PS: Just in case anyone thinks the previous post was intended to glorify the Confederacy in any way:

In almost every adult discussion of the Civil War I've ever taken part in, someone (almost always southern, white, male) tries to recast the War as the glorious attempt by the South to assert "States' Rights," or some such BS.

Before anyone tries to bring that up here, I refer you to the "Cornerstone Speech," delivered by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens before the War.

It's called the "Cornerstone" speech because he defined the cornerstone (his word) on which the CSA was built. He clearly and unequivocally stated the major difference between the CSA and the USA thus:

"Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition."

States Rights was NOT the cornerstone. Slavery and subordination was; as defined in the moment by the CSA's own Administration's spokesperson.

Although Stevens had initially approved the press reports of his speech --- he even edited a reporter's notes --- he later tried to change his tune... twice.

He published a document called "What I Really Said in the Cornerstone Speech," which contained some dazzling tapdancing and obfuscation, but which really just re-asserted his main point, including this: "The order of subordination was nature's great law; philosophy taught that order as the normal condition of the African amongst European races."

After the South lost the war, he changed his tune again, now asserting that slavery and subordination weren't the real deal at all --- no, he said, the real deal was in legalistic differences in the interpretation of the Constitution.

The GOP continues that argument today.

But go back and see what the "cornerstone" of the CSA really was, as defined by the CSA administration itself; and don't let after-the-fact tapdancing ever convince you that State's Rights, or any similar bullshit, was really what it was about.

The CSA then, like the GOP today, is about maintaining a cheap, uneducated, easy-to-control labor force in order to maximize profits for the wealthy.

Profits over people. Sound familiar?