Why is it that people in the south glorify Confederate Generals/Leaders/statues/flags as part of "heritage?"

Before answering, here's a list of statements/concepts that as far as I know, are true statements/concepts. And they are why I do not understand the glorification.

1. Enslaving human beings is antithetical to the Constitution of the US. In spirit if not in letter. Yes, I understand that Article 1, Section 9, Clause 1 existed in the constitution at the time.

However, it seems obvious that such a clause was itself not constitutional. It would have been like inserting a clause that said, "Congress shall not prohibit the forceable rape of women as states shall see fit, provided that they are not married or formally engaged to a man who is a US citizen and that a tax may be imposed on each rape not to exceed $5 per occasion."

You can't just put anything in there and claim that because it's in there it's constitutional. It has to be consistent with other constitutional concepts...or at least not violate them.

2. As such, claiming that states could do whatever they wanted with regard to enslaving people is equally invalid. If it's unconstitutional, "states rights" doesn't mean anything. (And before anyone asks or assumes, yes, that goes for abortion too IMO.)

3. Southern states also proved by their own actions that they didn't care about "states rights," and in fact wanted a strong centralized government as long as they controlled it. Here are a couple of links to that effect:

The Southern States Actually Wanted a Dominant Centralized Government

The Truth About States Rights

4. I also am not persuaded by the oft repeated claim that the war was fought over tariffs. Here is an article from the Mises Institute regarding that:

Tariffs Did Not Cause The Civil War

5. The vast majority of the statues and the widespread use of the "Confederate Battle Flag" weren't erected/popularized until the 1950s/1960s when the debate over integration was nearing its peak. Those symbols were not to commemorate "heritage," they were to resist/protest the enforcement of the constitution as ruled by the SCOTUS due to racism.

The only one of those points that I think could be even marginally successfully argued against would be the "Tariff Theory."

So that means that we have a bunch of statues/flags erected to supposedly commemorate people who usurped the constitution of the United States, took up arms against it for purposes few (if anyone) would condone today, and lost. And in reality, it wasn't even that, because very few of then were even put up until the southern states again resisted the enforcement of the Constitution of the United States with regard to integration...so they were put up in the name of racism and in the spirit of common meanness.

Even if the war wasn't fought over slavery (it was...even if you accept the validity of some of the reason being tariffs, that doesn't explain the majority of the motivation and the above article does a good job of explaining why) with the foundational underpinning being racism, the erection of the vast majority of statues and flags was engaged in almost entirely out of racism.

So what is the "heritage" that is being celebrated?

Why do so many southern white people have such a bug up their arse about it?

I was born in Alabama and have never lived north of South Carolina and I've never understood it.

(C&ck-suckers downvote first)

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