Is the US destined to go to war with an Independent CSA

[IchBinDieKaiser]

We've all read books and timelines involving an Independent CSA. There are a number of ways of which this could be achieved but what I am wondering is that are the CSA and USA destined to become bitter enemies and fight several wars as occurs in every timeline, or are they more likely to become the best of friends?

I understand that this depends on how the south achieved independence. If it was peaceful, than the relations between the USA and CSA would most likely be peaceful. If it was a hard fought war without foreign aid than I would think it would be tense at first but by the end of the century things would have cooled down and the two would be pretty friendly. However if the CSA had achieved victory after a hard fought war with foreign assistance I can imagine the CSA and USA being more enbittered with eachother.

These are just my thoughts, who else wants to chime in?

[XNM]

Well, the US seceded from Britain, fought two wars and were rather bitter towards one another for a while, and then became the best of friends later on. I don't see why the same thing can't be true for the USA and CSA -- eventually all the revanchists and their grandchildren will be dead, and the two can recognize their similarities and such.

Though, the South maintaining slavery and/or oppression of blacks wouldn't help relations.

[Perkeo]

IMO, the CSA won't last either way, because it is simply too backward: A country whose economy was based on agriculture and slavery, created way after the dawn of the industrial age and in the decade when even Czarist Russia abolished serfship...

The US might not even need a war to accomplish reunification. They just have to wait for the economic collapse of the CSA and then either have them creeping back into the Union or leave them as a third world neighbor.

[Malta Shah]

Nations that break off from other nations tend to get into life and death struggles alot. Germany and France. Serbia and Kosovo. India and Pakistan. Yaddayadda.

[Corbell Mark IV]

Well, the US seceded from Britain, fought two wars and were rather bitter towards one another for a while, and then became the best of friends later on. I don't see why the same thing can't be true for the USA and CSA -- eventually all the revanchists and their grandchildren will be dead, and the two can recognize their similarities and such.

Though, the South maintaining slavery and/or oppression of blacks wouldn't help relations.

The South would try to industrialize, probably pretty quickly if for no other reason than to build cannons!

Assuming industry grew, that implies they are selling to someone, and all their customers are going to be giving them an increasingly hard time about slavery.


And once formal slavery is over, that would be enough until, hell the 50s? the 70s?

[Dalmighty]

The South would try to industrialize, probably pretty quickly if for no other reason than to build cannons!

Assuming industry grew, that implies they are selling to someone, and all their customers are going to be giving them an increasingly hard time about slavery.


And once formal slavery is over, that would be enough until, hell the 50s? the 70s?

Without the Civil War, you'll get increasing numbers of militant abolitionists in the South, that'll create unrest, worsening the economic position of the CSA. The South's economy's going to crash within a decade of seccession, depending on the timing, things may turn out for the worse.

It'll either have to reform, or crack down.

[Snake Featherston]

It's not destined, no. The very problematic nature of a viable CS state will lead the USA to adopt a PRC-North Korea attitude of "Let's ignore this as long as we can and we don't really so much *want* to try anything here" for quite some time. The two would not be friendly neighbors by any sense of the word but if the CSA can find a means to last a long time, even as a dysfunctional military dictatorship trying to save a slave economy the USA will not be likely to want to absorb it. However if that dictatorship in itself starts coming unglued and some Confederate Pancho Villa starts raiding the US border the Great Reunification War will create the Reunited States of America.

[Fiver]

It's not inevitable, but a second USA-CSA war is very likely. There are several territorial disagreements that will not disappear with independence.

It's clear that the Confederacy considered all slave-holding states theirs by right, and invaded and set up puppet governments in Missouri and Kentucky in OTL. Actually holding either is unlikely; CSA logistics were poor. They're probably going to lose West Virginia and East Tennessee at a minimum as well. Revanchism will not evaporate after the ACW.

The CSA also obviously thought they deserved a route to the Pacific and all of the mineral producing parts of the West they could get ahold of. In OTL they failed abjectly in attempts to expand west into California or north into Colorado. The postbellum Confederacy economy is going to make acquiring those gold and silver fields increasingly attractive. And the only way to get a transcontinental railroad is by seizing territory.

If, as seems likely, the Mississippi River ends up under Union control, the CSA will be split in two. If the CSA maintains control of the Mississippi, that will affect the economy of the Midwest. The CSA is unlikely to accept the first option; the USA is unlikely to accept the second.

[Grey Wolf]

The Union did not immediately go to war with the seceding South in OTL leading many to think that there might be a peaceful parting of the ways. I have also read that Union commissioners actually sold weapons to the South in this ante-bellum period, not expecting them to be used against them

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

[MerryPrankster]

I don't anything is really "destined," but it's really likely, especially if the Confederacy "acts out" toward the neighbors or violently implodes in such a way that could cause problems for the rump U.S.

("Confederate Pancho villas," as Snake puts it, or massive refugee flights, that sort of thing.)

[Lost the game]

Maybe some general seizes power and becomes a confederate Dear Leader?

[Thucydides]

I could also see later US Presidents making an addendum to the Monroe Doctrine about the CSA. Particularly if the CSA is weak and decentralized then the US could certainly assert itself if say, Texas and Louisiana decide to go on an adventure down in South America.

[Evan]

I have also read that Union commissioners actually sold weapons to the South in this ante-bellum period, not expecting them to be used against them

And I've read that those commissioners did that because they favored the South...

[Snake Featherston]

Maybe some general seizes power and becomes a confederate Dear Leader?

That actually is not a guarantee the USA would intervene assuming the dictator is willing to keep the CSA together and under "law and order". However such a dictatorship would have increasing problems perpetuating itself and would lead CS politics to be as stable as those of the Saigon regime over time. The USA's not going to be immediately enthusiastic about invading a country the size of Western Europe which is very close to it in culture, particularly if as US revanchism may well assume reunification is inevitable by peace, so why screw it up with another war and shooting first? The TL-191 scenario of endless CS-US fighting is not likely, the USA might well wind up drawn into such a war but it would be contingent on circumstances, not by design.

[ImmortalImpi]

Nations that break off from other nations tend to get into life and death struggles alot. Germany and France. Serbia and Kosovo. India and Pakistan. Yaddayadda.

Germany and France didn't break off from one another.

[Snake Featherston]

Nations that break off from other nations tend to get into life and death struggles alot. Germany and France. Serbia and Kosovo. India and Pakistan. Yaddayadda.

Er, India and Pakistan aren't really so much in life-or-death struggles so much as continual quasi-limited warfare. There are counterexamples to these as well, for instance Finland and USSR, North Korea and South Korea.......

[Turquoise Blue]

Look at North and South Korea. One is a third-world dictatorship, the other is a first-world democracy. Visualize them as the Confederate States and the United States, respectively. The absence of technology, and the massive cost of reconstruction will be enough to keep the Union from trying to bring the South back in the fold. You will have to keep them apart for at least 50 years before this happens, so at least one more war between the States. This scenario is a tad unplausible, because the Confederates would likely industralize.

[David S Poepoe]

Maybe some general seizes power and becomes a confederate Dear Leader?

Well, we shouldn't rule out the possibility of some general seizing power and becomes a Union Dear Leader.

[David S Poepoe]

We've all read books and timelines involving an Independent CSA. There are a number of ways of which this could be achieved but what I am wondering is that are the CSA and USA destined to become bitter enemies and fight several wars as occurs in every timeline, or are they more likely to become the best of friends?

Nothing is destined. The similarities and common roots of both the US and CS imply that they could get along after a fact. There are three nations inhabiting the North American continent and for all the conflicts in their shared past they get along fairly well

The idea of a continued conflict between the US and CS rests more with the chauvinistic view that United States is the end all and be all and anyone not wanting to be part of it is to be vilified.

[Snake Featherston]

Well, we shouldn't rule out the possibility of some general seizing power and becomes a Union Dear Leader.

Actually we can't rule this out in the CSA's sense, not least because if it wins independence at any point after 1863 Kirby Smithdom sets an evil precedent. If it wins independence before it, indiscriminate use of the army and mass slaughter as police forces still set the precedent. By contrast the Union saw plenty of limits on US generals like Burnside, and the Union never went anywhere equivalent with militarization and politics. Absurd point is absurd.

[Snake Featherston]

Nothing is destined. The similarities and common roots of both the US and CS imply that they could get along after a fact. There are three nations inhabiting the North American continent and for all the conflicts in their shared past they get along fairly well

The idea of a continued conflict between the US and CS rests more with the chauvinistic view that United States is the end all and be all and anyone not wanting to be part of it is to be vilified.

No, it relies on the reality that the CSA would be hideously unstable and that if US towns on the border are getting raided by CS cavalry or "slave catchers" then there will be casus belli. The best case scenario in this kind of split is North Korea/South Korea with the Union as South Korea and the CSA as North Korea, dictatorial, isolationist, but a dystopian basketcase that doesn't bring problems elsewhere.

The CSA, rooted in holding one third of its population slaves for the benefit of a minority of the other two thirds, is built on a fundamentally unsound principle and the reality of their co-existence would be akin to India and Pakistan more than the USA and Canada. The idea that the CSA would last as a stable democracy tends to rely on fundamentally blinkered views of what the CSA actually was, though it could be for some time a stable dictatorship.

[MerryPrankster]

And Snake's point about "slave catchers" is a good one. I can easily imagine some overly-enthusiastic slave-patrol people chasing escaped slaves into Union territory and getting into gunfights with the locals. Things mushroom from there.

[Snake Featherston]

And Snake's point about "slave catchers" is a good one. I can easily imagine some overly-enthusiastic slave-patrol people chasing escaped slaves into Union territory and getting into gunfights with the locals. Things mushroom from there.

Especially if the territory is a former Union slave state the CSA already claimed as territory it wished to annex. Then things would really be bad as this would intersect with not only CS institutions but with claims on US territory, which no self-respecting government would ever permit.....:eek:

[MAlexMatt]

The CSA, rooted in holding one third of its population slaves for the benefit of a minority of the other two thirds, is built on a fundamentally unsound principle

And yet the Romans built an empire of a thousand years on that principle.

I think what this view of the CSA is ultimately based on is a confusion of morality with reality. Because CSA was built on a morally bankrupt conception of society, it must have been politically and economically bankrupt, too. Because a CSA desperate for life in the last few years of a war for survival did some terrible things, it must be in the very DNA of Confederate governance to do those things.

The reality is inherently more complicated.

[AHIMPERIALIST]

Since over time the CSA would become both economically and militarily inferior to the United States, I see no reason why they'd wish to reacquire what would amount to a 3rd World country.

[Snake Featherston]

And yet the Romans built an empire of a thousand years on that principle.

I think what this view of the CSA is ultimately based on is a confusion of morality with reality. Because CSA was built on a morally bankrupt conception of society, it must have been politically and economically bankrupt, too. Because a CSA desperate for life in the last few years of a war for survival did some terrible things, it must be in the very DNA of Confederate governance to do those things.

The reality is inherently more complicated.

I think that the Romans did that in a time when slavery had no economically superior alternatives and when they were the largest, strongest empire in their vicinity. Rome is a very misleading guide to what a 19th-20th Century Confederacy would be. The CSA was never pretending to be democratic in its high tide, it was a state of, by, and for the planter class, and this was underscored by the 20 Slave Law. And far more so by the government's backlash to the backlash against that law. Such a dictatorship would actually be far more stable than an attempt to cube a circle by building "democracy" on a huge slave population and oligarchic politics, and would be paradoxically more "democratic" as the CS Army is the only institution transcending all states and classes in the new nation, just as the Continental Army was in the USA, but in a situation where its politics have no means to go lighter and softer.

The paradox in a CS military dictatorship is that it's actually the most politically workable situation because it *is* the core of CS nationalism and *would* transcend problems of class and regionalism. The dictatorship would build the CSA out of Jefferson Davis's foundation and like other dictatorships in similar situations IOTL will avoid aggressive foreign policies endangering its monopoly on power. This doesn't predestine war, it if anything staves it off for at least two generations, when the CSA will seem as much a geopolitical fixture as the USSR was in the 1980s.

Since over time the CSA would become both economically and militarily inferior to the United States, I see no reason why they'd wish to reacquire what would amount to a 3rd World country.

I do: Confederate collapse meaning border raids of a relatively large-scale and lethal sort and fear that its collapse means direct European intervention in what was once US territory, as well as reviving Revanchist claims.

[iddt3]

And yet the Romans built an empire of a thousand years on that principle.

I think what this view of the CSA is ultimately based on is a confusion of morality with reality. Because CSA was built on a morally bankrupt conception of society, it must have been politically and economically bankrupt, too. Because a CSA desperate for life in the last few years of a war for survival did some terrible things, it must be in the very DNA of Confederate governance to do those things.

The reality is inherently more complicated.
Roman Slavery was not Southern Slavery, don't conflate the two. Roman slavery wasn't racialy based, and often the best and brightest slaves were manumated. For educated persons from poorer areas it could even be a career path. Southern slavery on the other hand is built on the brutal dehumanization of a different race of peoples, combined with the marginalization of poor whites to the benefit of a ruling planter class.

[Anticlimacus]

Most of what you have posted is reasonable. However we keep on seeing TL's and maps in which CSA an USA both expand into Spanish America. Why don't we get rid of all those clichés in which the CSA acquires part or all of Mexico, Cuba...

[BELFAST]

I think war between the CSA and USA does not have to happen.
Lot depends how damaged the USA is by the war.
if more states tried to seceded form the union this could start another conflict.

[BELFAST]

IMO, the CSA won't last either way, because it is simply too backward: A country whose economy was based on agriculture and slavery, created way after the dawn of the industrial age and in the decade when even Czarist Russia abolished serfship...

The US might not even need a war to accomplish reunification. They just have to wait for the economic collapse of the CSA and then either have them creeping back into the Union or leave them as a third world neighbor.

CSA was the richer part of America before the civil war due to it is exports of cotton and tobacco, etc to Europe.
Industry in the north was not efficient and was protected by tariff from European competition.
Slavery would end in the CSA when it it was not long economical viable.
The CSA with tariffs on trade with Europe could have be a viable country.

[Snake Featherston]

CSA was the richer part of America before the civil war due to it is exports of cotton and tobacco, etc to Europe.
Industry in the north was not efficient and was protected by tariff from European competition.
Slavery would end in the CSA when it it was not long economical viable.
The CSA with tariffs on trade with Europe could have be a viable country.

Slavery would not end when it was no longer viable any more than the USSR ended Communism in the 1970s when it was clearly falling behind the West. Slavery was not just an economic system, it was enfolded into the ideology of the Confederate state.

[Fiver]

Since over time the CSA would become both economically and militarily inferior to the United States, I see no reason why they'd wish to reacquire what would amount to a 3rd World country.

The 19th Century was the heyday of conquering economically and military inferior nations. I would have thought you were familiar with the concept of imperialism. ;)

[MerryPrankster]

Most of what you have posted is reasonable. However we keep on seeing TL's and maps in which CSA an USA both expand into Spanish America. Why don't we get rid of all those clichés in which the CSA acquires part or all of Mexico, Cuba...

After some discussion with AHP, my "steampunk TL" featuring an independent Confederacy that later collapses and is reabsorbed by the U.S. has the Confederacy acquiring parts of Mexico in a devil's deal with Maximillian to defeat the Juaristas, but an attempt to expand into Cuba gets severely jacked by the Spanish.

[MerryPrankster]

Since over time the CSA would become both economically and militarily inferior to the United States, I see no reason why they'd wish to reacquire what would amount to a 3rd World country.

By that standard, Germany would never have reunited and South Korea would not be collecting a tax to fund the inevitable uber-expenses of rebuilding North Korea after reunification.

And then there's sheer pride at making the efforts of those who broke off part of the United States for their own selfish reasons all for naught.

[Fiver]

And Snake's point about "slave catchers" is a good one. I can easily imagine some overly-enthusiastic slave-patrol people chasing escaped slaves into Union territory and getting into gunfights with the locals. Things mushroom from there.

Alternatively, abolitionists and USCT veterans might raid across the border to free slaves and things escalate. There's also the risk of nasty guerilla war on both sides of the border.

[Fiver]

CSA was the richer part of America before the civil war due to it is exports of cotton and tobacco, etc to Europe.

The south had higher personal wealth due to the skyrocketing price of slaves, but the rest of the country was more prosperous. The CSA economy and infrastructure were severely damaged by the war and that damage was largely self-inflicted.

Industry in the north was not efficient and was protected by tariff from European competition.

The 1860 Census shows it was more efficient than southern industry. In OTL, the blockade actually helped protect fledgling CSA industry, but the end of the war will make it hard for CSA industry to compete with foreign manufactures.

Slavery would end in the CSA when it it was not long economical viable.

In OTL, mechanical cotton picking became practical in 1943 and widespread sometime in the 1950s.

[Fiver]

After some discussion with AHP, my "steampunk TL" featuring an independent Confederacy that later collapses and is reabsorbed by the U.S. has the Confederacy acquiring parts of Mexico in a devil's deal with Maximillian to defeat the Juaristas, but an attempt to expand into Cuba gets severely jacked by the Spanish.

That sounds vastly more credible and interesting than the average independent CSA timeline.

[hairysamarian]

...all their customers are going to be giving them an increasingly hard time about slavery.

Worse, from the Confederate point of view, is that all their customers would be giving them an increasingly hard time about prices, just because they can.

"Dear Confederate States: We are again reducing the price we are willing to pay for cotton. We know you need our support and that you haven't got any other economy to fall back on. Furthermore, you need our capital investment to even dream about industrialization on a meaningful scale. Welcome to eternal dependency. Sincerely, your British and French leash-holders."

[Dave Howery]

Slavery would not end when it was no longer viable any more than the USSR ended Communism in the 1970s when it was clearly falling behind the West. Slavery was not just an economic system, it was enfolded into the ideology of the Confederate state.

?? if they can't make a living at it, then slavery will end. It might not be a sudden end, but if the economic tide turns against slavery being profitable, then plantation style slavery will go away. I suppose they might keep 'house slaves' around for a while. I'd think that mechanization more than anything else would put an end to plantation slavery... sooner or later, someone in the south will invest in machinery, and start making higher profits than his neighbors...

[hairysamarian]

I'd think that mechanization more than anything else would put an end to plantation slavery..

The one piece of mechanization that might have such an effect would be the cotton combine, and a working example was not developed until 1942. That's a long time to wait for salvation via technology.

[Dave Howery]

The one piece of mechanization that might have such an effect would be the cotton combine, and a working example was not developed until 1942. That's a long time to wait for salvation via technology.

yeah, that part would suck. Still, my point stands...

[Corbell Mark IV]

Especially if the territory is a former Union slave state the CSA already claimed as territory it wished to annex. Then things would really be bad as this would intersect with not only CS institutions but with claims on US territory, which no self-respecting government would ever permit.....:eek:

Or the SOuth, not wanting another bloodbath that they suffered in far more than the North might change their behavior based on the new circumstances.

One thing to play fast and loose with the rules when you have friends in high place ie governors, Senators, President(?).

Now that the North is a larger, more powerful nation who might send punitive raids instead of legal, easily ignored complaints...

[Snake Featherston]

?? if they can't make a living at it, then slavery will end. It might not be a sudden end, but if the economic tide turns against slavery being profitable, then plantation style slavery will go away. I suppose they might keep 'house slaves' around for a while. I'd think that mechanization more than anything else would put an end to plantation slavery... sooner or later, someone in the south will invest in machinery, and start making higher profits than his neighbors...

The problems with this are twofold: one, a cotton combine wasn't invented until the 1940s in the OTL USA, and a CSA will be far more backwards scientifically. Two, the CSA jerry-rigged its constitution to make slavery's abolition impossible so it's stuck with its own success in building a home for agrarian slavery. Actually there's also a third: planters as a general rule were antipathetic to technology and like most slave societies a great deal of cheap manpower limited the necessity for and application of machinery. The CSA is doomed on its own system, it only works if it completely and revolutionarily alters the nature of that system.

Or the SOuth, not wanting another bloodbath that they suffered in far more than the North might change their behavior based on the new circumstances.

One thing to play fast and loose with the rules when you have friends in high place ie governors, Senators, President(?).

Now that the North is a larger, more powerful nation who might send punitive raids instead of legal, easily ignored complaints...

The same parts of the South willing to use firebombings and murders as weapons to prop up a segregation system that was clearly on the outs? I'm not exactly convinced this is what's going to happen.

[67th Tigers]

?? if they can't make a living at it, then slavery will end. It might not be a sudden end, but if the economic tide turns against slavery being profitable, then plantation style slavery will go away. I suppose they might keep 'house slaves' around for a while. I'd think that mechanization more than anything else would put an end to plantation slavery... sooner or later, someone in the south will invest in machinery, and start making higher profits than his neighbors...

Absolutely correct. Slavery existed because it was profitable, in fact the most profitable economic sector in the US. The share cropping system that replaced slavery (and was much more exploitative) survived until mechanisation in the 1960's. There is no reason to suppose that an independent CSA would not continue and expand slavery for another century post-independence.

[67th Tigers]

BTW? The problem with the South's "vast wealth" was that THEY COULDN'T SPEND IT outside of the South. The greatest intrinsic "wealth" was slaves, which were not a tradable item overseas.:rolleyes: Nor could the South spare them. Once the boll weevil shows up, adios to all that wealth.:D

Cotton and tobacco etc. were.

As to the Boll Weevil, that's hardly relevant to the 19th century is it? By the time of the Weevil the CSA is the worlds largest oil producer.

[Snake Featherston]

Cotton and tobacco etc. were.

As to the Boll Weevil, that's hardly relevant to the 19th century is it? By the time of the Weevil the CSA is the worlds largest oil producer.

If simply possessing resources were all it took between them Brazil and Russia would be ruling the planet right now.

[Grey Wolf]

And I've read that those commissioners did that because they favored the South...

I imagine that charge was certainly levelled at them, definitely after war broke out, but how true at the time it was I don't know

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

[eliphas8]

Cotton and tobacco etc. were.

As to the Boll Weevil, that's hardly relevant to the 19th century is it? By the time of the Weevil the CSA is the worlds largest oil producer.

Having the resources to be incredibly powerful does not equal power if that where the case Mexico would be one of the most powerful nations on earth and Russia would have won the cold war.

[Fiver]

One thing to play fast and loose with the rules when you have friends in high place ie governors, Senators, President(?).

Now that the North is a larger, more powerful nation who might send punitive raids instead of legal, easily ignored complaints...

If the CSA leadership was that logical, they'd never have fired on Ft. Sumter.

[Fiver]

Slavery existed because it was profitable, in fact the most profitable economic sector in the US.

Got any sources that support the 2nd half of your sentence?

[iddt3]

Got any sources that support the 2nd half of your sentence?

By some measures I think it was, but it doesn't create wealth the way industrialization does, kind of like oil works now I think.

[Corbell Mark IV]

If the CSA leadership was that logical, they'd never have fired on Ft. Sumter.


Ft. Sumter was before the Civil War.

I suspect that some learning went on there.

[Reggie Bartlett]

I have doubts about the CSA going fascist, depending on the victory the country would be much more state-centric and comparatively much less centralized than it's Northern neighbor.

[67th Tigers]

By some measures I think it was, but it doesn't create wealth the way industrialization does, kind of like oil works now I think.

The rate of return on slaves was around 10% (first google hit at EH.com (http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/wahl.slavery.us), which I'll use rather than papers and books. However, this agrees with Evan's 1962 paper, and the later work of Fogel and Engerman). For comparison the rate of return on Northern railroads was about 5% (not to be confused with the "social rate of return").

[Perkeo]

CSA was the richer part of America before the civil war due to it is exports of cotton and tobacco, etc to Europe.
Industry in the north was not efficient and was protected by tariff from European competition.
Slavery would end in the CSA when it it was not long economical viable.
The CSA with tariffs on trade with Europe could have be a viable country.

Even if the age of rich agricutural countries was not quite over YET, histroy tells that it was about to end and countries with a similar economic structure as the CSA, e.g. Brazil became third world countries no later than two generations after the War beteen the States.

IMO the CSA would struggle to change their economic structure when agriculure and slavery no longer proved to be uneconomic. After all, defense of an economic system that is based on slavery and agriculture is the main reason why they seceeded in the first place. Flexibility on your country's founding myth is a lot to ask.

[SAVORYapple]

Nations that break off from other nations tend to get into life and death struggles alot. Germany and France. Serbia and Kosovo. India and Pakistan. Yaddayadda.

that's a horrible thought:eek::eek:. Imagine an independent CSA with nuclear Missiles locked in a MAD scenario with the U.S.

[Corbell Mark IV]

Even if the age of rich agricutural countries was not quite over YET, histroy tells that it was about to end and countries with a similar economic structure as the CSA, e.g. Brazil became third world countries no later than two generations after the War beteen the States.

IMO the CSA would struggle to change their economic structure when agriculure and slavery no longer proved to be uneconomic. After all, defense of an economic system that is based on slavery and agriculture is the main reason why they seceeded in the first place. Flexibility on your country's founding myth is a lot to ask.

Bah! You don't change it. THe Plantation is still the heart of DIxie.

Doesn't mean you don't industrialize. Or have white unions that fight against having slaves complete against them.

You just don't discuss how much more of the economy the industry is than the Plantation.

THis type of nostalgia for the farm is actually fairly widespread in OTL.

[eliphas8]

Bah! You don't change it. THe Plantation is still the heart of DIxie.

Doesn't mean you don't industrialize. Or have white unions that fight against having slaves complete against them.

You just don't discuss how much more of the economy the industry is than the Plantation.

THis type of nostalgia for the farm is actually fairly widespread in OTL.

Well of course but where would the money to industrialize come from? The CSA would be near bankruptcy at the first chance the war had to end and few people would want to invest in the not very populated country constantly on the verge of civil war.

[Snake Featherston]

Bah! You don't change it. THe Plantation is still the heart of DIxie.

Doesn't mean you don't industrialize. Or have white unions that fight against having slaves complete against them.

You just don't discuss how much more of the economy the industry is than the Plantation.

THis type of nostalgia for the farm is actually fairly widespread in OTL.

How? Why? The CSA is deliberately anti-industrial, this will not be a mere economic matter but integrated into the very ideology and legitimacy of the state. The Planters who monopolized power feared industrialism would collapse their unilateral control of what would now be Confederate politics. If the only proper pre-war centers of industry are Nashville and Richmond in a society overwhelmingly agrarian and with a huge slave population it can't simply up and get rid of bar either completely expelling them all or alternately having to cube a circle and emancipate them........

The CSA set a political system as unworkable as South Vietnam without a USA to prop it up.

[Perkeo]

How? Why? The CSA is deliberately anti-industrial, this will not be a mere economic matter but integrated into the very ideology and legitimacy of the state. The Planters who monopolized power feared industrialism would collapse their unilateral control of what would now be Confederate politics. If the only proper pre-war centers of industry are Nashville and Richmond in a society overwhelmingly agrarian and with a huge slave population it can't simply up and get rid of bar either completely expelling them all or alternately having to cube a circle and emancipate them........

I agree. If the Planters had been willing to coexist with an industrial sector and accept the abolition of slavery in the long term, why did they secede in the first place?

The CSA set a political system as unworkable as South Vietnam without a USA to prop it up.

That is more or less also my conclusion.

[Snake Featherston]

I agree. If the Planters had been willing to coexist with an industrial sector and accept the abolition of slavery in the long term, why did they secede in the first place?


If this question gets a response at all it's usually a non-answer about people who criticize the CSA in this regard believing in US exceptionalism and thus meanie anti-Southerners who don't get the CSA was really not concerned about slavery at all, just states' rights. The record of massacres of blacks by the CSA and the refusal to raise slaves as soldiers when this would have undercut the major US moral advantage over the CSA *and* created a huge manpower source are men behind the curtain to be ignored in favor of the big talking mask. Robert's The Black and the Grey has the simplest general idea for how the CSA could actually win (as opposed to ensuring the USA loses) the war, but a CSA willing to abolish slavery that pragmatically would not have seceded in the first place and instead negotiated gradual emancipation with the abolitionists. It's also worth noting for the "Blame Jeff Davis" crowd's critiques of Davis, he's the only man who would scrap slavery and be POCS if it would help him stay POCS. Toombs, Stephens, Cobb, Breckenridge, and particularly Rhett would never do this. And with the historical CSA unwilling to take a political step that would have let it not merely save itself but outright win the war on its own power, the odds of a victorious CSA in a short or long war doing this are as little as a Nazi Germany that has an Ultra-Orthodox Jew as minister of war and a Russian Communist as minister of the treasury.

[Corbell Mark IV]

How? Why? The CSA is deliberately anti-industrial, this will not be a mere economic matter but integrated into the very ideology and legitimacy of the state. The Planters who monopolized power feared industrialism would collapse their unilateral control of what would now be Confederate politics. If the only proper pre-war centers of industry are Nashville and Richmond in a society overwhelmingly agrarian and with a huge slave population it can't simply up and get rid of bar either completely expelling them all or alternately having to cube a circle and emancipate them........

The CSA set a political system as unworkable as South Vietnam without a USA to prop it up.

Damn it, I heard/seen some references to pre-war attempts by the South to industrialize in order for self sufficiency but I can't find anything now.

I have found some stats on rapid increases in rail in the pre-war years.

[Snake Featherston]

Damn it, I heard/seen some references to pre-war attempts by the South to industrialize in order for self sufficiency but I can't find anything now.

I have found some stats on rapid increases in rail in the pre-war years.


Those attempts were not very strictly pursued during the 1850s and so long as the cotton dollars keep rolling in there's no desire to *ever* actually pursue it. In an independent Confederacy whose mythology of the war will attribute Union defeat to the degrading effects of wage-slavery on Yankee citizenry in a further development/exaggeration of that Cavalier-Roundhead nonsense industrialization will be identified with "Yankeefication" and politically unthinkable no matter the economically rational reasons to do it.

[BELFAST]

Slavery would not end when it was no longer viable any more than the USSR ended Communism in the 1970s when it was clearly falling behind the West. Slavery was not just an economic system, it was enfolded into the ideology of the Confederate state.

Slavery was replaced by Sharecropping after the war that tied people to the land thought credit and kept them in debt and was cheaper that owning slaves. Tenants are tied to the landlord through the plantation store. Their work is heavily supervised as slave plantations were.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharecropping

I do not remember the US government did anthing to stop expolition under Sharecropping. it seems Sharecropping was not much better than slavery and in some way was worse as the exploitation was hidden.

[Snake Featherston]

Slavery was replaced by Sharecropping after the war that tied people to the land thought credit and kept them in debt and was cheaper that owning slaves. Tenants are tied to the landlord through the plantation store. Their work is heavily supervised as slave plantations were.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharecropping

Key point "after the (OTL) war". That's with Confederate defeat and Confederate distintegration. An independent CSA will not act like the OTL defeated South.

[BELFAST]

How? Why? The CSA is deliberately anti-industrial, this will not be a mere economic matter but integrated into the very ideology and legitimacy of the state. The Planters who monopolized power feared industrialism would collapse their unilateral control of what would now be Confederate politics. If the only proper pre-war centers of industry are Nashville and Richmond in a society overwhelmingly agrarian and with a huge slave population it can't simply up and get rid of bar either completely expelling them all or alternately having to cube a circle and emancipate them........

The CSA set a political system as unworkable as South Vietnam without a USA to prop it up.

The CSA was not anti-industrial it did not need industry as industrial good could be traded for from Europe for cotton cheaper that they could be made in the CSA.

[Snake Featherston]

The CSA was not anti-industrial it did not need industry as industrial good could be traded for from Europe for cotton cheaper that they could be made in the CSA.

It was anti-industry, the whole point of secession was to shore up slavery against the rising industrial class of the North in the first place.

[eliphas8]

The CSA was not anti-industrial it did not need industry as industrial good could be traded for from Europe for cotton cheaper that they could be made in the CSA.

If they wherent anti-industrial why did they secede?

[Corbell Mark IV]

Those attempts were not very strictly pursued during the 1850s and so long as the cotton dollars keep rolling in there's no desire to *ever* actually pursue it. In an independent Confederacy whose mythology of the war will attribute Union defeat to the degrading effects of wage-slavery on Yankee citizenry in a further development/exaggeration of that Cavalier-Roundhead nonsense industrialization will be identified with "Yankeefication" and politically unthinkable no matter the economically rational reasons to do it.

I can certainly see that as one school of thought.

But there would be competing schools of thought. Hell, if nothing else would the Confederate military really want to be vunerable to a blockade that cuts them off from resupply?

If there is any fighting, I could see a desire by future Confederates Military leadership not to be outgunned, if there was to be even the potential of a next time.

Hell, if they try to expand into latin American and end up losing, that would be a lesson.

[Snake Featherston]

I can certainly see that as one school of thought.

But there would be competing schools of thought. Hell, if nothing else would the Confederate military really want to be vunerable to a blockade that cuts them off from resupply?

If there is any fighting, I could see a desire by future Confederates Military leadership not to be outgunned, if there was to be even the potential of a next time.

Hell, if they try to expand into latin American and end up losing, that would be a lesson.

In this case it doesn't matter what the Confederate military wants unless it takes over the Confederacy to ensure it damn well gets what it wants. When Confederate military needs and the planters clashed, the planters won always and forever.

[Corbell Mark IV]

In this case it doesn't matter what the Confederate military wants unless it takes over the Confederacy to ensure it damn well gets what it wants. When Confederate military needs and the planters clashed, the planters won always and forever.

We only saw the dynamics of a Confederacy for a few years. Making long term predictions like that seems reckless.

And dismisses the possibility of policy change on the part of the planters.

[Snake Featherston]

We only saw the dynamics of a Confederacy for a few years. Making long term predictions like that seems reckless.

And dismisses the possibility of policy change on the part of the planters.

We saw how a CSA reacts to a terminal political crisis IOTL, and it's safe to assume an independent CSA will not take actions the OTL one would not in order to save itself when it's won its independence on the battlefield. What wasn't even feasible IOTL in the middle of complete political and military disintegration will be utterly, totally, and completely unthinkable in an independent state. And 99.99999999999999999999999999999999% of all CSA threads completely handwave, ignore, minimize, and neglect the issues of white supremacy and racism all over the CSA like ugly on a pig.

[David S Poepoe]

We saw how a CSA reacts to a terminal political crisis IOTL, and it's safe to assume an independent CSA will not take actions the OTL one would not in order to save itself when it's won its independence on the battlefield. What wasn't even feasible IOTL in the middle of complete political and military disintegration will be utterly, totally, and completely unthinkable in an independent state. And 99.99999999999999999999999999999999% of all CSA threads completely handwave, ignore, minimize, and neglect the issues of white supremacy and racism all over the CSA like ugly on a pig.

In Snake Featherston's opinion.

[Corbell Mark IV]

We saw how a CSA reacts to a terminal political crisis IOTL, and it's safe to assume an independent CSA will not take actions the OTL one would not in order to save itself when it's won its independence on the battlefield. What wasn't even feasible IOTL in the middle of complete political and military disintegration will be utterly, totally, and completely unthinkable in an independent state. And 99.99999999999999999999999999999999% of all CSA threads completely handwave, ignore, minimize, and neglect the issues of white supremacy and racism all over the CSA like ugly on a pig.

In the middle of a war for survival, there will be more deference to authority than in peacetime IMO.

[Snake Featherston]

In Snake Featherston's opinion.

No, in reality. How many CSA threads even bother to note that the CSA is avowedly based on the supremacy of 2/3 of its population by race over the other 1/3, and that this basis of slavery influences what a CSA will or will not do? How many threads actually even acknowledge how deeply in-built racism was in the OTL CSA, let alone in one that has the chance to develop its slavery ideology bereft of abolitionism? How many threads even recognize that black slaves in the CSA are human beings, not abstractions, and that they will not and will never passively accept the slave system as it exists? Instead we see a number of statements about how the CSA didn't really mean anything it said or did about slavery, with no evidence to back them up, and often verging into outright minimizing and negating the vital importance of slavery to the Confederacy. How many CS apologists think The Black and the Grey is a viable TL, as opposed to a well-written ASB dystopian TL?

[Snake Featherston]

In the middle of a war for survival, there will be more deference to authority than in peacetime IMO.

Actually less so in several ways. The war, after all, degraded institutions the longer it goes on. In peacetime the planters aren't going to accept the meaningful equality of all *white* men, let alone the kind of reforms that would allow the CSA to exist short of a military dictatorship of a vile and repressive kind.

[67th Tigers]

It was anti-industry, the whole point of secession was to shore up slavery against the rising industrial class of the North in the first place.

No.

It was to preserve their economic advantage over the north which the northern states threatened to remove.

[Japhy]

No.

It was to preserve their economic advantage over the north which the northern states threatened to remove.

It was only for economic in a very round about way, secession was about a loss of political power and influence, not actually about tariffs.

[King Gorilla]

No.

It was to preserve their economic advantage over the north which the northern states threatened to remove.

The south didn't have an economic advantage over the north. During the antebellum era, cotton was easily America's most valuable export but focussing on that one commodity ignores the big picture of America's economy.

1850's America was an extremely prosperous nation whose economy was anchored towards an enormous domestic market. Most American's bought American clothing, tools, machinery, and manufactured goods and most of the firms that produced said objects (as well as those who financed them) were located north of the Mason Dixon line. The wealth disparity between the two regions was enormous. If I recall correctly the north possessed roughly 80% of America's capital, as for the remaining 20% 2/3rds of it was sunk into slaves and land.

[David S Poepoe]

No, in reality. How many CSA threads even bother to note that the CSA is avowedly based on the supremacy of 2/3 of its population by race over the other 1/3, and that this basis of slavery influences what a CSA will or will not do? How many threads actually even acknowledge how deeply in-built racism was in the OTL CSA, let alone in one that has the chance to develop its slavery ideology bereft of abolitionism? How many threads even recognize that black slaves in the CSA are human beings, not abstractions, and that they will not and will never passively accept the slave system as it exists? Instead we see a number of statements about how the CSA didn't really mean anything it said or did about slavery, with no evidence to back them up, and often verging into outright minimizing and negating the vital importance of slavery to the Confederacy. How many CS apologists think The Black and the Grey is a viable TL, as opposed to a well-written ASB dystopian TL?

I should have been alot more exact:

What wasn't even feasible IOTL in the middle of complete political and military disintegration will be utterly, totally, and completely unthinkable in an independent state.

That is your opinion.

[67th Tigers]

It was only for economic in a very round about way, secession was about a loss of political power and influence, not actually about tariffs.

Tariff? I'm talking the slave gang system. It is inherently more efficient than free labour. Slave gang farms in the South had an output ca. 50% greater than Northern free labour farms.

[Japhy]

Tariff? I'm talking the slave gang system. It is inherently more efficient than free labour. Slave gang farms in the South had an output ca. 50% greater than Northern free labour farms.

Ah, silly me. That is true, it just doesn't really exist as solely an economic concern so I didn't connect it.

[Snake Featherston]

That is your opinion.

Then you need something to disprove the assertion that a society unwilling to abolish slavery when it was an extremely politically convenient move that easily could have won them the war will do so much later after a victorious war to save slavery and with the planters accustomed to a total monopoly on power. If the CSA cared as little about slavery as its whitewasher-TLs have it, then it would have scrapped slavery around the time of the Provisional Emancipation Proclamation and cut the Union's best weapon off from it.

[67th Tigers]

Ah, silly me. That is true, it just doesn't really exist as solely an economic concern so I didn't connect it.

Sorry, I was probably hasty in my reply. Some here deny that slavery had an economic underpinning. I'm slightly oversensitive towards certain myths.

[Snake Featherston]

Sorry, I was probably hasty in my reply. Some here deny that slavery had an economic underpinning. I'm slightly oversensitive towards certain myths.

Nobody denies this, the claim is that slavery is intractably linked with the Confederate state and its ideology and thus challenges to it in the Confederacy would be linked both to treason and attempts to make the CSA "more Yankee" than its leaders would want to be. This is far from unprecedented in human history, and it's not exactly a leap of imagination or CS-bashing to imagine a state where an ideology is directly connected with the state's legitimacy and the ideology is economic preferring to keep that economic system rather than risk its own complete collapse. This, after all, is why Russia kept serfdom as long as it did, the CSA would be the same but moreso.

[BELFAST]

If they wherent anti-industrial why did they secede?

So as not to be forced to buy Northern industrial goods thought high tariffs on imported European goods.
CSA made more money for cotton and tobacco exports to europe that it could by build factories and making the goods them selves.
Just as Arab countries trade oil for industrial goods today.

[BELFAST]

Cotton and tobacco etc. were.

As to the Boll Weevil, that's hardly relevant to the 19th century is it? By the time of the Weevil the CSA is the worlds largest oil producer.

The insect crossed the Rio Grande (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_Grande) near Brownsville, Texas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownsville,_Texas) to enter the United States (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States) from Mexico (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico) in 1892[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boll_weevil#cite_note-msstate-0) and reached southeastern Alabama (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alabama) in 1915. By the mid 1920s it had entered all cotton growing regions in the U.S., travelling 40 to 160 miles per year. It remains the most destructive cotton pest in North America (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_America). Mississippi State University (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_State_University) has estimated that since the boll weevil entered the United States it has cost U.S. cotton producers about $13 billion, and in recent times about $300 million per year.[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boll_weevil#cite_note-msstate-0)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/Boll_weevil_illustration.jpg/220px-Boll_weevil_illustration.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Boll_weevil_illustration.jpg) http://bits.wikimedia.org/skins-1.18/common/images/magnify-clip.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Boll_weevil_illustration.jpg)
The cotton boll weevil: a, adult beetle; b, pupa; c, larva.


The boll weevil contributed to the economic woes of Southern farmers during the 1920s, a situation exacerbated by the Great Depression (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression) in the 1930s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boll_weevil#Infestation

The boll weevil infestation has been credited with bringing about economic diversification in the southern US, including the expansion of peanut (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanut) cropping. The citizens of Enterprise, Alabama (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise,_Alabama) erected the Boll Weevil Monument (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boll_Weevil_Monument) in 1919, perceiving that their economy had been overly dependent on cotton, and that mixed farming and manufacturing were better alternatives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boll_weevil#Infestation

[Japhy]

So as not to be forced to buy Northern industrial goods thought high tariffs on imported European goods.
CSA made more money for cotton and tobacco exports to europe that it could by build factories and making the goods them selves.
Just as Arab countries trade oil for industrial goods today.

Annnnddddd there it is... The Tariff Argument I was afraid 67 was making.

If it was about Import Taxes, why didn't the Civil War begin under any Whig Presidents exactly? And why secede before Tariffs were raised? Why not fight that in the Senate rather then by force of arms when they can win that fight?

[Snake Featherston]

So as not to be forced to buy Northern industrial goods thought high tariffs on imported European goods.
CSA made more money for cotton and tobacco exports to europe that it could by build factories and making the goods them selves.
Just as Arab countries trade oil for industrial goods today.

Except that if the CSA cared that little about slavery, the fall of 1862 would have been a perfect time to yank the moral high ground right out from under the Yankees by saying "We'll take a Confederate state over slavery, so what'll you do now, huh?". If the CSA was of slaveowners, by slaveowners, for slaveowners then its policies make perfect sense. If slavery had nothing to do with it then the CSA missed two very good chances to just scrap it and preserve itself as a state first and foremost.

[Snake Featherston]

Annnnddddd there it is... The Tariff Argument I was afraid 67 was making.

If it was about Import Taxes, why didn't the Civil War begin under any Whig Presidents exactly? And why secede before Tariffs were raised? Why not fight that in the Senate rather then by force of arms when they can win that fight?

Not to mention why not simply scrap slavery as a means to end-run the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, in order to ensure that the USA would have to conquer a CS state without its easiest means to gain the moral high ground and squeeze the CSA without the CSA being able adequately to respond? If the CS state as an independent entity, even if independence would have required abolishing slavery to secure it and be damned anything else mattered more than a CSA with slavery, then the fall of 1862 and the first months of 1863 was the best time imaginable to just ditch slavery to save the Confederacy, the precise rationale Jefferson Davis himself used in 1865.

[MAlexMatt]

Annnnddddd there it is... The Tariff Argument I was afraid 67 was making.

If it was about Import Taxes, why didn't the Civil War begin under any Whig Presidents exactly? And why secede before Tariffs were raised? Why not fight that in the Senate rather then by force of arms when they can win that fight?

It's worth differentiating between immediate causes and ultimate causes. The ultimate cause of the Civil War was that there were (at least) two, increasingly mutually exclusive social systems growing up within the antebellum Union: One based on slavery, one on state capitalism. The Northern states whose elites thrived on state capitalism had interests that had diverged from those of the Southern states whose elites thrived on chattel slavery sometime at the end of the 18th century, so, at the very least, there had to be a split.

The immediate cause of the Civil War happening in 1860 was twofold:

1. The Slave Power had unequivocally lost control of the Federal government, permanently. No more slave states were likely to enter the Union, and Lincoln was elected without a single electoral vote from below the Mason-Dixon line. The rapidly tilting population balance guaranteed Northern states control of the House and the lack of new slave stats guaranteed them control of the Senate, going into the long run.

2. A manifestation of this was the incoming Morrill Tariff (which was far larger than any previous tariff except the tariff of abominations itself) which, taking the previous point into account point, the export-import dependent slave lords had absolutely no way to effective oppose.

So, it's not incorrect to say the Morrill Tariff caused the Civil War. But the Morrill Tariff was important because of the divergent social systems of the two major halves of the country. Saying the Morrill Tariff caused the Civil War doesn't suppose that slavery didn't, it requires that slavery did. The North needed a large, wealthy captive market to sell manufactured goods to, so it couldn't let the South go, and the South knew it would never be able to effectively oppose Northern policies, and getting rid of slavery and adopting their own version of Northern state capitalism was essentially out of the question, so we got a war of secession instead.

This need to simplify things into easy to understand mono-causal frameworks is, IMO, another manifestation of the need to see history as a morality play. I'm more or less convinced that a South that left the Union peacefully would not descend into a dictatorial 3rd world hell hole, and I feel like the opposition has utterly failed to argue otherwise. I'm also convinced that slavery was just about the most evil thing to ever exist on this continent; in fact, I blame slavery for almost every social problem we suffer from today. The two positions are, from my view, not mutually exclusive.

[Snake Featherston]

MAlexMatt, if slavery wasn't anything important to the CSA, why didn't it simply abolish it as a counteraction to the US Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation and say "Screw slavery, we're a country first. Come and get us now?". That's a way to politically ensure the USA is nothing *but* a conqueror and undercut its major moral advantage all in one. It's the politically and militarily rational thing to do.

[Spengler]

The CSA was not anti-industrial it did not need industry as industrial good could be traded for from Europe for cotton cheaper that they could be made in the CSA.
That won't continue much longer though, the European powers were already beginning to buy cotton from Egypt and India by that point.

Matt the Morill tariff argument is a tired argument largely originating with Racist defenders of the south who flirt with Austrian Economics. Anyone reading the actual firebrands rhetoric knows that such argument is a pack of lies. Especially when one considers that several of the slave states voted for the constitutional unionist party which had a strong tariff element to it.

Also Snake an excellent point on the black and the gray, it really should just be put into the badly written ASB section.

[MAlexMatt]

MAlexMatt, if slavery wasn't anything important to the CSA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawman_fallacy

[MAlexMatt]

Matt the Morill tariff argument is a tired argument largely originating with Racist defenders of the south who flirt with Austrian Economics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

Anyone reading the actual firebrands rhetoric knows that such argument is a pack of lies.

Saying the Morrill Tariff caused the Civil War doesn't suppose that slavery didn't, it requires that slavery did.

Like I say here, the Tariff argument and the Slavery argument are not just not mutually exclusive, but are actually joined at the hip. The Morrill Tariff only mattered because slavery mattered. A South without slavery would have almost certain developed its own class of state capitalists who would be interested in squeezing the export-import dependent small farmer class as a captive market for domestically produced goods.

Especially when one considers that several of the slave states voted for the constitutional unionist party which had a strong tariff element to it.

The slave states that voted for Bell just so happen to be the ones where slavery was least prevalent. This is because the culture of non-Piedmont Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee was based in the Scots-Irish/Borderlander English and Scottish culture of 18th and 19th century Appalachia, rather than the elitist planter culture of the Deep Southern states or Piedmont Virginia/North Carolina. They were slave holders, but they were slave holders like 18th century New York or Massachusetts, instead of 17th century Barbados like in South Carolina or Georgia.

They had developed a (relatively small) class of native state capitalists who had the same interests as those in the North. National liberalism wasn't exclusive to the North, it just dominated there like it didn't in most of the South.

[Snake Featherston]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawman_fallacy

Your claim is the Morrill Tariff, not slavery, began the war. So I repeat if it was all about the fucking tariff, why did the CSA refuse to use slaves as combat troops when its white manpower was withering on the vine from its political fuckups?

[sloreck]

Looking at the history of north/south relations from well before the Civil War, one striking fact is the development of two very different visions of what "America" should be. Free labor, public works, and industrialization (and protected in growth by tariffs) for the north, and a sort of "squirearchy" in the south, based on agriculture and low tariffs allowing export of agriculture (cotton/tobacco) while getting foreign industrial goods inexpensively, and no "wasteful" spending on public works. This fight was going on for >30 years before the war.

At the time of the CW the south had minimal industry, and what it had was way behind the north. Likewise RR trackage was small. It is also worthy of note that educational institutions in the south were conspicuous by their scarcity, even accounting for the smaller population. In fact, after the CW public education from grammar school upwards was way behind the north, and this was due to priorities not the depredations of Sherman's Bummers.

Had the south succeeded in becoming independent industrial development would have been "third world", and their poor educational system will further retard development because the scientists and engineers needed for development will certainly not be there. Furthermore lack of industrial development and the slave system, as well as even more prejudice against non-UK immigrants than the north, will severely limit white immigration to the south from Europe.

The CSA will continue slavery at least in to the early 20th century, and while chattel slavery may end then, blacks will remain the lowest possible non-slave peons. Infrastructure development will be severely limited, it should be noted that even under the stress of war the central government of the CSA could not get several states to agree on the route for a new and important rail line, or the gauge for the tracks.

It should also be noted that the UK and France were already switching to Egyptian and Indian cotton when the CW began, which is why the strategy of the cotton embargo the CSA tried to leverage them in to recognition did not work. The CSA post-independence will be at the mercy of the international commodities market.

Does all this mean USA-CSA war will be inevitable, but the CSA counting on tons of support from Europe will be a pipe dream. And, should there be CSA revanchism over West Virginia, Kentucky, etc or over-eager slave catchers, expect them to get kicked.

[MAlexMatt]

Your claim is the Morrill Tariff, not slavery, began the war. So I repeat if it was all about the fucking tariff, why did the CSA refuse to use slaves as combat troops when its white manpower was withering on the vine from its political fuckups?

Saying the Morrill Tariff caused the Civil War doesn't suppose that slavery didn't, it requires that slavery did.

Can you even read?

Or do you just notice that I replied so you re-word the argument I've already refuted and post it again?

Are you just trolling me?

[Fiver]

No.

It was to preserve their economic advantage over the north which the northern states threatened to remove.

I suggest you read what southern political leadership actually said.

[Antanas]

With slavery CSA will become more and more isolated in the world, weaker and weaker

[67th Tigers]

Mark Egnal's book Clash of Extremes is a good and accessible exploration of the economic underpinnings.

He did an episode of CWTR recently (link (http://impedimentsofwar.org/singleshow.php?show=710)).

[Corbell Mark IV]

Actually less so in several ways. The war, after all, degraded institutions the longer it goes on. In peacetime the planters aren't going to accept the meaningful equality of all *white* men, let alone the kind of reforms that would allow the CSA to exist short of a military dictatorship of a vile and repressive kind.

And what would the response of the non-planter white men be to decreased representation of their interests?

[Snake Featherston]

And what would the response of the non-planter white men be to decreased representation of their interests?

Revolution/rebellion.

[mowque]

Revolution/rebellion.

Violent agitation, at any rate. Not sure if they'd raise the Red Flag or not.

[Snake Featherston]

Violent agitation, at any rate. Not sure if they'd raise the Red Flag or not.

Violent agitation met with a volley of live-fire musketry which turns it into a rebellion. The Confederate government will never look kindly to challenges from poor whites in the South. And no matter the POD in question the CS government will already have set the precedent of using the jackboot to repress its domestic opposition.

[67th Tigers]

Violent agitation met with a volley of live-fire musketry which turns it into a rebellion. The Confederate government will never look kindly to challenges from poor whites in the South. And no matter the POD in question the CS government will already have set the precedent of using the jackboot to repress its domestic opposition.

When did this ever happen in the real CSA?

More to the point, the Union Army fired on civilians in New York in 1863. What does this make the Union?

[Snake Featherston]

When did this ever happen in the real CSA?

More to the point, the Union Army fired on civilians in New York in 1863. What does this make the Union?

Repeatedly, in North Carolina, Texas, eastern Tennessee, in cases where the Unionists got sick and tired of being conscripted for a rich man's war but a poor man's fight. And frankly I'm disgusted that you're using two wrongs make a right as a logical fallacy, and ignoring the massive, murderous rioting in New York in 1863 that preceded that. The Lincoln Administration had its own instances of murderous policies but that one instance is the only case where it applied to white Americans. I would recommend reading the books Bitterly Divided, The South v. the South, Guerillas, Unionists, and Violence, Enemies at Every Door and other accounts of how the CSA handled its actual dissidents. That the Union did bad things doesn't make CS bad things not-existent, but then I'd scarcely expect familiarity with the Two Wrongs Make a Right and Tu Quoque fallacies as far as Civil War discussions are concerned. I suppose to you the murder of blacks in New York is not worth sending the army to do what civil authorities could not do.

[MAlexMatt]

When did this ever happen in the real CSA?

During the war it did.

But I'm confused as to how the white male population is going to see 'decreased representation of their interests'.

Universal white male suffrage had already been achieved virtually everywhere in the country by 1860.

I maintain that Snake's version of the CSA is utterly at odds with the reality of the South in 1860.

[MAlexMatt]

Repeatedly, in North Carolina, Texas, eastern Tennessee, in cases where the Unionists got sick and tired of being conscripted for a rich man's war but a poor man's fight. And frankly I'm disgusted that you're using two wrongs make a right as a logical fallacy, and ignoring the massive, murderous rioting in New York in 1863 that preceded that. The Lincoln Administration had its own instances of murderous policies but that one instance is the only case where it applied to white Americans. I would recommend reading the books Bitterly Divided, The South v. the South, Guerillas, Unionists, and Violence, Enemies at Every Door and other accounts of how the CSA handled its actual dissidents. That the Union did bad things doesn't make CS bad things not-existent, but then I'd scarcely expect familiarity with the Two Wrongs Make a Right and Tu Quoque fallacies as far as Civil War discussions are concerned. I suppose to you the murder of blacks in New York is not worth sending the army to do what civil authorities could not do.

It's telling that you seem to be extremely sympathetic to Unionists in the South being angry for conscription to fight a 'rich man's war', but are more than happy to apologize for the Union government killing people who were angry over the exact same thing.

[Grimm Reaper]

MAlexMatt, except that the rioters in NYC were driven largely by bigotry which is why they made such an effort to target black people, including a prominent orphanage, in 1863 NYC.

[Spengler]

MAlexMatt, except that the rioters in NYC were driven largely by bigotry which is why they made such an effort to target black people, including a prominent orphanage, in 1863 NYC.
Shh your talking logic to a person who gets there facts from Thomas Woods.

[eliphas8]

It's telling that you seem to be extremely sympathetic to Unionists in the South being angry for conscription to fight a 'rich man's war', but are more than happy to apologize for the Union government killing people who were angry over the exact same thing.

The rioters deligitized their claims by attacking blacks and orphanages specifically while many of the confederate riots where atleast targeted at centers of conscription. This is also one incident compared to a very common occurence in the south.

[Snake Featherston]

During the war it did.

But I'm confused as to how the white male population is going to see 'decreased representation of their interests'.

Universal white male suffrage had already been achieved virtually everywhere in the country by 1860.

I maintain that Snake's version of the CSA is utterly at odds with the reality of the South in 1860.

The founders of the Confederacy were talking of rolling back universal manhood suffrage and objected to it as far too democratic to their liking. They did not even accept all whites as equally granted rights in their brave new world, they were never going to allow for say, distribution of land that would favor increasingly squeezed small farmers, and even in the first seven CS states secession started with coercive, blatant voter fraud.

It's telling that you seem to be extremely sympathetic to Unionists in the South being angry for conscription to fight a 'rich man's war', but are more than happy to apologize for the Union government killing people who were angry over the exact same thing.

Incidents such as murdering a man, burning his corpse, and dragging it through the streets by his genitals cost them any sympathy whatsoever, as do the lynchings and murderings of completely innocent people like orphanages. They initiated this and were stoked up to do it by the Copperheads, the CS government in contrast was initiator of all violence in its own territory against its own dissidents. They weren't angry over the same damn thing, Southerners were angry over having to have everything taken from them by a CS government that went out of its way to conciliate planters even at the interest of the CS government itself, US rioters were simply displeased at the prospect that blacks might at some future points have equal rights and serve alongside them.

[Johnrankins]

The founders of the Confederacy were talking of rolling back universal manhood suffrage and objected to it as far too democratic to their liking. They did not even accept all whites as equally granted rights in their brave new world, they were never going to allow for say, distribution of land that would favor increasingly squeezed small farmers, and even in the first seven CS states secession started with coercive, blatant voter fraud.



Incidents such as murdering a man, burning his corpse, and dragging it through the streets by his genitals cost them any sympathy whatsoever, as do the lynchings and murderings of completely innocent people like orphanages. They initiated this and were stoked up to do it by the Copperheads, the CS government in contrast was initiator of all violence in its own territory against its own dissidents. They weren't angry over the same damn thing, Southerners were angry over having to have everything taken from them by a CS government that went out of its way to conciliate planters even at the interest of the CS government itself, US rioters were simply displeased at the prospect that blacks might at some future points have equal rights and serve alongside them.


To be fair I think both riots were in large part due to the men not wanting to die in a very bloody war.

[Snake Featherston]

To be fair I think both riots were in large part due to the men not wanting to die in a very bloody war.

That's true and both ultimately did object to the same *concept*.....though in rather different fashions. And neither attempt actually worked.

[Johnrankins]

That's true and both ultimately did object to the same *concept*.....though in rather different fashions. And neither attempt actually worked.

Yes, attacking conscription centers sounds a lot better than attacking orphanages!

[Snake Featherston]

Yes, attacking conscription centers sounds a lot better than attacking orphanages!

More accurately attacking conscription *officers.* That quasi-feudal concept of CS politics regularly backfired on it, and the handling of conscription was one of the prime examples of it. While militarily far more efficient than its US counterpart this was a prime cause of Confederate political disintegration and actually made the CS Army both over-mobilized and mal-distributed.

[Johnrankins]

More accurately attacking conscription *officers.* That quasi-feudal concept of CS politics regularly backfired on it, and the handling of conscription was one of the prime examples of it. While militarily far more efficient than its US counterpart this was a prime cause of Confederate political disintegration and actually made the CS Army both over-mobilized and mal-distributed.

How did they handle conscription ?

[Snake Featherston]

How did they handle conscription ?

Impressment officers press-ganging people predominantly of the lower classes into service. This was not exactly the most politically adept way to do it, and it helped immensely to contribute to the miniature civil wars all over the Confederacy toward its collapse.

[Johnrankins]

Impressment officers press-ganging people predominantly of the lower classes into service. This was not exactly the most politically adept way to do it, and it helped immensely to contribute to the miniature civil wars all over the Confederacy toward its collapse.

I imagine it did! Meanwhile the Plantation Owner was sipping mint julips making sure he always had over 20 slaves.

[Snake Featherston]

I imagine it did! Meanwhile the Plantation Owner was sipping mint julips making sure he always had over 20 slaves.

Not always. The Conscription Act exempted a few other occupations which experienced a sudden wartime boom, such as pharmacists, teachers, state officials, militia officers......for all its flaws the Confederate conscription system really was better than its Union opposite number. Though again what was good for the CS Army was far from good for the Confederate political system......

[Johnrankins]

Not always. The Conscription Act exempted a few other occupations which experienced a sudden wartime boom, such as pharmacists, teachers, state officials, militia officers

I know that but those are all middle class professions which don't help Poor Whites.

[Snake Featherston]

I know that but those are all middle class professions which don't help Poor Whites.

True, which is one reason why poor whites *also* developed some loathing for their own state governments, too.....

[MAlexMatt]

The founders of the Confederacy were talking of rolling back universal manhood suffrage and objected to it as far too democratic to their liking. They did not even accept all whites as equally granted rights in their brave new world, they were never going to allow for say, distribution of land that would favor increasingly squeezed small farmers, and even in the first seven CS states secession started with coercive, blatant voter fraud.

Some planters in the antebellum period even mused about simply enslaving the lower class whites!

Talk is cheap. Not to mention that you're playing loose and fast with your sets of people here. Who do you mean, specifically, when you say 'The Founders'? Who do you mean when you say 'they' in the next sentence?

Because somebody somewhere holds an extreme position does not mean it's a Fact of History that it Absolutely Must Happen.



Incidents such as murdering a man, burning his corpse, and dragging it through the streets by his genitals cost them any sympathy whatsoever, as do the lynchings and murderings of completely innocent people like orphanages. They initiated this and were stoked up to do it by the Copperheads, the CS government in contrast was initiator of all violence in its own territory against its own dissidents. They weren't angry over the same damn thing, Southerners were angry over having to have everything taken from them by a CS government that went out of its way to conciliate planters even at the interest of the CS government itself, US rioters were simply displeased at the prospect that blacks might at some future points have equal rights and serve alongside them.

So it's OK that the Union was conscripting people and they were wrong to object because some of them did bad things, too?

I see how it is.

[Snake Featherston]

Some planters in the antebellum period even mused about simply enslaving the lower class whites!

Talk is cheap. Not to mention that you're playing loose and fast with your sets of people here. Who do you mean, specifically, when you say 'The Founders'? Who do you mean when you say 'they' in the next sentence?

Because somebody somewhere holds an extreme position does not mean it's a Fact of History that it Absolutely Must Happen.


This is actually not the extreme position by Confederate standards. *That* is the Fitzhugh "slavery is just as good for lazy, shiftless poor whites as it is for the lazy, shiftless blacks" position. The *mundane* position of the Davis-Lee crowd was for a political system that reversed universal manhood suffrage for a more narrowly property-defined suffrage. The Founders of the Confederacy means exactly what it says: the men in Montgomery who established the Confederate States of America. It's not a complex sentence or one with a trick built into it.


So it's OK that the Union was conscripting people and they were wrong to object because some of them did bad things, too?

I see how it is.

The Union had rule of law and the ability to vote for anti-conscription politicians by duly-elected, politically legitimate means, though those peace Democrats were busy plotting with Confederates who wanted to set *up* internal civil wars in the North over this. The utter failure of those attempts shows which of the two sides had the real commitment to law and order and which of the two was the bunch of clumsy factionalized thugs whose chief qualification for enduring power was the best trigger-finger. Conscription for either side was not the problem, the problem was when anti-draft sentiment was met with massed gunfire, which happened all of once in the United States but repeatedly all over the Confederacy, to the point that the draft was causing multiple civil wars all over the Confederacy. Conscription in itself doesn't really alter either side's moral claims because both sides did it.

And incidentally, I do rate the CSA higher than the USA in terms of their draft's efficiency and actual military utility, the Union draft was a laughable comedy of errors, misjudgments, and the most triumphant example of the Lincoln Administration's How Not To Do X guide.

[MAlexMatt]

This is actually not the extreme position by Confederate standards. *That* is the Fitzhugh "slavery is just as good for lazy, shiftless poor whites as it is for the lazy, shiftless blacks" position. The *mundane* position of the Davis-Lee crowd was for a political system that reversed universal manhood suffrage for a more narrowly property-defined suffrage. The Founders of the Confederacy means exactly what it says: the men in Montgomery who established the Confederate States of America. It's not a complex sentence or one with a trick built into it.

So you're saying that every single man who attended the First Provisional Congress was in support of this?

Or are you still being lazy with your set-labels and it was really some proportion of these men?

The Union had rule of law and the ability to vote for anti-conscription politicians by duly-elected, politically legitimate means, though those peace Democrats were busy plotting with Confederates who wanted to set *up* internal civil wars in the North over this. The utter failure of those attempts shows which of the two sides had the real commitment to law and order and which of the two was the bunch of clumsy factionalized thugs whose chief qualification for enduring power was the best trigger-finger. Conscription for either side was not the problem, the problem was when anti-draft sentiment was met with massed gunfire, which happened all of once in the United States but repeatedly all over the Confederacy, to the point that the draft was causing multiple civil wars all over the Confederacy. Conscription in itself doesn't really alter either side's moral claims because both sides did it.

So you're willing to admit that conscription was a moral evil in both nations? That people opposing conscription on one side were just as right to do so as the people doing so on the other?

[Snake Featherston]

So you're saying that every single man who attended the First Provisional Congress was in support of this?

Or are you still being lazy with your set-labels and it was really some proportion of these men?


Honestly, I don't see why this is such a big deal for you. It's like it's a perfect unwillingness to admit that in different times different concepts were viewed differently. The people opposing it weren't unanimous, per se. There were some Confederate nationalists who were just fine with universal manhood suffrage....who spent the war playing with their slaves on their plantations and never heard a shot fired in anger while the poor people died in carload lots. The assembly in Montgomery of delegates of the seven states that created the Provisional Confederate Government was the furthest thing imaginable from representative of a Confederate *nation* and the four states dragged in in the spring of 1861 never really had any kind of unified Confederate sentiment as it was, hence why all four of them had the most well-known miniature Civil Wars and we have now West Virginia out of what was northwestern Virginia. The people who made up the Confederate government were not very nice people, and almost none of them qualify for democratic politicians.


So you're willing to admit that conscription was a moral evil in both nations? That people opposing conscription on one side were just as right to do so as the people doing so on the other?

No, I'm willing to say that conscription was a moral necessity in both *sides*, one of which was a nation and the other of which was well-organized rebellion. There was no Confederate nation.

[usertron2020]

SF

I'd happily join in with you in this debate, but you do it so well!:):D

[The Gunslinger]

SF

I'd happily join in with you in this debate, but you do it so well!:):D

I won't lie, it's reached the point where the utter insanity of these threads has reduced me to pretty well thinking that this is Days of Our Lives.

[usertron2020]

I won't lie, it's reached the point where the utter insanity of these threads has reduced me to pretty well thinking that this is Days of Our Lives.

Like sands through the hourglass...:)

[usertron2020]

So you're saying that every single man who attended the First Provisional Congress was in support of this?

MAlexMatt

Sadly, it is our own OTL American history that vindicates the idea of the White ruling classes desiring the enslavement of the Poor White working classes. You have only to look at the history of the systematic development of the chain-gang prison system throughout the post-ACW South. While initially concentrated on the newly freed Blacks, the various state and county authorities, once they saw the $$$ to be made in putting the chain gangs to forced labor, were only too happy to include rounding up Whites for such nefarious crimes as "vagrancy" and "being disrespectful to a police officer".:mad:

I can easily see such a system developing in a CSA Triumphant ATL. Of course, it wouldn't be CALLED White Slavery, but considering the lack of oversight OTL over these organizations, don't be surprised when these felonious vagrants:rolleyes: wind up seeing their 30-60-90 day "sentences" stretching out for years and years.:mad:

[MAlexMatt]

Honestly, I don't see why this is such a big deal for you.

Because it matters. If we're going to have an actual debate here, instead of me asserting I'm right and you asserting you're right and both us talking past each other, we have to be willing to offer actual evidence for our claims. You claimed that some portion of the Provisional Congress for the first few states to leave the Union was in favor of removing universal suffrage. I need to know what proportion, and what their actual chances of seeing that through would be. After all, I don't think a single Confederate State would have listened if the Confederate Congress (which, by the way, was a different body from the Provisional Congress) tried to tell them how to handle suffrage.

You need to be able to demonstrate that people of this kind of opinion were in a large enough majority to be able to capture legislative control of each of the individual Confederate states. In order to even begin doing that, you need to be able to show that they made up even just a majority in the Provisional Congress itself.

Your whole argument rests of a bed of evidence that is paper thin. Beef it up or admit you are just basing the whole thing on supposition.

It's like it's a perfect unwillingness to admit that in different times different concepts were viewed differently.

Look man, the facts are the facts. Reality cannot contradict itself. We can see things in different ways, but that's an artifact of our flawed, limited perspectives, not any variation out in the universe itself. Put up or shut up, stop trying to dodge.

The people opposing it weren't unanimous, per se. There were some Confederate nationalists who were just fine with universal manhood suffrage....who spent the war playing with their slaves on their plantations and never heard a shot fired in anger while the poor people died in carload lots. The assembly in Montgomery of delegates of the seven states that created the Provisional Confederate Government was the furthest thing imaginable from representative of a Confederate *nation* and the four states dragged in in the spring of 1861 never really had any kind of unified Confederate sentiment as it was, hence why all four of them had the most well-known miniature Civil Wars and we have now West Virginia out of what was northwestern Virginia. The people who made up the Confederate government were not very nice people, and almost none of them qualify for democratic politicians.

You need to learn to concentrate here. They 'weren't unanimous'? How do you know this? What did each faction number? When you speak of the people who were comfortable with universal suffrage sitting home on their plantations, who are you talking about?

You run on generalizations. Generalizations aren't facts, they're an order of magnitude removed from facts. They're facts viewed through a badly designed telescope from ten miles away.

I want facts. If you want to prove your argument you need more than just generalizations.

No, I'm willing to say that conscription was a moral necessity in both *sides*, one of which was a nation and the other of which was well-organized rebellion. There was no Confederate nation.

You're actually right. The Confederacy was made up of the whole or part of at least three different nations.

What made conscription a moral necessity?

[MAlexMatt]

MAlexMatt

Sadly, it is our own OTL American history that vindicates the idea of the White ruling classes desiring the enslavement of the Poor White working classes. You have only to look at the history of the systematic development of the chain-gang prison system throughout the post-ACW South. While initially concentrated on the newly freed Blacks, the various state and county authories, once they saw the $$$ to be made in putting the chain gangs to forced labor, were only too happy to include rounding up Whites for such nefarious crimes as "vagrancy" and "being disrespectful to a police officer".:mad:

I can easily see such a system developing in a CSA Triumphant ATL. Of course, it wouldn't be CALLED White Slavery, but considering the lack of oversight OTL over these organizations, don't be surprised when these felonious vagrants:rolleyes: wind up seeing their 30-60-90 day "sentences" stretching out for years and years.:mad:

Can you recognize the difference between your own ability to imagine something and the historical necessity of it happening?

[Spengler]

Matt notice how he used history to back up what he is saying. As oppose to what could be best described as naive speculation.

Also Snake is using historical fact to support what he is saying as well.

[MAlexMatt]

Matt notice how he used history to back up what he is saying. As oppose to what could be best described as naive speculation.

Actually, naive speculation is more or less exactly what I'd call what he did.

What he's doing is committing a non sequitor fallacy. His conclusion doesn't logically follow from his premises. It's just that, with the rest of his biases, the little tid-bit he did use was enough to meet his own subjective sense of certainty. Subjective certainty, however, is not objective proof. Without sharing his biases, I have absolutely no logical reason to agree with him.

[usertron2020]

Can you recognize the difference between your own ability to imagine something (1) and the historical necessity of it happening? (2)

OK...:confused: I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to define your terms a little bit better.

1) Imagine something that actually happened OTL??

2) Historical necessity? Where? In OTL or in the CSA Triumphant ATL? If the former, I am quite certain you are not arguing for the "historical necessity" of years long incarcerations of 12 year old boys (Black) for the crime of being disrespectful of a White Man. If the latter, the "historical necessity" would be (and OTL was) based on the greed of the planter class, not simple economics.

[eliphas8]

OK...:confused: I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to define your terms a little bit better.

1) Imagine something that actually happened OTL??

2) Historical necessity? Where? In OTL or in the CSA Triumphant ATL? If the former, I am quite certain you are not arguing for the "historical necessity" of years long incarcerations of 12 year old boys (Black) for the crime of being disrespectful of a White Man. If the latter, the "historical necessity" would be (and OTL was) based on the greed of the planter class, not simple economics.

To be fair greed and simple economics often overlap.

[MAlexMatt]

OK...:confused: I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to define your terms a little bit better.

1) Imagine something that actually happened OTL??

2) Historical necessity? Where? In OTL or in the CSA Triumphant ATL? If the former, I am quite certain you are not arguing for the "historical necessity" of years long incarcerations of 12 year old boys (Black) for the crime of being disrespectful of a White Man. If the latter, the "historical necessity" would be (and OTL was) based on the greed of the planter class, not simple economics.

I figured you were arguing that the appearance of chain labor gangs in the post-bellum period IOTL supported Snake's assertion that there was wide-spread enough antipathy to lower class whites in what would be, ITTL, Confederate society that universal white male suffrage would be reversed.

If that is, in fact, not what you were arguing, I retract my objection.

[TyranicusMaximus]

MAlexMatt, I'm not sure exactly why this all matters to you. Aren't you the person who made a big deal about how over the years following independence, conservatives pushed back against the liberal ideals (If not practical reality, as OTL showed), and said it was one of the worst aspects of American history.

Isn't the CSA just those tendencies amplified?

[MAlexMatt]

MAlexMatt, I'm not sure exactly why this all matters to you. Aren't you the person who made a big deal about how over the years following independence, conservatives pushed back against the liberal ideals (If not practical reality, as OTL showed), and said it was one of the worst aspects of American history.

Isn't the CSA just those tendencies amplified?

Can't somebody argue for historical accuracy without being emotionally involved in the subject of debate?

[Snake Featherston]

Matt, again, I'm the one using actual incidents of the pre-war and independent CSA of OTL, you're using nothing but speculation and personal attacks.

1) Your fixation on the Provisional Congress neglects one reality of the antebellum South: universal suffrage arrived much later and much more incompletely there than in the North. It was not a tradition, it was a new and rather despised challenge to a class accustomed to a total monopoly on power. There's no tradition or basis for this to overthrow, there's restoring order as the planters wish it to be. Note that the CSA was created by conventions, undemocratically, and formed by a Provisional Congress that was never actually elected by anyone in the new nation. Note, also, that in CS Congressional elections Southerners elected a lot of anti-Confederate politicians to the Confederate Congress, which is one reason *why* the founders of the CSA wanted to limit the franchise.

2) Look, man, I'm the one using facts. What facts are in the assertion I'm referring to here? I'm pointing out things like the Confederacy's foundations in a narrow section of overall Southern politics, its foundation by undemocratic means, its free and easy reversion to totalitarian political means to control itself, and all you've got is again personal attacks and complaining as opposed to an actual argument.

3) They meaning the founders of the Confederacy. This factionalism depended on which state we're talking about. In the original seven there were a good deal of people who did like universal manhood suffrage, usually the people enfranchised in the time immediately preceding the war. There were a larger number of politically involved citizens who wanted the traditional patronage basis of society to continue always and forever. And there were Confederate nationalists who felt that the entire issue needed to be waited upon until after independence. If we bring in North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas things get really messy and convoluted as far as their vision of Confederate society.

4) No, the Confederacy was a souped-up rebellion reliant upon armed force that got shitcanned. There again was no Confederate nation, there was the one hard core of Confederate nationalism in the Confederate army and there were Confederate politicians attempting and failing to establish a Confederate state.

5) The argument about the postwar South meets the following purpose: Confederate military defeat followed attempts by the Confederate President to abolish slavery and recruit slaves as soldiers, this in 1865 and the attempts very much failed. Upon this Foundation the post-war South went to the Black Codes and then to their more moderate successor segregation and to a pale ghost of the Confederacy where an elite sharply identified with the Confederacy restored an agarian economy dependent on unfree black labor. This indicates how thoroughly entrenched the class system in the South actually was, though the segregation-era class system was actually simpler than the old South's had been. The pre-war South had seen a repeated tendency to things like gag orders in the FEDERAL Congress, use of patrols, complete censorship of challenges to their order, the establishment of a surveillance state system, and in all this there is not the least foundation for an enduring Confederate democracy.

Would it disappear overnight? No. Would it last a single generation? Also no. Is this a sign that the Confederate state would disappear with it? Not in the least, as a dictatorship in the CSA's particular context is more stable than democracy will ever be, not least from not having to cube a circle as its very foundation. And a CS dictatorship, in all likelihood run by the Confederate Army, will be far more aware of its weaknesses relative the USA and will be very unlikely so long as its base of power is stable to be involved in any such war.

[67th Tigers]

Matt, again, I'm the one using actual incidents of the pre-war and independent CSA of OTL, you're using nothing but speculation and personal attacks.


No, you are doing what you generally do. You make sweeping generalisations which you can't back up (or even sometimes try and back them up with something from a google search that in fact undermines your own argument, as recently witnessed). When challenged on the paucity of evidence you retreat back to claims of "personal attacks" and "demand apologies".

[Spengler]

No, you are doing what you generally do. You make sweeping generalisations which you can't back up (or even sometimes try and back them up with something from a google search that in fact undermines your own argument, as recently witnessed). When challenged on the paucity of evidence you retreat back to claims of "personal attacks" and "demand apologies".
Wow I've never ever seen a comment full of lies in my life. Also I love how you say evidence before opinion because all we get out of you are what could at best be called opinions.

[Space Oddity]

Wow I've never ever seen a comment full of lies in my life.

Lies require a conscious effort, and an acknowledgement of the truth. The board's Numbered Feline is more a bullshitter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit).

[Snake Featherston]

No, you are doing what you generally do. You make sweeping generalisations which you can't back up (or even sometimes try and back them up with something from a google search that in fact undermines your own argument, as recently witnessed). When challenged on the paucity of evidence you retreat back to claims of "personal attacks" and "demand apologies".

Frankly I still demand an apology from you when you said I invented the change of base to the James. And frankly Matt's whole schtick is to claim the CSA didn't mean anything it said and blatant historical negationism about what the CSA really was. And I am not interested in another round of Anatoly Fomenko shenanigans with you.

[TyranicusMaximus]

Can't somebody argue for historical accuracy without being emotionally involved in the subject of debate?

Running through a list of logical fallacies makes it seem as though you are emotionally involved.

[rain crow]

In regards to the original question as to whether the event of an independent CSA would inevitably cause the two American republics to become bitter enemies, I'd say no. If the Lincoln administration had withdrawn all troops from the occupied Southern forts, and thus removed the ultimate spark for the war, you would have a confederation of seven Gulf States whose economies were fully dependent on the trading of cotton with outside parties, including the USA. Because of this, and perhaps because of their overruled objections to past tariffs, this confederation had stated their intent, upon secession, of making their major ports (New Orleans, Charleston) into low tariff free trade zones. While this terrified certain vested interest groups in the north, and was stated as one of the reasons for persecuting the war by William T. Sherman, the positive effects such zones would have in the US would, over time, build a lot of positive feelings towards the Confederacy in the interior parts of the United States.

So, what would those perks have been?

1. The lifting of the protective tariff on Southern ports would have broken the attempts of northern manufacturing interests to gain a monopoly on manufactured goods sold in the United States and, now, the Confederacy. This would have caused them to have to compete with foreign manufacturers, thus lowering prices and encouraging innovation, which would have benefitted US citizens.

2. Having free trade zones so close and competing with New York, Chicago, and Boston could very well have caused a reduction of tariffs in the United States, which would have invited more trade and prosperity to the country.

Taking those two notions into account, and assuming there is no bloody, bloody war between the two countries, I see no reason why the citizens of either country would see each other as any less than kin who now lived in different houses. The potential for war between the U.S. and the C.S.A. would be very limited.

Of course, you could always turn things around a bit, and have the Republicans abolish the Fugitive Slave laws in retaliation for the South opening up its ports to free trade. This could bring in the potential for some of the states in the Upper South to threaten secession, which might turn into armed conflict, but unless there is a catalyst like Ft. Sumter I have a hard time seeing war actually breaking out, and without a serious war there would not be enough rancor between the two countries to stimulate future armed conflict.

Just my take on it.

[usertron2020]

No, you are doing what you generally do. You make sweeping generalisations which you can't back up (or even sometimes try and back them up with something from a google search that in fact undermines your own argument, as recently witnessed). When challenged on the paucity of evidence you retreat back to claims of "personal attacks" and "demand apologies".

1) Your own sources don't say what you claim they do. That's what happens when you cherrypick data. Rendering your interminable homemade lists and charts of "facts" valueless.

2) No unbanned forum member engages in as many ad hominems as yourself.

3) No unbanned forum member matches your level of historical negationism.

4) Better SF's making sweeping generalisations than your firing shots that barely hit your targets at all followed by your claims of "Bullseye!":rolleyes:

5) I do agree with you about SF's demands from you for an apology. It is patently ridiculous to expect an apology from you about anything to anyone, other than your most favored cliche' "I'm sorry you're an idiot".

6) Ditto for suggesting you admit an error, except for your second most favored cliche' "I was wrong, you ARE an idiot."

Maybe SF is just venting. Because there's no way I can see you ever indulging in humility.:(

[usertron2020]

rain crow

I don't agree with your conclusions, but my congrats on your points being very well presented.

[benjamin]

We've all read books and timelines involving an Independent CSA. There are a number of ways of which this could be achieved but what I am wondering is that are the CSA and USA destined to become bitter enemies and fight several wars as occurs in every timeline, or are they more likely to become the best of friends?

I understand that this depends on how the south achieved independence. If it was peaceful, than the relations between the USA and CSA would most likely be peaceful. If it was a hard fought war without foreign aid than I would think it would be tense at first but by the end of the century things would have cooled down and the two would be pretty friendly. However if the CSA had achieved victory after a hard fought war with foreign assistance I can imagine the CSA and USA being more enbittered with eachother.

These are just my thoughts, who else wants to chime in?

Ignoring all the comments that have come before mine, I'll attempt to discuss my feelings on the topic.

Yes, the answer really depends on how Confederacy gains its independence. But even without Lincoln it's highly unlikely that the North will just let the Confederacy go peacefully. The idea of the United Sates as a special and nearly sacred land had a strong emotional hold on many politicians in the North.

So for me I believe that only through conflict will the Confederacy gain independence and further more its absolutely essential that at least Great Britain intervene. Without foreign assistance the Confederacy is a lost cause.

That being said even after the Confederacy gains its independence there will be many issues that continue to plague foreign relations between the two nations.

1. Territorial Disputes - Regardless of how the treaty that ends the ACW turns out there will be legitimate land claims to be made be either. If Maryland stays in the Union the slaveholders of the counties around the Chesapeake will be angry. If Kentucky goes to the Confederacy, Unionists in that state will resist. Any of these issues could be the spark for further conflict. Of course over time the people of these regions will make due but if it becomes a national policy or a point of political contention for an interest group or political party these hard feelings could last for a long time.

2. Rights of Transit - With the most important water way in North America going through the hearts of each nation free travel down the Mississippi will be crucial to both nation, especially the Union. The increased of railroads will mitigate this to some degree, but if the Kentucky is also in the CSA than yet another important waterway quickly becomes a flashpoint.

3. Emotional Nationalist Conflicts - The idea of the US as a united republic and the last great democratic stronghold of democracy was a powerful idea to the people of America. Much of the reasoning after Sumter but before the Emancipation Proclamation for the war was built upon the sanctity of the Union. The destruction of the Union would cause lasting animosity regardless of how it occurs.

4. International Affairs - If the Confederacy had to rely on foreign intervention to attain independence, something I see as a given; then the US will also look for allies (one of the few areas where I think Turtledove was spot on in TL-191). When Europe goes to war then a system of alliances will also drag North America along.

5. Slavery - The war was and any future tensions will stem from the existence of that "peculiar institution." Regardless of how the war ends, if the South wins slavery will survive in some form for a long time afterwards. Also to survive will be abolitionist agitation, the Underground Railroad and cross border slave patrols. All of these will work against their being lasting peace between the two nations.

Given these issues it seems very likely to me that future conflict between the Confederacy and the Union is nearly inevitable.

As for for the rest of the arguments contained in this thread...I'm right and the rest of you are wrong.

Benjamin

[usertron2020]

Ignoring all the comments that have come before mine, I'll attempt to discuss my feelings on the topic.

Yes, the answer really depends on how Confederacy gains its independence. But even without Lincoln it's highly unlikely that the North will just let the Confederacy go peacefully. The idea of the United Sates as a special and nearly sacred land had a strong emotional hold on many politicians in the North.

So for me I believe that only through conflict will the Confederacy gain independence and further more its absolutely essential that at least Great Britain intervene. Without foreign assistance the Confederacy is a lost cause.

That being said even after the Confederacy gains its independence there will be many issues that continue to plague foreign relations between the two nations.

1. Territorial Disputes - Regardless of how the treaty that ends the ACW turns out there will be legitimate land claims to be made be either. If Maryland stays in the Union the slaveholders of the counties around the Chesapeake will be angry. If Kentucky goes to the Confederacy, Unionists in that state will resist. Any of these issues could be the spark for further conflict. Of course over time the people of these regions will make due but if it becomes a national policy or a point of political contention for an interest group or political party these hard feelings could last for a long time.

2. Rights of Transit - With the most important water way in North America going through the hearts of each nation free travel down the Mississippi will be crucial to both nation, especially the Union. The increased of railroads will mitigate this to some degree, but if the Kentucky is also in the CSA than yet another important waterway quickly becomes a flashpoint.

3. Emotional Nationalist Conflicts - The idea of the US as a united republic and the last great democratic stronghold of democracy was a powerful idea to the people of America. Much of the reasoning after Sumter but before the Emancipation Proclamation for the war was built upon the sanctity of the Union. The destruction of the Union would cause lasting animosity regardless of how it occurs.

4. International Affairs - If the Confederacy had to rely on foreign intervention to attain independence, something I see as a given; then the US will also look for allies (one of the few areas where I think Turtledove was spot on in TL-191). When Europe goes to war then a system of alliances will also drag North America along.

5. Slavery - The war was and any future tensions will stem from the existence of that "peculiar institution." Regardless of how the war ends, if the South wins slavery will survive in some form for a long time afterwards. Also to survive will be abolitionist agitation, the Underground Railroad and cross border slave patrols. All of these will work against their being lasting peace between the two nations.

Given these issues it seems very likely to me that future conflict between the Confederacy and the Union is nearly inevitable.

As for for the rest of the arguments contained in this thread...I'm right and the rest of you are wrong.

Benjamin

Best damn review I've seen on this entire thread.:)

[benjamin]

Best damn review I've seen on this entire thread.:)

Thank you. I get a bit tired of the digressions these threads often take.

I haven't been around much do to health problems, but hopefully the worst is past and if my ribs will ever heal I'll post a lot more in the future.

Benjamin

[EnglishCanuck]

We've all read books and timelines involving an Independent CSA. There are a number of ways of which this could be achieved but what I am wondering is that are the CSA and USA destined to become bitter enemies and fight several wars as occurs in every timeline, or are they more likely to become the best of friends?

I understand that this depends on how the south achieved independence. If it was peaceful, than the relations between the USA and CSA would most likely be peaceful. If it was a hard fought war without foreign aid than I would think it would be tense at first but by the end of the century things would have cooled down and the two would be pretty friendly. However if the CSA had achieved victory after a hard fought war with foreign assistance I can imagine the CSA and USA being more enbittered with eachother.

These are just my thoughts, who else wants to chime in?

My thoughts are yes. But I base this on a few reasons.

1. The Confederacy is only going to gain legitimacy after it has been granted international recognition and other nations have moved in to negotiate for them. This would most likely be Britain or France (though I've always seen France as the prime contender with Britain just following along). So the US will most likely be in conflict with these two nations (though Britian will probably move away from the CSA as they will despise the idea of slavery).

2. Ideologies. The Confederacy has a very strict and authoritatian style of governing. They had censorship and gag orders before the war, the government won't get much better after. They will by necessity be a military state and thus have an aggresive policy. Slavery will also drive many Northerners to despise the Confederacy and that old ideological feud will continue.

3. The Union will (for at least one or two generations) desire the territory they lost back. They were the top dog on the continent and will be quite upset at having lost this position. Animosity will not disappear overnight.

[Johnrankins]

Ignoring all the comments that have come before mine, I'll attempt to discuss my feelings on the topic.

Yes, the answer really depends on how Confederacy gains its independence. But even without Lincoln it's highly unlikely that the North will just let the Confederacy go peacefully. The idea of the United Sates as a special and nearly sacred land had a strong emotional hold on many politicians in the North.

So for me I believe that only through conflict will the Confederacy gain independence and further more its absolutely essential that at least Great Britain intervene. Without foreign assistance the Confederacy is a lost cause.

That being said even after the Confederacy gains its independence there will be many issues that continue to plague foreign relations between the two nations.

1. Territorial Disputes - Regardless of how the treaty that ends the ACW turns out there will be legitimate land claims to be made be either. If Maryland stays in the Union the slaveholders of the counties around the Chesapeake will be angry. If Kentucky goes to the Confederacy, Unionists in that state will resist. Any of these issues could be the spark for further conflict. Of course over time the people of these regions will make due but if it becomes a national policy or a point of political contention for an interest group or political party these hard feelings could last for a long time.

2. Rights of Transit - With the most important water way in North America going through the hearts of each nation free travel down the Mississippi will be crucial to both nation, especially the Union. The increased of railroads will mitigate this to some degree, but if the Kentucky is also in the CSA than yet another important waterway quickly becomes a flashpoint.

3. Emotional Nationalist Conflicts - The idea of the US as a united republic and the last great democratic stronghold of democracy was a powerful idea to the people of America. Much of the reasoning after Sumter but before the Emancipation Proclamation for the war was built upon the sanctity of the Union. The destruction of the Union would cause lasting animosity regardless of how it occurs.

4. International Affairs - If the Confederacy had to rely on foreign intervention to attain independence, something I see as a given; then the US will also look for allies (one of the few areas where I think Turtledove was spot on in TL-191). When Europe goes to war then a system of alliances will also drag North America along.

5. Slavery - The war was and any future tensions will stem from the existence of that "peculiar institution." Regardless of how the war ends, if the South wins slavery will survive in some form for a long time afterwards. Also to survive will be abolitionist agitation, the Underground Railroad and cross border slave patrols. All of these will work against their being lasting peace between the two nations.

Given these issues it seems very likely to me that future conflict between the Confederacy and the Union is nearly inevitable.

As for for the rest of the arguments contained in this thread...I'm right and the rest of you are wrong.

Benjamin


Agreed. I think conflict is near inevitable. For one thing even in a peaceful breakup there will probably be the abolition of slavery very soon afterwords. If KY is gone there is little reason not to do so right away. Once that happens say good by to the Fugitive Slave Law and slaves can escape merely by going to the US instead of all the way to Canada. Southerners won't like that and will try to kidnap them back. Countries aren't happy when you kidnap their citizens, 2nd class or not. Eventually that will lead to war.

[Snake Featherston]

Best damn review I've seen on this entire thread.:)

Seconded. Though one element I'd add as a potential issue that might start conflicts would be the instability of the Confederate government, as the other 5 are written with an assumption that there'd be two governments able to formulate and implement agreed-upon policies, which is far more unlikely in the context of the Confederacy than it would ever be in the USA. There'd also be a potential issue where the CS Army might assume de facto the kind of autonomous political influence that was so dangerous in Germany and Japan's history by virtue of its influence on CS nationalism and the more dangerous situations for a newly independent CS state than greeted the newly independent US state.

[MAlexMatt]

Matt, again, I'm the one using actual incidents of the pre-war and independent CSA of OTL, you're using nothing but speculation and personal attacks.

Look man, I'm asking you to provide evidence, that's all. If you think that's a personal attack, then you're just too far gone.

If you refuse to provide actual evidence, instead of supposition based on the same kind of broad generalizations that gets people believing in Reptilians and Banker Conspiracies, then we're done here. You've essentially ruined this topic but asserting that your opinion is correct and anyone who disagrees is ignoring 'the evidence' (which you refuse to provide).

Enjoy your life. You really won't get far on bluster alone.

[Snake Featherston]

Look man, I'm asking you to provide evidence, that's all. If you think that's a personal attack, then you're just too far gone.

If you refuse to provide actual evidence, instead of supposition based on the same kind of broad generalizations that gets people believing in Reptilians and Banker Conspiracies, then we're done here. You've essentially ruined this topic but asserting that your opinion is correct and anyone who disagrees is ignoring 'the evidence' (which you refuse to provide).

Enjoy your life. You really won't get far on bluster alone.

I have provided plenty of evidence and specific examples. I have yet to see this reciprocated. But once again: the CSA is built on an exceptionally poor foundation for democracy, the rise of a military dictatorship actually resolves several gordian knots of CS democracy, and a military dictatorship in the particular context of an independent Confederacy is *less*, not *more* likely to attack the United States.

[benjamin]

Agreed. I think conflict is near inevitable. For one thing even in a peaceful breakup there will probably be the abolition of slavery very soon afterwords. If KY is gone there is little reason not to do so right away. Once that happens say good by to the Fugitive Slave Law and slaves can escape merely by going to the US instead of all the way to Canada. Southerners won't like that and will try to kidnap them back. Countries aren't happy when you kidnap their citizens, 2nd class or not. Eventually that will lead to war.

Exactly. The US has always defined itself by how it differs from other nations, especially its perceived enemies. This will be even more important in a US vs CS situation as their national identities diverge. This means the US will go out of its way to oppose Confederate policies which will in turn infuriate Confederate politicians.

I always found it odd that in much AH where the Confederacy wins the US becomes even less free and liberal (in a classical liberal sense). Yes, racism existed throughout the northern states and many states in the Midwest actually forbade free blacks, but overall the North was still far better than any of the slave states. The North will intentionally move to differ itself from the Confederacy and embarrass those European nations now tied to the Confederacy economically and militarily. Without Southern opposition the US will move towards equal rights at a much quicker pace.

This alone will further increase tensions between the two nations.

Benjamin

[Snake Featherston]

Exactly. The US has always defined itself by how it differs from other nations, especially its perceived enemies. This will be even more important in a US vs CS situation as their national identities diverge. This means the US will go out of its way to oppose Confederate policies which will in turn infuriate Confederate politicians.

I always found it odd that in much AH where the Confederacy wins the US becomes even less free and liberal (in a classical liberal sense). Yes, racism existed throughout the northern states and many states in the Midwest actually forbade free blacks, but overall the North was still far better than any of the slave states. The North will intentionally move to differ itself from the Confederacy and embarrass those European nations now tied to the Confederacy economically and militarily. Without Southern opposition the US will move towards equal rights at a much quicker pace.

This alone will further increase tensions between the two nations.

Benjamin

I can actually see that in terms of being more militarized, US security situations didn't require a large peacetime army through much of the 19th Century and the 20th Century. A CSA, which is likely to be unstable *and* with potential irredentist claims made at US expense requires a completely different security policy, one that might well fundamentally alter the USA's entire view of its military. The USA would certainly explicitly outlaw secession afterward. I agree that otherwise the USA might well embrace more radical racial equality for no other reason than to spite the Confederacy.

[benjamin]

I can actually see that in terms of being more militarized, US security situations didn't require a large peacetime army through much of the 19th Century and the 20th Century. A CSA, which is likely to be unstable *and* with potential irredentist claims made at US expense requires a completely different security policy, one that might well fundamentally alter the USA's entire view of its military. The USA would certainly explicitly outlaw secession afterward. I agree that otherwise the USA might well embrace more radical racial equality for no other reason than to spite the Confederacy.

Yes, and like in OTL the military will actually lead the way in racial equality. Integration will occur way earlier and much press will be made out of any victory of black soldiers over the Confederate troops.

Benjamin

[usertron2020]

I have provided plenty of evidence and specific examples. I have yet to see this reciprocated. But once again: the CSA is built on an exceptionally poor foundation for democracy, the rise of a military dictatorship actually resolves several gordian knots of CS democracy, and a military dictatorship in the particular context of an independent Confederacy is *less*, not *more* likely to attack the United States.

Relax, Mr. Featherston. Your position as one of the forum's best ACW experts (for those who post as often as you do) is unassailable. Your venom so regularly directed at the Confederacy is hardly something to be criticized, as it is against a nauseating slavocracy. Particularly when you exalt the memory of the Southern Unionists, whose story so often goes untold, sad to say.:(

And say what you will about MAlexMatt, but he is no 67th Tigers! MAM will debate, not pontificate. Offer ideas, not engage in one way lectures. Discuss, not issue proclamations. If it seems he gets easily upset (God knows I'm guilty of that, often enough:(:(:o:o), just remember that you DO have the stronger moral, ethical, and historical position.

To MAlexMatt, I say, just give things time. You may just surprise yourself and find that maybe SF isn't completely wet after all.:)

[EnglishCanuck]

Yes, and like in OTL the military will actually lead the way in racial equality. Integration will occur way earlier and much press will be made out of any victory of black soldiers over the Confederate troops.

Benjamin

Hah! Now that is how TL-191 should have been!

But I do see a more militarized and an earlier integrated US something that would emerge from an independent South. It would be a very interesting America that would come about.

[Johnrankins]

Yes, and like in OTL the military will actually lead the way in racial equality. Integration will occur way earlier and much press will be made out of any victory of black soldiers over the Confederate troops.

Benjamin


I agree. It think SF has it exactly right. If nothing else it will be more radical in racial equality just to spite the Confederacy!! Some people here seem to forget the fact that people hold grudges and often for a very long time.

[usertron2020]

I agree. It think SF has it exactly right. If nothing else it will be more radical in racial equality just to spite the Confederacy!! Some people here seem to forget the fact that people hold grudges and often for a very long time.

Talk about holding grudges. You could expect a border becoming ever more fortified as slave-catchers go north to catch runaways, or any Free Blacks they can get their hands on! Its not like they are going to feel beholden to US law. And even by Southern standards the "Long-range Slave Patrollers", full time mercenaries who did nothing else, were considered the absolute bottom of Southern society, even below slave traders and pimps.:mad: Due to their penchant for mutilation of their victims, if nothing else. Southern slaveholders felt this way not out of sympathy for the Blacks, but because it lowered the value of the slaves, costing the South $$$.

A question for one and all: Could, in these circumstances, a slave catcher caught up north provoke sympathy down South upon his (their) being lynched?:confused:

Yes? No?

It might seem the height of arrogance, but such arrogance was hardly in short supply in the Confederacy. Triumphant, that arrogance could be magnified tenfold. The question is not a small one, as I could easily see a Hatfield McCoy War begin that would expand into a general conflict.

Opinions?

[eliphas8]

I agree. It think SF has it exactly right. If nothing else it will be more radical in racial equality just to spite the Confederacy!! Some people here seem to forget the fact that people hold grudges and often for a very long time.

Especially after long brutal wars where a lot of people die.These grudges are also important in Democratic systems because they then influence policy signifigantly.

[Johnrankins]

Especially after long brutal wars where a lot of people die.These grudges are also important in Democratic systems because they then influence policy signifigantly.

Agreed, a dictatorship can downplay any grudges if it suits their interests. Elected officials who try doing that tend to lose to those who don't downplay it.

[M79]

I concur that we saw an excellent review of the CSA position earlier in this thread by Benjamin though I would like to offer a different viewpoint on achievement of CSA independence.

There is a chance if the CSA can hold its ground by 1862 that some Copperheads realize there would be much greater chance of foreign intervention is the war continues, especially if Lee can smash the Army of the Potomac at the Battle of (random location). Bragg can hold Kentucky for some time under the wrong or right circumstances, and I could see a CSA of the original 11 states plus KY and IT. That is about the best you're going to get out of the war situation IMO. The USA will resent the departure or so many state but as time goes by the generation of the war will dissipate and the newer generations will accept the division as fact. New Orleans will have to become a free port almost for the sake of peace while other free ports could quickly emerge - Galveston TX, Mobile AL, Savannah GA, and Charleston SC come to mind most quickly. But if here is no glorious war of reunification/reconquest by 1885 I do not think it would happen unless part of a larger alliance system, one which North America might ultimately avoid. Heck, they might even profit from an early World War just by acting as sympathetic suppliers while laughing as Europe rips itself to pieces.

BTW, has anyone done a thread or asked why the M1819 Hall rifle could not be studied and improved by the CSA? It would give them a weaker breechloader, should rifling be introduced with Minie balls it might be interesting to see what the Union response would be to CSA troops firing 8-10+ rounds/minute...

[usertron2020]

Has anyone done a thread or asked why the M1819 Hall rifle could not be studied and improved by the CSA? It would give them a weaker breechloader, should rifling be introduced with Minie balls it might be interesting to see what the Union response would be to CSA troops firing 8-10+ rounds/minute...

It might be interesting to see what the Confederate response would be to US troops firing 60-70+ rounds/minute...:eek: All it takes is the firing of a certain hyper-conservative ordnance general and finally allowing the deployment of the Gatling Gun.:eek:

[Flubber]

New Orleans will have to become a free port almost for the sake of peace while other free ports could quickly emerge - Galveston TX, Mobile AL, Savannah GA, and Charleston SC come to mind most quickly.


The idea of New Orleans becoming a "free port" and transhipment of Union goods down the Mississippi being allowed is wholly plausible because the Mississippi happens to physically connect the Union Mid-West to the Gulf. The idea that the other ports you listed would become free ports for Union shipments is nonsense.

No physical connection like that enjoyed by New Orleans exists between Galveston, Mobile, Savannah, Charleston, and Union territory and no pre-war internal trade routes even remotely resembling the size, length, and scope of the the Ohio-Mississippi routes ever involved those ports.

[Perkeo]

This webside http://www.filibustercartoons.com/CSA.htm really provides a knock-out argument on the claim that the secession was about states' rights rather than slavery by just comparing the two constitutions, showing that most of the changes actually TAKE AWAY states' rights and the most substantial change are securing the 'right' of property in slaves and some economic clauses. Only the preamble refers to the sovereignity of the states.

[benjamin]

Talk about holding grudges. You could expect a border becoming ever more fortified as slave-catchers go north to catch runaways, or any Free Blacks they can get their hands on! Its not like they are going to feel beholden to US law. And even by Southern standards the "Long-range Slave Patrollers", full time mercenaries who did nothing else, were considered the absolute bottom of Southern society, even below slave traders and pimps.:mad: Due to their penchant for mutilation of their victims, if nothing else. Southern slaveholders felt this way not out of sympathy for the Blacks, but because it lowered the value of the slaves, costing the South $$$.

A question for one and all: Could, in these circumstances, a slave catcher caught up north provoke sympathy down South upon his (their) being lynched?:confused:

Yes? No?

It might seem the height of arrogance, but such arrogance was hardly in short supply in the Confederacy. Triumphant, that arrogance could be magnified tenfold. The question is not a small one, as I could easily see a Hatfield McCoy War begin that would expand into a general conflict.

Opinions?

There were several incidents in OTL where slave catchers became near martyrs. In 1851 Edward Gorsuch was killed while trying to recover an escaped slave in Christina, Pennsylvania. During the war slave trader Nathaniel Gordon became a celebrity in the South and the only American ever executed for the crime of slave trading. It wouldn't take much to have a reverse John Brown situation.

Border War: Fighting Over Slavery Before the Civil War by Stanley Harrold is an excellent overview of incidents like the one you have in mind.

Benjamin

[Snake Featherston]

I concur that we saw an excellent review of the CSA position earlier in this thread by Benjamin though I would like to offer a different viewpoint on achievement of CSA independence.

There is a chance if the CSA can hold its ground by 1862 that some Copperheads realize there would be much greater chance of foreign intervention is the war continues, especially if Lee can smash the Army of the Potomac at the Battle of (random location). Bragg can hold Kentucky for some time under the wrong or right circumstances, and I could see a CSA of the original 11 states plus KY and IT. That is about the best you're going to get out of the war situation IMO. The USA will resent the departure or so many state but as time goes by the generation of the war will dissipate and the newer generations will accept the division as fact. New Orleans will have to become a free port almost for the sake of peace while other free ports could quickly emerge - Galveston TX, Mobile AL, Savannah GA, and Charleston SC come to mind most quickly. But if here is no glorious war of reunification/reconquest by 1885 I do not think it would happen unless part of a larger alliance system, one which North America might ultimately avoid. Heck, they might even profit from an early World War just by acting as sympathetic suppliers while laughing as Europe rips itself to pieces.

BTW, has anyone done a thread or asked why the M1819 Hall rifle could not be studied and improved by the CSA? It would give them a weaker breechloader, should rifling be introduced with Minie balls it might be interesting to see what the Union response would be to CSA troops firing 8-10+ rounds/minute...

Lee is unable to smash the AoTP at any point in the war. Even at its worst leadership it was an army too formidable to destroy, and its cohesion during a string of defeats indicates the degree to which "If Lee does X then victory is assured" PODs are illusions. Bragg has two chances to win a truly decisive victory, Chickamauga and Perryville. If Longstreet's forces arrive in full strength on the second day of Chickamauga instead of in driblets then the Army of the Cumberland will be smashed far worse than IOTL, bad enough to dramatically worsen the Union dilemma at Chattanooga. Bragg's best chance is Perryville, where the Army of the Ohio was trying to boot out Buell, had had one of its generals (Jeff Davis) shoot another (Bull Nelson), had a complete falling out in generals and rank and file with their respect of and willingness to obey the orders of Buell, with a great deal of newly inexperienced combat troops, and thus had had a complete collapse of cohesion and discipline.

That could make Perryville a Civil War version of the Battle of Kiev: a great triumph for CS arms that is a thousand times due to the completely abysmal situation in its Union opposite number than any direct action taken by Bragg himself. It's possible in this situation that Braxton Bragg against *that* period of the Army of the Ohio/Cumberland's history might pull off a tactical victory just as Perryville was IOTL. Even then that won't let him stay in Kentucky, not when he's over-supplied with ammunition (which might, depending, actually play a major role in the victory in this ATL Perryville) and as almost always in the history of the Army of Tennessee vastly under-supplied with food. Lee's army really was a bunch of starving ragamuffins but compared to the Army of Tennessee was diving into food the way Scrooge McDuck does into money. :rolleyes::(

[Evan]

1) IT??? The only US states that combine the letters "I" and "T" are Minnesota and Connecticut!:eek: Man! You're getting pretty ambitious, aren't you?:D:rolleyes:
Indian Territory.:D

[Kate]

SF makes a very good case that an independent CSA would be constrained by its economic system and ideology minimizing any possibility of change. Also, as I understand, landowning elites have traditionally been against expansionism. The landowning Confucian elite opposed Cheng Ho's and later proposals of exploration in Africa in Ming China.Rome may be an exception, I don't know.

SF did mention though that the CSA wasn't a "nation". There was a tremendous amount of instability. The Confederate system would become increasingly brittle.

Many ATL scenarios see a later Texas succession. I don't know how likely this would be but if it occurs it would weaken the CSA internationally and perhaps internally as well.

The CSA would presumably be hard hit by the availability of cheap cotton from Egypt and India.They may be hard hit by the "Long depression" from roughly 1870-1890. In OTL there was severe labor unrest in the US. This would spill over into the CSA, although of course the Confederacy would have a much smaller urban working class.

Could there be an earlier Populist movement developing in the Confederacy?

I've thought for a while that there may be some sort of revolution in an independent CSA sometime in the late 1870s/1880s.A system somewhat like apartheid South Africa might emerge, with a "socialism" for poor whites.There was a largely successful attempts by the founders of South African apartheid to appeal to poor whites. One of the main architects of apartheid, Malan originally expressed sympathy for the Bolshevik Revolution.An early (extremely opportunistic)slogan of the South African CP was (as bizarre as it sounds) "Workers of the world unite for a white South Africa".

I could imagine, after years of unrest in the small industrialized areas, tensions including guerrilla warfare in regions which were not enthusiastic about succession, and the collapse of the plantation economy, an attempt to resolve the social contradictions of the CSA by creating an apartheid style "corporate state" with some resemblance to models in Argentina, Italy and perhaps South Africa. Its debatable how successful this would be.

[King Gorilla]

SF makes a very good case that an independent CSA would be constrained by its economic system and ideology minimizing any possibility of change. Also, as I understand, landowning elites have traditionally been against expansionism. The landowning Confucian elite opposed Cheng Ho's and later proposals of exploration in Africa in Ming China.Rome may be an exception, I don't know.


The problem is the CSA needs to be expansionist inorder to maintain itself. Cotton/tobacco monoculture is very hard on the soil. In order to maintain production, one has to keep on acquiring new land to cultivate. Whats more, the planter class was an aristocracy. While the first son is liable to inherit the estate and title, whats to be done with the second and third sons? Westward expansion is the solution to these problems.

[Snake Featherston]

The problem is the CSA needs to be expansionist inorder to maintain itself. Cotton/tobacco monoculture is very hard on the soil. In order to maintain production, one has to keep on acquiring new land to cultivate. Whats more, the planter class was an aristocracy. While the first son is liable to inherit the estate and title, whats to be done with the second and third sons? Westward expansion is the solution to these problems.

Expansion where and at whose expense? The CSA doesn't really *have* much area to expand to without either a renewed war with the United States or a war with Mexico it might very well lose.

[King Gorilla]

Expansion where and at whose expense? The CSA doesn't really *have* much area to expand to without either a renewed war with the United States or a war with Mexico it might very well lose.

Exactly.

Arkansas and Texas are the last frontiers for the slave economy. Once the land has been bought up and parceled into plantations (and subsistence farms for those who fail) the safety valve is shut off. Thankfully the confederacy's fire-eaters were somewhat delusional believing that imperialist expansion into the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America was both possible and inevitable. Should such a war occur, the CSA is likely to suffer from an extremely bloody nose.

[sloreck]

The CSA is not going to be able to produce any breechloading rifles, simply no industry. In fact the CSA is going to be similar (at least for some significant time) to thrid world countries OTL as far as weapons go. They had minimal ability to produce powder, developed at great effort during the war, and NO ability to produce any significant amount of rifles and no cannon. Their only viable ironclad, the Merrimac/Virginia, was only functional because the CSA had managed to rebuild the engines already on the Merrimac when it was burned by the Union Navy when the Norfolk Navy Yard had to be abandoned - the CSA had zero industrial capacity to produce locomotives let alone marine steam engines.

The significance of this is that the only way the CSA builds has anything more than a commerce raiding navy is with lots of ships purchased from UK/France. They won't be able to afford many, and if they attempt any filibustering in the Caribbean or Central America neither the UK nor France will appreciate it - end of CS Navy. Also, in the case of an independent CSA backed by the UK expect the Union to maintain and modernize its navy, which was allowed to decay after OTL CW until the 1890s. BTW when marine engineering advances to the steel ships of the 1880s/1890s the CSA will be even worse off than in the 1860s in terms of manufacturing ability.

If the CSA does not expand in to Central America, where do they go? Northern Mexico (ignoring international complications) is not fertile - you have go a good ways to get to good plantation land. Attacking the USA to grab arable land=suicide.

[MAlexMatt]

Relax, Mr. Featherston. Your position as one of the forum's best ACW experts

OK, I had to come back for this:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

HAHAH

*breathe breathe breathe*

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAhAHAAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAhAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

HAHAHAhA

*wheeeeeze*

HAHAHA

HAHAHA


HA

HA

h...

Snake has yet to list a single number of any type. You would think he'd never heard the word 'statistics' before. He has built up a funny little narrative grounded in NO actual evidence except for broad generalizations about the history of the period and you people seem to be intent on pretending that makes him an expert.

This is absolutely sick. Are you people 12? Have you finished high school yet?

I would abandon this topic, but it seems like future discussions about the Civil War period are going to be colored by the outcome here so I just want to get this absolutely, positively straight: Snake does not know a damned thing about the Civil War. I'd be willing to be he hasn't graduated college yet, let alone received a degree in the field like some of the people I've seen him argue against.

I may dislike 67th Tiger, I may KNOW he has a habit of being dishonest, of fudging numbers and outright mis-citing them.

But at least he has had numbers to fudge. He's ten times the Civil War 'expert' Snake could ever be. I would take his word over Snake's any day, even though I would 90% sure he was lying.

This whole thing is one, big, fat joke. Pretending you're being reasonable is not rationality. Logic, reason, the actual discipline of history, is based in evidence a little more nuanced and deep than just asserting that somebody said something somewhere. Like I said earlier, talk is cheap. I want numbers. I want evidence that there would be the votes to deprive millions of men of their hard won votes a decade or more after they won them, especially after they've fought a war for their independence and freedom.

Truth is everything that Snake believes about the Civil War, about the contemporary North and South, smells, no, reeks of bullshit he believes because he buys into the variant of the Just World fallacy known as Whiggish history: Evil people only ever do evil things, in a very incompetent ways, and history always shits on them from great heights. Everything in our history was an inevitable, glorious path towards building what we have today. Blah blah blah etc etc jesus christ do I really have to do this.

Read a fucking book.

[Snake Featherston]

Thing is, Matt, that I really *don't* believe the North is all that good. I think that the Confederacy was treasonous and led by political dunderheads and military incompetents, and fighting for an evil cause, yes. This is not the same as thinking Abraham Lincoln and company were saints. In fact my actual view of Grant is that he's only that good because everyone else on both sides were actually rather shit in terms of waging wars. The evidence I keep providing and that keeps getting ignored is right there in front of you in terms of how the Confederacy handled voting, in terms of speeches from leaders of the Confederacy, in terms of the very newness of universal manhood suffrage for white men in Confederate states. I would provide it, but as it would not be listened to it would be throwing good money after bad.

No citations would ever be listened to, they would all be dismissed. The CSA reverting universal manhood suffrage is not in itself evil, or at least not the most evil aspect of CS political society. It would simply be a reflection of CS society as it existed at the time.

Edit-You think I believe in the Just World theory?

......

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FlatWhat

[mowque]

Do we need to have the word 'Whig' in a debate about American history? Pssh, keep these limeys out of this.

[LordInsane]

Do we need to have the word 'Whig' in a debate about American history? Pssh, keep these limeys out of this.
Er, didn't the USA have a Whig Party until sometime in the 1850s?

[Spengler]

I find it funny that you Matt just attacked snake for disagreeing wiht you. It says alot about the kind of person you are.

[Snake Featherston]

Er, didn't the USA have a Whig Party until sometime in the 1850s?

Yes, it was a short-lived replacement of the Federalists and a lot of Whigs went on to become Republicans.

[CalBear]

And...

That's a yellow card.

CalBear in Mod Mode.OK, I had to come back for this:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

HAHAH

*breathe breathe breathe*

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAhAHAAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAhAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

HAHAHAhA

*wheeeeeze*

HAHAHA

HAHAHA


HA

HA

h...

Snake has yet to list a single number of any type. You would think he'd never heard the word 'statistics' before. He has built up a funny little narrative grounded in NO actual evidence except for broad generalizations about the history of the period and you people seem to be intent on pretending that makes him an expert.

This is absolutely sick. Are you people 12? Have you finished high school yet?

I would abandon this topic, but it seems like future discussions about the Civil War period are going to be colored by the outcome here so I just want to get this absolutely, positively straight: Snake does not know a damned thing about the Civil War. I'd be willing to be he hasn't graduated college yet, let alone received a degree in the field like some of the people I've seen him argue against.

I may dislike 67th Tiger, I may KNOW he has a habit of being dishonest, of fudging numbers and outright mis-citing them.

But at least he has had numbers to fudge. He's ten times the Civil War 'expert' Snake could ever be. I would take his word over Snake's any day, even though I would 90% sure he was lying.

This whole thing is one, big, fat joke. Pretending you're being reasonable is not rationality. Logic, reason, the actual discipline of history, is based in evidence a little more nuanced and deep than just asserting that somebody said something somewhere. Like I said earlier, talk is cheap. I want numbers. I want evidence that there would be the votes to deprive millions of men of their hard won votes a decade or more after they won them, especially after they've fought a war for their independence and freedom.

Truth is everything that Snake believes about the Civil War, about the contemporary North and South, smells, no, reeks of bullshit he believes because he buys into the variant of the Just World fallacy known as Whiggish history: Evil people only ever do evil things, in a very incompetent ways, and history always shits on them from great heights. Everything in our history was an inevitable, glorious path towards building what we have today. Blah blah blah etc etc jesus christ do I really have to do this.

Read a fucking book.

[Johnrankins]

Yes, it was a short-lived replacement of the Federalists and a lot of Whigs went on to become Republicans.

You are correct. Lincoln, for one. was a Whig before he was a Republican.

[usertron2020]

You are correct. Lincoln, for one. was a Whig before he was a Republican.

The Whigs basically represented the conservative wing of the GOP. Throughout its history, the GOP has had little of a center. Thomas Dewey said as much at a political dinner in which he described that this was why he lost in 1948. He was right.

[MAlexMatt]

I find it funny that you Matt just attacked snake for disagreeing wiht you. It says alot about the kind of person you are.

I apologize for not having the saintly patience to put up with stubborn idiocy forever.

Like this:

No citations would ever be listened to, they would all be dismissed.

Notice he has NEVER actually posted any actual citations, so he doesn't know this? At worst he's outright dodging, saying this in a slimy little attempt to not have to. At best he's fooling himself, lying to himself so he can be personally convinced he doesn't have to.

ANYTHING to protect his ego and the narrative it made up for itself.

[usertron2020]

MAlexMatt:eek:

Uhh... I tried. I really tried...:(

Personally, I'm guilty of losing my temper often enough, God knows.:o:o:o:o

So, please... take it easy.:(

[MAlexMatt]

Tried what, exactly?

All you've done this entire topic is me-too Snake.

[usertron2020]

Tried what, exactly?

All you've done this entire topic is me-too Snake.

I've tried to suggest that maybe, even from your own POV, you might just find that SF isn't entirely wrong. But the language and tone of your posts suggest otherwise, that's all. Try to be a little less angry. I've gone off kilter with my own temper often enough:o to see the signs.:( Please. Your own contributions to the forum are too important to risk getting into trouble over.:)

[benjamin]

OK, I had to come back for this:

SNIP A CLASSIC RANT

...book.

Classic. I haven't laughed so hard in these forums for a long, long time. Not because I agree with MAlexMatt, but I recently watched Planes, Trains and Automobiles. This reminds of the scene where Steve Martin goes ballistic at the rental car counter. Just a balls out classic rant. Good show, chap.

As for the argument at hand. The disenfranchisement will be more subtle than Snake contends. But it was already occurring to some degree (of course make no mistake about it occurred in spades in the North as well). The art of vote buying has a long a glorious history in this country that continues to this day.

In the antebellum South it worked a by having the wealthy plantation owners loan money, land (in the form of unneeded acreage) or labor (in the form of slaves) to the poorer farmers that neighbored the plantation. Given that banks were scarce in the South these wealthy aristocrats were the only available source of borrowable capital. Also given that immigrants moved far less into the South they were also some of the only sources of extra labor that might be needed during a particularly good harvest. In exchange the small farm holders were expected to defer to the leadership of those who held the land and the wealth. This meant voting to maintain the current system and support the plantation system.

It's one of the reasons why slave owners were so over represented in the governments of the slave states and in the secession conventions.

If you'd like I could site some sources, probably by tomorrow some time. I know John Majewski's A House Dividing: Economic Development in Virginia and Pennsylvania Before the Civil War touches upon this. Other authors may do so as well.

Benjamin

[MAlexMatt]

Classic. I haven't laughed so hard in these forums for a long, long time. Not because I agree with MAlexMatt, but I recently watched Planes, Trains and Automobiles. This reminds of the scene where Steve Martin goes ballistic at the rental car counter. Just a balls out classic rant. Good show, chap.

As for the argument at hand. The disenfranchisement will be more subtle than Snake contends. But it was already occurring to some degree (of course make no mistake about it occurred in spades in the North as well). The art of vote buying has a long a glorious history in this country that continues to this day.

In the antebellum South it worked a by having the wealthy plantation owners loan money, land (in the form of unneeded acreage) or labor (in the form of slaves) to the poorer farmers that neighbored the plantation. Given that banks were scarce in the South these wealthy aristocrats were the only available source of borrowable capital. Also given that immigrants moved far less into the South they were also some of the only sources of extra labor that might be needed during a particularly good harvest. In exchange the small farm holders were expected to defer to the leadership of those who held the land and the wealth. This meant voting to maintain the current system and support the plantation system.

It's one of the reasons why slave owners were so over represented in the governments of the slave states and in the secession conventions.

If you'd like I could site some sources, probably by tomorrow some time. I know John Majewski's A House Dividing: Economic Development in Virginia and Pennsylvania Before the Civil War touches upon this. Other authors may do so as well.

Benjamin

Don't get me wrong, I don't think the CSA would be a particularly nice place to live, and the planters aren't going to give poorer whites a fair shake where they have the power to do something about it, I just don't buy into Snake's funny little vision of two parts third world hell hole one part Orwellian dystopia. The CSA will quickly turn into a 'gentleman's' playground where society and government are for, by, and of the planters. But it will be of varying degrees: The facts on the ground varied quite a bit from 'plantations as far as the eye can see' all across the South. Vast swathes of land had very few slaves. Not because people were abolitionist there, or anything, but just because that was how settlement patterns worked out.

The South ITTL will certainly be dystopian for some, especially for the slaves themselves, but the funny little idea that the entire planter class is a group of incompetent nincompoops with an irrationally romantic attachment to agrarianism and agriculture matched only by their irrational attachment to being evil and petty. But some areas will closely resemble comparable areas in the North: A mostly free white farming community in Tennessee isn't likely to be too different from a free white farming community in Kentucky (or southern Ohio, if we're talking about a TL where the CSA gets Kentucky). Industrialization will be slower, but I don't see a reason why the free whites in Tennessee or Virginia won't have comparable wealth per capita to free whites in Maryland or Pennsylvania in the long run. While the planter aristocracy will no doubt be all too happy to take and take from the free white underclass they rule, I can't see them being significantly worse than the financier plutocracy that will run the North almost without challenge.

But truth be told, I'm just fascinated by where such a TL would go. Having the whole thing descend into a quaint little morality tale where the evil slavocrats suffer for their sins is satisfying in one way, but really just pretty boring.

EDIT: And I DO agree about planters trying to circumvent the existence of manhood suffrage as much as possible, I just don't think they'll ever have the actual votes or balls to try to actually take that suffrage away de jure. I expect the worst excesses of early British or American 'democracy': Rotten boroughs, political machines, patronage networks, etc etc etc.

[Spengler]

I apologize for not having the saintly patience to put up with stubborn idiocy forever.

Like this:



Notice he has NEVER actually posted any actual citations, so he doesn't know this? At worst he's outright dodging, saying this in a slimy little attempt to not have to. At best he's fooling himself, lying to himself so he can be personally convinced he doesn't have to.

ANYTHING to protect his ego and the narrative it made up for itself.

Reported fro trolling. Good to see we'll have one less Confederate lover.

[usertron2020]

MAlexMatt

There are some genuine good points you've just made in your last post.

I would only point out that the degree of existent slavery county by county and state by state had nothing to do with "settlement patterns". It was due to the profitability of slavery depending on the region. Areas where large plantations could not be supported due to poorness of soil and difficulty of terrain (hills, mountains, etc) precluded slavery. After all, Georgia was initially settled as a "Free Colony", until the economic advantages of slavery in that then colony made competition by free soil farmers with slave holders impossible.

Spengler

The moderators and the Admin generally do not appreciate it when a poster actively posts that they are reporting someone. Its better to just do the report and leave the matter for them to resolve.

[NothingNow]

In the antebellum South it worked a by having the wealthy plantation owners loan money, land (in the form of unneeded acreage) or labor (in the form of slaves) to the poorer farmers that neighbored the plantation. Given that banks were scarce in the South these wealthy aristocrats were the only available source of borrowable capital. Also given that immigrants moved far less into the South they were also some of the only sources of extra labor that might be needed during a particularly good harvest. In exchange the small farm holders were expected to defer to the leadership of those who held the land and the wealth. This meant voting to maintain the current system and support the plantation system.

It's one of the reasons why slave owners were so over represented in the governments of the slave states and in the secession conventions.


Yeah, It'll be more like a Latin American nation politically, as you'll see this more often (there's a name for it, but I forget,) along with Managed voting, blatant electoral fraud, and the occasional bout of Voter intimidation. So, pretty much every election would be considered completely illegitimate today, but it'll keep the Planters from insurrection.

More Rural, and less plantation oriented regions would be different, and either more democratic, or openly autocratic. Unless Cattle, Coal, and Sugar Barrons get in on it as well. Which they probably will.

You'd also see fairly little internal investment, as the planters didn't generally go for things unless it was directly in their own interests, or they could make it a profitable investment quickly. The Mississippi would be utterly vital, and most places further than a few miles from navigable waters, or more rarely a railhead, wouldn't advance much beyond Liquors and other low-volume cash crops for trade by the end of the century.

As for New Orleans and Key West, well, they'll either be free cities, or the US will take them by force if only to ensure the security of goods transiting the Mississippi and the Gulf. But, the US probably will not give up the Dry Tortugas and the Keys. They're far too strategic and OTL held by the Union all the way through.

Sponging and wrecking could get pretty dangerous ITTL.

[usertron2020]

Yeah, It'll be more like a Latin American nation politically, as you'll see this more often (there's a name for it, but I forget,) along with Managed voting, blatant electoral fraud, and the occasional bout of Voter intimidation. So, pretty much every election would be considered completely illegitimate today,(1) but it'll keep the Planters from insurrection.

1) I am not so sure of that. We have Republicans today swearing by the legitimacy of Bush v. Gore, despite the fact that the US Constitution gives ZERO role to the Federal Judiciary in Presidential Elections (They would, after all, being giving themselves a role in who determined their replacements. And they did).

More Rural, and less plantation oriented regions would be different, and either more democratic, or openly autocratic.(2) Unless Cattle, Coal, and Sugar Barrons get in on it as well. Which they probably will.

2) The latter. Based on US history in the South, and other predominantly rural areas like the Rockies, Mid-West, and South-West, you get a "tyranny of the locals" in terms of local authority (towns, county seats) having little oversight by weak state governments, who were often too busy/concerned with enforcing their own rights vis-a-vis Washington. Throw in corruption at all levels, and... One reason why Irish at the time of the ACW identified so much with the CSA was their own history of suffering under a strong centralized government (London). At the very same time the Germans sided with the Federals as they had come from a land where the people were oppressed by unaccountable local barons and princes, while the people identified with a stronger national authority (the Kaiser). Except for those who actually had to enjoy that man's rule.:rolleyes:

You'd also see fairly little internal investment,(3) as the planters didn't generally go for things unless it was directly in their own interests, or they could make it a profitable investment quickly. The Mississippi would be utterly vital, and most places further than a few miles from navigable waters, or more rarely a railhead, wouldn't advance much beyond Liquors and other low-volume cash crops for trade by the end of the century.

3) Big reason why the Southern rail network was such a God awful mess was because it was built to support the planter system. Sometimes whole cities were by-passed, while the biggest plantations were not.

[Mr.J]

Honestly, I'd argue that the planter class basically ran the South in OTL until WWII, the spread of air conditioning, and the movement of factories south to avoid unions/high wages. I see no reason to believe things'd be different TTL.

[usertron2020]

Honestly, I'd argue that the planter class basically ran the South in OTL until WWII, the spread of air conditioning, and the movement of factories south to avoid unions/high wages. I see no reason to believe things'd be different TTL.

I would tack on the boll weevil, nitrogen leeched out of the soil from over-cotton growing + the refusal of the more conservative planters to listen to the US Department of Agriculture, the movement of Blacks north + the US military (post-1948) offering economic opportunities for Southern Black men they'd never had before...

[CalBear]

Okay...

I warned you about insulting other members (for a post that, in most contexts would have merited a kick, but this thread has been fairly heated on all sides so I gave you the opportunity to back off). THREE HOURS later you post this?

So much for self control, at least in this case. Sad, really.

Lets try a Seven Day major. If you do not take this to heart and modify your posting style upon your return you will not be given additional minors and we will proceed to a Game Misconduct.
I apologize for not having the saintly patience to put up with stubborn idiocy forever.

Like this:



Notice he has NEVER actually posted any actual citations, so he doesn't know this? At worst he's outright dodging, saying this in a slimy little attempt to not have to. At best he's fooling himself, lying to himself so he can be personally convinced he doesn't have to.

ANYTHING to protect his ego and the narrative it made up for itself.

[Snake Featherston]

Classic. I haven't laughed so hard in these forums for a long, long time. Not because I agree with MAlexMatt, but I recently watched Planes, Trains and Automobiles. This reminds of the scene where Steve Martin goes ballistic at the rental car counter. Just a balls out classic rant. Good show, chap.

As for the argument at hand. The disenfranchisement will be more subtle than Snake contends. But it was already occurring to some degree (of course make no mistake about it occurred in spades in the North as well). The art of vote buying has a long a glorious history in this country that continues to this day.

In the antebellum South it worked a by having the wealthy plantation owners loan money, land (in the form of unneeded acreage) or labor (in the form of slaves) to the poorer farmers that neighbored the plantation. Given that banks were scarce in the South these wealthy aristocrats were the only available source of borrowable capital. Also given that immigrants moved far less into the South they were also some of the only sources of extra labor that might be needed during a particularly good harvest. In exchange the small farm holders were expected to defer to the leadership of those who held the land and the wealth. This meant voting to maintain the current system and support the plantation system.

It's one of the reasons why slave owners were so over represented in the governments of the slave states and in the secession conventions.

If you'd like I could site some sources, probably by tomorrow some time. I know John Majewski's A House Dividing: Economic Development in Virginia and Pennsylvania Before the Civil War touches upon this. Other authors may do so as well.

Benjamin

I apologize for any misperception that it would be blatant in either statement or action. Rather, the idea is a virtual given in at least some of the Confederate States and it would be carried out through superficially neutral laws that in practice amount to anything but ala Jim Crow laws.

[benjamin]

I apologize for any misperception that it would be blatant in either statement or action. Rather, the idea is a virtual given in at least some of the Confederate States and it would be carried out through superficially neutral laws that in practice amount to anything but ala Jim Crow laws.

No apology necessary as it may have been my mistake.

It interesting that you mentioned the Jim Crow laws. I was thinking a similar thing. Much is made by neo-Confederates that the first Jim Crow laws were passed by Northern states, this off course ignores the multitude of Black Codes that already existed in the South (no I'm not overlooking the extremely racist laws enacted in the Midwest during the mid-19th century but they aren't pertinent to this particular conversation), but many of these came about due to pressures from recent white immigrants who wanted to limit the political power of blacks. Limiting the political power of blacks gave the Irish, Germans and Italians more power and higher wages due to less competition.

If slavery if retained those whites in power will have a different set of people competing for political power. As birth rates were generally higher on family held farms (someone needs to do the grunt work if you don't own a bunch of slaves), there is the very real possibility that the poor whites will soon have enough votes to over turn the status quo. So what do you if you're one of those aristocrats who fears the rise of the unwashed masses? Everything you can to limit their political power.

In the Confederacy the black codes will be joined by alternate "Jim Crow" laws designed to keep the poor whites in their place. Poll Taxes, literacy tests, out of the way polling locations and increased gun control will be some of the many tricks used to disenfranchise the less wealthy.

Overall, I think we're in general agreement.

Benjamin

[Baruch]

I am going to go with those who argue that the CSA would quickly degenerate into a third world nuisance state. It would starve all commerce in order to maintain a very large army, which in a very quick time would become politicly unstable. Cotton is murder on the soil, so its main resource would rapidly deplete.

By 1880 the place would be just a very large Bolivia.

Plus there is the fact that they do have a large servile population, and that would also cause periodic revolts.

So in quick order you would have
1) huge taxation
2) intense social stratification
3) intense militarism
4) annihilation of any form of middle class due to the first three reasons
5) tremendous white emigration of younger sons of the aristocracy and the white yomenry

I would even expect new civil wars to break out every time there was a close election or any kind of constitutional dispute.

Then there is the issue of all that British and French debt they took on. I can see the French trying to re colonize the place like they did in Mexico. The north would be too weak to try and stop it.

The place would be a mess.

[Johnrankins]

I am going to go with those who argue that the CSA would quickly degenerate into a third world nuisance state. It would starve all commerce in order to maintain a very large army, which in a very quick time would become politicly unstable. Cotton is murder on the soil, so its main resource would rapidly deplete.

By 1880 the place would be just a very large Bolivia.

Plus there is the fact that they do have a large servile population, and that would also cause periodic revolts.

So in quick order you would have
1) huge taxation
2) intense social stratification
3) intense militarism
4) annihilation of any form of middle class due to the first three reasons
5) tremendous white emigration of younger sons of the aristocracy and the white yomenry

I would even expect new civil wars to break out every time there was a close election or any kind of constitutional dispute.

Then there is the issue of all that British and French debt they took on. I can see the French trying to re colonize the place like they did in Mexico. The north would be too weak to try and stop it.

The place would be a mess.

You probably wouldn't have high taxation but what is worse near hyperinflation.

[Baruch]

That is also a given

[NothingNow]

1) I am not so sure of that. We have Republicans today swearing by the legitimacy of Bush v. Gore, despite the fact that the US Constitution gives ZERO role to the Federal Judiciary in Presidential Elections (They would, after all, being giving themselves a role in who determined their replacements. And they did).
2000 wasn't anywhere near as blatantly stolen.


2) The latter. Based on US history in the South, and other predominantly rural areas like the Rockies, Mid-West, and South-West, you get a "tyranny of the locals" in terms of local authority (towns, county seats) having little oversight by weak state governments, who were often too busy/concerned with enforcing their own rights vis-a-vis Washington. Throw in corruption at all levels, and...
The whole system falls apart into a giant mess.


3) Big reason why the Southern rail network was such a God awful mess was because it was built to support the planter system. Sometimes whole cities were by-passed, while the biggest plantations were not.
Well, yeah.

[Snake Featherston]

No apology necessary as it may have been my mistake.

It interesting that you mentioned the Jim Crow laws. I was thinking a similar thing. Much is made by neo-Confederates that the first Jim Crow laws were passed by Northern states, this off course ignores the multitude of Black Codes that already existed in the South (no I'm not overlooking the extremely racist laws enacted in the Midwest during the mid-19th century but they aren't pertinent to this particular conversation), but many of these came about due to pressures from recent white immigrants who wanted to limit the political power of blacks. Limiting the political power of blacks gave the Irish, Germans and Italians more power and higher wages due to less competition.

If slavery if retained those whites in power will have a different set of people competing for political power. As birth rates were generally higher on family held farms (someone needs to do the grunt work if you don't own a bunch of slaves), there is the very real possibility that the poor whites will soon have enough votes to over turn the status quo. So what do you if you're one of those aristocrats who fears the rise of the unwashed masses? Everything you can to limit their political power.

In the Confederacy the black codes will be joined by alternate "Jim Crow" laws designed to keep the poor whites in their place. Poll Taxes, literacy tests, out of the way polling locations and increased gun control will be some of the many tricks used to disenfranchise the less wealthy.

Overall, I think we're in general agreement.

Benjamin

We are, yes. Ironically in an independent CSA the populist/democratic poor whites may be even *more* racist than their OTL counterparts, as slaves will have certain things due to being valuable property of their masters that poor whites won't have, such as slaveowner protection in case of things like famines or breakdowns in law and order. And *that* left a huge amount of resentment in poor/middle class Southerners in the old order and was one problem of building the post-slavery order.

[Spengler]

We are, yes. Ironically in an independent CSA the populist/democratic poor whites may be even *more* racist than their OTL counterparts, as slaves will have certain things due to being valuable property of their masters that poor whites won't have, such as slaveowner protection in case of things like famines or breakdowns in law and order. And *that* left a huge amount of resentment in poor/middle class Southerners in the old order and was one problem of building the post-slavery order.
Are you suggesting that a "free soiler" like party could arise in a hypothetical independent CSA?

[usertron2020]

Are you suggesting that a "free soiler" like party could arise in a hypothetical independent CSA?

I seriously doubt that such a political party would be allowed to survive.:mad:

[Baruch]

I think the issue of poorer white resentments in the south would be the source of some of the worst upheavals in my scenario. The white south would be totally militarized partly for social control, partly for anti north anti mexico independence.

Stable military societies are rare and weird. They do exist. we have the examples of the Kims in DPRK, Profirio Diaz through most of the last half of the 19th Century, the Vargas regime in Brazil. But most military governments are rife with coups and counter coups. Bolivia being the worst example.

Very quickly we might have seen some poor white guy with military competence establishing a regime of the poor whites to face their grievances. I don't believe this scenario would be at all pretty. Expulsion or genocide against blacks, and a Bolshevik economic regime are both equally likely, and might even happen together.

A southern victory would be at best an unmitigated disaster.

[Snake Featherston]

Are you suggesting that a "free soiler" like party could arise in a hypothetical independent CSA?

No. Just.....no. It would never arise and if by some miracle it did rise its odds of lasting five years are as great as the odds of Jesus descending from Heaven and leading the population of Jerusalem in a rendition of Thriller. Southern poor white resentment would be less free soil and more on the lines of the Ku Klux Klan. Ironically, too, the planters have every reason to oppose that kind of thing as it's a menace to their own wealth.

[usertron2020]

2000 wasn't anywhere near as blatantly stolen.

True. And with Gore's numbnuts political advisors screwing everything up while W had James A. Baker III having his side running like a well-oiled machine...:mad: The public was left with the perception of "faults on both sides" and "everyone had some blame"... and politics is always about perception.

[sloreck]

While I can't right at the minute go through my library to find the precise cites, there is plenty of documentary evidence that a large number of CSA politicians and "gentry" wanted to reintroduce property qualifications for the franchise. Do note that at the time of the CW the UK still had a restricted (male) franchise. The presence of the black slave class would give disenfranchised white men somebody to always be above and, at least in theory, tamp down resentment about not having the vote.

Between 1800 and the CW, restrictions on blacks had gradually gotten MORE severe in most of the slave states. Formal restrictions on literacy for slaves, and several states had ordinances that required freed slaves to leave the state within a specified (and short) period of time. I can easily see an independent CSA outlawing manumission, and possibly expelling all blacks who were free - and "if you don't leave within x days,you will be enslaved". For a model see the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 - leave, convert, or die....

The vision that the political thinkers (and I use that word advisedly) of the south had was for a hierarchical agricultural society "ruled" by the best elements with 2nd class whites who knew their place and slavery, uncontaminated by capitalism and "Yankee greed" and factories etc. States rights and localism would prevail, with minimal (if any) central coordination or direction in almost any area. This was a vision not only disconnected from the world of 1860, but a plan for disaster in the next few decades.

The south in 1860 was suffering from the "resource curse" economists talk about, that allows a country to live off a natural resource and not diversify or industrialize. This has tremendous social implications. And, unfortunately for the CSA, their resources of cotton & tobacco, unlike oil, diamonds, etc can be (and were) easily sourced elsewhere.

After a few decades of this cesspit getting deeper and smellier, IMHO the USA would be interested only in getting their hands on such contiguous territory as had economic or strategic value, and making sure that the CSA never became a portal for a hostile power to get on North American soil - let most of it simmer in 3rd world existence...

[SPJ]

Unless I'm wrong the Confederate Constitution states that slavery cannot be abolished in the CSA by any "FEDERAL DECREE". Due to this I've always figured that eventually slavery would be abolished state by state according to their own government whenever slavery no longer seemed necessary within their boarders. I also think that the states of the CSA would get economic pressure from British merchants who may not be happy about slavery. This would then provide an incentive for some slave states to abolish it sooner as a means to get more foreign business to come to their ports instead of the states next to them. If that could become the case I figure that the last states to hold slaves would be SC and GA.

One ATL that I've thought of involves this situation and Georgia and the Carolinas refuse to abolish slavery even after every other CS state has. Then when the federal government pressures then with the excuse that it would raise foreign approval they then secede from the CSA themselves. Due to their small size though their economies crumble within a few years and then try to renter the CSA but some of the population decides to fight this and various riots become a problem in those states for years to come even after reunification.

What do you think that the USA would do if faced with this occurring beneath their boarder?

[usertron2020]

Unless I'm wrong the Confederate Constitution states that slavery cannot be abolished in the CSA by any "FEDERAL DECREE". Due to this I've always figured that eventually slavery would be abolished state by state according to their own government whenever slavery no longer seemed necessary within their borders. I also think that the states of the CSA would get economic pressure from British merchants who may not be happy about slavery. This would then provide an incentive for some slave states to abolish it sooner as a means to get more foreign business to come to their ports instead of the states next to them. If that could become the case I figure that the last states to hold slaves would be SC and GA.

One ATL that I've thought of involves this situation and Georgia and the Carolinas refuse to abolish slavery even after every other CS state has. Then when the federal government pressures then with the excuse that it would raise foreign approval they then secede from the CSA themselves. Due to their small size though their economies crumble within a few years and then try to renter the CSA but some of the population decides to fight this and various riots become a problem in those states for years to come even after reunification.

What do you think that the USA would do if faced with this occurring beneath their border?

Alabama and Mississippi would have to be included in this, along with Louisiana, Florida, and Texas. They were the most "diehard" slave-holding states. Not North Carolina though. I could see them abolishing slavery one day. The trouble is Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina are just enough to make for a third world country.

Its the border states (Kentucky, Tennessee, even Arkansas, Virginia and North Carolina) who could see themselves floating back into the Union in these circumstances.

[eliphas8]

Unless I'm wrong the Confederate Constitution states that slavery cannot be abolished in the CSA by any "FEDERAL DECREE". Due to this I've always figured that eventually slavery would be abolished state by state according to their own government whenever slavery no longer seemed necessary within their boarders. I also think that the states of the CSA would get economic pressure from British merchants who may not be happy about slavery. This would then provide an incentive for some slave states to abolish it sooner as a means to get more foreign business to come to their ports instead of the states next to them. If that could become the case I figure that the last states to hold slaves would be SC and GA.

The restrictions placed on those states that would illegalize slavery ammounted to slavery still being in place though and so it doesnt matter if it is "illegal" you are still going to have a bad reputation in the rest of the world.

[EnglishCanuck]

The post-war CSA would be an...interesting place to say the least. In the immediate aftermath of the war you would see an influx of British and French investment which would stimulate the economy for the next few years. There would also be a very large industrial drive. The drive would come for one simple reason, the fact that the South will have to build a very large arms industry very quickly. Cannon foundries, arms factories, shipyards for a (albeit small) navy. The South's leaders weren't exactly stupid. It will be a case of expand or die. The Union may be defeated diplomatically in some cases, but militarily they will be far from finished.

This would leave the planters with a good hold on power for ten to fifteen years, but the fact that the industry would be forced to expand would mean that most likely by 1890 you have some competition coming from either foreign powers or internally developed competition.

Now understandably for various reasons they will not be able to keep up after 1915 and I give all semblance of internal stability till about 1920 until things begin to irrevocably collapse. This will be the low point for the South and by 1960 it won't even be a functioning country (maybe not even one country anymore).

[usertron2020]

Indian Territory.:D

OK would have been clearer.:o

[NothingNow]

Florida,

Sure, in the northern portion anyway, but as the soil got degraded they'd have to move elsewhere, or switch to different Crops. Following the war, there's a good chance Florida's ports would be devastated enough that Cotton farming would be impractical anyway.

As it is, The Soil's terrible for it in much of the state (being much too sandy,) and Sugar's a much better crop for the Muck down south. Sugar's easily mechanized too (it's part of how the Cubans got to be so successful,) but well, the Everglades were Seminole Territory. You just didn't go there.

Florida was mostly a Meat and Salt provider during the ACW besides blockade running. I figure trade with the rest of the world ought to be a bit more valuable in such a case.

Not to mention the whole issue of the Royal Navy being right next door.

[Johnrankins]

The restrictions placed on those states that would illegalize slavery ammounted to slavery still being in place though and so it doesnt matter if it is "illegal" you are still going to have a bad reputation in the rest of the world.


Exactly, due to the Dredd Scott Decision there will be no Free States.

[BELFAST]

yes the war would have come and CSA would have lost if
this guy was running the CSA
http://vicmackey.trakt.tv/images/episodes/3428-1953-11.jpg

and this guy was running the usa
http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/bugs-bunny-debut-1.jpg

[freethinker]

On the Alt HIstory Wiki I made a timeline describing an independent C.S.A that is it is independent until 1900, I seriously doubt that any csa could had survived beyond the first decade of the 20th century

[eliphas8]

On the Alt HIstory Wiki I made a timeline describing an independent C.S.A that is it is independent until 1900, I seriously doubt that any csa could had survived beyond the first decade of the 20th century

I say they couldnt get past the second half, the second world war one starts the US is going to take the side opposite to the one the CSA took.

[Johnrankins]

The post-war CSA would be an...interesting place to say the least. In the immediate aftermath of the war you would see an influx of British and French investment which would stimulate the economy for the next few years. There would also be a very large industrial drive. The drive would come for one simple reason, the fact that the South will have to build a very large arms industry very quickly. Cannon foundries, arms factories, shipyards for a (albeit small) navy. The South's leaders weren't exactly stupid. It will be a case of expand or die. The Union may be defeated diplomatically in some cases, but militarily they will be far from finished.

This would leave the planters with a good hold on power for ten to fifteen years, but the fact that the industry would be forced to expand would mean that most likely by 1890 you have some competition coming from either foreign powers or internally developed competition.

Now understandably for various reasons they will not be able to keep up after 1915 and I give all semblance of internal stability till about 1920 until things begin to irrevocably collapse. This will be the low point for the South and by 1960 it won't even be a functioning country (maybe not even one country anymore).


Why would Britian and France invest in a vulnerable country with a basket case economy while there are so many safer places to invest? They have nothing better to do with their money? Any investments that GB and France make in the CSA will be at high interest rates or dividends.

[Stars-and-Stripes]

Why would Britian and France invest in a vulnerable country with a basket case economy while there are so many safer places to invest? They have nothing better to do with their money? Any investments that GB and France make in the CSA will be at high interest rates or dividends.

Wouldn't private companies in GB and France invest in other private companies in the CSA stimulating job growth and stabilizing the country?. Companies make plenty of risky investments, they just have to have a big enough reward.

[Johnrankins]

Wouldn't private companies in GB and France invest in other private companies in the CSA stimulating job growth and stabilizing the country?. Companies make plenty of risky investments, they just have to have a big enough reward.

Exactly, which is why I said high interest or dividends. High reward means high interest rates or dividends. This makes for very expensive capital which severely limits investment. Every dollar it pays in interest or dividends is a dollar it can't invest. Meanwhile the US paying half the interest rate or less is going to expand much quicker. Even Mexico might expand quicker and pass the Confederacy around 1890 or 1900.

[hairysamarian]

Even Mexico might expand quicker and pass the Confederacy around 1890 or 1900.

The image of proud southern aristocrats reduced to going to Mexico for foreign aid is... rather charming. :D

[Blue Max]

Well, let's do some reasonings here:

The Union will have made some progress in tearing down the Confederacy. That said, there are several points of contention between the two countries:

-Where to draw the borders (West Virginia? Tennessee? Transit rights on the Mississippi?)
-Tensions over slavery (Southern Bounty Hunters and Northern Abolitionists)
-Unionist Minorities in the South

The Confederacy will amaze everyone by spontaneously giving up slavery the day after independence and building a libertarian utopia that annexes every nation down to Argentina in a new, egalitarian future.

OK, now that I have everyone's attention...

Slavery is the ideological foundation of the Confederacy; this is as important as Sharia Law to the Taliban or the "inherent superiority of the Yamato people" to Japan. It can't be compromised or lost without basically giving up on everything accomplished in its banner.

This is 1/3rd of their people, and they have to suffer abuses like having their children sold for money.

What happens if they get a chance to do something? Would they simply be content for their freedom, or would they seek revenge? Now, how many guns and soldiers does it take to keep a third of a nation's population profitably enslaved?

Snake suggests that the Confederate Army winds up running the show. I suspect that internal security would be a hugely important, if not all important task. I therefore think that the fugitive slave hunters of the 1850s will be codified and empowered as an arm of the Confederate Government. And if that task comes to dealing with "Uppity" free blacks or "Poor Cracker" farmers, I suspect this police force will probably handle the job.

I'm really unsure that the CSA would turn into a military dictatorship; I don't think he army will ever really surpass the political will of the plantations, and I think said plantations will probably look to build their own version of the Pinkertons.

I see a completely plutocratic South, one that has enshrined slavery evolving into one that has enshrined no rights for its lower classes. State's rights be damned, the planters will build a strong state that overrides the states if that serves their interests.

The United States will continue to move forward as the Confederacy makes its moves towards a police state. As in the Antebellum South, abolitionists are dangerous revolutionaries and need to be silenced. People that try to educate slaves are fomenting nascent rebellions, and god have mercy on any socialist who sets foot south of the Mason-Dixon line.

I'm also unsure that the Confederacy will be interested in massive expansion. The United States will guarantee Mexico's independence and will be unenthusiastic of any other moves south. The Confederacy could potentially aim for Cuba, but that leaves it with the ominous position of having another class of colored people to abuse.

The Confederacy must, above all else, avoid a rematch with the Union. Thus enjoined, the CSA would have to know either to remain neutral in global politics or pick the same one as the United States.

All of this is possible, and the CSA could survive as a quiet, dictatorial state. It would be a dark, cold place filled with violence, secret police agents and armed borders, but it has the slavery so desperately craved by its leaders intact.

Otherwise, the South explodes in a red revolution as the poor and the slaves make common cause and overthrow the planters and their secret police, which probably draws some kind of US response.

[SPJ]

Otherwise, the South explodes in a red revolution as the poor and the slaves make common cause and overthrow the planters and their secret police, which probably draws some kind of US response.
I think that you've been reading too much TL-191:p
Well, let's do some reasonings here:

The Union will have made some progress in tearing down the Confederacy. That said, there are several points of contention between the two countries:

-Where to draw the borders (West Virginia? Tennessee? Transit rights on the Mississippi?)
-Tensions over slavery (Southern Bounty Hunters and Northern Abolitionists)
-Unionist Minorities in the South

With the boarders subject up I'd like to show off some maps again that I've made for an ATL I'm working on with a CSA victory. Could anybody comment on my logic in creating the boarders and let me know what improvements I could make?
http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=227302

[Fiver]

I say they couldnt get past the second half, the second world war one starts the US is going to take the side opposite to the one the CSA took.

Why do so many people assume the USA and CSA will be on opposite sides in any World War? There's a significant chance one or both would stay neutral and they could even end up on the same side.

[Johnrankins]

Why do so many people assume the USA and CSA will be on opposite sides in any World War? There's a significant chance one or both would stay neutral and they could even end up on the same side.

Because they are natural rivals?