What would the Confederate States of America be like today if the South won?

I didn't say they aren't southern, I said they aren't southern supporters. Please define "southern supporters." Is my wife & her family, who were born & raised in SC somehow not southern because they religiously view the CS as being on the wrong side of history? We don't know what was in the politicians heads or what their true reasons were, Actually we do, many of the Seccession documents still exist & they are quite clear about what they were thinking. only them and God know. But it was legal and right, in their eyes. Let me just quote the Declaration of Independence for a moment, "-That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." If the politicians and southern people believed that the government was trampling their rights, they had a right in themselves to secede. All men are created equal & all that jazz. Perhaps they believed they had a legal right to Secede. Did they have the right to open fire on US flagged ships & installations, seize property & mail etc? Slavery might have been the straw that broke the camels back, but it wasn't the only reason. Tariffs in the south were raised to 45% when South Carolina decided to secede. No, they weren't. Show me a period Secessionist complain of the tarrif. When asked, "Why not let the South go in peace?" Lincoln replied: "I can't let them go. Who would pay for the government?" No he did not, modern revisionist horse scat.

Please cite your sources, though I'm more than willing to wager a big one is DiLorenzo & the Kennedy brothers neither of which include a whole lot of history. There are other options, including on the net. The search engine here can give a lot of info on the tariff, both the reality & the fantasy. If you aren't willing to study or learn... you will always be at a disadvantage compared to those who are.

But the what if's of life are a waste of time & energy. I prefer to study the what was over the coulda, shoulda, woulda's.
 
But the what if's of life are a waste of time & energy. I prefer to study the what was over the coulda, shoulda, woulda's.

So true. I find it kind of amusing that people who can't even agree what did happen are arguing about what would have happened. :hmmm:
 
I didn't say they aren't southern, I said they aren't southern supporters.
Don't confuse "southern" with "Confederate." Southern unionists supported the south as part of the United States, southern Confederates did not.

We don't know what was in the politicians heads or what their true reasons were, only them and God know.
Dude, the link was posted in this very thread. Go back and read it. They WROTE DOWN what their reasons were.

If the politicians and southern people believed that the government was trampling their rights, they had a right in themselves to secede.
What rights do you think were being trampled?
Slavery might have been the straw that broke the camels back, but it wasn't the only reason. Tariffs in the south were raised to 45% when South Carolina decided to secede. When asked, "Why not let the South go in peace?" Lincoln replied: "I can't let them go. Who would pay for the government?"
Source?
 
:laugh1:...yeah, that's about it.

***

Logan, do not think you will receive any fair treatment here. There are rules...but they are selectively enforced.

Battalion,

We know your opinion.

Why not let LoganSmith come to his own on how fair his treatment will be on this forum?

Or are you of the opinion that new members cannot do such all on their own?

Sincerely,
Unionblue
 
Unionblue I just want to say thank you, and I appreciate you.

LoganSmith, thank your for your kind words above. They are appreciated.

It seems like there are many more northern supporters on here then southern, and they hit hard.

I myself would like to think that there are very many members here, most Americans, some even from foreign countries, who have found a common interest in the history of the American Civil War and that the majority have done some serious homework on the period. They 'hit hard' when their research and study shows them that certain historical facts don't match up with with other members. :smile:

I (know) very few if any northern supporters where I live, and if they are they don't really know any of the history.

I'm not surprised as very few people in this country of ours takes any serious amount of time to truly know their nation's history in any kind of detail, North or South, East or West.

I don't mind debating my opinion, this is what I was taught in school and this is what I was raised to believe.

I have no doubt of that, LoganSmith, and I do understand this may be primarily the reason you believe what you believe. I myself, when I began reenacting in the early 1990s, believed firmly that the Civil War was not about slavery but about States' Rights and differing opinions on Constitutional government. It was when I only began to research the war to get the facts, instead of simply taking the word of family and friends, I changed my mind to the idea that the war was actually about slavery.

I will support the south no matter what.

I expected no less of you and would be surprised if you did not do so.

Even if it did turn out that those politicians seceded only to preserve the right of the most evil institution of slavery, which I do not believe was the reason.

There is no reason for you not to be proud of your heritage, your ancestors, or the region that you come from. The only thing I would suggest is not to support their mistakes.

I respect all y'alls opinion as I hope y'all do mine.

I have no problem respecting your opinion, LoganSmith, even if I think it wrong or based on faulty fact. You acquired it honestly and stated it here honestly, and I can respect that.

Sincerely,
Unionblue
 
LoganSmith, keep in mind that many here have the knowledge and experience from many years of study of the US Civil War, and they are willing to discuss their knowledge with all comers. You may not agree with all of it, take it with a grain of salt if you must but believe me they will shoot you straight. If you dont agree, say so but be willing and able to back it up. You have done very well with your civil attitude and tone and that is why they continue the debate. Stay around a while and you will learn some things as I am sure we will learn from you.
You have proven youself willing to listen and learn and for that I commend you. If nothing else I hope you take from this thread the desire to do more research on your own. You also have shown an openess of mind that is important for the study of any history, not just the Civil War.
 
LoganSmith, keep in mind that many here have the knowledge and experience from many years of study of the US Civil War, and they are willing to discuss their knowledge with all comers. You may not agree with all of it, take it with a grain of salt if you must but believe me they will shoot you straight. If you dont agree, say so but be willing and able to back it up. You have done very well with your civil attitude and tone and that is why they continue the debate. Stay around a while and you will learn some things as I am sure we will learn from you.
You have proven youself willing to listen and learn and for that I commend you. If nothing else I hope you take from this thread the desire to do more research on your own. You also have shown an openess of mind that is important for the study of any history, not just the Civil War.


Amen. Very good advice to everyone who joins this forum.

Logan, here's the link to the Texas documents...other than a little complaining about federal protection from Indian raids, it's pretty much the same as the others. (and that's WAYYYYY down the page).

http://www.civil-war.net/pages/texas_declaration.asp

Also, most of the sources you would need to access are now available online free, so in order to learn a lot of this, no libraries actually needed. Some of us old fogies just like to feel pages instead of touchscreens! If you have an iPad you can access them, or a Kindle or Nook or whatever......many local libraries also have methods for downloading and sharing texts. (We have some threads on that as well).

Please do research. Your post to UB shows a great deal of honesty and willingness to do the right thing. All of us aren't Union "supporters" by a long shot--but we do tend to seek the truth, whether it's palatable or not. Good luck in your quest.
 
Slavery would have died out on its own, and the south would become a more developed region. Eventually, there could have been a territorial compromise between north and south, and the two would join together again as one nation. Both regions would be more equally represented

I agree with what you said swampfox!!!
 
Krayg Von Mosch,

swampfox has a very serious problem with his opinion that Slavery in the South would have died out on its own.

A decided LACK of historical evidence or sources to support that opinion. There was no call from any important political figure of the time to end slavery in the South, nor did any public figure of note from the church, the bar, or from the mass of common folk in that region EVER put forth the idea that slavery should end.

I see this opinion voiced all the time, but when I ask for a quote from someone famous or well known during that time from the South, no one provides such.

Perhaps you may know of some historical record or speech where someone in the same status as Lee or Davis, Wigfall or Rhett, Toombs or Stephens, that made such a proposal to have slavery emancipation or to abolish the institution within a decade? Two decades? A generation? 30 years? 50? Or perhaps a 100?

If you, or swampfox cannot produce such evidence, then I must assume it is merely your opinion based on nothing but another opinion. And opinions are not historical evidence. You should be able to find such if such evidence exists. I never have.

Until our next post,
Unionblue
 
The question for me becomes why would the South give up slavery? What would change in the Southern culture or economy that would cause the South to turn away from slavery? Especially when one considers that many of the political elite came from the planter class who had billions collectively tied up in the institution.

R
 
rpkennedy,

That one's always puzzeled me too. I often hear, "Slavery was legal!" then I hear, "Slavery was dying out anyway!" yet I see no evidence of anyone from the South demanding that this legal, 4 billion dollar labor force, which never decreased in size, but was alway growing, from decade to decade, be abolished.

At least, not from the 19th century South, anyway. Why is that?

Sincerely,
Unionblue
 
I certainally feel that the Confederacy would have been lucky to have survived more than a few years left to it own resorces. Their Constitution was weak as proven by the AOC underwhich the US had lived for 6 years. The history of its weakness is there for all to see given the problems it caused during the war.

As for Slavery dying out. Well if we are to assume that the Confederacy would fail then where would those States have turned to? The US where there were no slaves, England ... No slaves, France .... again no slaves, Spain .... No slaves. Those of you who hold to this idea that slavery would not have died out need to remember the US is the only country who ever fought over this issue after England abstained from this business. Brazil being the last to free itself from slavery in the 1880's, the South would have been no different, if they could not stand against the rest of the country, just how the heck could they have stood against the world. Sorry but no cigar!
 
I think there is really a need to preserve our history because it is reported that the Department of Education recently found in its examination of public school students that more 4th grade pupils were proficient in U.S. history than high school seniors. I read this here: Most American students not proficient in American history.

We should remember that an ignorant man, especially one ignorant of history, is more open to being swayed, by means other than the presentation and weighing of facts.
 
I think there is really a need to preserve our history because it is reported that the Department of Education recently found in its examination of public school students that more 4th grade pupils were proficient in U.S. history than high school seniors. I read this here: Most American students not proficient in American history.

We should remember that an ignorant man, especially one ignorant of history, is more open to being swayed, by means other than the presentation and weighing of facts.

So very true, if one does not know where he/she came from just how will they plot a course to get where they want to go? While I'm proud of where I came from I surely don't want it to hold me back from where I'm headed and without ALL the facts being known to start with whats to say I'll ever get where I want to go!
 
Had the Confederacy achieved independence, eventually some of the Northern and Midwestern States would have broken off and joined the Confederacy, or the mentioned states outside the South would have formed their own nations. Considering the political tensions that existed with the election of 1876...it was amazing that a defeated South could still pose such a political threat, 11 years after the war.

The Radical Republicans had to meticulously bring the Southern States back into the Union, since blacks were no longer considered slaves, but citizens....it enabled the South to show up in Congress with at least an additional 20 Representatives in the House of Representatives. Thaddeus Stevens, and his fellow representatives had to play hop scotch on how to SLOWLY bring the South (Thaddeus Stevens called them Conquered Provinces) back into the Union without giving them an advantage in control of Government. It would have been nuts for the North to fight a war and win...only to grant the South more power on a Federal level.
 
I doubt the CSA would have survived more then a dozen years. All was not well within the Confederacy from the very start. For one thing consider that the western half of Virginia seceded from the Confederacy and became Western Virginia, there were similar movements in other parts of the south primarily in Northern Alabama, Eastern Tenn. and in the western portions of the Carolinas.
I doubt many western states or territories would join the CSA, maybe Arizona and New Mexico. Slavery would have died out under it's own weight! Not for moral reasons, which pretty much had been brushed aside, but for economic reasons. Slavery banned in So. America, Mexico and Cuba would mean the slave population would soon over take the free population and the final spike in it's heart would have been the industrial age and the appearance of the internal combustion engine powered tractor, plow, bailers and harvesters and assembly line food processing methods.
But if the CSA did manage to make it slavery was doomed.
 
If the Confederacy had won the Civil War I assume the two nations would have developed into the nations of Northern Mexico and Southern Canada. A border fence would be built along the Mason Dixon Line, and Southern Canadian politicians would harumph and speechify about "illegals" from Dixie. They're a burden to our socialized medicine! Politicians from the Southern Canadian province of California would complain the loudest. And be the weirdest.
 
Several posters have made the assumption that slavery "would have died out" or "faded away." Or wouldn't have been economical in a 20th century economy. If it had continued to be economical, at least for slaveowners, I guess it would have continued indefinitely. Certainly no reason to end something as morally neutral as slavery. And if slavery is morally neutral, the racism that justified it would continue to operate. The Old South becomes the old South Africa.
 
The Confederacy would never win

That's hard for some to accept. Of course, many study the "war" but only study the war because it was a memorable happening in the life of some ancestors or ancestor.

The Civil War is only one more reason why war should not be fought. Someone loses; many times very severely. It is an example of the early enthusiasm for war; a war which will end in defeat for many, as it did for the Confederacy. The Confederacy was so short sighted that they never were equipped to hold the Mississippi River valley and adjacent territory. How do you start a war, if you have no navy and never one to exceed or come close, to that of the United States.
Great Britain, a maritime power, recognized it early in the war. They never intended to intercede for the Confederacy, because they understood the faults of the Confederacy. If the Confederacy won any state, it wasn't going to be adjacent to a large navigable river or along the ocean. And what state would that be?

Lost early in the war were places like Norfolk, Nashville, Memphis and New Orleans. All adjacent to navigable water. The Confederacy never really threatened Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, Washington, Baltimore, and New York City. The Confederacy couldn't even defend western Virginia, now West Virginia. because the western boundary was on the Ohio River, a very navigable river for steamboats.



The Confederacy could never win against neighboring United States. The Confederacy had too small a free population and far less in numbers. It had slaves, slaves that had the opportunity to escape to free territory, be it the U.S. or Canada, before and during the war. Former slaves had the opportunity to join an army, the Union army. Slaves were privately owned and slaves, to become Confederate soldiers. The Confederacy was a slave economy, totally lacking in modern logistical development. Slavery had value to the south, but it proved a total albatross in war.

There is certainly too much "what if" for things that never could be. One need only look at the Confederate territory lost in 1862. Even then, it was not a whole Confederate nation, as imagined in 1860.
 
If the Confederacy had won the Civil War I assume the two nations would have developed into the nations of Northern Mexico and Southern Canada. A border fence would be built along the Mason Dixon Line, and Southern Canadian politicians would harumph and speechify about "illegals" from Dixie. They're a burden to our socialized medicine! Politicians from the Southern Canadian province of California would complain the loudest. And be the weirdest.


You slay me :smile: LOL!
 
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