He'd come a running, tears running down his cheeks. Dixie, save me now!!!!
We would probably not be having this very interesting conversation, what with you being in one country and me in another.
If that was the case, the America in which you live would be a totally socialist nation by now. The small population heartland and mountain states like Kansas and Wyoming would be crushed politically by the Northeast and the West Coast. It'd be interesting to see if you'd like it, or if you'd be begging to immigrate to Dixie once your tax bill came due.
Since everything is the fault of Lincoln, then it would be only fair to project a confederacy based on the policies of Jefferson Davis, wouldn't you agree?
The confederacy would no doubt be a one-party state (Davis ran unopposed in his only election). The constitution would be irrelevant since it meant what the president said it meant (Davis quote to that effect) and since there would be no checks and balances in place to enforce it or to check Congress or the executive(the confederacy never established the Supreme Court required by their own constitution). The economy would be socialist in nature (the Davis government seized farm produce, slave labor, and shipping space without compensation "for the war effort" and nationalized industries like liquor, textiles, and salt production). States rights would be a hollow joke (Davis ignored state control over their own militia by extending enlistments for the duration of the war and by declaring martial law in areas hundreds of miles from the fighting). Income taxes would be high (in addition to implementing the first income tax by the end of the war Davis was trying to implement tax levels that were almost confiscatory in nature). The confederacy would be larger, with their expansion into Cuba, Central America and the Caribbean to provide room for their spread of slavery (1860 Democratic platform and the expressed intent of many of the confederate founding fathers). Slavery would have continued for some time, maybe as late as the 20th century, and probably ended badly (quotes from many of the confederate leaders on slavery and blacks in general) possibly leading to something similar to the apartheid of South Africa (Blacks were not and could not be citizens per the Dred Scott decision. No supreme court to change that and no 14th Amendment to override it.) So in short, your confederacy could very well have become a police state keeping a restive minority in check with socialistic policies and high taxes. And you would be welcome to it.
That's not at all clear. For most of the century when the South voted Democrat, Republicans controlled Congress and the presidency.
The recent Republican collapse in the Northeast and the West Coast was a reaction to perceived Southern dominance in the country. Under other circumstances sanity would have prevailed as it did under Eisenhower and Reagan.
It's the same way with the South. Y'all can be free market and conservative because the opposite position is identified with the evil Yankee. If y'all were on your own a lot of you would take other positions, as indeed was the case back in the days of the solidly Democratic South.