“…just more Cult of the Lost Cause.”

I suppose I could just dismiss your quotes from the Civil War Museum as “just more…” … of something, but I won’t. There are two sides to every story — and the truth usually has nothing to do with either one of them.

“No, I do not want to contemplate a time when humans might overtly and socially acceptably own other humans again.”

Whether or not you “contemplate” it has no bearing on whether or not it comes to pass. The collapse of civilization, as prophesied by umair haque, would increase the chances of it occurring.

“…the Confederacy was never a separate nation.”

That depends who you ask. If you were to have asked a citizen of the Confederacy I imagine he would have disagreed with you. Since I was writing from the perspective of a Reb I wrote the words that I imagine he would have written.

“…what are the other eight reasons for the Civil War?”

Come on now. It took an entire class to list all nine causes. You can’t expect me to do it all by myself. But with your help we can identify at least one more…

“… nearly all wars are predominantly economic, with most of the other issues being secondary.”

…so, in the case of the Civil War, what is one of the predominantly economic issues to which slavery was a secondary issue?

From the perspective of a Reb, he was defending his nation against an invasion. Since no war would have been fought without the Yanks invading the South, that invasion qualifies as a cause of the war. Since Lincoln’s objective was to forcibly reunite the Confederacy with the Union (not necessarily to abolish slavery), desire to maintain control of the Southern states also qualifies as a cause. One could examine the many political, social, and economic reasons why Lincoln was not willing to negotiate a separation agreement and allow the Confederacy to maintain its independence.

I agree that slavery was a primary cause of the war, but let’s say that slavery was the sole issue over which the war was fought, that does not refute the following assertions:

1. Machine labor, where it is available, replaces slave labor.
2. Titled ownership slavery was not abolished because of a sudden, spontaneous, unexplainable surge of moral indignation against it.
3. People sometimes fight wars for foolish and unnecessary reasons because the way they perceive the situation is different from the actual situation.
4. By 1860, titled ownership slavery had been abolished in the leading nations of the world (and in many not-so-leading nations), representing a world wide trend of decline in the practice of titled ownership slavery. In the United States, where the central government lacked the authority to abolish slavery, it was abolished by most state governments (who did have the authority).

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…and most importantly…

5. Recognizing no obligation to conform to Feminists’ expectations is in no way equivalent to supporting slavery on economic grounds.

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