the Confederacy winds up having to admit that there needs to be some
form of Federal government to keep it secure with regards to the rest
of the world. Otherwise, it's less than a dozen microcountries that
can be picked off one by one, or especially by an internal threat.

You'd think that they'd know this, based on the experience of the 13
colonies that just became independent of England. They tried a very
loose association of sorts before the Constitution was written up and
started in 1787.