The American Civil War is quite possibly the defining moment in American history. The experiment of democracy was put to the absolute test and the population responded accordingly. It is debatable whether or not this was a revolution. Scholars have wrestled with this issue for many years. A revolution is a change in power from the old order to a new order. A revolution must be both external and internal. This means that the underlying …showed first 75 words of 973 total…

…showed last 75 words of 973 total…impossible for obvious reasons. During the years of Reconstruction the South was supposed to be rebuilt to resemble the north economically, politically, and socially, but this did not happen. When the soldiers left the South in 1877, the newly free men had no chance of voting, practically no civil rights, and were for all practical purposes still slaves to their former masters. The Civil War caused no lasting fundamental changes and thus was not a revolution.