Comments by "Charles Eye" (@TheCharleseye) on "Why Is The Deep South So Different?" video.
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A relative handful of rich slave owners want to fight to keep their slaves. They don't have the numbers. They start a campaign, telling all of the poor people around them that the Federal government wants to come in and take away more of their freedom and independence. That they should form a new Country with more freedom. Poor people line up with whatever arms they can muster, to fight for the freedom they feel is threatened. Generations later, the descendants of the poor who fought that war defend their ancestors as having fought for independence.
The main thing that separates the Revolutionary War from the Civil War in the hearts and minds of the masses, is that keeping slavery wasn't a primary concern for the slave owners who started the Revolutionary War. The Southerners who defend the Confederacy tend not to be the descendants of rich slave owners. They're the descendants of poor people who got sold a bill of goods. Southerners are a proud people. They're not going to throw great-great-grandaddy under the bus just because some Northerners want to attribute the motives of a handful of greedy, rich, slave owners, to him. No, sir. That simply will not stand. To their mind, great-great-grandaddy was a good, hard-working, salt-of-the-earth, Southerner. He fought for Southern independence, and no amount of commentary from a bunch of rich Northerners is going to change their mind on the subject.
This is the core of why there is still animosity over this subject, today. It is only made worse by the glib remarks about Southerners just being a bunch of racists for not denouncing the Confederacy. Someone else mentioned that the South is an honor society. That's true. They're not going to denounce their family over the opinions of strangers.
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