The state cannot tell the people that it is bankrupting them and sending their sons and daughters to die by the thousands in aggressive and unconstitutional wars so that crony capitalism can be imposed at gunpoint in foreign countries, and so that the military-industrial complex can continue to rake in billions. That might risk a revolution. So instead, they have to use the happy talk of American virtue and American exceptionalism, the "god" of democracy," etc. And the average American, whom the great H.L. Mencken referred to as part of the "booboisie," believes it.
-Thomas DiLorenzo
Read on:
http://thedailybell.com/29156/Thomas-DiLorenzo-More-on-the-Myth-of-Lincoln-Secession-and-the-Civil-War