Could they have won in any way?

>this is damn near half the country breaking away, and Washington isn't just going to let that go.

It's not Washington that they would have to break, it's the Northern public. Something the South came damn near close to actually accomplishing, pic related.

>new york's irish niggers are the north public

I don't know much about the war, but it makes me wonder wether a civil disobedience campaign wouldn't have had a chance of success.
>Local officials not enforcing cotton tariffs
>Local police not liberating slaves
Would the north have been mobilized to war like that if it wasn't for the declaration of secession?

rocks in a stream

Unless they got Federal authorities to publicly overreact in a violent manner, probably not.

Civil disobedience wasn't really feasible as a political tactic until the advent of instantly accessible mass media. Radio, TV, the internet. The main reason the Civil Rights movement a century later was so successful was because Martin Luther King understood the potential for manipulating public opinion via mass media, his opponents on the other hand embarrassed themselves by using heavy-handed tactics in front of TV crews.

I guess in that regard, MLK lived up to his namesake.

Pregnant Anne Frank traveling the South on a USO tour to motivate them.

delete this

yes.
They had a very brief window to do it in though and they squandered it almost immediatley.
When McClellan was forming his plan to invade Tennessee, New Orleans (which was added later), and Virginia the army was much more disorganized than he previously thought, which caused a ton of delays especially with regard to Tennessee. The CSA fucked up big time with the pre emptive invasion of Kentucky which won them absolutley nothing and instead triggered an earlier invasion of Tennessee, resulting in huge victories for the union at Nashville and Shilo and others.
On top of that, the CSA did essentially nothing to stop New Orleans from being occupied, instead focusing all their naval efforts on ironclads on the east coast, not in the gulf.
But even with these mistakes, they still had a chance. The Union was reeling after McClellan was ordered to leave the peninsula, despite Richmond being effectivley trapped between him and John Pope, leaving Pope to do what he did best and fuck up monumentally.

So now with the CSA heading into Maryland, even without McClellans army of the Potomac nearby it was not likely that they would have attempted an attack on Washington, but instead would have sabatoged its supplies, first by destroying its water supply (something they really should have put more effort into) and then by cutting it off by rail.
If Lee had somehow been able to reach Baltimore he very well could have struck a major military blow to the Union, whose people were hyper focused on the virginan front, therefore undoing in their hearts and minds any successes gained in the west.
Now of course this didnt happen because instead Lee was defeated at Antietam, but he could have avoided that battle altogether if he hadnt spent so much time at Harpers Ferry, something he had no real reason to go after.
Now im a little more lenient on McClellan than most but if Lee had more time to lure McClellan into a position where Lee felt more comfortable fighting, Lee is gonna win that one 9 times out of 10. A victory in Maryland that jeapordized or even took Baltimore could push the Union into negotiation since the democratic party and moderate republicans would would likely lose faith altogether in Lincoln. The midterms a few months after Antietam could see a major shift in washington towards peace.
Something else that would certainly help the CSA in this regard is that they now have a much better chance at counting on British support. The Brits in most scenarios are still unlikely to actually do anything but after Antietam it was something the Union knew they would not have to worry about, but if that campaign had gone differently it may have remained an important question and talking point in debates on whether or not to continue the war.
So yeah. A major victory in Union territory as long as its before 1863, ideally with some better planning in the west, could have given them the win.

The Confederacy's worst strategic mistake was focusing on attempting to bring English and French intervention rather than finding ways to erode Northern morale. Even if Britain and France had joined the war, their commitment would've been half-hearted at best. What they needed to do was break the North's heart to fight.

true but getting foreign aid, or at least keeping the possibility open, would be neccesary for intimidating the government as well.
I think the scenario i laid out would have significant impact on northern morale.

They were on the wrong side of history. So, no.

What the fuck is this