I just read a book that argued what I am arguing -- namely, that the Civil War was about slavery, thank you, and all other factors were secondary. By 1859, abolitionists like Harriet Beecher Stowe had elevated the obscenity of slavery from the economic low ground to the moral high ground. Mrs. Stowe later continued her moral crusade in Great Britain during the war, and her lectures and writings helped ensure that Great Britain did not recognize the South because, by doing so, it would have enraged the common English working man. In addition, recent readings of letters (in books) written by Northern soldiers during the war point to the immorality of slavery as a genuine reason why the boys in blue fought and died. In short, I believe those who argue for a reason other than slavery are emotionally linked to the Southern cause, for whatever reason, and wrongfully so.
I suspect the South, after successfully gaining its independence, would eventually have collapsed under the yoke of "states' rights" ... probably after the western states of Texas and Arkansas seceded from the Confederacy around, say, 1877, and formed the country of Texarkana. Eventually, states such as Virginia, Tennessee and Louisiana might well have split off from the Confederacy and rejoined the United States in the 1880s ... simply for economic reasons. (Lest we forget, the votes to secede in 1861 were extremely close in some states, notably Arkansas and Virginia.)
My comparison to Mexico is that the Confederacy, as a weak country, would have been inviting to foreign adventurists like Maximillian, and power struggles would have ensued.
Someone called to my attention years ago an interesting sidelight to secession. I do not know if it is true, but it may well be. This person said that the northwesternmost county in Georgia ... not far from where the battle of Chickamauga was fought in 1863, remained loyal to the Union, as, of course, did counties in eastern Tennessee and what is now the state of West Virginia. |
