Sigh.... so much ignorance in this thread. So much angst. I don't want to start passing out 's here, seeing as I'd probably run out of them. Any true Southerner looking at this thread would probably be discusted.
Yes, the South did own slaves. But contrary to many people with an unfounded bias agains the region, we do not, nor never will advocate a return to that institution. Same with segregation. The ones that do are seen as lunatics. The South did not fight the War under the mantra of "OMG, we have to keep our slaves!!". To say so only proves that you know next to nothing about history, and about the South. Sure, slavery was a key issue in the divide between the North and South, but it was by no means the cause of the war. The main issue was the divide between the economies and the percieved loss of political power leading up to and including the election of Abraham Lincoln. Slaves weren't counted as fully human when it came to congressional seats nor electoral votes (3/5 compromise ring a bell?), and that only exhaserbated the loss of political power. The North had much larger (growing) population, more industrialized areas, urban societies, etc, which translated into more and more political seats while the South was largely agrarian and couldn't keep up. We tried to stick up for ourselves from the eventual steamroller that the north seemed to be becoming to Southern interests. We felt that our voice in government was being (or would be) silenced. This has already been stated here in this thread.
Slavery was NOT the reason the war was fought. Northerners probably wouldn't have supported starting a war over slaves which even they thought inferior. Many thought then, as some anti-Southern bigots do now, that the USA would be better off without the South. Abolishing slavery was invoked later in the war as a political tool and economic weapon. Trying to take the moral high ground, by stating that it was a added reason for the war, added fuel to the fire of its support in the north. Heck, even after the war, slavery remained in the boarder states that had sided with the Union. (until the constitution was amended) The Emancipation Proclamation did nothing about thier situation. Only slaves in remaining Southern lands when it was given that had yet to be taken were freed. Simply put, if you take away slaves which were a large part of the economic structure of the South, you in a sense destroy its economic base and ability to fight.
The South today is much better than it has ever been. We have integrated (albeit with reservations and even resistance, but that has largely subsided), and are very proud to be part of the USA. We wouldn't want it any other way. However, vestiges of Southern History do remain. Yes, the South lost, but it put up a good fight with what it had. We should be proud of that and what is good about the South. It can be seen in the way people act towards another (Southern hospitality...its suttle, but you definitely see the difference when travelling outside of it), in our moral convictions, in our devotion to religion (sometimes even to its detriment), and in an independant spirit both in the southern concience and political philosophy. To say that the South is a bunch of imbred hicks who live to hate blacks while playing the banjo and talking slower than possibly anyone else in the counrty is just stupid. (in response to the speed of our speech topic, it is often said that we speak slow only to help slow minded yankees understand us) Unfortunately, many of what made the South great has been slowly worn away by the injustice that was reconstruction and assimilation into a more homogenized national culture. What many of us allude to as the revival of the South is simply the pragmatic approach of taking what we have left of it, expanding on the good, and leaving such things as slavery/segregation in the dust.