Secession destroyed the Old Republic. Whatever came next was going to be different.
Be honest. Do you really think that a country divided into two hostile nations was going to be the same as one that largely had a continent to itself?
Military budgets would increase. So would border controls. Internal security and espionage agencies would be formed.
Government would get involved in economic development to prevent each country from falling behind.
The idea that the Civil War gave us big government is an exaggeration. Most functions were still in state hands after the war as before. It would take 50 years or more after the war for that to change.
But do you really think that an exceptionally decentralized form of government would have survived into the 21st century?
And do you really think that country founded on slavery -- whether the US or the CSA -- could be devoted to liberty for very long?
Wouldn't the fear of the slave owners or the rage of the slaves eventually overwhelm constitutional protections?
And secession happened because northern Republicans and Lincoln basically waged economic warfare on the South.
"Be honest. Do you really think that a country divided into two hostile nations was going to be the same as one that largely had a continent to itself?
Of course not. But I think there is a good possibility that there would have been no split.
"The idea that the Civil War gave us big government is an exaggeration. Most functions were still in state hands after the war as before. It would take 50 years or more after the war for that to change.
The Civil War set the precedent for a totally dominant central government supreme over the states. That it took time for the full effects of that precedent to be realized is irrelevant.
"But do you really think that an exceptionally decentralized form of government would have survived into the 21st century?"
Actually, yes. Switzerland has lasted far longer and survived quite nicely into the 21st Century.
"And do you really think that country founded on slavery -- whether the US or the CSA -- could be devoted to liberty for very long? Wouldn't the fear of the slave owners or the rage of the slaves eventually overwhelm constitutional protections?
There would have been no "country founded on slavery" in the long run. Slavery was morally and economically doomed, and would have disappeared in the same fifty years you posited for the overweening central government to fully develop. Developments in agriculture would have seen to that. A horse-drawn or steam-powered cotton-picker isn't much of a stretch, given developments in agricultural innovation between 1860 and 1880 or -90.
Like the US and Canada? Yeah, that's been a source of constant tension since 1812. :)
The idea that the Civil War gave us big government is an exaggeration.
Not at all. The era after Lincoln was considered the worst period of corruption in American History. Big Government and Crony Capitalism were constantly scratching each others backs in an effort to enrich both Big Government and the Crony Capitalists.
Don't forget, Lincoln's political philosophy was "Mercantilism", and the 1860s saw the ascendance of this "Mercantilist" philosophy. The railroad land give away is a pretty good example of the sort of thing i'm talking about.
And do you really think that country founded on slavery -- whether the US or the CSA -- could be devoted to liberty for very long?
I think slavery would have eventually collapsed on it's own. As soon as the economic benefits of it waned, suddenly everyone in the South would have developed an instantaneous moral opposition to it.
Yes, i'm Cynical. :)