I would argue that the beginning of the end came when the Confederacy lost the War for Southern Independence. That’s when the overreaching federal government started. It set up the “Progressive” policies of Teddy Roosevelt, and continued with the racist Woodrow Wilson. FDR accelerated it similarly to the way Obama is accelerating it now.
Lincoln was a thug
Walter Williams has numerous columns exposing this dictator and full blown white supremacist.
That IS where it started.
Time for a Lockian reset button (?)
It started many years before the Civil War, when the over-reaching executive branch of the federal government ignored the rule of law and kicked the Chickasaw, Delaware,Cherokee and Choctaw and and assortment of the halfbreeds off their land to make way for a more useful and often less literate political constituency.