Agnapostate
Rookie
- Banned
- #21
Slavery is as much a part of the legacy of the founding of the United States as it was the founding of the Confederate States, and if we're going to down the Confederates for practicing slavery we must also down the Union for practicing slavery as well.
It's of course true that slavery is misidentified as the exclusive reason for secession, rather than one among several reasons. But it's also a reality that slavery was not a central point of dispute in the American Revolution, as it was in the Civil War.
Your second point is lost on me, I never said they weren't Americans. DavidS brought up that those who died fighting for the Confederacy were not Americans.
It would be more accurate to say that they did not identify as U.S. citizens. Their nation still constituted an American political entity, but then again, so do numerous other nations.