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?
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?
