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Good for you. The Brits have a saying that of the sides in their Civil War, the Cavaliers -- the royal forces based on the aristocracy -- were wrong but romantic, while the Roundheads -- Cromwell and the Parliamentary forces drawn from the rising commercial and entrepreneurial classes -- were right but repulsive.

The same sort of thing can be said to apply to the Confederacy and the Union in our Civil War. Unless we shun truth and good reason, we cannot but reject slavery and recognize that its elimination was a moral necessity, even at a terrible price. Yet there is much to admire about the Old South, and it produced many fine personalities and made essential contributions to America's founding and national character.

I recognize that my detached view arises in part from my lack of Confederate or Union ancestors. My grandparents were immigrants and arrived in an America already defined by the Civil War and much else. Gradually, I came to the view that to be an American in full requires that one know and embrace the country's history without narrow partisanship.

Union, Confederate, slave, slavemaster, abolitionist and so on all have their roles and should be understood and accepted. And sometimes a Confederate flag may find its way to the desk of someone with Union ancestry. I submit that is a different and better thing than descendant of slaveholders arguing that no, really, the Confederacy was not at all about slavery.