Because we're a nation made out of ideology, but we have two. We believe in the freedom of all people, liberty and justice for all, all people are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights, etc all that shit we won't shut up about. But we're also a nation of domination, genocide, chattel slavery, and Christian nationalism.

The civil war was the closest we came to resolving that dichotomy. It was also one of the first two sided industrial wars, so you know, rivers running red, bloodlines ending in an afternoon. But mostly it was a war for the soul and substance of our nation.

Then right after the war the president was killed, reconstruction was botched, and the granddaughters of slavers erected monuments to their evil grandpappies while calling it the war of northern aggression. We never resolved the root conflict so we still are stuck on it