[quote=@Smash]
Ya'll ever hear the quote, "Brevity is the soul of wit?" Because your points would be a lot more poignant, if you weren't using the shotgun method of debate.
[/quote]
As is [url=http://www.stillnessinthestorm.com/2016/11/Steve-Pieczenik-Update-The-Truth-About-The-Civil-War-Lincoln-Unmasked.html]potential plagiarism?[/url] At a cursory level, your following post carries an uncanny amount of word-for-word copies and was posted within minutes of the other, as well as not even sourced to the topic it appears to be copied from. Now, I grant that you might actually [i]be[/i] this author, as this is the internet so stranger things have happened, but you have truly brought this scrutiny on yourself. Now, I am going to assume you are just using it as reference for your argument, regardless, if you want the short answer as you so "wittily" demanded, here it is.

No one then, just as today, is innocent. You cannot just proclaim "The Confederacy was irredeemably evil because of slavery!" and ignore that many Northerners were tolerant of the practice even if they disagreed, still harboring racism even if they did not partake in actual slavery. Likewise, one cannot say "The Union was the moral high ground!" because as many of the examples in this very topic have proven, that is not the honest case. It is further dishonest to say, "Well, that's out of context for Abraham Lincoln." then turn heel and point the accusing finger at Robert E. Lee; our point was to show that and demonstrate you cannot have both, lest you now have a double standard in place. Realistically, one of these two men was assassinated and already had the morally superior winds in his sails. It takes no detective to realize why one is suddenly exalted.

One can witness this surge of support mirrored more recently with the John F. Kennedy assassination and the later attempt on Ronald Reagan. People flocked to their cause, even if they were not wholly convinced. It galvanized their ideals and made them, in many respects, heroes of history. When people remember fondly great Presidents of the United States, the other usual candidates are Washington, Jefferson, and Roosevelt.

I speak for no one but myself, but my personal message in all of this is that it is foolish to some how attribute the entire weight of a historical event, one started long before them, on the weight of one man and the faction he reluctantly served. The preservation of history is significantly more important than any loud, irate message the social justice minority will ever bring to bear. Progression is essential, but you cannot make progress in this realm by using egress. It represents nothing of the will of the people by and large and serves nothing but a cause that is the embodiment of recency.