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I dont know if this has been highlighted before on this site but I saw this and thought it was interesting. It might make a good talking point anyway.
This is an essay written by former British Prime Minister Sir Winston Chruchill in which he discribes what would have happened had Robert E. Lee had been victorious at the Battle of Gettysburg.
Two stumbling blocks to Churchill's scenario; 1) Lee would not have usurped, pres. Davis' authority, by (in effect) declaring emancipation and 2) that the south wanted it's independence more than it wanted its slaves i.e., would the south's leadership be willing to sacrifice the soul of the nation (slavery) to gain the world's acceptance? There is little evidence that the South was prepared to make such a sacrifice, especially in 1863 and Most Especially, if they had already won a crushing victory in the East and the capturing of Washington D.C.
It is difficult to believe that the South would have won even with victory at Gettysburg.
The resources of the North and the soul of its nationhood (money) would still be powerful obstacles for the South to overcome.
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
After all, the leadership of the South seemed determined to survive, right down to the last black slave it was willing to sacrifice for that survival.
But it turned out it could not do so because slaves turned out to be more valuable (money) than national survival.
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
For an historian, Churchill showed an appalling lack of knowledge about the situation.
ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
I think that Chruchill was more focused on the effect the Confederacy might have had on the First World War rather than whether or not the situation in America would be able to make his version of events a reality.
__________________
"Confident language by a military commander is not usually regarded as evidence of competency" - General Joseph E. Johnston CSA
should have focused on why WWI was the beginning of the end of the British Empire.
Slavery was a cornerstone of the Constitution of the Confederate States. That was the reality of the time. As part of the Confederacy, states had no power to end slavery.
Without defeat, I doubt the Confederacy could have extracted themselves from slavery, even before the start of WWI.
Perhaps that is why Churchill thought the invasion of Gallipoli would be successful.
Good point, Whitworth, neither Lee NOR Davis Nor the csa Congress could free the slaves of the individual states by a simple proclamaition or gov't fiat.
Being an englishman (despite his American mother) Winston can be forgiven for not knowing that fact.
I suppose someone will write a history of how the Hawaii offensive line stopped Georgia's larger defensive linemen in New Orleans, in the Sugar Bowl in 2008.
There will always be figments of someone's imagination.
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What if Lee had won...by Winston Churchill 
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