No, our Founders won both of those.
Nowhere Man: "I know some say you could get slaves to run the machines, but there are some machines that need skilled labor to run them plus the slaves could sabotage them.
Even if I have to pay more for labor, most likely it would be offset, (I'm taking the view of a plantation or business owner here for sake of argument) by someone who would be loyal to me."
It's important to remember that slaves rarely competed for employment against skilled white workers, but they did compete successfully against unskilled workers, hence the name "white trash".
"Trash" are workers so unskilled they can't compete against slaves.
But, the Industrial Revolution produced many jobs for unskilled workers -- factory, transportation and farm jobs.
For example, a typical large farm machine in those days took several men to operate, only one of whom needed to be skilled, the others could be "white trash" or slaves, whichever worked better-cheaper.
Nowhere Man: "The Civil War opened up the first true door to the expansion of runaway government powers."
I don't agree, of course, since there was no major expansion of Federal powers until the Progressive Era beginning about 100 years ago.
But even to the degree what you say is true, the blame for it goes not to Lincoln, but to the Confederacy which provoked, started and declared war on the United States, May 6, 1861.
I still disagree. The war was really over States rights and trade. The South wanted access to foreign markets for their goods but the North was in their way. Slavery was a side issue at best and Lincoln did not care one way or the other although it was a tool to stick to to the Confederates. I guess it all depends on what you believe and who writes the history, since the South lost, sometimes they were seen as the villains. It really comes down to two things, who won and whose ox is being gored. I still think on the trade and States rights issues, the Confederates were right. Chattel slavery was dying, I think the Confederates would have given it up around the time Brazil did, the 1880’s, certainly by 1900 or if your an extreme pessimist, 1920’s. As to the two countries living side by side, who knows, maybe over time, it would be like the US and Canada and had WWI and WWII happened without too many butterflies, we could have been allies, I’m sure we would have been during the Cold War.
Really?! What do you call waiting for Congress to go home, then launching a major war that ends with the South in ashes?
In 1870, 20% of the Mississippi state budget went for prostheses for war veterans.
In what skittles-and-unicorns sense is that not "expansion of federal powers"?