>we should not dismiss the fact that the U.S. Constitution was modeled on a system that collapsed into civil war, and that it is inherently fragile. I don't se

>we should not dismiss the fact that the U.S. Constitution was modeled on a system that collapsed into civil war, and that it is inherently fragile. I don't see this so much as a issue with the modeling of the Constition, but the larger unresolved question of slavery in the United States. They largely "kicked the can" with that question in the Constitution with the "Three-Fifths" rule, but I'd argue that the scene was set for a clash regardless. I might go a step further and say that the Constitutions wasn't fragile, but because it established a strong Federal system, it set the stage for the conflict to come because the Southern states would now be accountable to Federal law, whereas slavery might have persisted under the Articles. In my opinion, did it have a hand in the war to come? Yes. Was it the cause? Far from it. The war settled not only slavery, but any lingering questions of the supremacy of that document, and it's never been questioned since.