Catholic Online: The American Civil War was sparked when Federal forces attempted to resupply Fort Sumter, a Union island fortress in South Carolina. Confederate forces fired on the fort, forcing its surrender. The bombardment was bloodless-nobody died, but it sparked the bloodiest conflict in American history.
Much like issues debated before the Civil War, issues of federal government power are again before the people. Government power and corruption have always been conversational topics, but now they dominate the headlines with a regularity unseen since the late antebellum period.
Today, Americans are concerned about the ever-increasing pervasive search authority of the state which is aggregating their private lives into profiles within databases, entirely in secret. The government has the power to protect Americans with its sweeping surveillance. More on this here.
