A house divided against itself cannot stand. The war was necessary because if our country had been divided it wouldn't have been long before our country would have been somebody else's country. The English at the time were toying with the idea of coming in on the side of the south if I'm not mistaken. Even if the two separate countries made it to the 1900's what would WW1 and WW2 have been like, what about the great depression? The look back over the history between now and back then clearly shows the wisdom in Lincoln's decision. The war was as necessary to our country as Lincoln's own death was to healing the wounds caused by it. It's your time and money waste all you want but don't say you were not warned.