Still trying to say that the war wasn't to preserve slavery, it wouldn't have destroyed the USA and the leaders of the rebellion deserve to be honored in public buildings and parks as heroes?How would they know that would be the result? I agree it would have been a lesser nation -- that isn't the point. The point is that they did not say they wanted to destroy that which they wanted to leave.
We disagree and no amount of meandering around the history of civil wars or slavery will change that. The rebellion would have destroyed the country as we know it today if either the South had won or if there had been no war at all and the south went their own way.
Did you know that there are statues of Lee and Longstreet at Gettysburg?
That is because the battlefield is also a museum of history.
http://gettysburg.stonesentinels.com/confederate-monuments/confederate-state-monuments/