OAK, i would say immigration into Canada (and historically, Americans have been the largest immigrant group) shows that basically, the same people would have shown up whether or not England and America parted ways. I think that Hollywood, Motown, Daffy Duck--or things very like, would have arisen any way.
Having said that history is almost never inevitable, i'm obliged to say that the defeat of the South in the American civil war was, with specific qualifications, inevitable. Three factors made that defeat inevitable--of those, two were not inevitable events, but very highly probable events--and i'll mention those first.
The election of Abraham Lincoln assured the immediate secession of South Carolina, and the political climate to seat secession conventions in the other southern States. Prior to the war, Lincoln had run for the Senate (having already sat in the House) against a very popular and charismatic Democrat, Stephen Douglas. In a very peculiar move, they both agreed to a campaigning technique which would not be repeated until the 1970's--public debate. The tradition since the days of Jackson's administration and the dawning of "The Age of the Common Man" had been "stumping." Candidates would come into the clearing at a raw and newly-founded town, and stand up on the stump of a recently felled tree in the center of the town, and expound their "platform." It was considered fair play and good sport to heckle the speaker, and the loudest and most telling hecklers would be the speaker's opponents, as everyone running for an office made it a point to arrive on the same day. "Davey" Crockett, one of the most clueless politicians in the history of the United States House of Representatives, was so good at this, that he twice sat in the Tennessee House of Representatives, and, despite ample proof that he was useless to his constituents, succeeded twice in sitting in the U.S. House. In the staid environs of the "civilized" eastern seaboard, it was considered bad form for a candidate to appear publicly (a traditon followed by U.S. Presidents as late as the 1920's), and surrogates would do the "stump speeches" in the old colonies.
But Lincoln and Douglas agreed to meet and debate in the formal, courteous manner at seven key towns in the state of Illinois, and Lincoln's speeches from those debates have passed into political literary history. His most famous was the "House divided" speech, in which he foresaw and warned of the peril of civil war. In terms of the practice of politics, there have been few in our history to match ol' Abe. He was a perfect virago on the stump, and on the platforms of the debating stands that year, he showed his flexibility, and the quick and profound thinking which had made him one of the most sought after defense attorneys among the "circuit riders" of Illinois. His tactic, which he matured over the seven debates, was to back Douglas into a corner with the issue of slavery. It worked a profound political effect, but not the one Lincoln intended. Douglas, a "Favorite Son" to beat all favorite sons, buried Lincoln in the subsequent senatorial election. And Lincoln turned himself into--to use a modern analogy i'm sure you'll understand--the Bill Clinton of his age. He was the man the Southern reactionaries loved to hate. (Edit: Here, i went and got ye a link fer the debates:
Lincoln-Douglas debates[/color].)
In 1860, given the wide popularity of Douglas, and his great oratorial skills, the Democrats tagged him as their Presidential candidate. The Republicans (the modern party, now besmirched by the Shrub and Company) chose Lincoln, because it was then the home of the "radicals" (i crack me up whenever i type that), the abolitionists--and Lincoln was now clearly identified in the nation's collective mind as the anti-slavery candidate. The Whigs, a feeble political entity throughout their short life, put up their swan song, siphoning off a critical portion of the electorate--athough they had put up their last candidate in 1856, remnants of the party joined with remnants of the Know-Nothings (an 1850's anti-immigrant party) to form the Constitutional Union party, and chose Senator Bell of Tennessee as their candidate. Lincoln had so pressed Douglas in the Illinois debates that he had been forced to publicly denounce slavery, and he was now mistrusted in the South. The Democrats were in such disarray (hmmmm, how familiar), that the convention failed to choose a candidate, adjourned, and then reconvened, finally settling on Douglas. They tried to moderate their stance on slavery to appeal to southern voters, but it was useless--Lincoln had made Douglas "damaged goods" in the eyes of southerners. The former Vice President, John C. Breckenridge, Kentucky's favorite son, ran as our nation's first "Southern Democrat."
The election which followed in such uncertainty and politically wild times resulted in the foundation of the modern Republican party--had they not won this election, it is doubtful that they would have survived, they were a definite minority, and considered dangerously left-wing and abolitionist by most Americans (oh god, my sides are absotively splitting ! ! ! ). But the tidal wave which the Democrats ought to have mounted failed to materialize, as Douglas, Bell and Breckenridge fought for the majority of the electorate, and Lincoln carried the electoral votes in almost every state outside the South because his 30-40% represented more than any other candidate polled in those states--the Ripon Society had learned the lesson of machine politics well from Jackson's Democrats (created from the disaffected majority of Jefferson's old Republican party), and the voters loyally trooped to the polls to vote for "Honest Abe" (or, "The Original Gorilla," as he was known in the reactionary South, which was taking a swipe at Lincoln
and Darwin with that one).
The second event which leant inevitability to the South's defeat was the election of Jefferson Davis to the Presidency of the Confederate States of America. Davis had the same "log cabin" background as Lincoln, and, in fact, was born in Kentucky not very far from where Lincoln would be born. But their paths diverged fairly quickly. Davis was educated at Transylvania College in Kentucky, and then joined his family in the "cotton" rush into Mississippi and Alabama. He graduated the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1828, and then, in 1835, married the daughter of Zachary Taylor, who would be his commander in the Mexican War, and President after that war--Taylor's son Richard would lead Louisiana troops for the Army of Northern Virginia in the War Between the States.
Davis lead Alabama volunteers to Mexico, and, serving under his former father-in-law (his wife had died), fought courageously and with distinction, especially at Monterey. There, Davis lead his regiment in what may have been the most savage house-to-house fighting in American history--at least those Rangers in Mogadishu protrayed in
Blackhawk Down were not obliged to literaly tear down the walls to move from one house to the other. This had an effect which was as unlooked for as Lincoln's debating strategy. Davis deeply imbibed the most prevalent, but by no means the only, military doctrine of the South. This is to take up a good defensive position, and then fight savagely so as to so wound the enemy as to allow the force to go over to the offensive. This became the larger strategic policy in the Southern Confederacy during the war, meaning that the Federal armies often lost heavily attacking well-chosen Confederate positions, which advantage the Confederates squandered by then launching nearly suicidal attacks to drive off the Federals.
Davis grew so fond of his own military judgment, that by the time the war was being fought in earnest, he respected the military opinion of no man except Robert Lee, who was his military advisor. Lee was then generally derided in the South--he had gone to Charleston to organize the defenses, and had actually made white men take up picks and shovels to dig; they called him "The King of Spades." He was then sent into the impossible campaign in western Virginia in 1861, and, because he couldn't get the military idiots holding general rank under his command to cooperate, he got an undeserved reputation for timidity, and was known as "Granny Lee." In those crucial nine months from his return to Richmond, and taking command of the main army after Joe Johnston was wounded, Lee correctly tested the winds, and knew that no commander would continue to hold high positions without showing a constantly aggressive stance. Even someone as hopelessly petty, ignorant, divisive and incompetent as Braxton Bragg was long continued in command because he attacked the Federals whenever and wherever he could, which wasn't often, though, because he was usually bickering with his subordinates. He was Davis' friend, however, and, as noted above, Davis brooked no questioning of his military opinions.
When Lee took over from the wounded Johnston, and promptly renamed the Army of the Potomac to the Army of Northern Viriginia, at a time when that army was about as far from northern Virginia as they could get without leaving the state altogether--he signalled that he'd learned his tutelage well, and was ready for aggressive command. Many in Richmond were dismayed that Lee had been given the command, but one percipient officer (i think it was Harry Heth, although i don't recall for certain) said: "Why, the man's very name might be Audacity." Lee immedately put the army in shape for an offensive, and brought the mad deacon from the Valley of Virginia, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, to second the movement. Many military historians have faulted Lee for poor staff work, an unjust charge--there was no staff work done at all. Jackson, a stickler for discipline who more than once put general officers under arrest on the field of battle in the middle of a fight ("But General, we are out of cartridges!" "Give them the bayonet, Sir, and place yourself under arrest when the battle is over." "General, our cartridges are all wet from the rain!" "The enemy's cartridges are equally as wet; give them the bayonet, and place yourself under arrest."), followed Lee's orders to the letter. But he arrived two miles from the fight on the first day of the Seven Days, because Lee's lack of staff work meant that he had been given bad directions. He had not been ordered to find the enemy and attack, so he did not. The same performance was repeated on the second day. On the third day, Jackson told his guide, a young cavalry officer, to take him to Cold Harbor, as per his orders. Once again, Lee hadn't done the staff work, so the young man dutifully took Jackson to New Cold Harbor. Jackson became angry when he became certain that they were moving in the wrong direction, and the exasperated young man then turned the column, and headed for Old Cold Harbor. This resulted in Lee meeting with Jackson as the totally unnecessary battle of Glendale raged, and Jackson took his "give them the bayonet" attitude and his considerable anger after three days into that fight, and cost General Porter's Federals very heavy casualties--but at a price the South could not continue to pay.
At Savage Station, first "Prince" John Magruder, and then Benjamin Huger attacked well-entrenched federals repeatedly, without coordination and without support, because of the total lack of staff work, and Longstreet pouted because he had not been made senior to these officers, and kept his division standing in the road in default of other orders.
In the last fiasco of the campaign, the Federals fortified themselves on a knoll which rises like a sugar loaf from the flat plains by James River, Malvern Hill, with more than 150 field pieces. Dutifully following his orders, Jackson brought battery after battery up to the cleared fields below the hill, and in a perfect storm of shot and shell, emplaced them, only to see them put out of action in less time than it took them to unlimber. Finally, as the sun was setting, against the advice of every general officer present, Lee sent his infantry against that hill, and watched them be slaughtered.
General McClellan, "Little Mac," the beloved commander of the Federal Army of the Potomac, never had any stomach for a stand-up fight. With 130,000 troops to Lee's attacking force of about 55,000, he started running on the first day, and didn't stop until he was safely under the guns of the Fleet on James River a week later. Lee had horribly punished his own army with useless attacks, some nearly suicidal--and the South was delirious. From that time onward, Lee began his stately climb to Southern Sainthood. Davis looked down from on high, and figuratively intoned: "It is well."
The final factor which finally makes the southern defeat inevitable was the political system, or lack thereof. State's rights were enshrined as the holy of holies in the political mind of the South, and therefore, an area defense became the strategic background. Southerners would stand on the defensive, and they would yield not one acre willingly. The most dramatic example is Florida. When South Carolina began shelling Fort Sumter, and then Florida seceeded, a quick-thinking and -acting young naval Lieutenant took a small band of sailors and Marines and took the naval station at Pensacola, driving out the militia, who were horrible shocked by the ill-mannered intrusion, and largely drunk on captured federal food and spirits. The sailors and Marines held out until a relief expedition arrived, and the Federals held the only real estate in Florida worth having for the rest of the war. One expedition was launched into the interior, but was easily repulsed by fewer than 4000 Floridians. About 3000 of them there Florida boys went north to fight with "Bobby Lee," or "Marse Robert" as the troops now affectionately called him--and 15000 troops spent the rest of the war staring at the swampy forests of that state, taking no part in the war. The case was similar throughout the South. Lee knew better, it was he who advised Albert Sidney Johnston to strip the unthreatened Gulf Coast of troops in order to put together an army to attack Grant at Shiloh. But this was a mindset that even the great Lee could not overcome. It was general throughout the South. When Atlanta finally fell to the Federals, Governor Brown sat regally unperturbed in Milledgeville with 40,000 new uniforms, 40,000 stand of arms, and months worth of rations, while the Army of Tennessee bled and starved to the North.
So OAK, there was never any danger that you would be bereft of your beloved Daffy, the fantasies of Hollywood and the melodies of Motown . . .
Ooooooooo . . .
I betcha wonder how i knew
'Bout your plans to make me blue
With some other guy you knew before
Between the two of us guys
You know i love you more
You took me by surprise
I must say
When i found out yesterday . . .
Ooo, ooo, i heard it through the grapevine
Not much longer would you be mine . . .
Gawking, setanta. Did you get all this info through the grapevine, or were you born knowing it? 
