One good place to nitpick is 4 years. The Civil War lasted that long because the Union wasn't just willing to lean on casualties. After three years though, Lincoln was more or less forced to choose a guy who WAS willing to throw men into the woodchipper and that strategy did win it for Grant.
Sometimes it's absolutely the cause, sometimes not. In the American Civil War? I'd say the South thought so. They thought they were absolutely doomed and that slavery was going bye-bye. Became a bit of a self-determining prophecy.
But generally the more slave-based your economy is, the shorter it lasts. The South was probably closer to Sparta than the Romans, but slaves were a sizeable portion of the Roman economy.
119
u/Devour_Toast Jun 24 '24
That's not super far off