ShermanPosting

I've always wondered what would have happened if the Confederacy was left to its own devices. Thry had a clear vision, but it was intensely nearsighted.

Free chattel labour was appealing for a farming economy in 1860, but it's less of a selling point elsewhere. You're right on the cusp of major industrial and trchnological advancement, while clutching to a labour pool that you don't want learning to read and probably wouldn't trust with machinery. You're not moving up the value chain that way.

So you've got a cash-crop dependent, export centric economy, who is about to be caught with its pants down when other countries start to fire up steam and petrol-powered agricultural equipment. You're also pointing a target on your back as consumers are becoming more sophisticated and concepts like boycotts and sanctions are developing.

Give it 50 years, and they'd halve their per-capita GDP and either be a weird novelty for slavery tourism, or the "secret sauce" behind sketchy impossibly-cheap clothing and foodstuffs where the vendor doesn't want to proudly boast "made in CSA" on the label.