What if the Cotton Gin Was Never Invented?

I considered having the Kaiser win WW1 here since in a world in which today's South never existed, neither would our buddy Woodrow. Also, without the Civil War the US would be a less unified country and less expansionistic. Thus, the US would never get involved in WW1 and the Germans would win the Kaiserschlacht of spring 1918. In the end I thought it was too much a stretch though. What do you think?

Also, I really dislike a "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" since it viewed the people of the 6th century with such condescension. There is no correlation between technological level and general intelligence. If a 19th century man knew how to make guns in the 6th century, some clever blacksmith would have figured it out and caused an arm's race. Also, a large part of it seemed to be American chest beating and poking blame at Britain's class system at the time