The South and North for a long time had may disagreements, but no doubt the issue of full ownership of human beings was the first and front of those. For decades slavery was fought and in countries like England where the slave trade an slave ownership were made illegal there was no doubt slavery was a long and controversial issue in the US, do not attempt to minimize the impact that the slave trade and ownership had to do with the Civil War that was fought in this nation.  You say we cannot "forget" history and allow the statues of traitors to the US stand in a place of "honor" in this nation. I say that you already have forgot a lot of history or chose to be in deep denial.