Thank you for responding.

You might be missing and likely misunderstanding my point. Whose kith and kin? I do not give a wit about that form of Kith and kin either. It was just something people believed and changed as they needed to like most morality. Your article had many excellent points, but saying Lee was being a hypocrite may be true, but most morals and standards created by humans are hypocritical. Humans tend to change them as it suits their needs.

I am damn sure not defending the Confederacy. However, the bottom line is, the North had zero high ground morally, yet white Northerners love absolving themselves from American white supremacy when it comes to the Civil War. They were not in it to free slaves anymore than the Southerners were in it for states rights.

Patriotic or patriotism tend to be words used by right wingers to get a bunch of suckers to kill and die for wealthy people's profits. Lincoln let the wealthy buy their way out of combat during the Civil War and then shot those Americans protesting down in the streets of New York.

The Civil War was a war between two vile and Capitalist white supremacist cultures fighting over which economy would rule the nation. Once the North finished with the South, it finished up the genocide of Native Americans and gave the plantations back to former slave owners rather than fulfill reparations they had promised.