It can, and has, been argued that the real winner of the American Civil War was Capitalism.  Those who support this belief claim that  Reconstruction failed, they argue that Southern Capitalists successfully bypassed Constitutional and Congressional changes and instead implemented laws that institutionalized the economic/ political and social inequities of slavery.  Others argue that the Northern vision of a free America was realized at the conclusion of the Civil War.  Those who support this position argue that political changes made in the decade following the war, eventually led to radical economic/social and political changes in the defeated South, and over time led to the evolution of an America where all men are treated equally under the law and have access to all the same rights and privileges. ​

In October of 2017, White House, Chief of Staff, John Kelly caused a furor when he told Fox News host Laura Ingraham that the Civil War was caused by the “lack of an ability to compromise,” that the war was fought by “men and women of good faith on both sides,” and that Confederate General Robert E. Lee “was an honorable man,”.  John Kelly, perhaps  unwittingly, unleashed a battle into the public domain that had been brewing among historians  sense the time of the war itself. i.e. what was the cause of the Civil War?.