Wilson has shown himself to be wrong on the facts of history, absurd in his reasoning, and anti-Christian in his principles.

Wilson’s historical assertions are:“slavery produced in the South a genuine affection between the races that we believe we can say has never existed in any nation before the War [the Civil War] or since.” (“Southern Slavery: As It Was”, p. 38). Their praise of the institution is almost unbounded in places. “There has never been a multi-racial society that has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world.” (ibid, p. 24).

Wilson’s reasoning:
That the South was committed to limited government, despite the fact that it enslaved some of it’s inhabitants and out-lawed criticism of that slavery.
That the South was really interested in “States’ Rights” even though they were seceding in protest to the exercise of the rights of the Northern states.
That there should not have been a Civil War because peaceful political processes should have been followed, despite the fact that the Civil War was caused by the South refusing to stay in the Union because they wanted to avoid the peaceful, political limitation (and perhaps ultimate demise) of slavery that the election of Lincoln suggested may be beginning.
That the failure to solve the injustice of abortion today means the that the success at addressing the injustice of slavery in the past was wrong.
That one can support a “nation” overtly committed to race-based slavery and yet not intend to support slavery.
etc.

Peter Wood of Duke University claimed that it was “ridiculous to even ask if slavery was a harmful institution.” He equated Wilson and Wilkins with “holocaust deniers.”
Clayborne Carson of Stanford University also responded , “I haven’t heard of this argument since the pre-Civil War period when people actually believed the slaves were really happy with their lives … why would anyone want to waste their time with this argument? It’s incomprehensible.”

U.C. Berkley’s Saidiya Hartman, an expert on interviews with former slaves, called Wilson’s and Wilkins’ arguments “obscene.””
See: http://hnn.us/articles/9142.html.

Finally, even if Wilson was right about the value of “states’ rights”, it is perverse, from a Biblical point of view, to suggest that that value is higher than the lives and freedom of millions of African-Americans. See Micah 6:8.

By the way, when I refer to more liberal brands, I mean – Methodists, Pentecostals, Charismatics and so on.
For instance, while the charismatic movement was not without its bumps and bruises dating back to the early 20th century, but they have built a framework and church model around diversity.
I personally see a link between their theology and how they view race and ethnicity as a result of that.

I think that Phillp makes a good point about the whole emotional side of all this.
However, it is not simply easy to say that the civil war was started because of slavery. There is ample evidence to show that Lincoln had absolutely no interest in preserving the Union because of the south’s use of slavery.
Only later when it became more morally convenient for him did he claim that the war was started due to slavery.
It is obvious to say that the Civil War stopped slavery, but please don’t confuse that with slavery being the motivation behind the Civil War.
Additionally, because of the extreme racism that blacks felt in the South, this was done in part because the North never left behind a stable infrastructure for blacks after the South lost. If the North were really wanting slaves to be freed, it seems very odd that they would ultimately leave blacks by themselves in the South with no real means to integrate within American society. This would suggest that freeing slaves wasnt the motivation behind the Civil war.
And this unstable infrastructure is the genesis behind the extreme racism that MLK fought against. I would also argue that this racism after the Civil war was as much the North’s fault as it was the South’s.
Also, let’s not forget the utter bloodshed and heinous murders that the Northern army committed against the women and children of the South.
My point behind my saying this is that for everyone out there, blacks or otherwise, it isnt as obvious as it may seem to say that the North or Lincoln was the hero. Freeing slaves was never his intent in starting the Civil war, and no historically questionable hollywood movie can prove otherwise. Both sides sinned in great ways..

Was freeing the slaves a good thing? yes.. Blacks never should have come over in the way that they did..
However, let’s also not forget though that it was fellow blacks and Muslims in Africa that traded these slaves to the west.
And to make this slavery issue into merely a white vs black issue is really not understanding the true origins behind how slavery came to America.