The Civil War forged a common nation.
No, what the civil war did was destroy states rights and impose the largest eminent domain scandal the country has yet to see. 2 billion dollars worth of privately help property was taken and freed with no compensation for the owners.
Regardless of how you and I feel about slavery today, the Union took, from Southern owners, over 2 billion dollars, in 1860 dollars, worth of slaves with no compensation whatsoever.
No, my friend, the civil war did not forge one country, the North simply imposed a mightier force to subdue a movement to regain freedom and maintain states rights.
My Point, Thumper, was that the Civil War did not forge a nation, it destroyed States Rights, and opened the door for eminent domain takings that are becoming more and more wrong.
It has been said that prior to the Civil War, or the War Between the States, most people saw themselves as Virginians or Ohioans or New Yorkers first, Americans second. In the sense that post Civil War people began to refer more to national identity than regional identity then the war did help forge a more cohesive nation.
One of the consequences of the war was the strengthening of central government. That is the tragedy of the war. I am familiar with the argument that the war was not originally intended to free slaves and that Lincoln could not have given a tinkers dam about them, prior to the ED. Had the South not sown its own seeds of destruction by failing to develop an industrial base that could have competed with the North, things might be much different today. Perhaps a political settlement might have been reached that would have been beneficial to both sides.