> the eventual victory of the federalists in the Civil War was, in effect, the creation of a new nation organized around industrial capitalism. Which is why th

> the eventual victory of the federalists in the Civil War was, in effect, the creation of a new nation organized around industrial capitalism. Which is why the war was started by plantation slave-holders: They knew that the only way to keep their slaves was to dissociate their economy and politics from that of the industrialized North. Even after they destroyed the concept of states' rights by passing the fugitive slave laws, they still weren't confident that slavery could endure when the North was going great guns without it. When the North proved that they could elect a President without pandering to Southern Slave Power interests by electing Lincoln in 1860 without a single Southern vote going to him, that was the last straw. (The election of 1860 was, in effect, two elections going on in parallel: Bell v Breckinridge in the South, Lincoln v Douglas in the North. Except, of course, only one man could be President, and Lincoln won the Electoral College by a convincing majority.)