[dsc]

I haven’t responded to those who have posted responses on this topic for a few reasons, the main one being that I just don’t have the time and energy to rehash this yet again.

I have no idea how to shake the faith of those who have been taught that “the South started the Civil War to protect slavery.”

The North started the war to prevent the southern states from seceding peacefully, as was their right. The notion that the war was being fought to free the slaves caused a draft riot in New York City.

If you’d asked a southern soldier if he was fighting to protect slavery, he’d probably have thought for a moment, scratched, spit some tobacco and said, “Well, yes, that too, I suppose.”

The way the basic humanity of the southerners is denied is a damned shame.

When the northern army of occupation moved into the South after the war, the ladies of the northern officers complained that they could find no suitable household servants. Some southern ladies, hoping to help people they had known all their lives, recommended former slaves of their acquaintance.

Oh, no! Quoth the northern ladies. We wouldn’t have negroes around the house.

The black and white, comic-book caricature showing the North as heroic and the South as demonic haters of negroes is nothing more than garbage ginned up by leftards to serve their own cause.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

[rockrr]

No doubt the kool-aid flavor you prefer is mint julip?

[BroJoeK]

dsc: "I haven’t responded to those who have posted responses on this topic for a few reasons, the main one being that I just don’t have the time and energy to rehash this yet again."

You sound like that IRS administrator who recently testified before Congress: "I am totally innocent of all wrong-doing, and now I take the fifth and refuse to answer any questions."
Why do you suppose nobody believes her?

dsc: "I have no idea how to shake the faith of those who have been taught that 'the South started the Civil War to protect slavery.' "

Of course, it's not "faith", it's facts.
To state those facts precisely, it's:

1. Seven Deep-South states declared their secession for the sole purpose of protecting slavery against the perceived threat represented by anti-slavery Republican President-elect Lincoln.
   So how do we know this for sure?
   They told us, in their official Reasons for Secession.
   • South Carolina,
   • Mississippi,
   • Georgia,
   • Texas

2. At the same time, four Upper South states (Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas) refused to secede just to protect slavery.

3. The Deep-South Confederacy, realizing it would fail if more states didn't join, determined a course of action to provoke (by seizing Federal properties), start (at Fort Sumter) and formally declare war on the United States (May 6, 1861).

4. Now, facing the necessity of choosing sides in war, those four Upper-South states switched from Union to Confederacy.
   Meanwhile, four Border-States remained loyal to the Union.

dsc: "The North started the war to prevent the southern states from seceding peacefully, as was their right."

Of course, they did not "secede peacefully", far from it, and the North did not start war.
Instead Secessionists immediately began seizing Federal properties (i.e., forts, ships, customs houses, arsenals, armories, mints, etc.), and threatening Federal officials.
When newly-inaugurated President Lincoln attempted to resupply troops in Federal Fort Sumter, the Confederacy militarily assaulted and seized it.
When Lincoln called for Federal troops to retake the fort, the Confederacy declared war on the United States.

dsc: "If you’d asked a southern soldier if he was fighting to protect slavery, he’d probably have thought for a moment, scratched, spit some tobacco and said, 'Well, yes, that too, I suppose.' "

I think it's even simpler than that, since most Confederate troops served very close to their own homes until or unless a Union force threatened them.
Then they would muster -- like Minute Men of old -- to fight off the aggressor, and after a battle return home until the next time.
That's exactly how their descendants came to believe it was only a "War of Northern Aggression", having little or nothing to do with slavery.

But in reality, Slave-Power started the war in order to achieve by military force what they could not through elections and negotiations.

dsc: "The way the basic humanity of the southerners is denied is a damned shame."

Nobody on Free Republic has ever denied your "basic humanity".
So the real "d*mned shame" is you people forever whining, complaining and crying about alleged insults which never happened.
Sure, maybe that's just typical of Southerners, but I say: it's time for you to man-up, suck it in, and move on with life, FRiend. ;-)

[Ditto]

I think you are the one with the comic book images of the forty plus years leading up to the civil war where the arguments were over the expansion of slavery, the sectional divides those arguments bread, and the absolute insane level of hubris the radical fire-eaters of the deep south harbored at that time.

They really did think that one Southern 'Gentleman" was worth ten 'Pasty Faced' Yankee mechanics on the battlefield.

Some idiots hanging around these threads still think that BS is true.

The South paid one hell of a price for that hubris of the elite class.

[central_va]

If you’d asked a southern soldier if he was fighting to protect slavery, he’d probably have thought for a moment, scratched, spit some tobacco and said, “Well, yes, that too, I suppose.”

I disagree here. Lincoln said the war wasn't about slavery, up until early 1863 when he delivered his Emancipation Proclamation. So that question to the southern soldier wouldn't have made sense up until early 1863.