the Velvet Civil War

[wkwillis]

The Velvet Revolution and Velvet Divorce were the Czech government changes when they left the Warsaw Pact and when Czechia split off from Slovakia. This is the equivalent for the USA/CSA.
Assume that Lincoln wins a few less electoral votes as the POD, the election goes to the House, and nobody gets selected as President or Vice President or Speaker for the House, or Senator Pro Tem.
It's hard to fight a civil war when the other side doesn't cooperate, or doesn't even really exist.
Without Lincoln's election as the excuse, the southern establishment conspiracy doesn't really work. They can't use northern oppression as an excuse to hold rigged elections because there isn't any northern oppression. The government can't get organised because of the deadlock, so no anti slavery laws or tariff hikes get passed. Further, the south has two years to buy guns and ammunition, develop a taxing structure, sell bonds to the Europeans, and otherwise set itself up as much too strong to fight. The national debt gets paid off as taxes come in because they can't organise to spend them. The forts get abandoned when the national government can't get a bill through to pay for an army. If the south wants them they can wander over and just walk in, the way the northerners kind of wind up owning the naval ships.
More importantly there is no excuse for the south to confiscate the loans they owed the northerners. No confiscation and the northern bankers aren't going to make common cause with the abolitionists. Further, there will be no more northern loans. When the loans come due after the harvest the northerners take their money and go home, and the CSA planters now owe the money to the British instead of the Yankees.
So, no war.
But in two years there will be another election. The Republicans will presumably get enough Congressmen or Senators to elect a presidential succession candidate as Speaker of the House or Senator Pro Tem, and that person will become president.
Figure on Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware having two years to vote on how and if they secede. Probably the way they do it is to vote on a county basis on secession. Virginia loses West Virginia, Kentucky loses the Ohio river counties, Missouri loses the bootheel, Delaware loses everything south of Wilmington, Maryland loses the area north of Baltimore and some coal counties in the west. Otherwise they and the district of Columbia go off with the CSA, which makes the CSA bigger and more powerfull on this ATL.
And considerably more democratic. No pass laws for white people, no conscription, an explicit (as differing from an implicit) provision that states can leave the CSA, all necessary for the ordinary people to back the CSA constitution.
The territories also vote on what they are going to do. Indian country like Oklahoma stays indian and neutral between the USA and the CSA because neither will let the other invade it. The Arizona and Dakota area territories become free soil because they don't want competition with slaves.


Now what?

[Max Sinister]

If their constitution doesn't forbid it, some states may leave the CSA and join the US later when they see that their are ways to make more money without slaves, or the opinion of their people changes. If they don't have too many slaves, the government or NGOs (to use the modern term) can buy their freedom.
After the Velvet Civil War the Velvet reunification, step for step.

[Andrei]

If the Federal leadership would had been so weak , would the South have seceeded?

[Wendell]

I don't accept the premise.

[wkwillis]

Um, why would the USA want them back? The civil war was about southern slaves and northern mortgages. When cotton picking machines, boll weevils, and rayon had wiped out the value of cotton and therefor the value of slaves, why would the USA want them back?

[wkwillis]

Originally Posted by Wendell

I don't accept the premise.

It is a matter of fact that Lincoln won election. It is a valid POD for him not to win election, and for the election to go to the House. It has happened several times before 1860 in OTL. Once more is not implausible.

[wkwillis]

I'm going to have the states of Maryland and Kentucky go with the CSA, and Missouri and Delaware go with the USA. I assume plebiscites cause this. Delaware will certainly stay in the USA for reasons of tobacco marketing. Missouri because the USA, unlike the CSA, is planning to build the national railroad through the state. Virginia stays in one piece because I think that there is a natural attitude that if you get smaller on the map, it's a bad thing. I don't think that is true or reasonable, but I think it's likely to be the attitude in 1863.
So we have a heavily armed bunch of states (in 1840 the state of New York had 40% of all the cannon in the USA) that have decided not to fight a war. They have spent about 1% of the amount they spent in OTL and all of it on armaments and ammunition. They are loaded for bear and ready for trouble.
Now what?
The CSA has a constitution mostly like OTL, except with an explicit right of secession for states and a few minor changes. The USA has the original constitution, with the right of secession established as a matter of precedent. The CSA establishes the capital at Washington DC and the US at Canton, Ohio. The USA does decide to tax slaves as a way of making sure that they are freed or sold in Missouri and Delaware. This takes place gradually over the next ten years.
They do not come to an agreement on returning escaped slaves and they do not come to an agreement on joint tariffs. They do come to an agreement that they will under no circumstances go to war with each other. Consulates in the USA and the CSA make good places for retired legislators, and this helps motivate good relationships because legislators avoid inflamatory remarks on the grounds that that would make it difficult to accept a posting to the country you had made inflamatory remarks about.
And there the matter rests, for now. No war, no treaties except for a general peace treaty, no conflict, and no boundary changes.

[Earling]

If as you put it the other side isn't really there.. why would the south secede?
Surely if the north is effectively going to yeild on all fronts it makes far more sence for the south to just enforce its views on the rest of the union? Surely they could find some sort of presidential candidate who accepts their views and push for him to become president while the north is apparently divided.

[sbegin]

At one point you mentioned that Britain now holds all of the CSA's loans. Weren't the British pushing for abolition at this time? Wouldn't they be likely to call in all the depts if the CSA continues to practice slavery? If this happens, and if the cotton economy fails, the South goes into a deep recession, and many States will probably try to rejoin the USA - would the USA accept them?

[Alratan]

Originally Posted by sbegin

At one point you mentioned that Britain now holds all of the CSA's loans. Weren't the British pushing for abolition at this time? Wouldn't they be likely to call in all the depts if the CSA continues to practice slavery? If this happens, and if the cotton economy fails, the South goes into a deep recession, and many States will probably try to rejoin the USA - would the USA accept them?

I imagine that Britain dosen't hold the loans, British bankers do. These are people who probably care much more about getting a good return on their investment than moral qualms, otherwise they wouldn't have lent the money in the first place.

[carlton_bach]

Originally Posted by sbegin

At one point you mentioned that Britain now holds all of the CSA's loans. Weren't the British pushing for abolition at this time? Wouldn't they be likely to call in all the depts if the CSA continues to practice slavery? If this happens, and if the cotton economy fails, the South goes into a deep recession, and many States will probably try to rejoin the USA - would the USA accept them?

Nah. The British Empire supported worldwide abolition the way the US supports human rights and religious freedom - as long as it didn't conflict with more pressing national interests. They needed the Southern cotton more than they needed another feelgood victory.

[Wendell]

Originally Posted by wkwillis

It is a matter of fact that Lincoln won election. It is a valid POD for him not to win election, and for the election to go to the House. It has happened several times before 1860 in OTL. Once more is not implausible.

There is no way that the Congress would go that long without leadership...

[wkwillis]

Originally Posted by Earling

If as you put it the other side isn't really there.. why would the south secede?
Surely if the north is effectively going to yeild on all fronts it makes far more sence for the south to just enforce its views on the rest of the union? Surely they could find some sort of presidential candidate who accepts their views and push for him to become president while the north is apparently divided.

The North isn't going to enforce it's views on slavery on the South because the North doesn't control the presidency, the House, or the Senate because the South won't let them. The South is going to use the two years till the next election to prepare for war, and will be so strong after two years of preparation that the North will let them go.

[wkwillis]

Originally Posted by Wendell

There is no way that the Congress would go that long without leadership...

Why? The South doesn't want Lincoln to be president. The Bell, Douglas, and Breckinridge factions don't want Lincoln to be president. If blocking the action of the government will give the South more time to prepare, they will cheerfully do just that.
It's not just Southerners. Some Northerners didn't want war either. All the Southerners have to do is sit and watch Douglas stare down Lincoln over who was going to be president, for two years, while back home prepares for war.
Averting the Southern coup with the rigged secession governments is the important point, and why the South will win independence. Kentucky and Maryland are the crucial industrial and logistical states for independence. You can get along without Delaware and Missouri, but as Lincoln said, the Union needed Kentucky.

[wkwillis]

Now it's 1863 and the USA is royally pissed. The South has left and formed the CSA and there are a lot of bad feelings about how Britain has backed them up, refused to stop trading with them, etc.
And now the CSA is being difficult about paying back the USA loans in some instances and forcing the USA bankers to sue in CSA courts and then dismissing the cases, as in OTL.
So the USA simply defaults on it's debts to Britain, giving British bankers the CSA mortgages and wishing them the best of luck. Then the CSA refuses to pay the British back, led by Jefferson Davis arguing that since the debts were contracted to the USA bankers and since the bankers had ceded them to the British, that therefore the debts were now void. Also, the British were being so difficult about the whole matter that the CSA might as well default on the loans they owed the British, too.
Which means that two years after the British had encouraged the Southerners to secede from the North they had lost all their investments in both the North and the South. And the CSA was threatening an embargo on cotton if the British made any difficulty about it or threatened them in any way.
Since it is human nature to find someone else to blame the British found the logical candidate in the USA and began to interfere with USA commerce to encourage the USA to pay back the debts and to join a coming British blockade on the CSA. Which the USA responded to by invading Canada with all the weapons they had bought between 1861 and 1863 to fight the CSA with, and then confiscating the assets of anyone there who did not promptly swear an oath of loyalty to the USA, ie, anyone wealthy, to pay for all this.
The USA followed this up by unleashing a commerce raider war on the British merchant marine. The CSA was fed up with the British rude persistance in attempting to collect it's loans, and ungratefully provided ports for the USA privateers.
Further, the CSA shipped cotton to the USA mills and refused to provide cotton to the British unless the British paid for insurance against USA privateers. Finally, the CSA refused to join the British in their attempts to blockade the USA and cheerfully shipped manufactures over the border to the USA.
Britain was royally pissed. Britain gathered up it's forces from all the seas of the world and sent them to the USA to blockade the coast, basing their blockade in Halifax since Halifax was not connected by railroad to the USA dominated coast of North America.
Until the USA began laying tracks to Halifax. The route to Halifax was settled and had roads and farms and towns to provide support for the railroad construction crews. Rails were shipped in and the rest of the material was found on site and brought to the railroad line for ties and bridges and fodder and food. Rail was provided by the USA rolling mills, as was rolling stock.

[Wendell]

Originally Posted by wkwillis

Why? The South doesn't want Lincoln to be president. The Bell, Douglas, and Breckinridge factions don't want Lincoln to be president. If blocking the action of the government will give the South more time to prepare, they will cheerfully do just that.
It's not just Southerners. Some Northerners didn't want war either. All the Southerners have to do is sit and watch Douglas stare down Lincoln over who was going to be president, for two years, while back home prepares for war.
Averting the Southern coup with the rigged secession governments is the important point, and why the South will win independence. Kentucky and Maryland are the crucial industrial and logistical states for independence. You can get along without Delaware and Missouri, but as Lincoln said, the Union needed Kentucky.

The South would be harming their own cause...

[wkwillis]

Originally Posted by Wendell

The South would be harming their own cause...

The South harmed their own cause in OTL by withdrawing from the House and Senate. In my ATL they do not choose to harm their own cause, instead they buy two years to rearm, to acquire the ports of Mobile, etc, to expand into Kentucky and Maryland, to get diplomatic recognition, etc.
The South didn't want to fight the Civil War. They would have been happy to settle for victory without a war instead of defeat after a war.
Unlike some people on this board who are emotionally invested in the Civil War occuring.

[Fleetlord]

Under the Constitution, the House of Representatives selects from the top three finishers, and the Senate chooses from the top two candidates for VP. If for some reason they both deadlock, then the person designated as the next in line by Congress, who I think would be the Speaker of the House in 1860, decomes Acting President. The Federal gov't does not cease to exist.

Besides, why would they do that?

As someone much smarter than I explained here: http://groups.google.com/group/soc.h...d9d13aecc59135

If the 1860 election were thrown to Congress, there's a good chance that the Southern Dem, Breckinridge, would be elected, or possibly Bell. And if the House deadlocked, the Senate would certianly elect Joseph Lane, a pro-southern northerner and Breck's running mate as VP and thus, Acting President.

[Nicole]

Alright, your latest installment is just silly. Why would the British be interfereing with US commerce over CSA debts? Even if they've decided to neglect CSA debts, they wouldn't blame the US- you're making no sense, and it seems that you just want the US to invade Canada.

And Canton, Ohio is an unlikely capital.

[wkwillis]

Originally Posted by Fleetlord Hart

Under the Constitution, the House of Representatives selects from the top three finishers, and the Senate chooses from the top two candidates for VP. If for some reason they both deadlock, then the person designated as the next in line by Congress, who I think would be the Speaker of the House in 1860, decomes Acting President. The Federal gov't does not cease to exist.

Besides, why would they do that?

As someone much smarter than I explained here: http://groups.google.com/group/soc.h...d9d13aecc59135

If the 1860 election were thrown to Congress, there's a good chance that the Southern Dem, Breckinridge, would be elected, or possibly Bell. And if the House deadlocked, the Senate would certianly elect Joseph Lane, a pro-southern northerner and Breck's running mate as VP and thus, Acting President.

So if the Republicans get only 30% of the vote instead of 40%, Breckinridge or Lane takes over, and if they get 35% of the vote, then what? There is a balance point where there is no President, no Vice President, no Speaker, no Pro Tempore.