[Colonel Kangaroo]

The Constitution limits the central governments role very specifically, and thats what the conflict was about. The South lost and now what we have is a central government that is involved in our every day life (education, environment, land management, sexual preferences, etc., etc., etc.)

Yes, everything would have been just wonderful if those noble rebs had won. Losers can always say how great things would be had they just won. John Kerry would have made a great president and the slaveowners of the Confederacy would have suddenly become paragons of limited government (for anybody but themselves). I would suggest a study of athe few years the CSA actually did exist to see what a heavy-handed regime they actually were.

I wish that the South would have won!

It wouldn't have mattered in the long run. The North would have beaten them even worse in the inevitable rematch. Under a few decades of Confederate rule the backward South would have lost even more ground to the modernizing North. And the second time, the USA wouldn't have shown the slaveowning elite the misguided leniency that actually characterized Reconstruction.

[tonysamm]

If the South had won, I believe the secession would have ended because the main issue was states rights. Because the Union won and strengthened the central government, you've got what we have today (and the likes of Kennedy, Kerry, Clinton and all others that feel they can dictate their liberal ideas into laws that affect everyday life of the people).

Who knows what would have happened, but its sure nice to think that the South had the right idea in believing what the Constitution stated about limited federal powers.