Secession Ball

That Secession Ball to be held tonight has triggered gushers of printer's ink. The results are not worth reading.

The real meat of the anniversary of South Carolina's secession is not something newspaper hackery is going to be able to serve its readers. We can however list the uneaten courses here:

(1) What are the distinctions among celebration, commemoration, and observance?

(2) Are there such things as intergenerational guilt and virtue?

(3) Do state names themselves confer political or historical continuity?

(4) What connection does a modern succesor state have with its annihilated predecessor?

(5) If Reconstruction is long over, can you be "unreconstructed"?

If the standard of discourse is higher than portrayed here, send me the links and I will post them.