The Federal Government has ALWAYS had power outside of DC. That notion is just stupid on its face. The Articles of Confederation, in which the Federal Government had essentially no power, was thrown out and replaced by the Constitution of the United States of America, which while balancing the rights of the people, the States, and the National Government, did give the National government ample power to intervene in daily life. Does Pennsylvania exist within the city limits of DC? Cause, Congress and George Washington certainly had no problem going out there to put down the Whiskey Rebellion.
If you believe that the CSA was a legitimate foreign nation, then guess what... They lost, were dissolved, and folded back into the United States. Just like the US took land from Mexico and from Canada, the South (if you accept the sovereign state crap) was defeated and incorporated.
If, like most scholars, you see it as an internal rebellion, guess what, you rebelled, and LOST!! You had goals for which you were rebelling (to keep and expand SLAVERY), you tried to defeat the Union, and you got beat.
The history books (the real history books anyway) do not paint ANYONE as "good". At least they shouldn't. While the North was eventually against Slavery for moral reasons, that was not the primary purpose that people chose to fight for. Also, while slavery became the moral outrage (in some spaces) White Supremacy was never under attack in either camp. This is what allowed the South, traitorous as they were, to return basically unscathed into the Union. It certainly curtailed Reconstruction. It turned the South back into a bastion of discrimination and repression for Black Americans. That doesn't make anyone look good.
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