Question

How did federal policies undertaken during the Civil War transform the United States into a stronger nation-state—economically, politically, and ideologically?

Answer 1

The war stifled the Confederacy's bid for national independence and destroyed the institution of slavery upon which it rested. The ensuing peace—specifically, the Radical Reconstruction crafted by the Republican Party—reunited the nation economically and politically, yet did so on terms that not just the defeated Confederates came to resent. Small wonder that each generation has assessed the war through the prism of its own central political concerns.