The passage implies that students studying this textbook may have held a sympathetic view toward the South during the Civil War, viewing Northern efforts against slavery as unfair and advocating for peaceful separation and property division.
The passage suggests that the students studying this textbook may have held a sympathetic view toward the Southern perspective on the Civil War. It implies a belief that the Northern stance against slavery and their efforts to prevent new territories from becoming slaveholding were seen as unfair by some.
The portrayal of Abraham Lincoln as a weak leader and the assertion that the South only sought to be left alone and peacefully divide public property may indicate a perspective that sympathizes with the Southern states' desire for autonomy and disagrees with the Northern approach to the conflict.