More of course can be said, but we have a great Civil War section in the FAQ which would be a good place to start!

Your question is likely better answered by the trajectory of Reconstruction (the decade(s)-long period after the war) rather than the Civil War itself. The war involved the freeing of four million black slaves by executive order under the Lincoln administration, and Reconstruction revolved around a sympathetic North fighting to push forward racial equality in the defeated South. This left a bad taste in the mouth of white Southerners, and eventually led to the establishment of the Lost Cause ideology and the Dunning School once white Southerners violently took control of their state governments in the 1870s and beyond. This answer may help you learn more.

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5s9f9l/ive_heard_it_said_that_the_north_won_the_civil/

I'll try to make this succinct.

First, you have the backdrop, the American colonies (and the US) from their settling up through the mid 19th century. A huge thread running through this is the exploitation of captured Africans and their descendants who have been forced into chattel slavery. Chattel slavery (ownership of people in the same fashion as livestock) is different from a lot of other historical forms of slavery because it has basically no limits, the slave owners are free to do what they want to their slaves including kill them, and they own the children of the slaves as well. This is, of course, a horrific situation and requires dehumanization of the slaves in order for most people to be able to stomach it. As such, over time a body of rationalizations for slavery grew up. This body included the creation of the concept of "whiteness" and the denigration of Africans and of "blackness". There's a lot to say here so I'll just skip to the relevant parts, which is that many "white people" in America had come to the conclusion that slavery of black people was just and proper, and superior to allowing black people to be free, due to their inherent savage and unruly nature, etc.

To add to that you have the economic landscape. After the creation of the US there was a massive expansion to the West, including the territory of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, etc. There was a huge land rush and crush of development (which in those days was not a rush to build sub-divisions and condos but a rush to build plantations). Cotton became a huge and enormously profitable cash crop in these regions, and the business of slavery (buying, selling, and "making" slaves) boomed as well. Even though importation of new slaves to the US became illegal in the early 19th century that didn't stop the slave trade from operating within the country. Slaves were marched from places like North Carolina to Georgia and Mississippi and sold in great numbers. The business of slavery and the business powered by slavery became a huge portion of the US (and world) economy, and the absolute foundation of the economy in the South. Additionally, the South in the US had an essentially aristocratic form of rule with much stronger class divisions than in the North, with plantation owners at the top.

Now, on the other side of the equation, you have much of the US population, especially those outside of the South who were not comfortable with slavery or were fiercely opposed to it on moral grounds. Many US states outlawed slavery during or just after the revolution and throughout the 19th century abolitionist sentiment became progressively more and more organized, persistent, and powerful. Throughout the early decades of the US there was a very precarious balance of power between pro and anti-slavery forces. For example, the President of the US is not elected by popular vote but by the electoral college, which especially during the period that slavery was legal "put the thumb on the scale" to allow the slave holding states a large enough voice to sway elections (due to the 3/5ths compromise). Similarly, the structure and importance of the US Senate divides power by state not population, which meant that controlling the composition of the states in regard to their slave holding status would keep things balanced.

The first half of the 19th century in the US could be described as a kind of "Cold War" between slavery and abolition forces in the US government, with victories, defeats, and stalemates coming about at different points in time. The 1850s saw this conflict essentially "go off the rails" as its intensity blew past the sort of "polite" limits that traditionally had kept it in check. There was a localized "hot war" in Kansas as pro and anti-slavery individuals flocked to the state and fought a low-intensity conflict in order to determine whether the new state would be a slave state or a free state. This is because the Kansas-Nebraska act of 1854 got rid of the previous state of affairs (the Missouri compromise) which forced free vs. slave states to be admitted to the nation in equal measure and instead allowed for states to determine whether to allow slavery by popular vote. The end result (after more than a hundred deaths) was an anti-slavery victory, though the conflict was still unsettled at the start of the civil war. Then you have the Dred Scott decision of 1857 by the Supreme Court which basically enshrined in law that black Americans were forever 2nd class citizens and none of the protections of the constitution are granted to them.

The year following the Dred Scott decision were the famous Lincoln/Douglas debates where Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debated as candidates for the US Senate seat in Illinois (Douglas being the incumbent). These debates were 3 hours long with each candidate speaking at length uninterrupted, and the subject of slavery and abolition was a big component of them. The debates were reprinted in many newspapers as well as collected and printed as a volume in book form which many people read. Lincoln did not win the Senate seat but his rhetoric, demeanor, and values impressed many and he eventually became the Republican candidate for US President in the 1860 election.

Now, Lincoln was not at the time a strident abolitionist, in many ways he kept a moderated tone on the subject, but many slave supporting folks painted him as such and he was deeply unpopular throughout The South. So much so that Lincoln did not even appear on any ballots in many Southern states. Now, by this time the "Cold War" over slavery was anything but, it was at the forefront of political debate in every shape and at every turn. When Lincoln won the presidential election it did not signal that abolition was immediately around the corner, since that would likely require a 2/3 majority of the states (to amend the constitution) and there were far too many slave states for that to seem even remotely possible for many years or even decades following 1860. However, Lincoln's election was a demoralizing defeat for the South and pro-slavery forces. They put everything they had behind opposing him and yet he still became president. This made it fairly clear that the old balance of power was gone and the power of pro-slavery forces to significantly drive the direction of the nation was waning. Even though, as mentioned, there was no realistic way for abolition to take hold in the near-term after Lincoln's election, the writing was on the wall. In the 1850s the battles had been hot and heavy, with victories and defeats coming for both sides, with Lincoln's election the South was dealt a huge defeat and put permanently on the defensive. And the future looked to be fighting "rear-guard" actions in retreat for the following decades until eventually slavery was outlawed in the far future. Many in The South wouldn't have necessarily perceived things in those terms, but there was certainly a sub-conscious sentiment along those lines, many simply perceived the enormity of the loss of controlling who would be president and put themselves in a frame of mind to disallow that happening.

This crisis led directly to a cascade of the secession of the Southern, slave holding, states, each of which chose to carefully enshrine slavery in their constitutions. And then, of course this led to the Civil War.

After the Civil War the Union tried to remake The South through a process called "reconstruction". One goal of which was to ensure that free black American citizens would be treated as first class citizens granted the full protection of the constitution and all other laws. For years the former confederate states were occupied by federal troops who upheld the new laws of the land and enforced, as much as was possible, the equality of white and black citizens. However, this period lasted only a little more than a decade until the presidential election of 1876. That election was incredibly close and hotly disputed with no winner coming out of the first counting (and several electoral votes still remaining to be counted), Rutherford B. Hayes made a back door deal to agree to remove federal troops from Southern states and gained all the remaining votes, winning the presidency by a narrow electoral margin (1 vote).

The Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction and in the following years and decades the Southern states began rebuilding legal and social systems enshrining black Americans as subservient and second class citizens. "Jim Crow" laws, segregation, terrorism (from the KKK and from "ordinary" lynchings) deprived black citizens of their nominal rights (even if a black American was guaranteed a jury trial on paper, in many states they could easily be summarily executed by a lynch mob). And while the 13th Amendment nominally abolished slavery it nevertheless continued to exist in a very similar form as share cropping and peonage through to the mid-20th century. I should point out that segregation and legalized racism were not restricted to The South, that was only where it was most visible due to the high population of black Americans. In many other places black citizens were simply excluded from living there and many, many businesses (such as restaurants and hotels) were de facto "whites only" establishments even if they didn't have signs out front.

It took until the Civil Rights Movement of the mid 20th century to begin to unravel the worst of these racist systems (overt segregation, widespread lynchings, Jim Crow laws, etc.) though many tendrils of those systems (red lining, racist policing, mass incarceration, de facto school segregation, etc.) still exist today.

Some useful additional reading / sources:

• "Apostles of Disunion" by Charles B. Dew
• "Reconstruction" by Eric Foner
• "The Half has Never Been Told" by Edward E. Baptist
• "The Warmth of Other Suns" by Isabell Wilkerson

A point of clarification regarding your question (apologies if this is contrary to the rules here).

Are you interested in the causes of the conflict (ie: what factors led to the war itself) or a more broad understanding of racial, regional, cultural, political, and economic factors that were present in the decades leading up to the conflict?

Thank you all once again for sharing very valuable comments and suggestions. I had these questions about McCullers’s Clock Without Hands which mainly discusses this timeframe.

The Judge has this dream of bringing back the Southern traditions (which I think is related to lost cause) and here he talks about this. The currencies in Europe and Asia were saved at end of the wars like Yen, Mark never becoming useless after the war but not the Southern money. Her grandma hid Southern money in hopes that the money could be worthy in the future. Would be glad if someone could explain the point about currency !

Also if you know/aware of McCullers, what was her standpoint about racism as a Southerner ? It’s obvious that she is supporting equality but just curious as she only lived to 1967. In Hairspray, the racial segregation was still bad in 1962 so I assume the conditions were not too great. Sorry for taking Hairspray as a reference !