I don't think the parallels in Harry Potter are anything more than a coincidence; J.K. Rowling being a British writer, the history of the UK is far more likely to have influenced her, if there are any historical influences to be had. I will note that her experience as a single woman on government assistance very deeply influences her views of class.
As to the North and South being very different countries, well, yes and no. There were some things that were very different; there were some things that were pretty much identical; there were some things that started the same and diverged. The divergences--and the way they were handled--were enough to trigger the Civil War, but then again, as so often it's not the people who are completely alien to us that we hate, it's the ones who are very similar to us but JUST enough different to be a funhouse mirror version of us that drive us up the wall.
No difference between the parties ... I assume you mean the modern Republican and Democratic parties? In the first place, there have been a couple of major political realignments/shifts in the time since the Civil War, so that there is very little continuity in the platforms of either party now with what there was in the 1850s and 1860s; this is inevitable, because the issues that society faces are different now than then. Also, I hope you're not one of those people who seriously thinks the two modern parties are clones of one another; I've only ever seen it in people who were either so far out on the political fringe that they couldn't see anything but the rest of the fringe clearly, or people who were just plain ignorant of what politics actually entails. To give just one example, the Democrats have been fighting tooth and nail for universal health care since the 90s; the Republicans have been spending the same amount of time fighting against it. To give another example, the Democrats have been fighting to fund higher education and reform the student loan process for decades, while the Republicans have been fighting to defund higher education. The Dems might not have been as successful as you or I might wish, but this isn't because they haven't tried. It's because they haven't had enough popular support for those goals to consistently get enough of a majority in the federal government to accomplish them. If they'd spent more time in the majority in Congress and the Senate, if they'd spent more time in the White House, things would be very different. And why haven't they had those things? Because they didn't get enough votes a lot of the time.
Why did the North want to keep the South? Lots of reasons. For one, there was a lot of nationalist sentiment, that they were PART of the country, they helped found it, they were so important--look at the founding fathers, most of the ones who are remembered were Southerners. For another, the South may not use its resources very efficiently, but it does have a lot of them. For another, the monarchies of Europe were watching the whole thing while eating popcorn and making snide comments about how the whole mess proved that democracy couldn't possibly work in reality and how of course monarchy is the best form of government, and if the country split it would prove them right.
You're right, the South's only hope of independence was for the North to give up and go home. It almost happened a few times. The North had more manpower, more industry, more efficient use of resources, as long as it hung in there militarily it was bound to win eventually. But the thing is, people forget that the Revolutionary War was like that, too. The Colonies won very few battles; what happened in the end was that England decided it was too expensive to keep fighting and the colonies weren't worth it, and used Yorktown as a good excuse to quit fighting.
no subject
As to the North and South being very different countries, well, yes and no. There were some things that were very different; there were some things that were pretty much identical; there were some things that started the same and diverged. The divergences--and the way they were handled--were enough to trigger the Civil War, but then again, as so often it's not the people who are completely alien to us that we hate, it's the ones who are very similar to us but JUST enough different to be a funhouse mirror version of us that drive us up the wall.
No difference between the parties ... I assume you mean the modern Republican and Democratic parties? In the first place, there have been a couple of major political realignments/shifts in the time since the Civil War, so that there is very little continuity in the platforms of either party now with what there was in the 1850s and 1860s; this is inevitable, because the issues that society faces are different now than then. Also, I hope you're not one of those people who seriously thinks the two modern parties are clones of one another; I've only ever seen it in people who were either so far out on the political fringe that they couldn't see anything but the rest of the fringe clearly, or people who were just plain ignorant of what politics actually entails. To give just one example, the Democrats have been fighting tooth and nail for universal health care since the 90s; the Republicans have been spending the same amount of time fighting against it. To give another example, the Democrats have been fighting to fund higher education and reform the student loan process for decades, while the Republicans have been fighting to defund higher education. The Dems might not have been as successful as you or I might wish, but this isn't because they haven't tried. It's because they haven't had enough popular support for those goals to consistently get enough of a majority in the federal government to accomplish them. If they'd spent more time in the majority in Congress and the Senate, if they'd spent more time in the White House, things would be very different. And why haven't they had those things? Because they didn't get enough votes a lot of the time.
Why did the North want to keep the South? Lots of reasons. For one, there was a lot of nationalist sentiment, that they were PART of the country, they helped found it, they were so important--look at the founding fathers, most of the ones who are remembered were Southerners. For another, the South may not use its resources very efficiently, but it does have a lot of them. For another, the monarchies of Europe were watching the whole thing while eating popcorn and making snide comments about how the whole mess proved that democracy couldn't possibly work in reality and how of course monarchy is the best form of government, and if the country split it would prove them right.
You're right, the South's only hope of independence was for the North to give up and go home. It almost happened a few times. The North had more manpower, more industry, more efficient use of resources, as long as it hung in there militarily it was bound to win eventually. But the thing is, people forget that the Revolutionary War was like that, too. The Colonies won very few battles; what happened in the end was that England decided it was too expensive to keep fighting and the colonies weren't worth it, and used Yorktown as a good excuse to quit fighting.