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Without a war, the economics of the North were in serious trouble, not to mention the possibility of states in the Midwest eventually being brought into the economic orbit of the Confederacy instead of continuing on with the established trade through New York and Chicago.

This would eventually result in their being brought into the political orbit as well, and states which in our timeline became part of the Union would have ended up being part of the confederacy; A defacto loss of territory and ability for the Union to expand Westward.

Why bother with this nuttiness? Cotton wasn't going to remain king forever. New areas were coming into production: Egypt, India, Mexico, Brazil, China, Central Asia, Africa. Eventually, Southerners would have to make a choice between freeing the slaves to please their European customers and continuing to hold millions of people in slavery to keep their costs down. And if they freed the slaves what would they do with the newly freed people? Really, a mess was building in the South and it's hard to see why the Middle West would want to join up with that.

People underestimate the ties between the Northern states. They did that in the 1860s, in the 1890s, and they do it today. The country might have broken up further in the 1860s and it still might break up, but Ohio wasn't going to join South Carolina then any more than Idaho would stay in one country with Mississippi. They're just too different.

You think that rich and powerful people are oppressing you and they need to be overthrown and that those who overthrow them will become in turn rich and powerful and universally loved. Well, just overthrowing somebody else doesn't make people rich. That takes work and effort and know-how and persistence.

And if you do succeed in replacing the others and becoming rich yourself, why wouldn't people like you hate the people you've become just as much as they hated the people you replaced? In other words, you dream of overthrowing New York and making New Orleans or Charleston the new New York and you actually think they won't be resented as much as you resent New York. Quite a dream that.

Really, it's all there -- economic determinism, resentment, exploitation, class struggle, revolution, utopia. Why do you get so bent out of shape when people point out how much of a Marxist you are, Diogenes?

Cotton wasn't going to remain king forever.

Maybe it wasn't, but moving 230 million dollars worth of import money from New York directly to the South would have capitalized other industries in the South.

Really, a mess was building in the South and it's hard to see why the Middle West would want to join up with that.

For the same reason why Americans are spending their money making China rich. Because they would be able to deliver lower cost products.

The country might have broken up further in the 1860s and it still might break up, but Ohio wasn't going to join South Carolina then any more than Idaho would stay in one country with Mississippi. They're just too different.

I wouldn't pick Ohio as one of the examples, but certainly Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and the Dakotas would likely have come into the Confederacy's economic orbit eventually. If the South could supply goods cheaper than the New York/Chicago axis, then they settlers in those states would have bought them.

You think that rich and powerful people are oppressing you ...

I think Rich and Powerful people have their meddling fingers in the Government, and it is the government who is oppressing us. I think the New York media is liberal precisely because it benefits the bottom line of the Rich-Powerful/Government axis. I am referring to this loose oligarchy which people are nowadays calling "the establishment."

... and they need to be overthrown and that those who overthrow them will become in turn rich and powerful and universally loved.

No, I think their media weapon needs to be taken away from them, and that we need to come up with a system to guarantee the Conservative side of the debate has at least equal access to the trillion dollar broadcasting infrastructure which the left has long used to exclusively communicate with the public.

I think that any concentration of power is prone to abuse and corruption, and as the founders realized, the only thing that can be done is to try and balance opposing forces in an effort to create an altruistic outcome.

Well, just overthrowing somebody else doesn't make people rich.

You must not have read up on any of the communist revolutions. Overthrowing the existing system *always* makes the new rulers wealthy.

And if you do succeed in replacing the others and becoming rich yourself, why wouldn't people like you hate the people you've become just as much as they hated the people you replaced?

Okay, you've gone off the rails here. I'm not motivated by envy, i'm actually doing quite well financially, and there's really nothing I want that I can't buy if I wished it. I simply recognize that there is a structure in Washington/New York that has resisted any effort to rein in excessive spending. For a long time I thought it was a quesiton of ignorance, but after all the media screeching in 1995 about efforts to balance the budget, I became convinced that the people these media represent really don't want spending in Washington under control.

So I eventually started asking myself "Why?"

The only answer that made sense to me was "Because their power and wealth are tied to excessive spending by Washington D.C."

The realization that this shadow government we now call "the establishment" was a consequence of the Civil War, only occurred to me within the last year and a half. Now the more I look at it, the more this idea seems to ring true. In other words, you dream of overthrowing New York and making New Orleans or Charleston the new New York and you actually think they won't be resented as much as you resent New York.

I'd rather not be ruled by any group of oligarchs. I'd rather they were made to keep their meddling little fingers out of the workings of government and leave it as the minimalist system which our founders designed it to be.

What I said earlier, and which you seem to be misunderstanding, is that had Charleston managed to become the Money Capital of the US, I would likely be bitching about how the Charleston "elite" were tampering with our government and our lives. My meaning here is that I don't want a group of "elite" telling me what to do, regardless of what city from which they might originate.

Perhaps it is because they keep insisting they need to put a Marxist shoe on my capitalist foot? That actually gets old pretty fast.

I'm all for capitalism, so long as it is Adam Smith/Edmund Burke style capitalism. It is the corrupt, monopolistic, influential, coercive, crony sort, that i'm against.