May I?
No one can know what we would have turned into but the South was not happy with what the North was turning into. The South was against big centralized government and wanted what was truer to what the Founding Fathers put in place, individual states united. That would be States Rights and all that goes with that.
Had the South won their independence the North would be what it is now I expect. I’d like to believe though that the Southland would have been less intrusive, clung to States rights and less taxed.
I live down here and even now, even with the the intrusion of the Federal Government, we are less taxed and live with less regulation.
I believe that the south was very much for big government. The variety they favored may might have been less big centralized government, but in practice they've been strongly for big decentralized government. There's no bigger government than one with the aim of suppressing one group of people for the benefit of another. Some of the worst abuses of freedom in our nation have been in the name of "States' Rights". There's a lot of things I admire about the South, but its Democratic Party heavy handed government is not one of them.
Had the South won their independence the North would be what it is now I expect. I’d like to believe though that the Southland would have been less intrusive, clung to States rights and less taxed.
In one way government in the North would be less taxed because there would not be the net flow of government funds from the rest of the country to the South. But the South would have to pay it's own way so taxes might have to be raised in Dixie.
I live down here and even now, even with the the intrusion of the Federal Government, we are less taxed and live with less regulation.
Maybe the south should raise their taxes some so the rest of the country can get a break. The greatest States Right for northern states is to see the end of the flow of federal funds to the old Confederate states.
“I’d like to believe though that the Southland would have been less intrusive, clung to States rights and less taxed.”
Not to be contrary, but the Jim Crow laws of the South were only repealed about 50 years ago, and only after being dragged kicking and screaming by the Civil Rights Act. So who exactly are you talking about when you say less intrusive, and less taxed?
Considering the precedent set by Jefferson Davis, of an over-reaching and intrusive government, a minimal respect for states rights, and the proposal of confiscatory level income taxes, I don't think the South would have turned out as you hoped.
You're right. Here in Tennessee we stopped an income tax and amended our state constitution to limit marriage to one man and one woman. Try doing that in a New England state and watch how fast the rich plutocrats who govern those places slap you down.