If the South had been allowed to peacefully secede, as was their constitutional right, slavery would have died a natural death, just as it did everywhere else in the West.
The U.S. would’ve become 6 or 8 confederacies of states, with no foreign ambitions.
Thus, no foreign entanglements, no Jim Crow era, and no constant saber-rattling.
No Federal Reserve, no federal income tax, no border crisis, and no bureaucratic Empire in the Beltway.
Lincoln’s war hurt everyone, then and now.
The new smaller countries wouldn't have developed a transcontinental economy and might well be poorer. Government could be more powerful in some of them, as it is in Canada and Europe. Racial conflicts would make life in the Confederacy turbulent and hazardous.
Along with all of our problems, America did benefit from being top country for a century in ways that we take for granted now.
There is no Constitutional right to secession.
And just what would America have looked like if the South had prevailed?
And was the Confederacy entirely unified itself or did some Southern states want to secede from the Confederacy itself?
Missouri was split on the issue, pro and con.
The South could have been allowed to succeed, if they had asked.
They unilaterally left.
I believe this is true.
Lincoln’s war hurt everyone, then and now.
Something I have come to realize. It's still hurting the USA. Our leviathan Federal government is a consequence of that war. So is "gay marriage", "abortion", banning prayer in schools, and a whole host of other troubles.