WI: CSA-USA Peaceful Reunion

Lets assume that, and lets not argue about how the CSA gets free, but the reunion and how it comes about and its effects on US History.

Assuming the two nations are not united by war, but by peace and the two nations both agreeing to reunite, will the USA respect Confederate history in the history books, and for the sake of sanity lets say slavery is extinguished in the South by 1870, with the reunion anytime after 1890.

How does this affect Americas economy, our history, our modern concept of the CSA and the South. The World Wars (if unification happens before them, though it can happen after). Another thing is that THE CSA IS NOT COLLAPSING!

Would Confederate citizens become instant American citizens, as natural born US citizens, or no? What is the legacy of the Confederacy in this world, seeing as they were there own nation and then agreed to join there cousins again?

EDIT: The two sides split peacefully.

Well, using historical precedents of divided countries, it really depends on how the stance of the USA is on the legitimacy of Confederate independence. If they acknowledge it in a similar fashion like West Germany did it in regards to East Germany, as in "you guys exist but we still kinda claim you anyways", then one could safely assume that all citizens of the CSA would instantly get US citizenship upon reunification. If they fully acknowledge their independence, then those old enough to be born before the Civil War should be able to get US citizenship relatively easy, while the younger ones might have to go through some obstacles to obtain citizenship, though it should still be relatively easy, since the unification treaty should cover issues like that.

Also I except the old Southron elites to be even more nostalgic of the CSA, especially since the whole slavery stigma would be much less pronounced in this scenario. When it comes to how the CSA would be viewed in this world... I think a mixture of Vichy France and South Vietnam would be a good comparison.

Iserlohn said:

Well, using historical precedents of divided countries, it really depends on how the stance of the USA is on the legitimacy of Confederate independence. If they acknowledge it in a similar fashion like West Germany did it in regards to East Germany, as in "you guys exist but we still kinda claim you anyways", then one could safely assume that all citizens of the CSA would instantly get US citizenship upon reunification. If they fully acknowledge their independence, then those old enough to be born before the Civil War should be able to get US citizenship relatively easy, while the younger ones might have to go through some obstacles to obtain citizenship, though it should still be relatively easy, since the unification treaty should cover issues like that.

Also I except the old Southron elites to be even more nostalgic of the CSA, especially since the whole slavery stigma would be much less pronounced in this scenario. When it comes to how the CSA would be viewed in this world... I think a mixture of Vichy France and South Vietnam would be a good comparison.

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I don't think so, most likely the nostalgia would be LESS. The most likely reason for a PEACEFUL reunion is that the CSA completely falls apart (Not that unlikely IMO) with hyperinflation, rioting Poor Whites, hordes of escaped slaves wandering the countryside and general chaos.

Johnrankins said:

I don't think so, most likely the nostalgia would be LESS. The most likely reason for a PEACEFUL reunion is that the CSA completely falls apart (Not that unlikely IMO) with hyperinflation, rioting Poor Whites, hordes of escaped slaves wandering the countryside and general chaos.

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The CSA collapsing is excluded from these reunion theroies

Johnrankins said:

I don't think so, most likely the nostalgia would be LESS. The most likely reason for a PEACEFUL reunion is that the CSA completely falls apart (Not that unlikely IMO) with hyperinflation, rioting Poor Whites, hordes of escaped slaves wandering the countryside and general chaos.

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Exactly. And this does of course raise the question of why exactly the USA would want them back. Nationalistic feeling does of course lead people to stick with their poorer countrymen (which is why, e.g., no-one in South-East England wants to declare independence, even though they're essentially bankrolling the rest of the UK), but after a bitter civil war I'd imagine that many Americans' instinctive reaction would be "You wanted independence; keep it! Now somebody bring the popcorn."

As for the slavery issue, I really don't see how it's going to be abolished by 1870. The South had, after all, seceded to keep it less than ten years previously. Pretty much any conceivable TL where the South would voluntarily abolish slavery would be one where pro-slavery sentiment isn't nearly strong enough to lead to civil war in the first place.

As for the CSA's historical reputation, I agree that it would almost certainly be worse in any independent CSA TL. Most likely the country would end up collapsing on its own, or else it would end up becoming a pariah state like South Africa and forced to abolish slavery by international pressure. Either way, I can't imagine the Lost Cause ideas getting much traction.

AshleeNova said:

The CSA collapsing is excluded from these reunion theroies

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But what reason would the CSA have for reunifying, short of an outright collapse?

Fabius Maximus said:

Exactly. And this does of course raise the question of why exactly the USA would want them back. Nationalistic feeling does of course lead people to stick with their poorer countrymen (which is why, e.g., no-one in South-East England wants to declare independence, even though they're essentially bankrolling the rest of the UK), but after a bitter civil war I'd imagine that many Americans' instinctive reaction would be "You wanted independence; keep it! Now somebody bring the popcorn."

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No, I wouldn't expect that but I would expect some gloating after the reunion and the "Dumb, hick Southerner" trope get even more traction in TTL than OTL.

Fabius Maximus said:

But what reason would the CSA have for reunifying, short of an outright collapse?

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Exactly, people don't fight a bloody civil war and come crawling back unless it has been a complete disaster.

AshleeNova said:

Lets assume that, and lets not argue about how the CSA gets free, but the reunion and how it comes about and its effects on US History.

Assuming the two nations are not united by war, but by peace and the two nations both agreeing to reunite, will the USA respect Confederate history in the history books, and for the sake of sanity lets say slavery is extinguished in the South by 1870, with the reunion anytime after 1890.

How does this affect Americas economy, our history, our modern concept of the CSA and the South. The World Wars (if unification happens before them, though it can happen after). Another thing is that THE CSA IS NOT COLLAPSING!

Would Confederate citizens become instant American citizens, as natural born US citizens, or no? What is the legacy of the Confederacy in this world, seeing as they were there own nation and then agreed to join there cousins again?

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AshleeNova,

As you have posed the question it is nearly impossible to answer because you have been very precise in what you want to happen and have given us no information at all about such important matters as how the CSA obtained its independence (you even suggest that we should not argue about this!)

Consider for a moment a rump CSA that liberates itself afer four or more years of war and compare that to a CSA which has been liberated as a by product of an Anglo-Union war. The former has many ecomomic problems to overcome which if they could not be overcome might lead to it wishing to re-join the USA. On the other hand the latter could lead to a prosperous CSA and the USA becoming an economic basket case. In which case you have the very real prospect of the USA being assimilated by the CSA on the latters terms. Everything between those extremes and much else besides is possible. You really need to provide a bit more information and context rather than simply what you want to happen in the end. Without more information no analysis is possible and it is all a matter of taste.

There is no reason to think there will be any world wars in your scenario. There might be, but there might not. No extrapolation is possible it is all down to taste.

frlmerrin said:

AshleeNova,

As you have posed the question it is nearly impossible to answer because you have been very precise in what you want to happen and have given us no information at all about such important matters as how the CSA obtained its independence (you even suggest that we should not argue about this!)

Consider for a moment a rump CSA that liberates itself afer four or more years of war and compare that to a CSA which has been liberated as a by product of an Anglo-Union war. The former has many ecomomic problems to overcome which if they could not be overcome might lead to it wishing to re-join the USA. On the other hand the latter could lead to a prosperous CSA and the USA becoming an economic basket case. In which case you have the very real prospect of the USA being assimilated by the CSA on the latters terms. Everything between those extremes and much else besides is possible. You really need to provide a bit more information and context rather than simply what you want to happen in the end. Without more information no analysis is possible and it is all a matter of taste.

There is no reason to think there will be any world wars in your scenario. There might be, but there might not. No extrapolation is possible it is all down to taste.

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Wait, a CSA assimilating the USA?

AshleeNova said:

Wait, a CSA assimilating the USA?

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Of course. In most 'saved by the British scenarios' the CSA is large and wealthy whilst the USA is large and has no means of paying its bills with more people arriving all the time.

How will the USA pay its bills without cotton?

frlmerrin said:

Of course. In most 'saved by the British scenarios' the CSA is large and wealthy whilst the USA is large and has no means of paying its bills with more people arriving all the time.

How will the USA pay its bills without cotton?

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I imagine in a number of other ways since the US has a generally better industry than the CSA?

frlmerrin said:

Of course. In most 'saved by the British scenarios' the CSA is large and wealthy whilst the USA is large and has no means of paying its bills with more people arriving all the time.

How will the USA pay its bills without cotton?

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Food, gold, oil, coal, iron, steel, furniture, railroad engines, chemicals, machine tools, glass, toys, books, paper, wood, tin, copper, steam engines etc. etc. The US would have NO problems paying its bills. The CSA on the other hand had nothing but cotton and tobacco.

Johnrankins said:

Food, gold, oil, coal, iron, steel, furniture, railroad engines, chemicals, machine tools, glass, toys, books, paper, wood, tin, copper, steam engines etc. etc. The US would have NO problems paying its bills. The CSA on the other hand had nothing but cotton and tobacco.

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I think eventually iron mills and other natural resources, like oil and minerals would do that just fine.

Issue 1 - There are both Government funds and private funds to consider

Issue 2 - Private funds. With whom will the USA's industrialists trade? They can be undercut by the British even including trans Atlantic transport when trading into the CSA. If the CSA gained its independence via a British intervention then it is reasonable to conclude that (as part of the peace treaty) the British will stop the USA using tariffs to protect domestic industry. So they would not even be able to out compete the British (and some other Europeans) within the borders of the USA. If the USA's industry falters it will no longer be attractive to British and foreign Capitalists for investment. Of course post-independence the CSA being much less developed with far greater financial potential and nearly equally close to Europe physically becomes a far more attractive location for investment that the USA

Issue 3 - Publics funds. USA raised most of its money from either bonds, import tariffs and Californian gold. Who will buy USA Govt bonds they will not be able to offer much of a return with a contracting economy (see 2 above), who will have the money to buy bonds? Tariff income is gone because no one will be able to afford to import goods even if this is not a British intervention scenario. That leaves Californian gold. If this is a British intervention scenario the USA has probably lost California. Even if it hasn't it is still less than a third of what the USA's Govt needs.

Thus they are left with income taxes, property taxes and similar these will be resisted and further contract the economy. Then (possibly) they have a fairly barbaric option open to them, rapid ethnic clensing of the plains of the indians followed by massive land sales. Note that this is almost what happened in OTL but much later.

Note also that the USA will have to service a large war debt out of the above income even if the war ends mid-1862 as they went on a very big spending spree.

So they are going to have huge problems with Government debt., not insurmountable problems but difficult ones to deal with that will severely limit growth (contraction is more likely) and will take at least 30 years to deal with

I imagine in a number of other ways since the US has a generally better industry than the CSA?

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So imagining 'other ways' is nice. Now tell me what they are?

frlmerrin said:

Issue 1 - There are both Government funds and private funds to consider

Issue 2 - Private funds. With whom will the USA's industrialists trade? They can be undercut by the British even including trans Atlantic transport when trading into the CSA. If the CSA gained its independence via a British intervention then it is reasonable to conclude that (as part of the peace treaty) the British will stop the USA using tariffs to protect domestic industry. So they would not even be able to out compete the British (and some other Europeans) within the borders of the USA. If the USA's industry falters it will no longer be attractive to British and foreign Capitalists for investment. Of course post-independence the CSA being much less developed with far greater financial potential and nearly equally close to Europe physically becomes a far more attractive location for investment that the USA

Issue 3 - Publics funds. USA raised most of its money from either bonds, import tariffs and Californian gold. Who will buy USA Govt bonds they will not be able to offer much of a return with a contracting economy (see 2 above), who will have the money to buy bonds? Tariff income is gone because no one will be able to afford to import goods even if this is not a British intervention scenario. That leaves Californian gold. If this is a British intervention scenario the USA has probably lost California. Even if it hasn't it is still less than a third of what the USA's Govt needs.

Thus they are left with income taxes, property taxes and similar these will be resisted and further contract the economy. Then (possibly) they have a fairly barbaric option open to them, rapid ethnic clensing of the plains of the indians followed by massive land sales. Note that this is almost what happened in OTL but much later.

Note also that the USA will have to service a large war debt out of the above income even if the war ends mid-1862 as they went on a very big spending spree.

So they are going to have huge problems with Government debt., not insurmountable problems but difficult ones to deal with that will severely limit growth (contraction is more likely) and will take at least 30 years to deal with



So imagining 'other ways' is nice. Now tell me what they are?

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2. NO, IT WON'T! The US was not Haiti or Sri Lanka. You couldn't send a flotilla and a regiment or two of his majesty's finest and conquer a peace. The US was the 3rd most industrialized country in the world according to Kennedy and entirely connected by rail and at least around the size of all Western Europe. The UK was totally incapable of conquering the US at this point in time and that is what it would take to get the US to become a virtual colony of GB by allowing it to dictate its trade policies.

3. Why in God's name is it losing CA? Who is it going to lose it to? GB didn't claim it , and neither Mexico or the CSA could possibly conquer it so how does it lose it?

The only way your reasoning works is that ASBs replace the US government with a bunch of hippy pacifists from the 60s all singing "Give Peace a chance" and the rest of the country going along. Otherwise the US tells GB where it can stick it and GB would be able to do little about it.

Johnrankins said:

Food, gold, oil, coal, iron, steel, furniture, railroad engines, chemicals, machine tools, glass, toys, books, paper, wood, tin, copper, steam engines etc. etc. The US would have NO problems paying its bills. The CSA on the other hand had nothing but cotton and tobacco.

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Food - yes they can sell wheat, but they can't float the whole economy on it and they are competing on the world market. Notice that the moo cows are in Texas which is part of the CSA so at best beef becomes an import that has to be paid for (to the CSA). Also note that a CSA would be more receptive of British opportunities than was OTL USA and perhaps we end up with corned beef for the British colonies comming from the CSA and not the Argentine? At worst Chicago never becomes the meat processing hub it was in OTL and that hub ends up somewhere in the CSA. Similar story (but less extreme) for hogs.
Oil - Far more of it in the CSA than the USA and demand does not really become large until the 1900s.
Gold - not if it is in California and California has left the Union
Coal - who are they going to sell it to? The best steam coal is in Wales. Metalurgical coal is everywhere. This is a domestic product only.
Iron - well iron production in the USA in the ACW was very primitive the biggest production plant was still using charcoal when the rest of the world was using coke. Who is going to invest in new plant? The best foundry in the Ante-Bellum USA is in the CSA post war.
Steel - the first Besemer converter in the USA was built 1863 and production really began to ramp up in the 1870s but in this scenario why would the British capitalists invest? Why not put the plants in the CSA where costs will be lower. The CSA will of course buy its steel rails from Britain as they will be cheaper (including transport) and better than rails from the USA.
Furniture - I don't recall it being a major European import. I do know it was tariff protected to stop the British undercutting the USA manufacturers in the domestic market. So this is not likely to make a contribution.
Railroad engines - only a domestic product. USA built engines were low efficiency compared to British and even Prussian engines. Without tariff protection the domestic manufacturers are undercut by the Europeans and the CSA will either buy European or develop a domestic product or both.
Chemicals - well all the sulphur is in the CSA. The USA will no longer be able to control a significant part of the nitrates trade (due to increased distances). So what chemicals do you think the USA will trade.
Machine tools - No. Just no. They could not compete with the British without tariff protection they won't even be able to compete domestically.
Glass - everybody makes glass - little export potential here.
Toys - miniscule market in the mid-Victorian period.
Books - can't see this making an economy work alone!
Paper - yep but more trees in Canada/BNA. Once again no tariff protection any more.
Wood - not really a export earner is it. Unless there are some really unique trees in the USA I don't know about like Kauri in NZ or mahogany?
Tin - from whence?
Copper - yes this one is the first major valid export earner.
Steam engines - This is funny, in the ACW many USA built steam engines still had hardwood cog wheels. They were decades behind the British. Who could they possibly sell a steam engine to other than domestically and even that industry would collapse without tariff protection.

The ones that I am aware of that you have missed are parafins which was becoming a big market and whale oil which was also a big market but of course in a British intervention they have probably sunk most of the whaling fleet. Small mechanical devices like type writers and similar but not a big market.

So as you can see from the above your assertion that the USA could pay its bills is almost certainly false simply because they have almost nothing to export and without tariff protection most USA manufactories cannot even compete domestically.

Notice also that for exports to fund the USA Govt the USA Govt needs to charge a customs duty or tariff on the export which would make it even more expensive compared to the European product. If they want to collect the money from domestic manufactures they need some sort of tax which will be a further pressure contracting the economy. The USA in this scenario (CSA Independence through British intervention and possible loss of California) is in really really bad economic shape.

The CSA has considerably more than cotton and tobacco as you suggest. They have oil, beef and hogs as I have discussed. They have ship building, they have coal and iron, they have sulphur, fishing and they will completely take over 2/3s of the fishing and coastal shipping trade that had once been the USA's. They can easily import textile technologies.

Fabius Maximus said:

Exactly. And this does of course raise the question of why exactly the USA would want them back. Nationalistic feeling does of course lead people to stick with their poorer countrymen (which is why, e.g., no-one in South-East England wants to declare independence, even though they're essentially bankrolling the rest of the UK), but after a bitter civil war I'd imagine that many Americans' instinctive reaction would be "You wanted independence; keep it! Now somebody bring the popcorn."

As for the slavery issue, I really don't see how it's going to be abolished by 1870. The South had, after all, seceded to keep it less than ten years previously. Pretty much any conceivable TL where the South would voluntarily abolish slavery would be one where pro-slavery sentiment isn't nearly strong enough to lead to civil war in the first place.

As for the CSA's historical reputation, I agree that it would almost certainly be worse in any independent CSA TL. Most likely the country would end up collapsing on its own, or else it would end up becoming a pariah state like South Africa and forced to abolish slavery by international pressure. Either way, I can't imagine the Lost Cause ideas getting much traction.

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Yeah, the CSA is going to either hold on to slavery or commit genocide against its black population. The country was literally founded on slavery, and not in the uncomfortable, cognitive dissonance way of the rest of the US; they were really eager beaver about it.

Likely, the CSA either ends with an anarchist slave revolt backed by some poor whites and completely implodes, or it manages to exterminate most black people and replace them with immigrants from marginal areas of Europe and machinery.

Johnrankins said:

2. NO, IT WON'T! The US was not Haiti or Sri Lanka. You couldn't send a flotilla and a regiment or two of his majesty's finest and conquer a peace. The US was the 3rd most industrialized country in the world according to Kennedy and entirely connected by rail and at least around the size of all Western Europe. The UK was totally incapable of conquering the US at this point in time and that is what it would take to get the US to become a virtual colony of GB by allowing it to dictate its trade policies.

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I'm not sure why you have brought all of this up and I am a bit vaue about what you are trying to say as you seem to be questioning something I had not posted? Anyhow I would also be most interested by what you mean when you say industrialised? Your assertion that the British were incapable of conquering the USA at this point in time (during the ACW) is frankly beyond belief. In the many hundreds of threads on this site where this has been discussed it is absolutely clear that the USA has no means of obtaining victory other than attrition and that the Union economy would collapse under blockade within months. I do not propose to discuss this further it is a given in my discussion. Frankly I am bored with that debate.

Johnrankins said:

3. Why in God's name is it losing CA? Who is it going to lose it to? GB didn't claim it , and neither Mexico or the CSA could possibly conquer it so how does it lose it?

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I am an agnostic myself but there are a lot of Christians on this site. Is it appropriate to start the paragraph as you have?

1) France can conquer southern Alta-California with almost no troops. It has some troops in theatre and more in Asia it can use.
2) Britain can take all of all of the important bits of California (SF, Sacramento and the lower goldfields) with assets it had in theatre in 1862.
3) The majority of the population of California was foreign born and even more of it did not support the Union. It would be easy for the British to engineer a change in Govt and independence.

Johnrankins said:

The only way your reasoning works is that ASBs replace the US government with a bunch of hippy pacifists from the 60s all singing "Give Peace a chance" and the rest of the country going along. Otherwise the US tells GB where it can stick it and GB would be able to do little about it

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I think you have just started being unpleasant because you cannot align with by scenario. In fact your ranting is a bit hard to interpret but what I think you are saying is that the USA would not accept peace terms that included the loss of tariffs? If so I would suggest that what happens then is they all go back to war and the RN destroys whatever is left of the USA's economy. However ... I would expect that in most scenarios the loss of tariff protection to the USA's economy would be so disasterous that the USA would renage on the peace agreement after several years when most of the British feets had gone home hoping that the British would not be upset enough to go to war again. This might be the case or it might not. In the latter instance the RN burn the east coast again.

Since we are stating up front that "CSA collapse" is off the table, I really don't see how this happens. For the first 10-20 years after the war, feelings on both sides will run quite high, and I would expect slavery to last at least 20 years at a minimum throughout the CSA. Certainly as long as the CSA is all slave or majority slave states I can't see any reunion.

As time goes on, the USA and CSA will drift further apart culturally, even if they have close economic ties. In 1860 there were some very significant "ideological" differences, even excluding slavery & states rights and these will persist.

This is not a case of a united nation split by external forces like Germany, Korea, Vietnam where there is desire on both sides of the border for reunion - of course conditions different in all 3 cases here. Rather this is a situation where a country was split due to a bloody civil war. Frankly absent the USA conquering and reabsorbing the CSA I just don't see this happening by mutual attraction.