Why would it have been better with a Confederate victory?

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unionblue

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Member of the Year
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Feb 20, 2005
Location
Ocala, FL (as of December, 2015).
To All,

I have read the following two quotes with great interest.

"Memory often takes me back to thos trying days and I fight my battles over and shed my tears in silence over the many dear friends, shattered hopes and cruel misfortunes. The world does not know of what material the Army of General Lee was composed, and I regret to say the generation in the South that has grown up since the ending of that bloody struggle regard it with either indifference or as a fortunate ending. This of course is mortifying indeed to those who struggled so hard and so long for what they knew to be right. Yes, we fought in the conviction that we were defending those inalienable rights guaranteed by our forefathers. I often thin those who now sleep upon far away battlefields are the most blessed, because they never realized the mortification of a subjgated people."

-- 1st Lt. Octavius A. Wiggins, Company E, 37th North Carolina, provided by CSA Today on 'The mortification of a subjugated people' thread, April 14, 2014.

"One thing remains to be said. The world has not stood still in the years since we took up arms for what we deemed our most valuable right - that of self government. We now enjoy the rare privilege of seeing what we fought for in the retrospect. It no longer seems so desirable. It would now prove only a curse. We have good cause to thank God for our escape from it, not alone for our sake, but for that of the whole country and even the world.

Had our cause succeeded, divergent interests must soon have further separated the States into groups, and this continent would have been given over to divided nationalities, each weak and unable to command foreign credit. Since the day of Greece, Confederacies have only held together against foreign enemies, and in times of peace have soon disintegrated. It is surely not necessary to contrast what would have been our prospects as citizens of such States with our condition now as citizens of the strongest, richest, and, strange for us to say who once called ourselves "conquered" and our cause "lost," the freest nation on earth."

-- Edward Porter Alexander, in his introductory to his book, Military Memoirs of a Confederate (1907), contributed by Lnwlf on the 'If the CSA had won the war...would it have mattered?' thread, April 12, 2014.

What appeared immediately to me when viewing these two quotes is that they were bookends, one with a view held directly upon the defeat of the Confederacy in 1865 and the other with an opposing view that seems to have accepted the idea of defeat and even praises the outcome of that defeat.

Which led me to a question for today's forum members.

I have seen on this forum a belief stated from time to time, that a Confederate victory would have been far more desiarble outcome then our present state as a nation.

My question to those who believe such is, why?

What in your view would have been better about our country and our present-day standing and place in the world of today, would be so much better if there had been a Confederate victory that did establish a fully recognized, Confederate States of America? And be specific as you can.

I would also like to see some restraint by those who disagree with this premise as I would really like those who feel such to freely express their views without the usual attack dog response.

Let's find out how others feel things good have been different, especially when I see the two quotes above being so different and opposed to one another with the distance of 42 years between them.

Sincerely,
Unionblue
 
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