Did the Civil War change the character of the United States?

“It does not seem to me as if I were living in the country in which I was born.”  --Lawyer and author George Ticknor Curtis in an 1869 letter.

The Civil War changed the character of the United States in a profound way. It was not just the Union soldiers that had triumphed in the conflict between the states, industrialism was the ultimate victor. The North, with its capitalist-industrialist economy, had triumphed over the slave-driven...

“It does not seem to me as if I were living in the country in which I was born.”  --Lawyer and author George Ticknor Curtis in an 1869 letter.

The Civil War changed the character of the United States in a profound way. It was not just the Union soldiers that had triumphed in the conflict between the states, industrialism was the ultimate victor. The North, with its capitalist-industrialist economy, had triumphed over the slave-driven agrarian economy of the South. The United States would forever move towards innovation and manufacturing. The decades that followed the Civil War saw unprecedented industrial growth that would move the United States towards becoming a global giant.

The notion that the federal government should be the most powerful force in the United States also was triumphant in the Civil War. By the end of the war, the federal budget had increased eight-fold from its pre-war levels. The federal government sold bonds for the first time and accumulated a deficit that was more than double pre-war levels. Throughout the course of the war, an income tax was enacted and a draft instituted. The government took unusual steps to curb individual liberties. Dozens of new federal agencies were established that would employ hundreds of thousands of people. Out of the misery that was the Civil War, the government bureaucracy was born.