The Civil War was fought for a number of good reasons, most commonly:
- Preservation of the Union, by the North
- Preservation of State's Rights, by the South
- Against Slavery, by the North
- Against the agricultural export tariffs and related economic assaults of the the industrial North against the agrarian South, by the South
All those Causes of War were pretty balanced. There is one more cause that is my opinion, and what swung the victory to the North.
That is the North fought to preserve the rule of Written Law, over the rule of an oligarchy, a landed aristocracy, in the South.
But the Southern oligarchy has survived -- in the Federal personas within the Beltway. Our Federal government, in some Presidency after Cleveland's -- for Cleveland was a great upholder of limited and responsible-to-written-law federal powers, has become an oligarchy. Cleveland, however, did bring the Southereners into his Cabinet.