[DiogenesLamp]

The thesis seems a bit weak, but I’ve often thought that the US Civil War saw the Confederacy as a final gasp of the original American nation as launched in 1776 vs. a wholly new, industrial, Northern structure that grew out of the later U.S. Constitution.

Yes. Lincoln certainly took the nation in a new direction. A more fascist one with the central government controlling everything.

[BroJoeK]

Diogeneslamp: "Yes. Lincoln certainly took the nation in a new direction.
A more fascist one with the central government controlling everything."

Rubbish!
Lincoln did nothing more than what was necessary to defeat Confederate rebellion and abolish slavery forever.
Nothing "fascist" about it, and as for "centralized government", once Reconstruction ended, in 1876, Washington, DC, was no more "centralized" than it had been before the Civil War.

Progressive centralizing only began after most Civil War veterans were long dead & gone.