[Colonel Kangaroo]

It was not a choice between federal government and no federal government. It was a choice between a federal government in Washington who the people rightly believed was the best the world had ever seen or a federal government for the slaveholders in Richmond which only provided extortion, murder and general lawlessness.

And given the large number of East Tennesseans who volunteered for the Union army, the people did more than just wait for liberation.

[ovrtaxt]

It was a choice between state or federal government being the primary authority. Your opinion of the Confederacy notwithstanding, the war was about economics and power, and who was going to hold more of it.

In my opinion (since we’re throwing opinions around), the war was primarily over the Tenth Amendment, which DC found inconvenient.