Totally agree on Abe. Regarding ”Fighting for your country as a virtue” - yup. Regarding motivations of the north-”more imperialistic rather than abolitionist

Totally agree on Abe. Regarding ”Fighting for your country as a virtue” - yup. Regarding motivations of the north-”more imperialistic rather than abolitionist” - yup. The point remains though - the southern system even post-civil war was so vile and dehumanizing with jim-crowe and all that nazis used it as a template for the ostracism of the jews. So in my books it’s a system that does not deserve to survive. I acknowledge the sacrifice of sourhern soldiers was honorable as individuals but they defended a system built on a deep evil. Similarly as nazi germany was a political entity that needed to lose the south was a political entity that needed to lose. Regardless of the ’true political motivations’ of the time. But military victories are hardly tools of building better societies. What alternatives are there to strategies of borderline genocide then? Is there any version of history where the slaver-components of the southern cultural heritage can be isolated from the non-slaver parts? The post-apartheid South Africa handled the heritage of the afrikaaners pretty well IMO. No purges, no melting of statues. Just huge effort to make everyone understand - including the truth commission - what the new rules are, and what is now acceptable. Germany post-ww2 was rebuilt and the nazi elements eradicated. Both of these examples had a country with a long history before the super oppressive systems took place. South otoh was built by slavers with slaver institutions from the early beginning. I honestly don’t know how much there is of non-slaver stuff to fall back to. That does not make genocide right, nor does it explain away the trauma of cultural eradication. I hope there would be some method of healing but I guess close to two centuries no one has come up with one. I’m not convinced melting statues helps at all.