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There is a short book (I believe originally printed in a magazine) by MacKinlay Kantor called If the South Had Won the Civil War that I highly recommend.
Short plot summary: Lee wins at Gettysburg (by directly ordering Ewell's corps to attack Cemetery Hill on the first day, instead of making the order "if practicable" like in real life). Grant falls off a horse during the Vicksburg Campaign (which really happened) and dies (which didn't, obviously), which causes the Union to be defeated there. Lincoln is kidnapped in the confusion and Washington falls. In the peace treaty, Washington becomes the new Confederate capitol.
A couple decades later, Texas declares independence after they invade Oklahoma on their own.
The slaves are freed by the 1880s after a long period of unofficial individual manumission.
The Confederacy fights the Spanish in Cuba in the 1890s and eventually grants the island statehood.
The three nations remain peaceful and essentially act as one internationally until the sixties, when the book ends with talks towards reunification to combat the Soviets (who, like was mentioned in an earlier post, still own Alaska).
I believe that a scenario like that is, if idealistic, as likely as the suggestions of violence that many believe.
Of course, I also believe that the single worst thing that could have happened for the already-defeated South was the assassination of Lincoln, which led directly to Northern military rule and all of the perpetual hatred caused by Radical Republican Reconstruction.
I do think, though, that slavery was on the downswing at that point in American history, and just based on simple economic factors wouldn't have lasted very long (not just slave insurrection, but violence from poor freedmen and whites who would have had their wages artificially lowered by the institution). I think either the two sides eventually come together to act as a united front for threats to North America, or they become entangled in international alliances (Britain and France for the South, likely Germany for the North with the immigration of German and [Anti-British] Irish) and destroy each other by WWII.
This is a very important question in our history, though, so it is good that it is being discussed.
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"Final thought: I just rented Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. Frankly, it was the worst sports movie I've ever seen."
--Peter Schmuck, The (Baltimore) Sun
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