It's not dissimilar to the US wars in the middle east: The North toppled an evil government, freed some people, but didn't finish the job. So assholes ended back up in charge. They couldn't go quite as far, or quite go all ISIS, they had to settle for just the KKK, because it was all one country again, but somehow the losers didn't lose all that much in the long run.
All of that being said, I can't say for certain that you're being intellectually honest, you're conflating quite a few things with crucial nuance. As an example, you claim black slave families were closer and more stable, because they were penned in and forced to breed together to provide additional laborers who would replace them. Have you ever considered that divorced families are better off than unhappy marriages? Have you considered that perhaps marriages aren't entirely necessary, and modern black culture isn't well suited to traditional marriage norms codified by white JudeoChristian people? If you're heart is in the right place, I'd imagine you could tell us a story of a true ally to black slaves in the south. One whom was raised in a toxic racist environment, but learned to work within a inherently broken system to provide some sense of equity.
Oif you know anything about the old south, white families penned themselves to the land they were on and married those in litteral proximities. Your son was going to marry the neighbors daughter. Thats why they were so defensive of thier land. It had been held closely for generations. Your using modern stanards of moving around constatly and marrying based on 60's free love standards. This was also not too uncommon of a stance made by west africans in their bative lands. Thats why africa is dense of language families, territorial familial rule. The anglo/Irish(ulster etc..)were very similiar in that regard. A story? Lincoln married a prominent kentucky slave holding white woman and sold her slaves for profit. Robert E lee was the executor of his wifes estate, and followed her fathers bequeathing of his slaves freedoms.
Further, "I'm not a proponent of slavery" is a sequence of words that loses a lot of its power when it follows a direct assertion that people may have been better off under slavery, as not only Nehemiah Adams believed, but you, from your own comment, also seem to as well?
"Black slave families were closer and more stable(parental seperation rates) than they are now". Gross! The principle of charity is a thing, but there are limits to charity.
Nehemiah Adams? Really? Gross.
Are you sure you want to keep talking about this?
But sure. Family stability. A virtue of slavery.
The comparison should be prevalence of kidnapping in modern times vs family separation under slavery.
It was a choice made by a private citizen to choose their own autonomy.
That's very different to a choice made by one person on the life of another, enforced by the power of the state.
"Is your assertion that racist white northerners fought a war against racist white southerners to free black people?". What about racist white northerners and racist white southerners confused you?
> You don't need to try to save their reputations. Let them be remembered as the assholes they were.
Saving their reputation by calling them racist white southerners?
You do realize that some northern states had slaves too during the civil war. And the emancipation proclamation only freed the slaves in the south.
If you want to learn what the civil war was really about go look into why west virginia seceded from virgina. Do you think west virginians were less racist than the rest of virginians? Or do you think it was economic?
The ones that seceded said it was about slavery. Many times. You don't believe them. Why? Why do you care enough to claim that you know their motives better than everyone else?
West Virginia split because they didn't want to go along with Virginia's secession. That's something that happened after the cause, not something that can tell you the cause, though! Maryland and Delaware were less dominated by the slave-holding interests. Its not that interesting.
It was economic in the sense that slavery was not central to West Virginia's economy, but was central to not-West Virginia's economy. A map makes this pretty apparent[0]. The argument isn't that the was was about racism, but about slavery. Those are often related, but aren't precisely the same.
It was about slavery, racism was DEEPLY involved in US slavery, and racism and racists didn't just go away after the civil war.
Sometimes it's as simple as people say it is, over and over and over in their defense of slavery and their post-Civil-War racist laws and propaganda.
You don't need to try to save their reputations. Let them be remembered as the assholes they were.