How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America

How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America by Heather Cox Richardson

I was expecting a more thorough analysis than what this book contained. The thesis was that southerners advocated for something closer to an oligopic leadership. A few wealthy white plantation-owning men would control the country. Their friends and relatives would have leadership position. A few select white males would have a chance to obtain some say in the country. Others would be excluded. They used the name of individual rights to push this narrative before the Civil War. After the war, they continued to do their best to exclude the others. Donald Trump is the culmination of this quest to provide narrow elite control.

The ironic part of the story is that the south did not win so much as the north lost by misjudgment. the northern Republicans hoped that by granting statehood to western territories, they would extend their dominance over the southern Democrats. Alas, those westerners did not do as they were expected. The western territories extended the right to vote to women before they became states. (Alas, observers were shocked when Utah women, after receiving the right to vote, voted unexpectedly for the polygamist candidate.) Once states, the western states were likely to align themselves with the southerners instead of the northerners. Their style of "independence" did not match what those of the north expected.

I do wonder about the counterfactual. Where would the south be if they had won and remained a separate country? Slavery was already on its way out throughout the world. The plantation economy was also going out in favor of industrialization. Would the south have later petitioned to rejoin the US? Or perhaps they would try to stay independent. Was "losing" the best way to keep the southern ideology in place?