How could this happen, where no segment of the white American elite is willing to confront any other segment over issues like slavery, civil rights and race?
Or a more backwards Europe I guess.Could be done if you avoid mass immigration. With no great influx of cheap, rightless labour, slavery could spread northward again. You would still have the conflict between the southern, agricultural elites with local political power and the northern merchant/smuggler/crimelords turned industrialists who work through career politicos, mostly lawyers, and thus want more centralism, fewer politicos to bribe, but that would possibly take another form.