The author chronicles how the divisive antagonisms between the North and South, finally erupting in the spring of 1861, were deliberately agitated by great international banking houses with the goal of provoking secession. According to Graham, these private interests fully succeeded and set up a huge financial empire centered on Wall Street, using public debt as the source of their wealth. This watershed book explores the economic causes of the Civil War, revealing how the Civil War would not have happened had it not been planned and fomented by Northern capitalists.