I have often argued that had the Confederacy successfully seceded
from the Union, the American South today would be part of Mexico. The South was
never in a strong position for war. It was an agricultural region with little
capability for manufacturing war materiel. Had it been sprung from the Union,
the French Army occupying neighboring Mexico would have marched into the South
in such a way as to make Sherman’s March to the Sea look like an afternoon
hike.
In the aftermath of President Barrack Obama's election, a bunch of Obama-hating post-election dead-enders passed around petitions in all 50 states calling for secession from the Union.
Most of the action, of course, was in the Red states, those that vote most often
for Republicans. And most of those Red states are in the Old South. Since Donald Trump took up domicile in the White House, his racist-bating rhetoric has only encouraged those same dead-enders.
I stand by my conjecture above. If secession succeeded today, the
result would be the same as it would have a century and a half ago—the South would
still end up part of Mexico.
But it won’t succeed. It won’t even get a start. Bigotry might still be alive in Dixie, but the sociological
A Rich Man’s Movement
The southern secession movement in the mid-1800s was largely a
rich man’s movement. The South has always been more oligarchic than the North.
Plantations owners wielded great political power. They used their wealth to
finance “filibusters,” mercenaries armies sent to take over Latin American
countries to turn them into future slave states. Abolition threatened their
cheap source of labor and that, in turn, threatened their profit margins.
The average southern man, however, was simply poor and ill-educated.
He had little knowledge of the Union, or anything beyond a few square miles of
the state in which he lived. Typically, he had no concern about slavery one way
or another. To him, his state was his country. The idea of blue coats marching
into his state was simply an act of aggression against his country. As a
result, southern men were easily fooled into becoming cannon fodder for slave
owners looking to save their profits.
To begin with, African Americans are no longer an enslaved people in the South. Minorities of all races are becoming the majority in the United States. Unlike the 1800s, they have a voice—a strong voice. And they vote.
The populace of the South today is also much better educated and
much more aware of the rest of the country, if not the world. Far more of them
were raised in other states, or studied in other states. They have a world view
that just didn’t exist in the 19th century.
Moreover, those better educated Southerners are well aware that
their very livelihoods depend on spending from Washington, D.C.
Dependent on Washington
Federal spending on such programs as defense, aerospace, agriculture, energy, Social Security, and Medicare is heaviest in the Red states. As much as some of their citizens might think of themselves as independent and self-reliant, they are actually the biggest “takers,” receiving far more federal funds per person than they send to Washington in taxes.
According to research conducted by the business website 24/7 Wall
St., Red states make up eight of the top 10 states receiving the most federal
dollars: North Dakota, West Virginia, Alabama, Kentucky, New Mexico, Maryland,
Virginia, and Alaska. Connecticut and Hawaii were the only Blue states in the
top 10. Research by the Washington Post found similar results.
The fact is this Union is held together by an economic spider web
of federal spending. Any attempt by a state to break away would result in an
immediate economic collapse in that state. Large corporations with federal
contracts – whose only loyalty lies with the source of their profits – would
quickly pull up roots and relocate to a loyal state to keep those contracts.
Subcontractors working for those corporations would do likewise or wither.
Housing markets in secession states would collapse as workers moved to Union
states to keep their jobs, and construction jobs would soon disappear.
Breakaway states where the economy relies on imported and
exported products would be unable to do either. The federal government not only
controls all the air corridors crisscrossing the nation, but also all the
intrastate waterways. Without the FAA to regulate air traffic, or the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers to maintain ports or rivers like the Mississippi and the
Missouri, commerce would come to a standstill.
Defenseless
Seceding states would be left defenseless from outside aggression.
In 1860, state militias were funded entirely by the states. When the Civil War
started, they were able to raise an army from state-funded militia. But it
didn't last. The Confederate states were unable – perhaps unwilling – to raise
enough tax revenue to fund the rebel army. By the end of the war, the
Confederate Army was short of everything needed by its troops—clothing, shoes,
food, ammunition. Johnny Reb fought much of the war barefoot and starving.
Had the South successfully seceded, its army would have been no
match for the French army in Mexico. Napoleon III was keen on recapturing land
the first Napoleon reluctantly sold to the United States as part of the
Louisiana Purchase. Throughout the Civil War, French troops stood ready to
invade the American south had the opportunity arose.
Today, Washington, DC pays 95 percent of the costs to maintain
each state’s National Guard, the modern day organized state militia. Since Red states today are as reluctant to raise
taxes as their Civil War predecessors, it would be impossible for them to
maintain their state militias. Any border state that secedes from the Union
would see its state militia fall apart, leaving the state vulnerable to
invasion from more powerful countries such as Mexico, Canada or, in the case of
Alaska, Russia.
When our Founding Fathers created this country in the 18th
century, they originally founded a confederation of states. The loose bounds of
that confederacy made governance nearly impossible, so our Founders created the
Union.
In 1860, the seceding states also created a confederation. It
worked no better than the original confederation. Despite early rebel battle
victories, the Confederacy could not support its army or maintain itself as a
country.
There is no reason to believe a third try would be the charm.
