I like to post a few discussions between Foner and his students. Here is a student post on whether the South could have won the war:
And now for something completely different...
discussion posted 7 days ago by
Dean7
DISCUSSION QUESTION: And Now For Something Different!
As Professor Foner lays it out, there can be no real discussion of this issue if you believe victory by the more powerful North was inevitable. Other factors including the quality of political leadership have to be taken into consideration. But is this really the correct take on the issue? Even though the military aspect of the Civil War came to an end in 1865, what I am suggesting is the political war waged by the South against the North has continued in the form of serious political opposition to the Federal Government. This opposition continued during the reconstruction period, through the era of the retrogressive Southern Democrats, and into the present as anarchist Southern Republicans screaming “state’s rights” nearly paralyzed the Federal government in 2014. The result: the ever-dissident South has become a semi-autonomous political powerhouse still operating within the Constitutional framework. Humor me, please. Overlay that neat 1861 map of Confederate states with a contemporary map of the Southern red states, and then tell me the War isn’t still going on 150 years later. I’m arguing President Lincoln may not have been the shrewd, smooth talking operator who saved the Union, but the man who unwittingly took the viper to his bosom. According to this alternate view, what Lincoln did in his effort to preserve the Union was to preside over an unnecessary war that resulted in horrific destruction of people and places. Lincoln would have been smarter to let the South go its way, allowing Southerners to find their own place in the world, and their own balance in equalizing the races - probably much quicker. Wouldn’t this alternate political strategy have permitted the North, unhampered by Southern negativism, to move faster towards its destiny as the Light and Leader in the struggle for peace and justice in the world?
So my answer to the discussion question of whether the Confederacy could have won the Civil War is, they may have done, only 150 years later.
(this post is about
Section 1 / Could the Confederacy have won the Civil War?)