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How would America be today if the south had won the Civil War?
(There is a satirical motion picture about it called C.S.A. - but I was wondering what you guys thought. If you've seen the movie, do you think it is accurate in its interpretation?)
What's your definition of "won"? The best they could have hoped for would have been a peace treaty or armistice since they wouldn't have had the manpower or other resources to occupy the union states. Eventually they'd have worked out their differences or the union states would have renewed the fight and prevailed. By now it probably would have been about the same as it is.
Instead of worrying about Mexicans sneaking across the border for better opportunities and living conditions, it would be Billy Bob and Joe Ed who are the problems.
I think that the south would have effectively become a colony of England - reliant on it for capital and trailing in its political orbit like many south american countries. The north would have benefited economically, the south was long a drag on the US economy as well as progressive legislation. What would have happened to the south is hard to say. By the 20th century at the latest cotton would have ceased to be a major economic boon.
The war would have left the region in the hands of a planter class unable to see the value of industrialization, with much of the population an uneducated, demoralized slave class who would have been useless in factories let alone high technology. Education, tarrifs, and internal improvements (electricty anyone) would have languished and with it the building blocks of the economy. By the thirties the south would have been a third world state.
The author McKinlay Kantor wrote a popular alternative history book on this subject back in the 60's. Believe it may still be available online at Amazon and or Barnes and Noble.
The remaining states would probably be better off actually---none of the social problems caused by the migration of southerners to the north, higher wages and better working conditions because of no need to compete with cheap and servile southern labor. The United States would've been free to progress along European social lines, better wages, pensions and health care, without the resistance of reactionary southerners.
The south has pretty much been a drag on the more progressive parts of the nation and taken an inordinate amount of Federal funding to boot. Why those people down there would have to drive all the way to Michigan to find a lake to put their bass boats in if it weren't for the Federal government. And they'd be reading by candle light without the TVA and Federal rural electrifcation. Those had learned to read anyway. Somehow I think that education of the common folk wouldn't have been real high on the Confederate elite's list of things to do.
CSA would have been a third world country soon thereafter anyway. Their currency was worthless. Hell, CSA currency is still worthless.
The same prophecy of failure was made about the new U.S.A. after the Revolution, and for a decade or more it looked to come true. But, obviously, it didn't.
One thing is for sure...we would have a lot more freedom and liberty and no over powering liberal socialist govt like we currently have.
"We" would have to limited to white people then.
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