Viewing the US civil war in good versus bad terms is a massive oversimplification.
The Union ultimately wanted to keep the nation together so that they could be stronger as a young nation. it would not have been impossible for a divided United States to fall prey to the old European powers, or even Mexico, so there is a good side to wanting to preserve the Union. however, the union government stooped to many lows in order to achieve this goal. they circumvented the Constitution to give themselves "wartime" powers, drafted unwilling soldiers, guns down anti-war protesters, and deliberately attacked and pillaged civilians in the south.
Meanwhile, the Confederacy saw the writing on the wall for how big and divided the United States was getting. the nation's binary divide on the issue of slavery was leading to a situation where half the nation could not abide by the other half, and the winner would be decided by who could establish more states in the West. they saw this was unsustainable, and so made the decision to secede even after the north agreed to keep slavery. the war that then followed was over the rights of the South to secede, with slavery as the catalyst. it's true that many in the South did indeed want to get rid of slavery, but the majority of those in charge wanted to not only preserve slavery but the aristocratic society that they had developed.
the way I see it, the north was good for wanting to preserve the union, but the north was bad because they destroyed many of our protections against government overreach in order to achieve it. The South was good because they sought freedom from a system that would not have respected their rights and traditions, but the South was bad because they were fighting to preserve slavery.
the confederates were the good guys
Viewing the US civil war in good versus bad terms is a massive oversimplification.
The Union ultimately wanted to keep the nation together so that they could be stronger as a young nation. it would not have been impossible for a divided United States to fall prey to the old European powers, or even Mexico, so there is a good side to wanting to preserve the Union. however, the union government stooped to many lows in order to achieve this goal. they circumvented the Constitution to give themselves "wartime" powers, drafted unwilling soldiers, guns down anti-war protesters, and deliberately attacked and pillaged civilians in the south.
Meanwhile, the Confederacy saw the writing on the wall for how big and divided the United States was getting. the nation's binary divide on the issue of slavery was leading to a situation where half the nation could not abide by the other half, and the winner would be decided by who could establish more states in the West. they saw this was unsustainable, and so made the decision to secede even after the north agreed to keep slavery. the war that then followed was over the rights of the South to secede, with slavery as the catalyst. it's true that many in the South did indeed want to get rid of slavery, but the majority of those in charge wanted to not only preserve slavery but the aristocratic society that they had developed.
the way I see it, the north was good for wanting to preserve the union, but the north was bad because they destroyed many of our protections against government overreach in order to achieve it. The South was good because they sought freedom from a system that would not have respected their rights and traditions, but the South was bad because they were fighting to preserve slavery.