Second American Civil War

The first American Civil War spanned from 1861 to 1865, after which the Union was forcibly restored. Rhetorical or hyperbolic references to a Second American Civil War have been made on a number of occasions throughout the history of the United States.

As the phrase civil war can refer to any war to separate one political body from another, a number of international scholars name the 1861-1865 war as the Second American Civil War, referring to the American War for Independence as the First American Civil War, separating the colonial states from the British Empire, particularly since a significant number of the North American colonists were Loyalists, who fought on the British side, and in some localities, there was a real civil war among neighbors.

In popular culture

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• DMZ is set in New York City, where Manhattan has become a de-militarized zone (DMZ) between the United States of America and the Free States of America in the near future, when members of the latter believed the US was focusing too much on international issues.

• V for Vendetta references a second civil war in government broadcasts. Because of the propaganda heavy nature of the broadcasts, the reliability of the statement is questionable.

• The Second Civil War: a 1997 made for TV movie wherein the title conflict erupts over immigration, with the country having become inundated with immigrants and refugees, and the president attempting to settle more refugees in a resistant Idaho.

• The movie Barb Wire: based upon the comic book of the same name, is set in 2017 during the "Second American Civil War". Barb Wire (Pamela Anderson) owns the Hammerhead, a nightclub in Steel Harbor — "the last free city" in a United States ravaged by the civil war — and she brings in extra cash working as a mercenary and bounty hunter.

• Shattered Union: a 2005 PC game published by 2K Games. It depicts a civil war between six factions of the former United States and the European Union, following the destruction of Washington, D.C. in a Nuclear attack.

• Season 2 of Jericho: a second American Civil War begins between the United States and the separatist Allied States of America.^[1]

• Power Games (Operation Enduring Unity Series): A military fiction novel written by Richard Peters depicting a modern US Civil War.^[2]

• In the Family Guy episode "Back to the Pilot", Brian and Stewie go back in time and prevents the September 11 attacks in 2001, but this causes a paradox to occur in 2004, in which George W. Bush lost the Presidential election to John Kerry because he was not able to use national security issues to his advantage. Shortly afterwords, nine southern states of the U.S. secedes under Bush's influence as the "Second Confederation" and he declares a new American civil war on the rest of the U.S.

• In the alternate history novel Back in the USSA by Eugene Byrne and Kim Newman, a second American civil war and a second American Revolution occur after the corrupt presidency of Charles Foster Kane. He had become the 28th president after former president and Progressive Party candidate Theodore Roosevelt won the 1912 presidential election, but was assassinated before taking office when personally breaking a labor strike at the Chicago Union Stock Yards with the Rough Riders. Due to him being Roosevelt's running mate, he became president on March 4, 1913. By 1917, the US had become unstable politically and socially. That year, the Socialist Party led by Eugene Debs gains increasing support and the Second American Revolution breaks out, following which Kane is ousted from the White House and overthrow and executed for treason, and the United States becomes the United Socialist States of America (USSA) with Debs as its president, surviving until his death in 1926.

• In the PC games Hearts of Iron II and Darkest Hour: A Hearts of Iron Game, there is a mod named Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg, in which one component is that there is an event chain that involves the United States in a civil war with four or five revolutionary groups, of which two them are new form of governments; the South in the form of the far-right "American Union State" and the Rust Belt in the form of the far-left "Combined Syndicates of America" which want to destroy the government and replace their new government if they win civil war while California and the Pacific Northwest secede as the "Pacific States of America", Hawaii, and New England all secede over election results and other reasons as a result of the Central Powers winning World War I.

• In the novel A Disturbance of Fate by Mitchell J. Freedman, Barry Sadler gets elected President of the United States in 1984 and causes a second civil war due to his conservative politics. After much destruction of the nation, Sadler is arrested and a new Constitution is put into place, which abolishes the office of the presidency.

• The Northwest War in the video game series Deus Ex, where several states seceded from the US due to an unpopular gun control law and increasing dissent with the federal government. The main antagonists for the first act of the game, the National Secession Forces, are descended from the Northwest Secession Forces who fought the United States during the war, although the newer NSF is more kin to a left-wing populist movement not unlike the Occupy Wall Street movement, and the original was more akin to a right-wing militia.

• The book Halo Evolutions calls the historical civil war the first American Civil War, hinting there was another conflict at some point in the series history.

• The Mass Effect series has this happening in the backstory, spawning from the creation of the United North American States.

• The video game Fracture is set during 2161, in which climate change has caused the United States to adopt augmentation techniques to ensure its citizens' survival. The Eastern Seaboard, with close ties to Europe, adopts heavy cybernetics. The Western Seaboard, with close ties to Asia, adopts extensive bioengineering. When the President passes a Congressional bill making bioengineering a federally crime, the Western Seaboard forms the Republic of Pacifica. The federal government and its Atlantic Alliance allies declare war on the Pacificans, who are under the command of bitter ex-US Army general Nathan Sheridan.

• Divided We Fall is a war novel written by Trent Reedy; it tells the story of Daniel Wright, a 17-year-old football player and member of the Idaho National Guard. When Danny’s Idaho National Guard unit is called to police a protest in Boise, Danny is hit by a rock and accidentally discharges his weapon, causing other Guardsmen to open fire, killing several protestors. When President Rodriguez demands that Gov. Montaine turn over the names of the soldiers involved and begin enforcing the new federal ID-card law, a standoff ensues. The conservative governor vows to resist a federal government grown too big and will nullify the new law. Since nullification means insurrection according to Article VI, Clause 2 of the Constitution, federal troops are called in, and the crisis escalates. Caught between duty to family, loyalty to the military, and his own sense of honor, Daniel becomes a pawn in a much larger game between governor and president. A sequel, Burning Nation, was released on January 27, 2015. The final installment, The Last Full Measure, is scheduled to be released in April 2016.

• In one of the timelines in the novel Fuzzy Dice by Paul Di Filippo, George McGovern is narrowly elected president in 1972 after incumbent Richard Nixon had undergone an assassination attempt and become completely paranoid, waging a crackdown on real and imagined domestic foes as well as a huge escalation of the Vietnam War, and setting off a huge explosion of countrywide riots. The riots continue and even increase after McGovern's election and a call by the new president for a return to calm proves completely ineffective. McGovern rejects a call in Congress to use the Army to quell the riots, leading to an attempted impeachment. Some military commanders try repression on their own, killing civilians and only adding to the ferocity of the riots. Eventually, the country is plunged into chaos, an all-out Second American Civil War, and eventually the total collapse of the Old Order. When the book's protagonist arrives some decades later, he finds a "Hippie-style" dictatorship presided over by the monstrous Lady Sunshine and with Hells Angels acting as the police, and the final fate of McGovern is unknown.

• In the novel It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis, a second civil war breaks out following the presidency's of Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, Sarason, and Haik.

See also

• Second American Revolution
• List of fictional states of the United States
• Second Amendment to the United States Constitution
• Gun control

References