What im trying to get at and im sorry it wasnt more clear os the whole attack on southern pride and the confederate flag being a shmbol of slavery. they attack southerners as just a bunch of racists when for many it was about more than slavery and likely the whole divide had less to do with slavery than most are told but thsts because the union won and controls the narrative

I was born and raised in the south. Driving through Confederate graveyards such as Hollywood cemetery and seeing an endless sea of crosses and applying the small percentage of slave owners in the south to that endless sea of CSA dead. It is hard to imagine that all those young men died for something most of them did not have. Although, history has taught us that men can be talked into fighting for the wrong things sometimes.

I think the things to keep in mind in this argument over states rights/slavery is the small number of slave owners in the south, the historical context of slave ownership worldwide, and the fact that in the end the US was the third country in the world to end slavery right after Haiti and England.

In the end this was a huge Federal power grab backed by big business. Today's government is a direct decedent of the Union taking control. And what did that Union do once in control? But continue to take states rights and encourage dependence on big government. As sqeptiq so eloquently posed, and something I have said my whole life, "we should have picked our own cotton"

You can't separate slavery from states rights. Slavery was Illegal in many states before the Civil War. If the US had been a democracy then a popular vote may very well have made slavery illegal in every state. In a republic where minority rights are protected by a Bill of Rights, a strong Supreme Court, a non proportionate Senate that was originally appointed by state legislators, an electoral college, a weak executive branch, among other provisions states rights are an essential component.

The problem of course for abolitionists is that slavery was in the Constitution. The specific clauses of the Constitution related to slavery were the Three-Fifths Clause, the ban on Congress ending the slave trade for twenty years, the fugitive slave clause, and the slave insurrections. To end slavery would have and after the Civil War did require a constitutional amendment. Because minority rights were protected the necessary two thirds of states would not have ratified such an amendment.

Almost from the beginning the US has slipped towards a democracy. We have known since Athens the problems with a democracy. The founders understood those problems and tried to limit them by establishing a republic. They also understood that a republic couldn't be formed without Southern support despite opposition to it before the war of independence. The civil war seems baked into the founding.

Can we return to the original concept of a republic where minority rights are protected? I have no idea. But I don't think the great historical tragedy of institutional racial slavery should be used to oppose state rights. Two wrongs does not make a right.

The popularity of Lincoln as espoused in history is proof that slavery was unpopular. The cotton farmers in the south may have supported it but were c0ming around to the fact that buying slaves, providing them essentials; food, clothing, shelter, capturing runaways was too expensive when they could hire them and pay them the going labor rate was much cheaper. They really didn't need a civil war to end slavery. It probably, due to its unpopularity in America and even globally in western societies, would have disappeared completely in ten to twenty years and not cost the lives of 650 thousand Americans. Discrimination may have lasted a little longer. The North was still prejudiced against Blacks. Segregation would have probably been the law of the land for a few more decades at least, until Blacks earned equal status in all States just as Women had to. Blacks were winning equal status by being better than whites in the fifties and sixties. That's how equal rights are properly gained. By proving you are better; making your neighborhoods safer, becoming more prosperous. Protesting and activism invite resistance and conflict. Government can force an issue but that too can incite resentment and conflict. The Constitution guarantees equal rights for all individuals under the law. It just needed to be proven that Blacks and women fell under the definition of "individual". The unborn are the last segment of society to earn the right to be included in the definition. Part of the role of women throughout history has been the guardians of future generations. Feminists are destroying part of what women are by eliminating that responsibility out of some misconception of sexual or economic convenience.

States rights were a factor in the war but an even bigger factor was taxation on agricultural products coming out of the south.

That's my opinion of it.

The "Civil War" was about States Rights, and mainly centered on the Southern States right to keep their tradition of slavery.

The same problem almost scuttled the Constitution. Southern States only agreed to sign when the clause abolishing slavery was removed from the earlier draft of the Constitution. Southern States remained uneasy with the Constitution, which in principle, implied against slavery. When Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, the fuse was lit.

Columbus was among the few who successfully made it to the New World. It was a small club of courageous sailors who made it, and heroism can be considered a requirement.

Political correctness makes a straw man of Columbus against the indigenous populations. But as observed Mark Twain, it is not reasonable to judge anyone outside of their time...unless you are a Marxist who wants to hold the World responsible for being "oppressed." Marxists need to obliterate history, or common sense will prevent people from adopting the ridiculous.