Did you ever consider what would have happened if Lincoln hadn't gotten his war to save the union? This is a deep question, full of speculation, but historical facts can lead us to some logical conclusions. The progress of Western Culture is important. Slavery was a barbaric, archaic system, designed to capitalize on labor without paying a whole lot for it. You still paid for it, but the benefits for the employees were the pits. England did away with it. So did Mexico. In fact, all civilized western nations were proceeding along that path. It is not reasonable to think that slavery, as it existed in the Deep South, would have survived into the twentieth century.
Lincoln, himself, was not all that fired up about slavery, more than likely viewing it as a system that had seen its day, and would gradually disappear. What the real issue was was southern agriculturalists vs northern industrialists. Shreveport had all the cotton, and New York City had all the money, and never the two shall meet. EVERYBODY wanted cotton, CHEAP cotton. It's the same today. We don't have slaves, but we have "undocumented immigrants" who pick documented lettuce for slave wages. And what is a slave. A slave is someone who has no control over his/her life and has to take whatever they can get. Brown is the new black! People wanted cheap shirts in 1861, and they want cheap salads in 2015. Students, it's no deeper than that!
We had the south paying through the nose to the Yankee bankers, and getting tired of it. That, and they had this foolish idea that the U.S. Of A. was constructed from the bottom up. They thought there were individual nation states who in time of trouble would "unite," but ultimately each state concerned itself with its own affairs. So what would have happened if we never had a Civil War?
Ok, for one, we would not have slavery today. It would eventually been just legislated out. To retain it would have reduced the Confederacy about the level of any other third world nation. The plantations would have continued to send cotton to the port of New York, and the Europeans would have continued to buy it. Do you really think people in Kentucky would not have business relations with people in Ohio? Do you really think they would not deal in gold, and dollars? Do you really think those Model "T's" would not have wound up in Austin, or that beef would not have been eaten by people in Vermont? If you do have I got a bridge for you, and it's on SALE!
When World War One and Two came along, do you not think the CSA would have not made uniforms for the USA? And what about that westward expansion? When places like Utah decided to line up with a "Union" they would have had a choice from column "A" or column "B." Think those railroads would have ignored Fort Worth and all that prime rib? Bridges anyone?
America, as we know it would have evolved and survived without over 600,000 dead. The expansion of civil rights would have still occurred. What would NOT have happened was the 100+ years of bitterness courtesy of the reconstruction that followed the War of Northern Aggression. Texas may have very well seceded and we would have khad not two, but THREE independent nations. What if, just what if the two nations had realigned, and America became the constitutional republic envisioned by the framers in the FIRST place? Get back, get back, get back to where you once belonged. And, having set the precedent of legal secession, the new America would always be aware that the government is of the people, by the people, and for the people, and the people can LEAVE any time they want! Did that phrase "Northern Aggression" offend you? Point of fact; The south never had plans to conquer the North! Even if it had won the war it didn't have the resources nor the ambition to occupy the Union. Now that's a fact, people!
In the end there most likely would have been two similar republics, slightly different in government, but both firmly American, in a level playing field. Yankee investors would have found their way south withOUT their carpet bags and been welcome, because there would not have been the bitter memories, nor the grief generated by four years of bloody carnage. Hindsight is 20/20. Perhaps we should turn that statue around in the Lincoln Memorial, and have the "Great Emancipator" face the wall!
From a Simple Ol' Boy From Austin
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