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Conflict could always break out between the federal and state governments or between sections. That was an inherent property of our union. But it doesn't explain why war between these two sections broke out when it did.

As to why the war broke out when it did, it must be considered that Lincoln was elected despite the fact that he did not receive a single Southern Electoral College vote.

In such a situation, some may have thought that the time had come when the South's control over it's own political destiny within the Union had totally slipped away.

Although Lincoln won because of the split in the Democratic Party, the impasse between the Northern and Southern Democrats over the issue of "popular sovereignty" and the future of slavery in the territories meant that the South would see a repeat of this total lack of influence in later Presidential elections.

This perception of completely losing control over it's own future political destinity is, in my opinion, the final cause of seccession at that particular point in time.

Whether seccession had to ultimately lead to war or whether cooler heads on both sides of the Potomac may have been able to bring the South back into the fold and save the Union without the loss of 600,000 deaths (which, in terms of today's U.S. population, would be equivalrnt to over 5 million deaths) is a totally different question that requires it's own root cause analysis.

Lincoln did indeed win because of a split in the Democratic Party. Had Democrats been wiser and the Democrats of the Deep South readier to compromise the party did not have to split in 1860. The refusal to compromise and cooperate made what would have been an unlikely possibility a reality. Some Southern radicals welcomed the Democratic split and Lincoln's election as events that would precipitate secession and the creation of a new Southern nation.

In the long run, though, some conflict was inevitable over slavery in the territories. We can think ourselves back into the minds of Southerners who thought the world was coming to an end because of Lincoln's election. We can even empathize with them. In the end we probably do have to come to some conclusion about the wisdom and justice of their actions.

We could examine history in a morally neutral-light, but if we leave it at that the impression is that all causes are equally justified, and that isn't the case. There's an "of course slavery is wrong" in the background that can't be left there forever. At some point it does have to be brought into the foreground and looked at in the light, or else others might conclude that we don't really believe that it is wrong.

I'm not saying we have to condemn or anathematize the average Confederate, but we do have to ask whether the leaders of their movement were acting justly, responsibly, wisely and morally properly. Defenders of the Confederacy passionately attack Unionists on moral grounds, but often assume that anything the rebels did was justified by state's rights, state sovereignty or the right to rebel. If one wants to judge and condemn the Union, one also has to pass judgement on the Confederacy.

Recapturing the mood of past times is hard. I'm sure there was much tragic resignation among Southerners in 1860. There was also determined resolve. And among some, even boastfulness and joy. That may have been a minority opinion, but sometimes small groups can have a disproportionately large influence on the majority.

I'm not much interested in refighting the war. I do think that the passions and madness of the times often get lost in our rationalistic explanations of who was right and who was wrong. Every civil war is marked by panic, hatred, and rage. Events spin out of control, and rational positions marked out before the war or rediscovered by us later no longer become tenable.