Was the confederate nation a nation in the Marxist sense? I wouldn't necessarily say that the southern USA was less of a nation than Palestine in 1917, but its rapid and mostly complete reintegration into the USA really meant that no national conscious emerged distinct from a larger US national conscious.
I would argue that the South is much more of a nation in the Marxist sense than The US, or northern settler nation is. The US as a governing body has instilled in its citizens this myth that despite whatever background you come from you are ethnically an "American", despite obviously touting a protestant English culture. For any cultural entities within The USA, even first nations, they're conveniently placed under this "American" label, and as a colonial republic, much like that of Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, and Canada, an "American" identity is much more political than cultural.
The Southern states have been reintegrated in the sense that most Southerners are now appended to this label, however the South has never been culturally reintegrated. The South and its culture is (for the most part) not the product of a protestant English background, and not The South still has a distinct lingual background and distinct cultural traditions. And I would say this culture does amount, in a sense, to a national conscious. Though, yes, this national consciousness is still appended to the American label.
Thirdly, saying that the North did not declare war to abolish slavery is true, but it no less of an affront to the northern proletarians and peasants who did fight to abolish slavery.
I admire the northerners who fought and died for freedom in the union army during the civil war. I also admire the Southerners who fought and died for freedom in this war. I do not think it is a necessary prerequisite to say their government declared war justly, to say the working class fought that war justly. Just as I do not think it is prerequisite for the Confederacy to have been formed with just political motive, to say that Southerners fought justly.
Dixieland was not the land of New Afrikans anymore than the USA is today.
I disagree. I believe the African-American nation is a nation in itself, while still being culturally inseparable from the Southern-American settler nation. African-American English is considered by linguists to be a sub-dialect of Southern-American English. This may seem a strange defense in the diffusion of these people into the otherwise European nation of the American South, but language is our sole interface with the social reality. Almost all instruments of Southern culture from our food, to our music, to our language, have dual roots in the cultures of West Africa, and the cultures of the Celtic fringe in Europe. The African-American national consciousness emerged from a group of peoples put into slavery in the American South. Their language and traditions naturally mingled with those of their European slave masters, and the European portion of the proletariat in their new land. The South would not exist (or at least as it does today) without African-American culture as a part of it, and African-American culture would not exist without the European-Americans of the South. This stands even today. The proportionally few African-Americans who live in the north still practice the culture of the South. If you go to Harlem, the dialect you'll hear will have elements from West-African language, Celtic language, and Scots language.
To defend wither nation, especially in the 1860's, when such a reality was actively being produced, when the people in the 3rd world colonies in the mainland USA were even more openly exploited, is tantamount to defending Israeli settlements, because after all, the settlements are the settlers homes.
I do not defend the aggressive Israeli settlement of Palestine whatsoever. However I would not condemn a child born into an Israeli settlement. The difference is that the Israeli settlement of Palestine was born out of universal national political motive. The European settlement of what is today The USA was largely forced on the populace of England's subjects, or otherwise born out of exploitation of the working class throughout England itself. The capitalist class of England expunged large swaths of the working class within The Kingdom of England, and later The Kingdom of Great Britain, to its American colonies. Most of those in the American South came from the Scottish highlands, Ulster, and Wales. Yes, there were also bourgeois Scots and Englishmen who settled the lowcountry of the American South. The descendants of those would become the slavemasters of the lowcountry who vouched for secession, and as I've stated, I do not believe the Confederate States seceded with just cause. I support the working class of the South whom were simply defending their homes, and albeit as the populace a settler nation, had no active political agenda to leech off of the American land.