Reconciling Eras

I often have to wonder, in the event that their family and national fortunes would've enabled them to be slaveowners right on up into the present century, whether numerous Virginians, South Carolinians, Texans, and many others all through this  country would've been able to reconcile that with the Age of Automobiles, Telephones, and Computers. and if so, how would they have done it?   Yet it's all too easy to hear such a longing resonating behind all the ravings of  the teapartiers, the Repubs, and the like, especially during their screams about their great, overriding desire to "take the country back."