The Civil War

[President Mitt]

The Civil War started because both sides were tired of compromise. The Whigs and Democrats, were not really supporting the needs of the people, and were mostly there for their own selfish reasons. Politicians had quickly become seen as malignant and corrupt, which made people begin to lose faith in the Party System's ability to solve problems. Politicians were also seen as out of touch with their constituents as no side, Slave or Free were really winning the argument by the 1850's, the argument had only been postponed by a series of compromises such as the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850, and the Kansas Nebraska Act.

All of these had attempted to cool tensions between an enraged South, and an angry North. Not only did any of these compromises fail to do that, but the parties had lost the faith of the people who had elected them into power to accomplish a specific goal. For example, Stephen Douglas, who was seen as a "moderate" on slavery, supporting Popular Sovereignty in States, was rejected by the South as the Democratic Nominee in 1860 because the Southern Wing of the Democratic Party did not view Douglas as "pro slavery" enough. The people on both sides were simply tired of political compromise.

The politicians' failure to please their constituents lead to a rise of people creating new parties, such as the Republicans, to "fix Washington," or some people, like John Brown, merely took matters into his own hands and started killing people. Brown's attack on Harper's Ferry and subsequent execution heightened North-South tensions to an even higher level. People turned to violence because of the political system's inability to solve the Slavery issue.

[President Mitt]

4. A governing system that was at best terrible- since it was confederal, rather than federal, there were many problems organizing troops, paying for the war, and even getting the troops to leave their states in some cases. Even if they had won the war, it wouldn't have been surprising if they broke apart later.

Bingo. The other three reasons you listed would have been hard to overcome, yes, but not insurmountable. There seems to be some sort of idea that if the Confederacy had managed to squeak by in the war, it would have lasted. Which is false. It would have been very hard for the Confederacy to stick together for much long without tearing itself apart. There was talk of Georgia seceding from the Richmond Government as early as 1861. Georgians and Texans would have been at the throats of the Virginians and South Carolinians in no time over the most trivial of details. The Confederacy lacked a unified government, and would have surely crumbled soon, if not by the 1870's.