What were the south advantages in the civil war?

The primary advantage of the Confederacy was that this civil war was not the normal kind of civil war. In fact, this was so much the truth that the war had other names. One popular one was the War Between the States. With that said, the South's main advantage was that it did not need to gain power over the US government and defeat the Federal armies in order to begin its reign over the United States. The advantage was it needed to discourage the Federal government from its goal of suppressing the South's rebellion. The idea was sound enough. It's answered by this question; why should we ( the US ) lose the thousands of lives of our men and women in order to keep a group of states in our Union, when each side despises each other? Why not let them go? The question (s ) is not as foolish as it would sound today. In 1861, however, no one knew the future, or could predict what a bordering nation ( the Confederacy ) might have on the future?

It's clear that if people knew that 600,000 soldiers would die as a result of a war, somehow, somewhere, by any means possible, there must be another solution. The problem was, no one knew that. More than likely, with the knowledge of mass destruction on the horizon, a Lincoln like slave owner compensation plan would have been successful. Who can argue against that with a future seeing telescope?