The only problem the secessionists had with centralized government is they wanted one in Richmond that would be dedicated to the protection and expansion of slavery.
The only problem the secessionists had with centralized government is they wanted one in Richmond that would be dedicated to the protection and expansion of slavery.
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Initially, you are correct, slavery would have been established as an economic “necessity.” But it couldn’t have lasted. It was already illegal in Europe. It was already becoming prohibitively expensive in the South. In fact, the Confederate Constitution made it ILLEGAL to import new slaves from foreign lands (an industry usually perpetrated by NORTHERN shipping interests anyway)Wilberforce had forced a peaceful end to slavery in England in 1833. And interestingly, nowhere else in Europe or the New World was there a war needed to END slavery. Why then did the Civil War occur? Because slavery was an excuse for a centralized government — and one particular region — to lord it over another. And it has worked.
The seccessionists never had a “centralized government” in Richmond for anything more than the sake of the war effort. The Confederacy was founded while under siege, and they had to put together what they could to try and make it work in an emergency situation. While during wartime the circumstances necessitated a more centralized authority structure to focus on the enemy forces invading the homeland, had the government and nation survived the war, it is probable that the Confederacy would have become far more reflective of the States Rights principles originally voiced by the Founders of the United States, and of those who followed them.
And yes, this is speculation. What is not speculation, but absolute certainty, is that the Federal Government of the United States has continued it’s expansion almost unabated since the time of the Civil War, with the exception of a couple of years after the disaster that was “Reconstruction” (1877-1880) and during the Harding/Coolidge Era (1921-24)after the disaster that was Woodrow Wilson.
We are where we are now — we can make it better by returning to the principles of the Founders — the ORIGINAL Founders, or we can stick our heads in the sand and proclaim the likes of the Roosevelts and Wilsons, or even the Lincolns and the Grants, “heroes,” and we’ll be in worse shape tomorrow than today. IF we survive at all.