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I have been wondering for a while now if Abraham Lincoln really made a mistake and we would not be better off if he had allowed the Confederate States to secede.
I am hoping that a number of WACCOS will weigh in on this with arguments against as well as for.
I have thought of this more than once myself. This type of reflection is what some historians love to get into. But there is no way to ever know the truth because we would need an infinite number of worlds to re-write history with. Wouldn't that be fun!? But who would be the authors? Jerry Falwell? I wouldn't mind if it was me playing god.
Let's consider, for example, "future" historical events immediately following permanent secession of the Confederacy. There is a race for new territories going on in the remaining North American continent in 1861, the year the Confederacy seceded. Which of the two countries would get there first? And would there be an inevitable war between the two countries anyway over expanding their own territories? Granted, California was already firmly a part of the North, or the USA. But what about the Montana Territory, which had not become a state yet and helped out the Confederacy substantially during the Civil War (in real history), primarily in many large shipments of silver? Who would eventually get Alaska and then Hawaii? This segues into the next historical events: The Spanish American War, WWI, The Bolshevik Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, and last but certainly not least, WWII.
Let's suppose that the USC and USA are getting along just dandy for over a half a century and all of a sudden it's 1914 and WWI begins. Which sides would these two conflicted nations ally themselves with? Let's assume, reasonably but not with absolute certainty, that the US would ally itself with Britain, France, and Russia, all against Germany. Who would the USC ally itself with? How would each nation react to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, which took place thanks only to WWI?
What about the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939? Spain's civil war was the precursor to WWII, which the Spanish fascists won thanks only to Hitler and Mussolini. It was vital to Hitler's military strategy to eliminate the 2nd Spanish Republic, a strongly left leaning people's democracy that would have undoubtedly fought against the Nazis.
How about WWII itself? This one I find particularly interesting because of the ultra racist nature of Hitler and the Nazis. There is a damn good chance, too good of a chance that the Confederacy would have allied itself with Hitler. And there probably would have been a strong Nazi Party in the USC. There was a Nazi Party in the US before WWII, in real history. High profile, wealthy and politically powerful Nazi sympathizers existed in the United States, such as Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, Prescott Bush (grandaddy of 'W'), etc.
Would have the Confederacy been the bulwark of military aggression against the USA and the rest of North America during WWII? Might there have been Mexican and Canadian fronts as well? What if the Confederacy had either Hawaii or Alaska? Would have the Confederacy been another strong military and economic ally of the already powerful Axis powers? Would have this handed the world over to Hitler? There was more than one notable head of state throughout Latin America who was openly fascist; one even publicly admired Mussolini; I think he was Argentinian. So there could have been a "lost" military front in South America or even ALL of Latin America, constantly being fed troops and armaments from Germany. Heck, there were plenty of people down in South America back then to provide large armies of foot soldiers marching northward.
Good questions to ask but we'll never know. Even the best historians can only speculate with any degree of accuracy.
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Posted in reply to the post by fafner:
I read this when I was a teenager, I think - anyway, a long time ago.
by MacKinley Kantor . Kantor was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel Andersonville. He wrote this in 1960 or so