<P> In an 1858 speech, future U.S. president Abraham Lincoln alluded to a form of American civic nationalism originating from the tenets of the Declaration of Independence as a force for national unity in the U.S., stating that it was a method for uniting diverse peoples of different ethnic ancestries into a common nationality: </P> <P> If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that "We hold these truths to be self - evident, that all men are created equal", and then they feel that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote the Declaration, and so they are . That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty - loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world . </P> <P> White Southerners increasingly felt alienated--they saw themselves as becoming second - class citizens as aggressive anti-slavery Northerners tried to end their ability to take slave property to the fast - growing western territories. They questioned whether their loyalty to the nation trumped their loyalty to their state and their way of life, since it was so intimately bound up with slavery, whether they owned any slaves or not . A sense of Southern nationalism was starting to emerge, though it was inchoate as late as 1860 when the election of Lincoln was a signal for most of the slave states in the South to secede and form their own new nation . The Confederate government insisted the nationalism was real and imposed increasing burdens on the population in the name of independence and nationalism . The fierce combat record of the Confederates demonstrates their commitment to the death for independence . The government and army refused to compromise and were militarily overwhelmed in 1865 . By the 1890s the white South felt vindicated through its belief in the newly constructed memory of the "Lost Cause of the Confederacy". The North came to accept or at least tolerate racial segregation and disfranchisement of black voters in the South . The spirit of American nationalism had returned to Dixie . </P> <P> The North's triumph in the Civil War marked a significant transition in American national identity . The ratification of the Fourteenth amendment settled the basic question of national identity, such as the criteria for becoming a citizen of the United States . Everyone born in the territorial boundaries of the United States or those areas and subject to its jurisdiction was an American citizen, regardless of ethnicity or social status . (Indians on reservations became citizens in 1924 . Indians off reservations had always been citizens .) </P>

How did the war of 1812 encouraged american unity and nationalism