Posted on 09/26/2004 8:41:19 AM PDT by GaryL
The FReeper Foxhole: As the federal government grows bigger, stronger, and more corrupt with each passing year, maybe it’s time to dream about how life would be today if the South had won the Civil War.
Richmond Times-Dispatch, Dateline: July 4th, 1863, Gettysburg, PA:
PICKETTS’ CHARGE SMASHES NORTHERN CENTER – YANKS FLEE IN DISARRAY! WEARY LINCOLN SUES FOR PEACE! CONFEDERACY VICTORIOUS!
Am I the only one who dares to speculate about how life would be today if the South had actually won the Civil War? I know, I know….“How dare he bring this up! Arrest this raving racist at once! Send for the Though Police!” It has to be the ultimate violation of political correctness to even broach this subject!
As conservatives, can we be happy that a segment of the country that fought valiantly for limited government, states rights, and the rule of law under a strong constitution was defeated? Indeed, one of the most malicious consequences of the war was the beginning of the vast shift of political power to the central government in Washington, with the resultant monopoly of power that the federal government extends over us today. This shift came, of course, at the expense of traditional Jeffersonian personal liberty and freedom, and a concomitant emasculation of the power of the individual states. It was also accompanied by a gradual corrupting of the Executive branch (which was virtually completed in the scandalous administration of Bill Clinton}, a corrupting of the rule of law, and a progressive coarsening of the culture - all outcomes, I might add, that serve as testimony to the wisdom of Lord Acton – a strong contemporary defender of the South – about the corrupting influence of absolute power. This is hardly what I would call a favorable result. As a matter of fact, I’d term it an absolute disaster – the Founding Fathers’ worse nightmare! Isn’t this the reason they fought the Revolution in the first place?
But, you say, had the South won, America would never have become the great nation that it became in the 20th century. Well, my response is that monopolies of power are never good – especially in government, as the totalitarian governments of the 20th century have shown us. . If the South had gained its freedom, there would have been two separate governments competing with each other to be efficient and honorable. Explain to me why this is bad. If either government fell short of these ideals, people would have had the option to “vote with their feet” – and option that doesn’t exist today. Competition is always good.
And, no, maybe we wouldn’t have become the “world power” that we became in this the latter half of the 20th century. Why do we assume that this would have been necessarily bad? Consider this: it’s highly unlikely that the two separate nations would have experienced anything besides limited involvement in World War I, especially since one of them – the South – would have been adhering to the wise admonition of George Washington to avoid foreign entanglements. And, as Pat Buchanan and others have suggested, WWI was an unmitigated disaster for Western civilization. Instead of making the world safe for democracy, we helped make it safe for Bolshevism, Fascism, Socialism, and Nazism.
Follow me on this. With limited American involvement, England and Germany would likely have fought it out to a resource-draining stalemate. There would have been no clear-cut winner and no clear-cut loser – and outcome, I might add, immeasurable more favorable than what actually did occur. Our involvement unquestionably tipped the balance against Germany. Without a victorious England and a defeated, humiliated Germany, there would have been no vengeful, retribution-extracting Versailles treaty sapping the German people of their pride and resources. And, it follows, there would have been no occasion for the rise of militant German nationalism, no Hitler, and, quite possibly, no World War II. All and all, not a bad tradeoff, wouldn’t you say? Oh, and I forgot to mention, no victorious Soviet empire after WWII extending communism over half the world.
But, you say, slavery was a monumental evil that had to end! Yes, I agree that slavery was terrible – but I simply disagree with the way it ended. Wouldn’t a period of gradual emancipation – which many Southern leaders were favoring by the 1860’s, although with terms not to be dictated by the North – have been immensely better for all involved, most especially the black slaves themselves? Gradual emancipation over a period of about sixty years was exactly how the North itself ended its association with slavery. Why couldn’t the South be allowed the same solution?
The problem with the Civil War as the solution to slavery was that it destroyed the fabric of Southern society, leading to immense poverty and destitution for the entire South. Would anybody deny that the worse part of this societal destruction was experienced by the freed slaves themselves? And the North wanted no part of the social problems created by freeing the slaves, as the many racist laws restricting the settlement of freedmen in the North indicate. What was the value of receiving freedom without justice?
Before the war, most slaves had a better quality of life than the poor white farmer. The war put an end to that. This massive poverty and total decimation of Southern society also served as the germination for the horrendous, nation dividing post-bellum racial tensions and animosities – the ramifications of which we have with us even today. The conditions of emancipated slaves was so bad that seventy-five years after emancipation, in a 1930’s government study called the Slave Narratives, over 70% of surviving former slaves stated that their standards of living were better before the war. We can all agree that slavery was a monumental evil, but surely gradual emancipation would have been better than this!
As a conservative who longs for limited government and the ideals of the Constitution, I am not ashamed to speculate that quite possibly we would have a better world today had the South won the Civil War. Maybe I’m dreaming, but I think limited government, personal freedom, and higher degrees of racial harmony are what we’d be experiencing. In addition, we would have a clear choice between two governments competing for our approbation. Or maybe you’re content with the rapacious, out-or-control, ever-expanding, corrupt federal government that is overwhelming us today!
I take it you've never heard of Harry Turtledove's books on this. There a whole series of alternate history about this very thing.
Alternate History BUMP for later reading and comment.
Well Gary, I might allow as how it would have been better if the war had not been fought. Better if there had been no occupation of the South with its attendant corruption, and suppression. Better if emancipation had occured through evolution rather than invasion. Better if the constitution had not been shredded, so that the South could not even claim that, although it lost the war, it had preserved its principles, apart from slavery.
By the way, I will add "total decimation" to my list of oxymorons.
We'd be paying taxes to Richmond instead of Washington.
If the South had won the civil war, there would have been another war in about 10 years' time.
A similar outcome could have happened if George Mcclellan had won the presidential election of 1864. Mcclellan, a Democrat, campaigned against Lincoln on a peace platform that would have readmitted the Southern States to the Union and would have given the South until 1900 to gradually phase out slavery. The North was weary of the war at that time, and Mcclellan came within a hair’s breadth of winning that election.
No need for further speculation, that wraps it up.
*ping*
Bump.
Bump for Dixie!
You done gone and dunnit now! Non-sequitur and his band of brothers are gonna bombard this thread now with 6,000 replies on the oppressive qualities of the Confeddyrit gub'mint while singin' for the Choir Immaculate over the angelic virtues of Lincoln! Hell, we're good fer 3,000 replies on tariffs alone. Now why you done gone and done this fer? Don'tch ye know the CSA had a draft? Dont'ch ye know they collected taxes? It don't matter that tharr was a war on, #3Fan will tell you that!
bump to keep an eye on this one
Wouldn't doubt it. They managed to get one thread deleted when #3fan went ballistic. Another was locked for a week or so, unlocked, and is now locked again. Sigh.
Heck, furrgit the fact that the Suth'ron states tried an' in-voke they's 10th Amendamint rights, but the gub'mint demanded that they citizens done pay taxes! That alone warr'rinted invasion by the peaceable soldiers of Mr. Lincoln's army! Didn't #3 Fan or anyone tell you that?!?!
Great book. I love the great war series. Though his best recent books (IMO) have been Ruled Britania (Shakespeare! And alternate history! What more could you want?) and In the Presence of Mine Enemies, both stand-alones.
'nother wun told me that Lincoln shulda wiped out all southerners. Them's fightin' words!
btw, traditional scholars are either PRO-southern or NEUTRAL.
free dixie,sw
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