Your point is well-taken regarding the impact of the Civil War on the subsequent centralization of government in the United States.

I would add, however, that this trend would have happened regardless of whether or not Lincoln had ever been elected president. Nations in general follow a natural historic trend toward centralization of government. The trend has accelerated in the last 100 years, due to industrialization, market economy, population growth and the infrastructure that supports all three.

As far as I know, no nation has successfully bucked this trend. There have been a few feeble attempts at devolution, but they were short-lived. The world is just too complicated and things are just too interdependent for anything less than a federal-type government to handle.

For all its warts, our Federal government system works -- more or less -- and no one has invented a viable alternative.

And lest we forget, every government program, regulation and policy is the result of a problem (real or imagined) that couldn't or wouldn't be handled at a lower level of government. There are quite a few anti-government types out there who rail about big government, but I've never one who failed to cash that "guvmint" check.