Define "inferiority complex" when you talk about authoritarians/statists in that general brush - then, afterwards, explain the differences between totalitarianism and authoritarianism; ultimately I agree with your take on authoritarians having an inferiority complex, don't get me wrong, but let's not act like the entire drive for structure comes solely out of an inferiority complex - totalitarianism is ideologically motivated, authoritarianism being individually motivated; the latter being individually motivated is, of course, derived from some sort of personal complex...that's just common sense.
"Tradition" is fluid and changes over time - what was 'traditional' to the colonial whites of the West was far from traditional to the whites of the varying classes of the medieval eras, and so on and so on; tradition merely adapts to a given time and the appearance adapts to the given time - the 'similarities' that traditions from varying times can hold are in behaviours alone: knowing how to fucking act decently, knowing how to uphold structure around you, knowing the meaning of 'society', knowing the meaning of 'fellow man', knowing the meaning of 'nation' - all of these things are behaviours that constituted and created traditions as we know them; tradition itself means absolutely fuck all and striving to preserve any tradition of 150 years ago in the form that it presented itself 150 years ago is absolutely impossible and not only a pipe dream, but a self-destructive pipe dream.
Society is an organism, it and the organs within evolve continuously and therefore so do the habits, rituals, tendencies and needs of that organism evolve - "tradition" by itself means absolutely fucking nothing.
As for the Union, it existed (and exists) for far more than just politically-enforced reasons, considering the CSA had no economic hope of survival; there wasn't going to be a massive industrial boom in the CSA that'd give it enough sustaining power to remain independent, the reason the CSA was so reliant on agrarian economic prospects was because that was all that was there - industrial growth required foreign investment at the time, and foreign investment in the CSA was nil by the point of the war - the Union by itself is strategically and economically the most bulwark landmass on the fucking Earth, we have literally everything we need here; meanwhile, a CSA and USA divided by North-South lines will ALWAYS find a way to go to war due to economic needs; there was no hope for a prospering CSA, with or without the civil war, it simply wouldn't have mattered - either way, the CSA was destined to poverty, eventual slave revolts, and eventual factionalism due to the fact that various states within the CSA had no concept of a 'federal government structure' and had no intention of obeying orders from on-high if they didn't like them, leading to more violent bickering than we see in the House of Congress today.
Exploitation of the South was..really..minimal - it was a political affair; the existence of the Confederacy made any existing American presidency look weak, complacent, and indecisive - meanwhile, the South was full of farmland and when your industrially-packed landmass is lacking farmland but there's millions of Americans down south with farmland, half of them unsure of whether or not they actually want to remain independent from you, what do you do? You unify the fucking country.
Regarding 'imperialism', the CSA had no disdain for imperialism and had every intention of expanding the CSA were they to survive because they would've fucking needed to in order to actually economically sustain themselves - a population growing that quickly with nothing but farmland to sustain them? "Imperialism" in some cases is simply the requirement of a growing nation. You want a CSA? That's okay, but that CSA would've had to encompass the entire Union - you want a CSA? That's okay, but that CSA would've had to forcefully unify the country just as the Union did in order for survival; as for everything else, that's a wash, considering we know Lincoln had little regard for niggers and the emancipation of niggers.