Second American Civil War


The American Civil War took place between 1861 and 1865, after which the Union was preserved. Rhetorical or hyperbolic references to a potential Second American Civil War have since been made on a number of occasions throughout the history of the United States.

Interpretations

1861–1865 war as Second American Civil War

Some historians name the 1861–1865 war as the Second American Civil War, since the American Revolutionary War could be considered a . They then refer to the Independence War, which resulted in the separation of the Thirteen Colonies from the British Empire, as the First American Civil War. A significant number of American colonists stayed loyal to the British Crown and as Loyalists fought on the British side while opposite were a significant amount of colonists called Patriots who fought on the American side. In some localities, there was fierce fighting between Americans including gruesome instances of hanging, drawing, and quartering on both sides. As Canadian historian William Stewart Wallace noted:
As early as 1789, David Ramsay, an American patriot historian, wrote in his History of the American Revolution that, "Many circumstances concurred to make the American war particularly calamitous. It was originally a civil war in the estimation of both parties.... " Framing the American Revolutionary War as a civil war gaining increasing examination.

Reconstruction as Second American Civil War

After the American Civil War, the federal government started in 1865–1877 a process called Reconstruction, which aimed to restore the South to the Union and update the federal and state governance in accordance with the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Due to severity of the social, political and constitutional challenges and conflicts of the Reconstruction Era, the Reconstruction is sometimes called the Second Civil War. The term was cemented by the American Experience episode "Reconstruction: The Second Civil War" and made its way to the school curriculum.

Culture war as Second American Civil War

In the 21st century, during an ongoing culture war between American conservatives and liberals over opposing cultural, moral, and religious ideals, some political commentators have characterized the polarized political discourse as either an actual Second Civil War or a potential prelude for one. According to one 2018 Rasmussen poll, 31 percent of American voters feared that the intense partisanship following the 2016 presidential election and the victory of Donald Trump would cause a Second Civil War within five years. In 2019, the national bipartisan Battleground Civility Poll by the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service revealed that "the average voter believes the U.S. is two-thirds of the way to the edge of a civil war."
Other political and social commentators acknowledge that extreme partisan politics on Capitol Hill, accompanied by related commonplace verbal and occasional physical acts of aggression in the streets, are tearing apart the fabric of American society, but point to the fact that culture wars cycles are imminent to the process of replenishing American values, and the first such cycle started after George Washington's retirement, and that Americans have to find "America's middle again and return to civility."

In popular culture

Literature