[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

The confederacy was built to uphold slavery. Nothing more. It wasn't for "States Rights" , except for the right to own slaves. That's some seriously twisted vote of history you have. Where do you get this interpretation of? I'm genuinely curious. Honestly

A pretty hefty proportion of Americans genuinely believe the states rights thing. Never underestimated the human capacity for self-justification and delusion.

http://www.salon.com/2013/03/16/the_...the_civil_war/

At the bottom of all of these is one basic question: was the Civil War about slavery, or states’ rights?

Popular opinion favors the latter theory. In the spring of 2011, in recognition of the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, pollsters at the Pew Research Center asked: “What is your impression of the main cause of the Civil War?” Thirty-eight percent of the respondents said the main cause was the South’s defense of an economic system based on slavery, while nearly half—48 percent—said the nation sacrificed some 650,000 of its fathers, sons, and brothers over a difference of interpretation in constitutional law. White non-Southerners believed this in roughly the same proportion as white Southerners, which was interesting; even more fascinating was the fact that 39 percent of the black respondents, many of them presumably the descendants of slaves, did, too.