What was the American Civil War really about?

Join “The Civic Discourse Project” in the 2024 season’s finale, an in-depth discussion on the American Civil War. Dr. Allen C. Guelzo, the Thomas W. Smith Distinguished Research Scholar at Princeton University, talks about how our country suffered greatly from the American Civil War’s devastation and profound internal upheavals.

Apart from the tremendous death toll, the conflict destroying billions of dollars worth of assets and the upended established lifestyles, the accounts fail to acknowledge the war’s primary importance: it kept the country intact so that democracies could protect themselves from internal instability.