One reason that Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation (which in fact served only as a promissory note as it did not free slaves in the Union territories and applied only to slaves in the South) was that several European Countries (including England and France) were exploring ties with the CSA and Lincoln knew that making the Civil War primarily about slavery would have insured that any country supporting the CSA would have been branded as pro-slavery, which could have been a political nightmare for the leaders of those countries. As it was, the action kept Europe out of the war.
The South was an agrarian society that supplied the raw materials for the Union's mills at considerably lower prices than it could have achieved had it bought the raw materials from England or the Caribbean. As it was, during the Civil War the Union did end up buying British cotton as well as relying upon cotton production in Haiti and Cuba to make up the shortfall, but it was also expanding westward, and by the end of the war had actually built up a fairly extensive cotton production capability in Illinois, Kentucky and Iowa. This meant that at the time, the Union was actually quite well equipped to "go it alone" if it had to, and up to the attack on Harper's Ferry, there were many within the North who felt that trying to keep the South in the Union was a losing proposition. After that attack, however, sentiment quickly shifted in favor of war on both sides, especially since had the US split peacefully, it would have meant that Lincoln would have faced a potentially hostile political force to the south as well as an uncertain political force from Canada (remember that the War of 1812 was still within living memory of most people, and England was far from being a US ally at the time.
The South lost because of a lack of industrial capabilities - it could simply not produce enough guns, cannons, and uniforms fast enough, nor get them to forces quickly enough, to stem the tide coming from the North. It had superior generals, but lacked logistical support for the generals to take advantage of that fact. Yet taking Nugent's comment one step further, suppose that the US had split without the war, or that Lincoln had been killed in 1862 rather than 1865 or some other factor had occurred in which the secession remained in effect. What then?
The southern strategy had always involved capturing Northern Mexico and the key Caribbean islands as part of the CSA, and of then supplying raw materials directly to Europe rather than going through Yankee middlemen. This would not only reduce the overall profitability of Northern (primarily New York) companies, but would also have made it possible for the South to keep their slave populations offshore, as it was becoming increasingly evident that improved automation would have begun to reduce the benefit of maintaining slaves on the mainland (the cotton gin being the primary factor in changing that equation). So it is likely that while the status of blacks in the South would not have improved markedly, slavery would have been "offshored" and given the South the means to reducing the overall population of blacks compared to whites (which was becoming an increasing concern throughout the south). Thus, by 1880, the South would have been nominally no longer in the slave trade, though that would only mean that they would be enslaving people outside of the normal orbit of European eyes.
In essence this would have enabled the south to develop an industrial base of its own, which it was well embarked upon by the time Sherman did his march through Georgia. However, culturally, it was more in sync with England but without England's extensive colonial base, and the government in the South would have become a landed aristocracy very quickly, quite possibly with a king and a reduced role for the unlanded sharecroppers, indentures and craftspeople - even as England was undergoing a massive industrialization effort and becoming more like the Union.
The two countries would have then raced for the West Coast, the South by land, the North by Sea. Since the North had superior naval power, they would have eventually dominated there, and consequently its likely that the South would have extended West to Texas, and possibly to Arizona, but would never taken California. However, the South would also have encountered considerable resistance from Mexico, and likely would have had their ambitions thwarted there. Without colonies capable of producing raw foodstuffs and organics, metals or energy, the South would eventually have faltered and become increasingly unstable over time, although the emergence of oil as a primary energy source may have swung things in the other direction.
Neither the USA or the CSA would have intervened in World War I, which was largely a war to determine who would have gained control over the breakup of the Ottoman Empire (the Germans, the Russians, or the British). This would likely have resulted in a stalemate. The French would have lost a little territory, the Russians would end up with a warm water port, and the Germans and British would have split control of the Middle East between them. The Treaty of Versailles, with its onerous war reparation payments on Germany, would never have been signed, and the Weimar Republic would have then been able to siphon off the resources of the middle east and build up its middle class, without the disastrous buildup of extremist sentiment that led to Hitler seizing power as Chancellor in 1932.
= new reply since forum marked as read
