Residents of the Confederate States might still be celebrating their Independence Day over one hundred and fifty years later...
<span>Paul J. SaundersJuly 3, 2014</span>TweetShareShare
Some American conservatives appear to revel in discussing what the world might be like if the United States didn’t exist—a sentiment today indulged by Dinesh D’Souza’s new film “America.” Nevertheless, while Americans are justifiably proud of their past, and of their contributions to the world, independence for England’s North American colonies was bound to happen sooner or later. And the nation that emerged was likely to draw heavily upon its colonial master’s classically liberal political and legal traditions, though possibly expressed differently if the country emerged later with other leaders. Still, this world-without-America speculation can be both thought-provoking and entertaining. In that spirit, as Americans celebrate July 4, they might also consider an independence day that didn’t happen and how different America and the world might be if it had.
If the American Civil War had ended other than it did—or if the federal government and the northern states decided to pursue a negotiated separation from the south—residents of the Confederate States of America (CSA) might still be celebrating their Independence Day over one hundred and fifty years later, perhaps on December 24 (the day in 1860 when South Carolina declared its independence) or on February 9 (when, in 1861, the thirteen southern states formed the CSA). It is, of course, impossible to know what the USA, the CSA, and the world would look like after this alternate history—there are too many variables over too much time. But it is an interesting thought experiment nonetheless.
