There are answers that people want to believe, and then there are answers. Example --
When I was a much younger single man with time on my hands, I became a member of a historical society in west Jefferson County. The organization held title to three antebellum homes, and since the next youngest member of the historical society was about fifteen years older than me, I was tasked with doing many things that the ladies decided needed to be done.
They had a landscape/beautification committee of which I was a de facto member. The ladies selected a number of shrubs and other items to be planted that would beautify one of the homes. It bothered me that they did not spend one moment asking what had actually been planted there in antebellum time or at any point in the past. When I did so and pointed out that their selections did not exist in the South in 1860, the chairman of the committee was clearly disturbed.
It wasn't what she wanted to believe. I would have enjoyed having someone else discuss in factual terms what kinds of landscape plantings would be appropriate and attractive. But NO! Eventually she resigned rather than consider how things really were in 1860.
At the time I thought Mrs. Greene was unusual, but as I've gotten older it seems more evident that most people aren't interested in factual information. As in this case, the fact that Southern newspapers gave more space to slavery in the territories than modern-day journals gave to Katrina hasn't made a dent in these conversations. People want to believe what they want to believe.
The title of this message board should be, What I Really Want To Believe About the Civil War.