The South Shall Rise Again?

While perusing the United Press International web site for some of my daily news I noticed something curious. Governor Robert McDonell of Virginia has decided to declare April Confederate history month. He claimed it was to "bolster tourism" and to "make many aware of the sacrifices of soldiers and leaders of the confederacy."
From 1861 to 1865 The United State of America was divided into two separate nations. One calling itself the United States of America, the other the Confederate states of America. Many Americans like to think that the war was effectively about slavery when in fact the war had been raging for an entire year before U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation which in THERORY freed slaves in the Confederate States. Effectively the Emancipation Proclamation said to the south 'If we're victorious...we're freeing your slaves.'
The causes of the American civil war had nothing to do with Americans in the north caring about the freedom of Slaves, but rather had more to do with economics and politics which have been the root of every war. The south's agrarian economy relied on slave labor to cultivate and harvest, tobacco, sugar and cotton just as the north's economy counted on a steady stream of immigrants from Ireland, southern and eastern Europe who were willing to work for pennies a day. The issue was not free men versus slaves but rather the congressional representation that the Southern states received from 3/5th of each state's non voting slave population.
Southern Agrarians could easily capture a majority in congress by simply purchasing or breeding more slaves. Northern industrialist who opposed slavery did so because slavery offered their Southern agrarian competitors a political advantage and not because of of some romanticized love of freedom as many revisionist historians would have us believe. Abraham Lincoln himself once said during the famed Lincoln/Douglas Debates "If I can preserve the union by freeing all the slaves, I shall do that. I can preserve the union without freeing a single slave I shall to that."
Rich men on both sides of the Mason Dixon line convinced the poor men who would fight the war of some sense of duty. Northern Industrialist talked of "Freedom" Southern Agrarians talked of a large central government interfering with "popular sovereignty". But the end result was the bloodiest conflict to take place on American soil with 620,000 Americans dying in the end.
When the smoke cleared America mended it's fences as best it could but there were resentments that simply wouldn't die. Were you to talk to the descendant of a Union Soldier he/she would talk of how his/her ancestor fought to preserve the Union. Were you to talk to the descendant of a Confederate soldier you would hear of the courage of his/her ancestor in fighting a tyrannical government bent on imposing it's will upon an angry populace. Were you to talk to the descendant of a slave they would either consider the Union heroes and the Confederacy racist, or simply view it as yet another war between men who simply saw their ancestors as chattel.
Whatever one's point of view it has to be said rather someone is a hero or villain is determined largely by geography and ideology. Should Virginians celebrate the "glorious Confederacy?" It could be said that those who wish to should be allowed to but to be true to the spirit of the Confederacy those who choose not to...should not have it "forced upon them by a tyrannical government."