What are some of the lessons from the Civil War that might keep us from repeating it due to the division between the right and the left that seems to be growing pretty rapidly?
I don't think that the current right and left rift will lead to a Civil War. In the 21st century, America understands that there are more important things than inner conflict - conflict with other countries, for instance... Seriously though. The Civil War was fought at a time of racial hatred and wildly differing beliefs. A main portion of it was an entire race fighting for freedom. There isn't anything that extreme around today, so another Civil War is quite unlikely.
I agree with what Tristan009 said. Our country is much larger than it was during the Civil War. Because of that, it would much harder for our country to essentially implode. Also, there isn't a large enough ro seroius enough each to cause a divide within our nation. To be honest, I believe that the Civil War was simply a product of the time period.
A new Civil War has really small chances of happening. America is a big country and a war with another country is very possible, but a new inner conflict is definitely not going to happen. So I guess we learned some stuff from our history ..
There is a division in the country right now, in my opinion. The progressive movement along with creeping socialism over decades has effected both the right and the left in very bad ways. I see the current division as the individualists against collectivists. The individualists believe The Constitution was designed so that government power would be limited and individual liberty would be maximized. The collectivists believe the Constitution is a old out dated document and the real purpose of government is to secure equality of outcome for the collective society. One big problem is that it isn't really left versus right. Both parties are collectivist in their own way. The Republicans give lip service to individual liberty but when it comes down to their philosophy they believe the government should have just as much power over individuals as the Democrats, who are clearly collectivists. Only a few on the left and the right, the Tea Party, some libertarians and a large group of the non-voting public are individualists at this point. And, there is a possibility that those groups will not go down easily as the last vestiges of freedom are destroyed by the bloated and growing government structure.
If you're talking about the concept of slavery, I doubt that will ever happen again due to today's established humanitarian laws. Inner country war will be unlikely to ever happen again. Yet, there are certain things that still repeat from that war such as racism and the effects of war on the economy. Racism passes on from generation to generation so that may be quite inevitable for sometime.
