[oldfart]

“The difference is Lincoln did what he had to do and the result is he saved the nation.”

Yes but in so doing, he established precedents that subsequent presidents have used to push us closer and closer to socialism. We will never know for sure but we might well have been better off as two neighboring countries, sharing a language but little else. Similar to France and Belgium.

[Repeat Offender]

I read a book similar to this quite some time ago

http://www.amazon.com/South-Had-Won-Civil-War/dp/0312869495

It may have been this one at the link. It was pretty good. It went into soe of the politics and "feelings" of how the two countries ated toward each other now that the South had won.

Off topic, there was a movie "Fatherland" where Hitler won the war in Europe (we were still victorious in the Pacific). The movie has JFK as the hero that publicly embarasses Hitler after JFK learns of the concentration camps moments before the meeting.

It's interesting to see different takes on history in the "what if" sense...... the problem is the revisionist history passed as fact in the public skrewl textbooks....

[gusopol3]

Make that about eight separate countries; What reason would the west coast have had to stick with the east. Plus you forgot about the slave rebellion that would have ripped through the south , aided and abetted by northern abolitionists, unrestrained by Lincoln's elaborate respect for the fugitive slave law, etc., which he announced he would uphold in the first inaugural. Plus, if states can secede from the union, presumably parts of states can secede, as in fact did happen in West Virginia, undoubtedly would have occurred in East Tennessee, probably western N.Carolina. Palin wouldn't have had to worry about the "I can see Russia from my house " jokes because her house would have been in Russia. But not to worry, one of the European powers, probably Britain, but maybe Germany, who knows, even Japan with a foothold in Hawaii, would have stepped in to clean things up. Aztlan anybody?

[stuartcr]

Maybe even 3 or 4 different nations...