"If we can NOT salvage this country, why not start another one in the same mold and try again? THAT is what the Confederacy was attempting to do. Whats wrong with That?"
TR,
We have been over this before, but let us do it again. The southern states chose to give up their voice in the central government of their own accord. I think that was the first mistake at that time in our existance. They still had a place in congress but they chose not to take their place or use their voice. Even tho they did that, they still had the courts and until they fired on the U S flag at Sumter there was a large portion of the north that was ready for them to leave, but once they fired that shot, there was no turning back. Men in the north lined up to serve once Lincoln made his call for men to take back the federal holdings in the south that were seized. The northern factories started producing materials of war and the south did not, due to the fact that they did not have the ability to do that. I think what the Confederacy was trying to do was bow to the forces in the south who thought they were going to loose their wealth. BY that I mean the slaves who did their bidding. As you know, the agitators (read planter/slave owners) tried to agitate in Columbia with little success so they came back home to Charleston to do their agitating. They promised the poor dirt farmers who would do most of the bidding for the fat cats of Charleston, that they would take care of their families while they, the poor fought the enemy (Read that the Lincoln administration). The problem is that they found out that they could make more money during the hostilities if they planted cotton and tobbaco and shiped it through the blockade. By the way, 3/4's of all that was shipped out made it out past the US Navy. But the ships did not return empty, they broght back coffee and tea and fine wines and other things like that for guess who, the same fat cats who wanted the poor men of the south to fight their war for them. Oh yes, they did their service also. They sent their sons to serve the effort as well. They had their sons serve as postmasters and local county officers and all that other hard work that had to be done while the poor of the south was off getting shot while their familes sat at home starving. Some women were resilient in that they were able to organize food riots and in some cases take what little they could from the merchants or confederate officials by making threats while holding their husbands loaded shotgun. ONe has to feed their children the best they can.
I don't even have time to go into the disfunction that existed in the confederacy. BY that I mean Davis having to contend with Milton of Florida and Vance of North Carolina or Brown of Georgia. Or putting up with Wigfall from Texas, who the great Sam Houston thought to be a nut case. Or Toombs who might have been made President if they could have kept him sober long enough to take the oath.
Yes, TR, my friend, I have to agree with you the Confederacy would have lasted for thousands of years if given the chance.
Have a great day, my Friend.
FC