I don't have a particularly positive view of those conditional unionists who, along with the strict unionists voted to stay...pending action by Lincoln. Reeks of wanting it both ways.
Your assertion was that all the Confederate states declared that they seceded strictly for slavery. I've demonstrated that isn't true. Falling back on your personal disapproval is akin to moving the goal posts to a position that is actually out of bounds from the field of play. The question is one of historical fact, not of your sensibilities.
And while the declaration by the state of Virginia does not mention explicitly slavery as a reason, it does bother to label the south as "slave-holding states". Not southern states, they qualified it as slave owning. And no delegates said anything negative about slavery and I believe were all slave-owners. So yes, it goes a long way that the northern southern states joined a country in which slavery was guaranteed. So this really informs my view of the CSA. I can't help but to think states rights is lipstick on a pig. Wink wink...the states right was the right to slavery. But I see your point about the northern states not explicitly saying it.
I've had others say in response "a state's right to do what?" Well in fact they were asserting a right to practice something that was entirely legal. Immoral, yes, but still fully legal. And if we assert that a person, or a state, only has the right to do something of which we approve, then we deny them of rights completely. No legal right needs protection when everyone believes in it. Furthermore, the asserted right of the 19th century Southern states is not fundamentally different from the asserted right of many 21st century Americans - the right to consider a particular class of human beings merely instrumental to our own happiness because they are not, really, fully human. The certainty of our own superior virtue ill behooves us.
Moreover and I think more importanly (because its more recent I guess), to the monuments and statues that were the original issue here (well, not original...) they were put up largely in 1900 to 1920 mostly by the United daughters of the Confederacy. A group that supported the klan and defended slave-owners. The statues were put up after Jim Crow laws were enacted and coincided with the 2nd rise of the KKK. So to me there is no argument *why* the monuments went up, and I have little sympathy for reasons they should remain standing.
While I don't join in it, I can sympathize with the argument that many tax-paying citizens are offended by the ideals of the Confederacy and don't want their tax dollars paying for a memorial to Confederates. It doesn't follow that the memorials and statues were erected to re-assert the Confederates' values. It's become popular to argue that the memorials were erected to re-assert white supremacy during periods when racial violence was more intense; it's just as valid to argue that the memorials were primarily erected to mark significant anniversary periods of the war, because in fact that is when the memorials were primarily erected. The "stump" or "broken tree" motif of many of the memorials symbolizes simple mourning for the dead, not a racial or ideological statement, and the mass-produced anonymous common soldier figure of many other memorials found on the squares of small towns all over the South speaks merely of respect for the memory of people who came before us and endured a difficult time. Whatever the majority of citizens in those small towns choose to do regarding those statues, through a legal process, is strictly their own business.
And don't forget that when you revere the Founders, you're defending slave owners. Look up Lord Dunmore's Proclamation of 1775.
People may say that slaveowners needed to be viewed in the context of the day, but in the mid 19th century there were a lot of people strongly against it. People knew. They just wanted to stay wealthy.
Everyone, always, should be viewed in the context of their time and place. Yes, some were convinced that slavery was evil during the 19th century, and yes, the motive for retaining slavery was material. The motive for fighting slavery was also, in many cases, material. Immigrants, tradesmen, and farmers in the free states had no economic incentive to see zero-labor-costs expanded beyond the South, nor economic incentive to see zero-labor-costs perpetuated there.
