I am in no way being an apologist for the South. I am simply recognizing the emotions and motivations of the people on both sides, and recognizing that there were a great many good people fighting on both sides, as is always the case in a war.

The abolitionists were absolutely right to oppose slavery. It was a completely unjustifiable practice, and it had already been ended in most other advanced societies of the time. The Southerners in the USA were wrong to continue the practice of slavery.

This does not mean, however, that everyone who fought for the South was some kind of evil person.

I find that when people have a big emotional axe to grind over some issue...whether it be racism, sexism, Naziism, or any other "ism"...they are far too inclined in their righteous fury to simply divide people up rigidly into "the good" and "the evil" (on the basis of which side they fought on)...as if it was that simple. It's not.

It may be considered politically incorrect by many now to say that some Blacks fought willingly for the South during that war, nevertheless it is true that some did. It's on the record. People don't want to admit it's true or hear it even spoken of because they are too darned hung up on present issues and present rhetoric, and that present rhetoric demands a whitewashed view of past history which is just as blind (and prejudiced) in its own way as the Southern maintenance of slavery was blind and prejudiced in the 1860s.

People are running around all the time trying to prove to other people how righteous they are about racial or gender issues. This does not impress me. We are ALL opposed to slavery here, we are ALL in favor of racial equality, we are all in favor of gender equality, and we do not have to change past history or censor old books by Mark Twain or somebody else like that in order to prove our righteousness to all the other people around us.