The Confederacy was defeated in the Civil War, but the South, even till this very day, never fully bought into that defeat, and did a remarkable job in essentially returning to their old order of business, by creating a new kind of slavery; and through the thorough exploitation of those that were formerly slaves, they were able to use the very same labor, so as to persist in the wringing of bread from the sweat of other men's faces, and in particular, by those former slaves and their progeny.
At the present day, as reported by dqydj.com, as of 2016, the top .1% of all taxpayers has a yearly household income of $1,135,421.00, and the top .1% of all taxpayers has a net worth of a staggering $43,090,281.00. Back in the antebellum days, as reported by lumenlearning.com, just .1% of the white class structure owned 100+ slaves, and it was the owners of these massive plantations, thoroughly dependent upon that slave labor, that were first and foremost the very people that ran the political institutions and power structures of their respective States, and it was these people that were able to make the argument when confronted by a democratic Presidential election that they lost, that in order to protect and to augment their business of slavery, that they would rebel against the Union, which they did.
While slavery no longer exists in America, the gross inequality of the distribution of income, as well as a tax system that rather than being progressive, soaks the middle class and the uninitiated, indicates that the very, very few have become very skilled at making their money from their exploitation of labor within the United States and even the borders beyond such, and are firmly and clearly in the driver's seat of all relevant policies that would affect their power, their money, and their livelihood.
We live in an age in which mergers between equals of behemoth corporations are routinely granted, so that business industry after business industry are now effectively monopolies, duopolies, are competitors in name, but not in actuality. Quite obviously, the easiest path to insane riches is to milk the American public as well as the world for a few extra bucks from software, licenses, rents, loans, commodities, and other associated goods and apps, that people have an abiding desire for, in which all that extra money coming in, is by virtue of the fact that these corporations have effectively little or no competition, provides them with huge gross margins, in which, they are then able to well protect and even augment those assets in tax dodges of all stripes, which effectively drains from the people what is rightfully theirs and is given to a select few, instead.
The revolutionary war was fought to give the people of this great nation, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The civil war was fought so as to prove that all men are indeed created equally, as well as to maintain this magnificent union of the people, by the people, and for the people. A fair view, though, indicates that all those that gave their lives for those causes, have seen that nobleness betrayed, and the unraveling of what once was the last best hope of mankind.