No, not really. That statement implies a collective action of general consensus by the people of the nation. In reality there was sharp division, leading some people to invade the land of other people and proceed to kill them in order to advance their cause and power.
Not well supported by the facts. What about over 3.5 million slaves? Not only that, over 100,000 men from the so-called seceded states fought for the old flag.
In this connection, consider this:
"The North had a potential manpower superiority of more than three to one (counting only white men) and Union armed forces had an actual superiority of two to one during most of the war. In economic resources and logistical capacity the northern advantage was even greater. Thus, in this explanation, the Confederacy fought against overwhelming odds; its defeat was inevitable.
But this explanation has not satisfied a good many analysts. History is replete with examples of peoples who have won or defended their independence against greater odds: the Netherlands against the Spain of Philip II; Switzerland against the Hapsburg empire; the American rebels of 1776 against mighty Britain; North Vietnam against the United States of 1970. Given the advantages of fighting on the defensive in its own territory with interior lines in which stalemate would be victory against a foe who must invade, conquer, occupy, and destroy the capacity to resist, the odds faced by the South were not formidable.
Rather, as another category of interpretations has it, internal divisions fatally weakened the Confederacy: the state-rights conflict between certain govern on and the Richmond government; the disaffection of non-slaveholders from a rich man's war and poor man's fight; libertarian opposition to necessary measures such as conscription and the suspension of habeas corpus; the lukewarm commitment to the Confederacy by quondam Whigs and unionists; the disloyalty of slaves who defected to the enemy whenever they had a chance; growing doubts among slaveowners themselves about the justice of their peculiar institution and their cause. "So the Confederacy succumbed to internal rather than external causes," according to numerous historians. The South suffered from a "weakness in morale," a "loss of the will to fight." The Confederacy did not lack "the means to continue the struggle," but "the will to do so." --BCF, P. 855
His sources:
Richard E. Beringer, Herman Hattaway, Archer Jones, and William N. Still jr., Why the South Lost the Civil War (Athens, Ga., 1986), 439, 5S; Kenneth M. Stampp, The Imperiled Union: Essays on the Background of the Civil War (New York, 1980),255 Clement Eaton, A History of the Southern Confederacy (Collier Books ed., New York, 1961), 250
My emphasis
Walt
600,000 corpses show you are wrong.
What about over 3.5 million slaves?
What about them then? They assumed various roles in the conflict among a heavily divided population where nothing near the consensus or collective action you suggest existed.
To put it in other words, Walt, if what you say is true, there would not have been a war.