I'm a Good Old Rebel......That just what I am.

[10-Ring]

Netflix carries it I just ordered it.

[Guest BungieCord]

I'm not sure. The south would have been ruined if they had gotten their independence....

That is highly assumptive and, IMHO, largely baseless.

...England was getting cotton from India and didn't depend as much on the south's....

England was getting their cotton cloth from India. Indian cotton mills were buying raw cotton from the southern states. The value of the south's cotton exports alone in 1860 was three-fold that of the entire GDP of the yankee states for that year.

If the CSA had had a free-trade agreement with India, King Cotton would have made the CSA one of the richest nations on earth. If the principle of secession were established as fact of law, and if the south had become filthy rich, it stands to reason more non-secessionist states states would have seen the light and joined the Confederacy. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that all 34 states eventually would have reunited under the Stars and Bars and the Constitution of the CSA.

Other countries were more heavily dependent on slaves than even the southern US states, Cuba and Brazil for two. Slavery failed there and throug most of the western hemisphere over the course of the 19th Century, and with far less bloodshed. I remain convinced that it would in time have failed here too, and with far less a toll of human misery, if Lincoln hadn't chosen a Gordian knot solution.

[sigmtnman]

A most interesting flick.

C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America (2004) - IMDb

- OS

Another example of what Hollyweird is best at; Showing a distorted/perverted view of history, today and tomorrow...

Edited November 2, 2011 by sigmtnman

[Will Carry]

That is highly assumptive and, IMHO, largely baseless.

England was getting their cotton cloth from India. Indian cotton mills were buying raw cotton from the southern states. The value of the south's cotton exports alone in 1860 was three-fold that of the entire GDP of the yankee states for that year.

If the CSA had had a free-trade agreement with India, King Cotton would have made the CSA one of the richest nations on earth. If the principle of secession were established as fact of law, and if the south had become filthy rich, it stands to reason more non-secessionist states states would have seen the light and joined the Confederacy. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that all 34 states eventually would have reunited under the Stars and Bars and the Constitution of the CSA.

Other countries were more heavily dependent on slaves than even the southern US states, Cuba and Brazil for two. Slavery failed there and throug most of the western hemisphere over the course of the 19th Century, and with far less bloodshed. I remain convinced that it would in time have failed here too, and with far less a toll of human misery, if Lincoln hadn't chosen a Gordian knot solution.

You seem to be more knowledgeable than me on that. You bring up some very good points. Have you ever read "Transfer of Power: The war of 1861" by Elliot Germain? He states that the Confederacy could not afford to FIGHT a war, regardless of the outcome. You are saying if they did not have to fight then they could have done well. You make a strong argument for that. Thanks for the reply.

[Oh Shoot]

Another example of what Hollyweird is best at; Showing a distorted/perverted view of history, today and tomorrow...

It's illogical to assert one can logically deem a vision of a hypothetical future as being distorted or factual.

Plus, the movie is largely satirical.

- OS

Edited November 2, 2011 by OhShoot

[E4 No More]

You seem to be more knowledgeable than me on that. You bring up some very good points. Have you ever read "Transfer of Power: The war of 1861" by Elliot Germain? He states that the Confederacy could not afford to FIGHT a war, regardless of the outcome. You are saying if they did not have to fight then they could have done well. You make a strong argument for that. Thanks for the reply.

IIRC from my history classes in college the South's biggest problem was that they had raw materials, but manufacturing was mostly in the North. It was kind of hard to keep up with the number of guns and cannons to win a war when your manufacturing capabilities are limited. That's a big reason why Germany lost a couple of wars: they couldn't keep up with American manufacturing.

[Mike.357]

Harry Turtledove wrote a series of books based on the south having won the war. Real good reading for the what if crowd.

[sigmtnman]

It's illogical to assert one can logically deem a vision of a hypothetical future as being distorted or factual.

Plus, the movie is largely satirical.

- OS

No, I understood that it is a satire based on a hypothetical future, but to think that movies, whether satirical or not, do not affect thinking, is illogical.

[Guest BungieCord]

You seem to be more knowledgeable than me on that. You bring up some very good points. Have you ever read "Transfer of Power: The war of 1861" by Elliot Germain? He states that the Confederacy could not afford to FIGHT a war, regardless of the outcome. You are saying if they did not have to fight then they could have done well. You make a strong argument for that. Thanks for the reply.

You shouldn't confuse the wealth of the people with the wealth of their nation.

In 1860, the 10 wealthiest Americans lived, not just in the South, not just in Mississippi, but in the Natchez district of Mississippi. The TEN richest. All in Natchez, Mississippi.

But their money wasn't the CSA's money. One day, Jeff Davis, Alexander Stephens and Judah Benjamin were standing around with their hands in their pockets. The next day, they were running a country that hadn't existed 24 hours before. On that day, what do you think they had in their treasury? Damn near bupkis.

No money, little industry and chiefly one asset: agriculture. Except stripping the farms of their young men to put them under arms and destabilizing the slave culture slowed even that one to a crawl.

After the war? In 1860, cotton farmers paid more in export duties than they kept in profits. Not only that, since the importation of slavery had been outlawed (in 1808), all further importation was black market, conducted almost exclusively by yankee shippers through yankee ports. Stephen Douglas, of Lincoln-Douglas debate fame, wrote that in 1860 alone, 15,000 slaves entered illegally through the port of NYC. Figuring a 50-50 mix of the sexes, they'd have been worth about $1000 each, meaning $15 million 1860 dollars in illegal slave trade.

And, of course, that jacked up the retail price of slaves which, by 1860, had about doubled since the 1808 ban was put into effect.

So not only were cotton farmers looking for profits to double after the war, they also were counting on a dramatic reduction in operating costs.