Confederate soldiers=terrorists

Works for me. The U.S. said in 1845 that the border was the Rio Grande. End of story. It happened on U.S. soil. Lincoln should have recognized that fact a year later.

 

Except that everyone else in the world said the border was still the Nueces. Which we'd agreed to in the treaty of 1819 when we bought Florida. The new border at the Rio Grande was disputed internationally.

There was a great deal of confusion over what happened and where and it seems to me that Lincoln is only counseling caution when he introduces the "spot resolutions." Which of course had no effect on anything.

 

What was disputed internationally doesn't matter. The U.S. dictated terms, not ask them.

It all worked out in the end. ;D

 

How does the US "dictate terms"?

And if the US government can dictate terms with impunity at all times in all cases, explain secession.

 

On the other hand, if the South wins, WWI is fought to a stalemate without the U.S. pushing the Allies over the top, the Kaiser keeps his country, and Hitler remains a starving artist. There would be no Treaty of Versailles, no war reparations and no sewing the seeds for Nazism.

 

Real simple actually. We said this is the way it's going to be. The Mexicans disputed it. We kicked the shit out of them and took the Southwest for our troubles. It was pretty much the same with secession. The Southern states said they were going to do something, the North said "no you aren't" and although it took four years, forced compliance.

The biggest kid on the playground makes the rules. You can disagree with him, but unless you've got the muscle to back up your disagreement, he still wins.

 

So the Mexicans were doing exactly what you advocate doing, which is fighting for what they thought was theirs.

Lot of contradictions in your logic so far.

Wouldn't it just be easier to find another reason not to like Lincoln?

 

Even if the South had won, it wouldn't have lasted as a single country very long. It had no manufacturing power. It's pre-war infrastructure, which was already terrible, was mostly destroyed during the war. The South was already dependent on the Brits before the war and would have been more so had it won, since it would have been years before it would have formed a working trade relationship with the Union. Europe (and likely the Union, once it recovered from a lost war) would have taken a no-holds-barred approach to the South and exploited the hell out of it. The small number of elites would have been prosperous for a short time until Europe and the Union exploited them for everything they were worth.

It would have been a Third World country, eventually bailed out and absorbed by the Union, and the whole process would have been moot. Much like it was anyway. The South was interested in maintenance of the status quo in a world that was changing, socially, technologically and economically. It didn't stand a chance, even if it won.

 

That assumes that the United State doesn't back Germany with the Confederacy backing the Allies which would have lead to an extension of WWI being fought on American soil.
The alternative timeline stuff gets interesting, the harder you look at it.
I've always been fascinated by it.

 

No contradictions at all, and I never faulted the Mexicans. I might fault their logic in thinking they could beat us in a fight, but I give them credit for trying. I fault Lincoln for not backing what was ultimately in the best interest of the U.S.

 

What Crash said...

This discussion reminds me of this:
Ogre: What if uh C-A-T really spelled dog?
Arnold Poindexter: Wow.
Harold Wormser: God.
Stewart: Yeah.
Arnold Poindexter: That's heavy Ogre. Dog.

If the South "won" I think they just would have been another Mexico, with people heading north to work, a screwed up economy and no shot at getting a BCS bid.

 

I like the "what if" history arguments. It's a fun topic for history buffs.