The Civil War of America, like the more recent Civil Right Movement, still resonates deeply in the hearts of those that it most affected. While the text clearly states that the two clearest catalysts of the war were the rights of the states and the partisan issue of slavery in a free country, the reasons run much deeper than that.
The goals and ways in life were different in the North and South; one in a colder and mostly barren land better for building up a cache of powerhouse cities, the other, a green and fertile place perfect for building up the fat of the land to make an astronomic amount of profit. As such, their desires were different, and the needs to fulfill those desires were also, consequently, different. These polar opposites were united only by a common enemy, and little thought was given as to what was to be done after these colonies earned their freedom.
The fact that the South did not want to break the chains of slavery was not so much racism as it was not profitable. Because the Southern states were majority agricultural, the labor was needed in order to efficiently work their crops. The Northern states, on the other hand, were mostly urban, industrialized cities that really had few needs for slaves. This eventually led to the milion-dollar question: Is slavery a form of cruelty against fellow human beings, or is it just good business?
The North and South had been at odds for years before the start of the civil war, and seemed to, in a way, compete with one another as two separate identities rather than a united nation. During the conquest of the Louisiana Purchase, there was much controversy about whether the freshly sworn-in states should be slave or free. There was a fragile balance in Congress, and both sides knew that only one state in the other side's favor would put them at a distinct disadvantage in Congress and hamper the powers of persuasion. So, when a new state wanted to swear-in to the Constitution, there were many compromises made in order to gloss over the problems that neither side wanted to directly face. but eventually, resentment and mistrust won out, and the election of Republican President Abraham Lincoln marked the start of the South's succession.
The connection between these two themes is quite simple: The fact of the matter was, slaves were considered property of the Southern states, yet the North considered them as people and berated the South to free them. To the South, slavery was the key to living their lives, and they were furious at the North for condemning them merely using what they had paid for to their own advantages. These two superpowers were not accepting of forced submission, and the desire to finally see whose power was the greatest was too strong for either side to permanently control. The idea of Reconstruction comes into play in the aftershocks of the war. With the North aiding the South in "licking its wounds," they needed to know where and how to best treat these "wounds" so that the South would be obliged to return to the Union, and to prevent these plantation states from the idea of secession never again crossing their minds.