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How much better off we would all be if the South had been permitted to secede

Posted on 8/6/25 at 8:18 pm
Posted by DyeHardDylan
Member since Nov 2011
9032 posts
Posted on 8/6/25 at 8:18 pm
Slavery was on the way out in the west, and everyone knows that. The longer term consequences have been that there is effectively no check on the powers of the federal government; the states are servile to the feds now, an inversion of how this country came to be. The atrocities and perversions of the progressive era (early 20th century to present) could have been turned back.
Posted by Big Wes
Baton Rouge
Member since Oct 2005
83 posts
Posted on 8/6/25 at 8:25 pm to
Absolutely not.

Great Britain wanted to Balkanize the US, to keep us under their thumb.

The years after the war were some of the most prosperous and free of any human civilization.

Maybe not for indigenous peoples.
This post was edited on 8/6/25 at 8:27 pm
Posted by Kafka
I am the moral conscience of TD
Member since Jul 2007
153560 posts
Posted on 8/6/25 at 8:26 pm to
We'd have the same problems, only magnified b/c there wouldn't have been as big a Northern migration

MS would probably be majority black now
Posted by SammyTiger
Baton Rouge, LA
Member since Feb 2009
77956 posts
Posted on 8/6/25 at 8:27 pm to
quote:

Slavery was on the way out in the west, and everyone knows that.


the confederates didn’t seem to think so
Posted by SCLibertarian
Conway, South Carolina
Member since Aug 2013
40771 posts
Posted on 8/6/25 at 8:39 pm to
quote:

How much better off we would all be if the South had been permitted to secede

I wonder if we'd be a member of the Commonwealth of Nations given our past status as a colony and the heavy Anglophilia in places like Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia. 90 years separate SC's secession and the London Declaration, which allowed republics to join the Commonwealth.
Posted by prplhze2000
Parts Unknown
Member since Jan 2007
56564 posts
Posted on 8/6/25 at 8:42 pm to
South would fall way behind due to focus on agriculture.

Blacks would have heavily outnumbered whites at some point. That would be a big problem.

Mississippi, for example, was majority black til 30s

South had small middle class, didnt invest in public facilities.
This post was edited on 8/6/25 at 8:44 pm
Posted by Bass Tiger
Member since Oct 2014
53512 posts
Posted on 8/6/25 at 8:45 pm to
quote:

Slavery was on the way out in the west, and everyone knows that. The longer term consequences have been that there is effectively no check on the powers of the federal government; the states are servile to the feds now, an inversion of how this country came to be. The atrocities and perversions of the progressive era (early 20th century to present) could have been turned back.


Slavery was definitely going to end regardless of the Civil War.

The question is do you think the cultural differences between the South and the North are so different there is no way to coexist as a nation? If so what are the cultural differences that make the North and South incompatible?

I live in the KC area and it's a true mix of Midwest and South but I would say the South has deeper generational roots in Missouri than the Midwest/North Yankees do.
Posted by OWLFAN86
Erotic Novelist
Member since Jun 2004
193992 posts
Posted on 8/6/25 at 8:50 pm to
Had it played out like that, the black dysphoria from the Old South into the West would have made the Trail of Tears look like a walk in the park

And New Mexico Lobos would have more Nattys than bama and LSU combined, and Old Gold-rich California and the Mormons would have built a wall

the had the Chinese to expolit
Posted by LongRangeCreedmoor
Member since Dec 2023
74 posts
Posted on 8/6/25 at 8:51 pm to
The Civil War was the last best chance to stop a tyrannical federal government and it’s leader Gay Abe.
Posted by bayouteche
The Beaches of Wham Brake
Member since Nov 2012
1647 posts
Posted on 8/6/25 at 8:53 pm to
I bleed red, white & battle flag, but the way things turned out was best for the citizens of this country as a whole.

A nation divided would not be as strong as a whole.
Posted by prplhze2000
Parts Unknown
Member since Jan 2007
56564 posts
Posted on 8/6/25 at 8:53 pm to
Don't think y'all understand how much the planter class stifled economic development and education.
Posted by OWLFAN86
Erotic Novelist
Member since Jun 2004
193992 posts
Posted on 8/6/25 at 8:53 pm to
Missouri was the frontier of the Old South

Texas was the Mexico
Posted by Tiger1242
Member since Jul 2011
33037 posts
Posted on 8/6/25 at 8:54 pm to
More than likely America would look like Europe with 6-12 different countries
Posted by bamadontcare
Member since Jun 2013
3487 posts
Posted on 8/6/25 at 8:54 pm to
quote:

Had it played out like that, the black dysphoria from the Old South into the West would have made the Trail of Tears look like a walk in the park And New Mexico Lobos would have more Nattys than bama and LSU combined, and Old Gold-rich California and the Mormons would have built a wall the had the Chinese to expolit


That’s a bold statement

I can’t say that I disagree
Posted by tigeraddict
Baton Rouge
Member since Mar 2007
14316 posts
Posted on 8/6/25 at 9:02 pm to
Worse


Next question
Posted by Bass Tiger
Member since Oct 2014
53512 posts
Posted on 8/6/25 at 9:07 pm to
quote:

Missouri was the frontier of the Old South

Texas was the Mexico


The precursor to what would morph into the Civil War was being fought along the Missouri/Kansas border in the mid 1850's. In my opinion where the South really fricked up was allowing the North to flood Missouri with newly arrived German immigrants who were willing to fight for the North with the hopes of being rewarded for their sacrifice.

What used to be called Little Dixie (ran from KC along the Missouri River to just north of St Louis) was primarily settlers from the south farming hemp and some tobacco and they brought their slave labor with them to Missouri. When the Civil War ended a lot of those farmers in the Little Dixie region of Missouri lost everything. Now when you drive I-70 from KC to St Louis there is a large German ancestral influence in Little Dixie region, particularly in Central Missouri where the wine region is located.
Posted by m2pro
Member since Nov 2008
29614 posts
Posted on 8/6/25 at 9:09 pm to
We wouldn't have been as far along as fast.

We would be WAY better off, now.

I agree. Slavery would have ended either way, without a doubt. And probably pretty quickly. Make no mistake, if the south had been allowed to peacefully secede, the north wouldnt have given up slavery either. Hard to compete with slave labor, but the west would have expunged it.

The centralized federal government would simply never have been as corrupt and advanced as it is now.

We can only imagine how great things would have been.
Posted by Stidham8
Member since Aug 2018
9333 posts
Posted on 8/6/25 at 9:12 pm to
We’d be infinitely worse. The United States would’ve been a whole Europe of countries.

With the power vacuum you’d undoubtedly see Japan and Germany as the two major superpowers in the world. The Soviet Union wouldn’t have been able to defeat the Nazis without the US lend lease program and the opening of a second front in France. There would’ve been no one to slow down Japan taking all of Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

Japan and Germany likely end up taking down the Soviet Union and dividing the territory.
This post was edited on 8/6/25 at 9:16 pm
Posted by prplhze2000
Parts Unknown
Member since Jan 2007
56564 posts
Posted on 8/6/25 at 9:56 pm to
Doubt it. The north and the west would not have been shackled by a dirt poor, unindustrialized South. They could produce ships and armaments better than anyone but Germany at the time and would still outproduce them in WW2
Posted by Sofaking2
Member since Apr 2023
18328 posts
Posted on 8/6/25 at 9:59 pm to
I love this country. I do not agree.
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