I would wager money that I can say two things about this author with confidence. Assuming that Cynthia is of the non-male gender, she does not believe in historical context and she believes in a ‘living US Constitution’ rather than as the Founders wrote it.
I say this because the mind that ‘blames’ a civil war, who’s roots were clear at the time of the US Revolution, upon a popular author writing in the 1820-40s in another country, is the same anchor-less mind that believes that the US Constitution requires national health care.
In opposition to her thesis, I could use the same conceptualization she uses to blame Christianity for the US Civil War. There is no doubt that the vast to overwhelming percentage of the war’s activists and participants not only read the Bible but also frequently went to Church in years, months and weeks preceding and during the war.
Sometimes an author is just expressing the feelings of his time and place and becomes popular because he does it better than anyone else AND as Robert Heinlein put it, it can be very profitable. As the truism goes, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar!
Judging the past’s literature by today’s standards and mores is an exercise in futility. If you know something of the culture, it radically changes the book.
Shakespeare is an excellent example. If you are familiar with Elizabethan mores and imagery he is both hilarious and dirty minded.