I think I may lose it if I ever have to have another discussion that begins with the following sentence; "you know, the Civil War wasn't really fought because of slavery."

I get it, I get it, y'all. Ending slavery may have been #5 on a list of 5 reasons why the Civil War was fought, but at the end of the day, 1861 = formalized slavery existed and 1865 = it didn't. Sorry, but the war was worth it.

I'm not trying to say that people who start these damn conversations are advocating that slavery should have continued to exist in the South, but figuring out what exactly they're trying to say is like trying to converse with "Passive Aggressive Robot" that's incapable of saying what it is it truly wants to say.

It always seems to me more like people who say this really want to say that the Union soldiers should not be portrayed as knights on white horses, which I'm fine with, but I always also get this subtle vibe that they're trying to portray the Confederate States as being this completely shat upon group of people who were wronged during the "war of Northern Aggression." I'm sorry, but the South sustained, supported, and thrived off a system in which an entire race of people was kept as little more than human cattle, so I'm prepared to give them very little moral leeway.

The only leeway that I'm willing to grant them is that we should honor Confederate soliders. I don't think we should honor the Confederacy in any way shape or form, but many of the people who fought in the Confederacy were poor farmers who got caught into something that they didn't have much control over, much like many of the soldiers in the North had no real say over their fates, either.

Just my two cents...

Matthew