Regions of Mind reports on a California nut-case Republican who pines for an alternate history where the South won the Civil War. Geez, Louise, what is wrong with these people? Let's go over it again. The Southern economy was largely a slave economy. The ascendancy of the South were slave-owners. The South seceded because it feared that Lincoln who had been elected by a free soil party might interfere with their "peculiar" institution ["Peculiar," not in the sense of being unusual, but rather significant.] Lincoln fought to preserve the Union, but he wouldn't have had to fight if the South hadn't seceded to protect slavery. Slavery is a bad thing. The Confederacy was a bad thing. Lincoln and the Republicans and the North freed the slave. That was a good thing.

I like the blithe assertion that slavery would have naturally withered away. Really? Slavery in Brazil made it well into the 1880's. Harry Turtledove's alternate history where the South won with the assistance of the French and British phases slavery out around the same time. But the condition of the former slaves didn't really change much as they became more serfs than chattel.

These pro-southern apologies by Republicans are just gobsmacking nuts.