Debating state's rights or the causes of the War of Northern Aggression or the cultural differences between North and South does not necessarily indicate bitterness.
The South has a unique history. It is the only region of the nation to have been invaded by the Federal Government. Of COURSE Southerners are going to view that event differently than citizens from the north or West. Oddly enough, Southerners take pride in that uniqueness.
Conceding the argument about the evils of slavery, the debate in favor of the doctrine of state's rights has a great deal of merit if one looks at that debate in light of what many of the Founding Fathers believed about the basic powers and responsibilities of the State and federal governments.
Also, there is considerable merit to the accusations about the war having one of its root causes in the economic struggle between north and South which manifested itself in a decades long political struggle for control of Congress and its power to regulate the tariff and set the nation's economic policy.
Southerners are closer to all these historic events than the residents of any other section of the country. They have studied the period extensively, and some of the best histories of the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow have been written by Southern historians, such as Douglas Southall Freeman and Comer van Woodward.
But bitterness. Hardly. A willingness to defend the belief in the "lost cause,"...certainly. Pride in the nobility of character of men such as Robert E. Lee, despite the stigma attached to that cause...most definitely.
For Lee is the embodiment of the best elements of the Southern spirit. Honor, generosity, patriotism. Yes, patriotism....for when the war was over no man worked harder than he to mend the rifts between North and South...or to encourage his fellow Southerners to accept the fait accompli.
Who else but Lee would be the first white man to kneel in prayer beside a former slave at the alter of his church?
The same fierce pride in Southern history is also mirrored in the fierce patriotism Southerners have for the United States. How odd it must seem to a Yankee that a descendant of a Confederate Rebel can show equal pride in flying both the Confederate battle flag and Old Glory.
Unique? You betcha!
