From Thomas DiLorenzo (born 1954), American economics professor at Loyola University Maryland Sellinger School of Business, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (2002):
Tocqueville was correct in his rendition of how the Constitution was formed, but he likely never dreamed that an American president would ever send an invading army to kill some 300,000 of his own citizens in order to destroy the right of secession, a right that all of America’s founding fathers held as sacrosanct and that was at the very heart of the American system of government.
I have long wondered that too. The only real civil war on this continent was the Revolution. The Confederacy wanted to be left alone, not be in charge of the northern states.
The War of Northern Aggression was just that