[Bubba Ho-Tep]

Slavery, the cornerstone of the Confederate constitution, cannot operate an industrial economy. It could never achieve today's high tech accomplishments, and therefore would always be an economic failure.

Most likely the south would have ended up looking like any of the other former slave economies around the Caribbean. A big version of Jamaica or Cuba.

One frequently finds people on these threads arguing that the south would eventually have rejoined the union. I wonder if the United States would have readmitted them.

[Pecos]

The terms under which governments of the former states of the Confederacy were certified were very harsh (but then, rebellion is usually treated that way). If the separation had lasted longer, I suspect that the dynamics would have been even more extreme, and made the southern states even less likely to have wanted to re-join.

As I mentioned in my last post on this subject, the Harry Turtledove alternative history series on this topic is really enjoyable to read. That series runs from the civil War to the end of an alternative WWII. One of his favorite plot twists is to take small, pivotal, events, turn them upside down and then suggest an outcome. Do you remember the orders from General Lee that were lost just before a battle and then found by Union troops? Turtledove has those order s being found by Confederate troops, thus eliminating the opsec failure.