So how would an independent Confederacy been any different?
Well, FedZilla and the New York Empire barons wouldn't be getting the money. Considering those are the same adversaries we are currently facing, I think that would be a pretty good thing.
There would probably have been Charleston-Richmond empire barons, but they would certainly be smaller and less powerful than the ones we now have in New York and Washington DC.
Oh, and the nation would have been true to the rights asserted in it's own Declaration of Independence. That would have been a moral victory for the nation.