The root cause of the Illness can be found in the love of power in the very debates that were the framework of the very formation of this country and the debates of what kind of system of government to country would be governed under.
The debates over whether the individual states should be single countries unto themselves, or a single country made up of all the states, That resulted in a compromize of a single country made up of a collection of individual states governing themselves. Hence a Republic.
We started as a Republic of seperate states working in cooperation with each other. But the one question which was left unanswered was what was the "absolute limit" of the central Governments power. That made the American Civil War the most inevitable War that this country will ever fight. And we will fight it again in the future unless something happens. Because an uncontroled government will sieze as much power as it can until it collapses upon its own weight.
That is the pattern of History. We saw this in every great empire of history and we see the same things happening today. The American Civil War was the destruction of any pretence of a Republic form of Government in this country. That government which followed has progressed to the point now that our officials are openly stating that the Constitution is no good and that we should rewrite that document to allow the Government absolute power and full control over the people for their own good. THAT's what I believe that our forefathers in the south fought against in 1861. An overpowering Government.