The supposition from your side is that we Free Republic secessionist are fueling the MSM and others with ammunition, and also it has been stated the we are not really conservatives, just a bunch of wannabe Klansman. So spare me your BS. Your mantra is that my ancestors died for slavery, and I dare post one of your dead invaders from 150 years ago, and the first thing one of you neo fascists do is hit the abuse button. Very ironic. Hypocrites. Can't take reality.
I wish you could see that what we are engaged in is a disagreement over what constitutes "conservatism." IOW, what exactly are we trying to conserve?
We have a different opinion as to whether the CSA was erected in defense of basic American founding principles or in rejection of them.
Let me state that I am fully in agreement that parts of what the CSA fought for were fully defensible. But any nation based on the explicit statement that its "Cornerstone" is a doctrine of human inequality is in direct and irreducible conflict with the core doctrine of the Founding, that "all men are created equal."
In fact, the right to revolt and replace a government proclaimed in the DOI was based on that revolt being to defend this equality. It justified no right of group A to revolt in order to impose or defend the oppression of group B. The Spartans would not have been justified in revolt in order to impose helotry on their neighbors.
So, no, I don't consider defense of an anti-American doctrine to be "conservative."
I don't believe I've ever said that, and if I did I apologize.
Here is what I do believe:
Over the course of the 20 years previous to 1860, almost every national institution, including most churches, split apart over the issue of slavery. The last to come apart explicitly over this issue was the Democrat Party, in the summer of 1860. I find it difficult to believe that when the country itself came apart, it had nothing to do with the same issue.
I am perfectly willing to agree other issues were involved, from states' rights to tariffs. It is notable that these issues received little discussion as primary causes at the start of the war, but were suddenly hauled out after the loss of the war discredited slavery.
But is is important to distinguish between the root cause of the disagreement and ancillary ones. Secession was in many ways like a divorce. Few people have ever divorced to prove they had the right to do so, the equivalent of a states' rights argument. People divorce because they are really mad at the other person. States secede because they are really angry.
The relevant issue is not the right to divorce or secede, it is why the anger exists. In the case of the South in 1860, they were very tired of being told they were morally in the wrong. This is an utterly understandable human reaction, especially when what you are being told you are wrong about is something you cannot change without massive disruption of your society. But, unfortunately, they were in the wrong.
The immediate cause of the war, to be sure, was not secession. It was the refusal of Lincoln and Unionists to accept secession as legitimate. IMO most southerners fought primarily not to defend the institution of slavery, but to protect their homes, just as most Union soldiers fought primarily to preserve the Union, not to destroy slavery.
But those who schemed and plotted to bring secession about, the Fire-Eaters were different. They quite explicitly and openly proclaimed their desire to create a great slave empire by conquest to the south. They pushed secession through in defense of slavery.
No slavery, there would never have been any secession. No secession, no war. It's really quite simple.
And yet your arguments are so weak you had to resort to posting a picture of a dead soldier.
Fail.