The American Civil War has been justified as a battle for civil rights and an end to the institution of slavery, but the facts do not support
this conclusion. In a letter to Horace Greely in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln was quite clear, "If I could save the Union without freeing
any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving
others alone I would also do that." The Civil War was not an ideological battle between right and wrong; it was an overt act of usurpation
of individual state authority by the federal government, in contradiction of the Tenth Amendment. This bloody conflict set the precedent for
consolidation of power in federal, and ultimately, in presidential hands.

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