Was Cobb really as people perceive him???

[mattsey9]

Oh come on. Essentially all? Give me a break. Many Southerners were no more racist than Northerners in that era. Read some books about Northern soldiers and their attitudes toward African Americans. Most went to war not to free the slaves but to reunite the country and put down the rebellion. Plus don't forget that over 95% of Confederate soldiers never owned a single slave nor did their families. This was the Second War of Independence for many Southerners whose grandfathers fought in the Revolutionary War.

Yes, essentially all Southerners were racists. So were most Northerners, Northern industrialists reaped large profits off of Southern goods produced by slave labor. Nobody had clean hands on this issue in this era.

But...

To submit that for a second that the Civil War was motivated by reasons other than slavery, The Lost Cause Myth, is a dangerous position to take. Honoring CSA soldiers as fallen heroes allowed the continued subjugation of freedmen and their descendants for the next century. I'm not sure what history books you are referring to, but the Lost Cause argument associated with the Dunning School hasn't been advanced by a non-racist organization in decades. Modern scholarship acknowledges that the North was a racist environment, but that the South was the one that fought to preserve slavery.[/QUOTE]