answer is probably yes. They have universal healthcare and a better social net, although perhaps more homeless oddly enough.

And if you mean a drop in birth rates is immoral (in contravention of "be fruitful" I can only presume?) then by that measure Europe is indeed worse than the US.

Such mixed results therefore might suggest that others factors might be in play, rather than simply religion.

A drop in birth rates is a long term disaster, yes, unless it comes from improved health. And even then there is correlation between a society's optimism and progress and its birthrate. Stop having babies and the fire goes out, or vice versa.

Good point about the correlation of industrialization and alcoholism, but WHY would they be connected (as they clearly are)? Because urbanization and industrialization severs people from traditional relationships (to the land and to each other) and atomized individual humans do not fare well, morally OR otherwise.

And humans do not breed well in captivity.

A drop in European birthrates is why it is turning into Eurabia. (Though the Muslims' birthrates are now declining, too, as they catch our social pathologies.)

Such mixed results therefore might suggest that others factors might be in play, rather than simply religion.

Well, of course.

End of the line, I think. Back to painting my artillery.

Yes, this is a good place to stop. Thanks to all who have argued with passion and restraint.

I see Charge was met a fate— as I cannot see the snips, I do not know why.

But I will refute his comments thusly:

When have I ever argued that the people who pursued an evil must be viewed as good? I argued no such thing. I argued that an evil can be carried out by people who do not believe it is evil— this is true. I argued that people can carry out evil acts alongside good acts, and that the good acts should not be dismissed because of the evil acts— but vice versa is also true.
I do not believe in either blanket praise nor blanket condemnation of everyone.
But I am certainly not trying to rehabilitate Southerners or the Confederacy. I am trying to examine the motivations and beliefs at the time and come to an understanding of these with regards to the political and military actions that were taken both in the broad sweep and in the individual and cultural details. Generic Johnny Reb was not necessarily a rabid, pro-slavery racist. He may have been the latter in terms of opinions and attitudes about the capabilities and character of other races, but he's just as likely not to have been filled with racial hatred as to be filled with it. And his motivations for fighting may have been about slavery OR it may have been about States' Rights OR it may have been in reaction to a perceived invasion by Federal troops Or it may have been because everybody else was doing it and Sarah Mae thought he looked awful handsome in that butternut coat and yes he could kiss her now. It could have been a mix of any of these, all of these, or something else I haven't mentioned. Only on an individual basis can we determine what any given person's motivation was; we cannot say so as any sort of universal truth, slavery being evil or not.
Let's take Robert E Lee.
Lee himself is known to have thought that slavery should be gradually ended by legislative process within the state of Virginia. He was loyal to Virginia, and could not countenance the thought of invading the state with Federal troops, secession vote in place or not. For that reason, he turned down the offer of overall command of the Union Army, and resigned his commission. He was later offered a commission in the Army of Virginia of the Confederate States, and accepted the duty of defending his home.
So his motivations were not based on slavery or a desire to preserve it, but rather a response to a threat he perceived to the state to which he felt his allegiance and loyalty were owed. I would argue (as I have said) that his reasoning was flawed and his loyalty misplaced, but I cannot see these reasons in and of themselves as evil. His objection was neither for slavery nor against abolition— it was against a Federal military invasion, regardless of the reasons offered for the same (which at the time, were not stated as being abolition). I'd have to do a bit more reading to know what his thoughts were regarding secession, but my gut impression would be that he would have thought that it was up to Virginia to decide if it wished to end slavery within its borders or not.

So that is an examination of only one participant— and it is certainly not a "rehabilitation."

It has been suggested that I am excusing treason against the US by discussing whatever motivations led persons to support or serve the CSA at the time. I will agree that, by the letter of the Constitution, the rebels acted as traitors to the US in the act of "Levying war against the United States." But this was not a view universally shared at the time, even within the United States government. The Southerners argued, quite reasonably at the time, that due to secession they had ceased to be citizens of the United States, and therefore were not engaged in treason against it in their actions. The question therefore hinged upon whether secession was legal or not— and that issue had never been tested in the courts, nor addressed by law.
In fact, this very limbo of legality may well be why Jefferson Davis was never tried for treason. (Here's an interesting article about the decision: link )
So, if there was a reasonable argument to be made then that the rebels were not traitors, then it is hard to claim now that they were— even though I personally think secession was not legally valid.

My above post was being composed before Doc's proposed end, and thus I did not see it until after I posted. But I hope it is of interest, nevertheless.

Parzival, yes, and thank you.

Parzival,

Your post is a classic "why they fought" vs. "what they fought for". This isn't directed at you personally, but it is a great examination of "why" Robert E. Lee fought.

Why they fought is individual and varied. Some fought to preserve slavery. Some were conscripted. Some fought to repel invaders.

What they fought for was immutable and unchangeable. What they fought for was the preservation and survival of a Confederacy whose survival and economic engine required human slavery to function.

Lost Causers and Confederate apologists love to conflate and confuse the two. They go on and on and on about why their great great grand pappy in the 163rd Virginia fought for his "rats", but refuse to acknowledge the actual end results of that ancestor's energy and labor. The "why" vs. the "what".

Now, I personally can acknowledge and honor the bravery of any individual soldier. An individual's life is full of moral conflicts and difficult choices. But I feel we also must acknowledge "what" they fought for was wrong. It was wrong by 19th Century standards (just ask Douglas, Garrison, and Stowe) and it is wrong today.

So "what" Robert E. Lee fought for was wrong and should be acknowledged as such.

I'd just read all these arguments, and it's incredible, at least for an european, how a war fought exactly 160 yrs ago is able to create such all these controversies.

That's because alex the war isn't quite over yet!

Europe has no revanchist sentiments?
That's a willful disregarding of recent history. Balkans anyone? Ukraine?
Some of those on this thread I'm in almost total disagreement with, but for a European to claim innocence over grudges is laughable.

for a European to claim innocence over grudges is laughable.

Absolutely correct. The Russians are still angry over the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Poles are still angry over the partitions of their country and the atrocities of War II.

And the European grudges go back further in history and include most, if not all, of the major powers over the decades and centuries.

The Poles are still angry that there's no Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth!

Merry Minuet
The Kingston Trio
They're rioting in Africa. They're starving in Spain.
There's hurricanes in Florida and Texas needs rain.
The whole world is festering with unhappy souls.
The French hate the Germans. The Germans hate the Poles.
Italians hate Yugoslavs. South Africans hate the Dutch.
And I don't like anybody very much!
But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud
For man's been endowed with a mushroom shaped cloud.
And we know for certain that some lovely day
Someone will set the spark off and we will all be blown away.
They're rioting in Africa. There's strife in Iran.
What nature doesn't do to us will be done by our fellow man.

That's what, 60 years ago? Not much has changed.

Cleburne, I am not an apologist for anyone. Frankly, I find little to admire in the ante-bellum South except for hoop skirts, neo-Classical architecture, and those natty butternut officers' uniforms with the gold filigree trim. Whatever else they got wrong, the CSA had a sense of style.
Oh, and the slope-sided ironclads are kinda cool.
Oh, and the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia is just a classic design, one of the best flags ever made (which is why it has been mistakenly lofted to the status of "the flag of the Confederacy," which it was not). I can say that without excusing either the Confederacy as a whole or the flag's later use as a symbol of horrific racial terrorism, which I despise.

And that's about it.
I'm neither a "Lost Causer" nor an apologist. I am a realist, and a person capable of thinking more than one thing about a subject at a time.
I have repeatedly stated that slavery was the root cause of the war. There, I said it again. Read it. Let it sink in. "Parzival says the root cause of the war is slavery." Because I do and it was. Also slavery IS evil. (Still going on, you know. Still going on in the US, too. We call it "human trafficking" and "the sex industry," but any way you slice it, it's still slavery.)

But I'm not apologizing for either the South or the Confederacy or even the Confederate Army when I say that different people had different motives for going to war, and that those motives can be seen as understandable even if I don't agree with them. (Read that last part again. People seem to be having trouble with that: Acknowledging the existence of multiple motives and rationales for going to war does NOT mean that one agrees with those motives or rationales— it merely means that one can see and understand that these existed.) That's called "studying history" and "discerning the nature of human beings."
I'm not being a Southern apologist. I'm merely pointing out the details of history.

In this thread, my efforts to do so have been consistently trashed by those who for reasons I can't fathom want everything to be Good or Bad, Right or Wrong, North or South, My Beliefs Or No Beliefs. And then I'm accused of being simplistic.
And frankly, I'm still wondering what the fuss is about. The war is OVER. The South rightfully lost. The Union was rightfully preserved. Slavery was rightfully abolished. The Southern "aristocracy" was rightfully shattered. It took a hundred more years, but actual "white supremacy" was overturned to the point where, despite being only 13% of the overall population, the descendants of slaves are today police officers, business owners, bankers, teachers, nurses, craftsmen, doctors, lawyers, CEOs, scientists, physicists, professors, writers, philosophers, economists, politicians, governors, mayors, ambassadors, Congressmen, Senators, soldiers, officers, generals, Justices in the Supreme Court, and the former President of the United States.* The war is OVER.

I really do not understand the tenor of this thread on the part of some. Why is it so important to y'all to shout down voices with different opinions? Why is it so important to y'all that the South be "wrong?" They were wrong, but what's that got to do with you today? And why engage in petty and personal attacks against those offering not opposing points of view but merely a closer look at details?
Blanket condemnations of the past are far too easy and far too simplistic— and they are also dangerous. If we refuse to study the details, if we refuse to see how people can use good reasons to support bad actions, or even worse, evil ones, how can we learn to examine our own reasons and actions to prevent ourselves from making the same mistakes? The desire to make a blanket condemnation of history is often tied to (or even results in) a mis-applied adulation of the present, and even one's own self. "See— we aren't them, therefore we are good!" Self-righteousness is the cause of many evils, then and now, and if one thinks he doesn't have it, he should probably look more closely in the mirror— or better, ask another to help correct him.

*Minor point of self-correction. President Obama is actually not a descendant of slaves, though he is of African ancestry. In any case, the point was about the prevailing racial attitudes in the US, not actual ties to slavery.

Yup those Danes, Swedes, Dutch, Spanish, Germans and Portuguese, just long for their lost empires.