Let's not forget the Irish, there were also significant numbers of Irish slaves throughout the Caribbean and the American South... oh wait, maybe that doesn't fit with your convenient narrative? How about the fact that the New England puritans were the largest traders of slaves in the New World, dominating much of the active trade in the western hemisphere? Or that Brown University owes their endowment to slave money?

I agree with your statements about racism being an ongoing (and shameful) problem in the United States, but your central premise seems disingenuous. Tea Party = gun-nuts = Southerners = racists = secessionists... that simply isn't logic that applies in any rational way. And yes, I'm making a strawman here, but it's to illustrate the point that you seem to be skirting around.

To be clear... the election of Bob McDonnell is a terrible stain on Virginia politics, as are the ongoing antics of his lapdog Ken Cuccinelli... but it's not indicative of the culture of Virginians at large, and it's rather rude for you to imply otherwise. Frankly, you need to rid yourself of the smug Beltway attitude, because the "rest of Virginia" outside the DC suburbs isn't actually the wild redneck dystopia that you fantasize it to be. The Tea Party nuts make a lot of noise, but their rants do not reflect the opinions or desires of Virginians in general.

I find it both sad and ironic in a way; when Obama was first elected, there was a mood that we were now living in a post-racial society. Many heralded the idea that racism was officially dead in the United States now that an African American had achieved the highest office in the land.
Yet, in the year since he took office, the racial divides that do in fact exist have been laid more bare than at any time since the end of the 1960's. Anger, mistrust, and even some downright violence have stirred up in the wake of his genuinely historic presidency. And now we realize just how far as nation we have to go yet.

"Insurgent"US Confederates have given legitimacy to what we misname the Iraqui Insurgents, they are Iraqui Resistance to foreigners--from across the seas!!! For those who define themselves by wars: we will all agree that WW1 &2 brought the USA to superpower standing; maybe the Iraqui & Afghan Wars will reverse this standing.

The Civil War will not end until intolerance is quashed. Please look into the vital work of the Southern Poverty Law Center and its programs of, "Teaching Tolerance" and "Hate Watch." The first one puts teaching kits in every elementary, middle and high school in the nation aimed at ending racial and other forms of bigotry everywhere. The second one keeps watch on all the hate groups across the nation and uses the law to shut them down. I'm on a monthly donor program to help them disseminate their crucial messages. I feel this is the best way to end discrimination and the indoctrination of children to these evil groups and their views.

Germany had to be totally leveled. Now it is a peace leader. Maybe one day the South will learn to be a moral leader rather than revering moral idiocy.

the american civil war continues in Central and Southamerica until they accept the rule of Washington

so which 'america' do you believe in? i've lived in the north and the south of this schizophrenic nation. i would have to say my experience of the south is that yes, racism is alive, well and even institutionalized via 'cultural tradition' for lack of a better term. its also alive and pretty robust in a different way in the north. but racism isn't the only 'great divider' in this country by far. some time ago i saw the movie: Romeo and Juliet of Sarajevo, while watching the film with its footage of the siege of a modern very 'western' looking city and story of brother against brother etc, i had a unsettling revelatory moment of realizing 'it could happen here', by that i mean it would seem what holds this nation together is actually pretty ephemeral and certainly subject to disintegration under the perfect storm of events and their perceived meaning (spin). let me add that our current media controllers, as well as all other powers-that-be have become rather adept at the spin cycle as well as large segments of our population being completely heart-brain-dead yet nursing an inarticulate half-baked rage against any perceived 'other'.

The Texas Confederacy Secession Act (2010)
(Mr. Boehner speaking) Having mobilized
the couch potatoes nation wide , we have
won a great victory for evils, weevils, and
all other bad things. From Thursday next at
12:01 A.M.. TexasTime, the states of the
1860s rebellion shall constitute the
DumbFluck States of the Texas Confederacy.
(with national snack the FritoLay CornDaawwgg)

I'm a Yankee who got transplanted years ago to the South, and--if I didn't think I might get shot at or have my car beat on-- I would love to have a bumper sticker that says, "The North Won, Get Over It."

What people fail to realize is that the Civil War never really ended; simply went underground. Celebration of the Confederacy is certainly an act of hostile provocation, if not simple treason. To think that these resentments have festered and developed into erupting boils after all these years. The style is to mouth tolerance, but in their dark hearts, many Southern Whites feel they have been cast as "evil-doers." This is more than uncomfortable for them, because they experience the cognitive dissonance of also being religious. It's a tough thing to square in your Christian soul--having that inchoate lump of racism in the bottom of your stomach, yet trying to show the country that you're just commemorating the boys who died on the wrong side of history.
The sham wouldn't be quite so offensive if the "celebration" included the role of Blacks in this cozy
picture. Omitting them in the "celebration" is simply the present day, "polite" way of negating them as people--people intrinsic to the story of the "greatness" of the Confederacy. After all, Human Capital is valuable stuff! Next year, let the Blacks run the "celebration!"

Plus the only reason this flag has been given a bad name is because of the shitty school system and the countless hate groups using it for there on will, these people who raise the flag cant own slaves so why give a shit if they fly it, "But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. -Thomas Jefferson"
get the idea losers you people are the ones who inflame racism you look for it in harmless areas of none issues, the flag you talk about isnt even the flag of the confederacy, history is writen by the winners and if i was going done in history id make myself look as shinny as possible like linclon did, the reason they fought the war has never changed since the boston tea party it is only the people, places and outcome that do, it is always about something trying to make you do something you dont want to, taking away your rights without your consent, the south believe it to be their right even though misguided they would have died if they had just given the slaves up seeing how they probable couldnt support themselves without them, this issue was never brought to a vote in the south only in the north during the successions, they could of easily figure out a way to draw down the slavery over and had no war

The Civil war wasn't about ending slavery. That was incidental.

It was a war about states rights and the intrusive control of the federal government.

The Confederate states (in their own twisted way) were fighting for freedom in terms of states rights. They viewed the Federal government as oppressive.

That same feeling is at the root of why people are against National Health Care Reform and other entitlement programs.

I was born in the NorthEast, so a power a centralized government has in our lives is never up for debate. Visiting other parts of the country, this is still very much an issue. The Federal Government own a lot of the land in the West and this rubs people the wrong way. The South still very much has an issue about being ruled over by people in a "far off Capitol"

The Civil War sites I've visited in Alabama make more references to the "Federals" and "Northern Aggression". Just read and listen to the tone and you can understand why there is a "Tea Party" movement.

The North's goal wasn't out to free the slaves. It was to bring the renegade states back into the Union. It was all about centralized federal control vs. the rights and legal powers of the state governments.

@aefman:

I never said it was rational. But to understand what these people are thinking you have to explore why they feel the way they do.

To simply dismiss them as irrational is to do so at our peril.

From their view point, they are perfectly rational.

Understanding their view point and addressing it would do more to bring this country together rather than each side dismissing the other as "stupid and irrational".

You make a lot of good points.

Simply put, a lot of people don't trust the Federal Government.

A lot of people in the South (and other "non-culturally elite" regions) REALLY REALLY don't trust the Federal Government

@Aefman: Unfortunately everything you've said is sad but true.

Another Civil War Irony:
Sarah Palin is to be speaking here in Lane County (named for Breckenridge's running mate) soon, in a talk which the Lane county Republicans are calling a "Lincoln Day" program.

The Irony is that so many of her Tea Party followers hate everything that Abraham Lincoln fought for, and have never accepted the outcome of the Civil War.

As Pam Stott, a Tea Party activist said, she doesn't want violence, but if they are pushed they " might have to fight."

This is exactly the sort of irrational stupidity which allowed the 18% of Americans who supported Breckenridge/Lane to cause a war which almost destroyed America.

The five southern colonies of Maryland, Virginia, North Caroilina, South Carolina and Georgia, would have never united with the rest of the colonies in resisting the British in the revolutionary war had they known they'd be locked into the Union forever.
Indeed, they were rather tricked into getting involved by a Continental Army General Greene taking the war there by leading the British on a wild goose chase, knowing a by-product of his ruse was to lay waste of the countryside and create chaos. The British Army never caught up with Greene, but his plan succeeded in creating enough chaos and rape and pillage on the part of both armies that the South finally woke up and joined with the rest of the colonies in the Revolution.
Anyway, they figured they had a right to secede, and in 1861, they did. The War of Northern aggression took that right away- form all of us, including Washington state.

"...the era of the Confederacy should be regarded as a dark and shameful episode, as should Sherman's burning of Atlanta -- a war crime if there ever was one." Overall, I agree with the sentiment in this article. However, as a Civil War historian, I feel compelled to correct this statement about Sherman. The fires in Atlanta started BEFORE the Union troops moved into the city. So how could they have started them? In fact, Sherman was pretty upset that he was taking possession of a charred cinder of a city. That wasn't what he wanted at all.

No, Sherman did burn an entire swath of the South, including Atlanta. Sherman's March to the Sea was a war crime; you, a historian, should not be allowed to revise history to suit whatever meme you are pushing.

Slavery will never end on this planet until the last human draws breath. You crying babes should take your outrage to the African continent and confront the modern slaveries; as well as to the nations that observe Islamic S'haria laws. Women are treated as chattel.

Americans are so rotten and spoiled. I'll be glad to see you fall, fall, fall to the status of a third-world nation, and soonest.