What If the Confederacy Had Survived

What If the Confederacy Had Survived

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Although I don't support secession in our day, I don't agree with the view that it would have been a catastrophe if the Confederacy had survived. The claim is sometimes heard that if the South had remained independent, we could not have defeated Nazi Germany and Japan in World War II. Yet, England and America, though separate nations after the Revolutionary War, were able to work together to defeat Hitler and Tojo. There's no reason that the U.S.A. and the C.S.A. could not have worked together to defeat the fascist threat.

The Confederate States and the United States could have worked together in numerous areas for the benefit of all Americans, North and South. All the states still would have been American states, but with somewhat different laws in certain cases. The borders could have remained open. Trade and business could have flowed freely between the two nations. An independent South, freed from the protectionist trade policies of the North, could have traded directly with Europe and undoubtedly would have grown even more prosperous than she was before the war. Hopefully, Northern citizens would have seen the benefits of lower tariffs and would have insisted that their leaders adopt such policies. (Instead, high tariffs remained in place for decades after the war.)

If the Confederacy had survived, abortion most likely would not have been legalized in the Southern states; taxes would have been much lower in the South; no federal income tax would have been imposed on the Southern states; prayer and Bible reading and the posting of the Ten Commandments would have remained in Southern schools; Southern anti-sodomy laws would not have been swept aside by an amoral U.S. Supreme Court; and sick "virtual" child pornography would not have been legalized as "protected free speech" by that same amoral U.S. Supreme Court.

We should keep in mind that the Confederate states and their citizens were American too. After all, they comprised the Confederate States of America. They still revered our founding fathers. In fact, they saw themselves as preserving and defending the principles of the founders. The official seal of the Confederacy featured George Washington. Confederate postage stamps bore the images of Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson.

If the Confederacy had not been invaded but had been allowed to exist in peace, the relations between all the states would have been nearly identical to how they had been before secession, and the citizens of the states could have remained "one people" in every important sense. Similarly, if the U.S. were to announce tomorrow that it was withdrawing from the United Nations, how would this change the relations between the people and the governments of, let's say, America and England? Would it have any meaningful impact on the millions of British-American friendships? Would it have any meaningful impact on the relations between British and American families that are related to each other? Would our leaving the United Nations prevent us from working on a joint space-station project with the Russians, as we've been doing for years? Would it prevent us from continuing the close trade and business relationships that we have with Canada and England? Would it mean we could no longer have virtually open borders with Canada? Obviously, the answer to all these questions is no. These aren't exact analogies, but they're fairly close to the mark. It's hard to imagine now, but in the days before the Civil War the average citizen had very little contact with the federal government. Why? Because back then the federal government was much, much smaller than it is today. The states performed the great majority of the vital functions of government.