With ancestors on both sides of that conflict, and after having lived most of my life south of the Mason-Dixon line, my take on the "failed state" comment had nothing to do with body counts. IMHO, if the Confederacy had successfully repelled the Union long enough (and won at Gettysburg), they would have forced northern politicians to declare a quasi-peace, but the South would have never become a successful nation. Slavery, the cornerstone of the Confederate constitution, cannot operate an industrial economy. It could never achieve today's high tech accomplishments, and therefore would always be an economic failure.
Please note that I have not said anything about the inhabitants of the South or indulged in any bigoted statements. Slavery would have been as much a blockade to progress as the hatred we see in the Middle East. Different sources, but the same outcome.
Harry Turtledove's alternative history series on the subject make for useful reading. Not gospel, but interesting reading.
Slavery, the cornerstone of the Confederate constitution, cannot operate an industrial economy. It could never achieve today's high tech accomplishments, and therefore would always be an economic failure.Most likely the south would have ended up looking like any of the other former slave economies around the Caribbean. A big version of Jamaica or Cuba.
One frequently finds people on these threads arguing that the south would eventually have rejoined the union. I wonder if the United States would have readmitted them.