Independent Deep South

aspie3000

Banned
What would have happened if the original seven states of the Confederacy, the deep southern states of South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana , Florida, and Texas had been allowed to secede peacefully and themselves hadn't taken the warmongering actions which led to the Civil War. Basically what if cooler heads would've prevailed on both sides and the Deep South became it's own country. What would the country be like today, how would it's history play out?
 
What would have happened if the original seven states of the Confederacy, the deep southern states of South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana , Florida, and Texas had been allowed to secede peacefully and themselves hadn't taken the warmongering actions which led to the Civil War. Basically what if cooler heads would've prevailed on both sides and the Deep South became it's own country. What would the country be like today, how would it's history play out?


I don't really see how it could have.

As a small splinter state it would have been completely overshadowed by the far larger Union next door, and would have been far too weak to pursue its ambitions in Mexico or the Caribbean. It would face the choice of provoking war in the hope of rallying the other slave states to it, or resigning itself to a sheepish return to the Union as soon as, say, the Corwin Amendment was ratified.
 
It would be relatively small and vulnerable. I can't help but think that it would fall into the US sphere of influence eventually.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
The simple fact is that this would not have happened, at least not with a POD immediately preceding OTL's Civil War. There seems to be some sort of myth stuck in many people's heads that somehow, the Union would have allowed secession, if only cooler heads had prevailed. This is as far from the truth as one can get. While the Southern fire-eaters were just about the most blustering hot-heads one might imagine, even if they had been calmly dignified and utterly pacific dimplomats, it would not have prevented war. Even if the Southern states would have seceded in an absolutely peaceful manner, and had not fired a single shot, Lincoln would have sent troops to subdue and re-conquer the South.

The North fough to preserve (or rather: to restore) the Union, which many in the north held to be indivisible. Even though slavery obviously was the issue that motivated the Southern states to secede, the war was not fought over the morality or legality of slavery. It was fought because the South held secession to be legal (pursuant to the Tenth Amendment; secession not being mentioned in the Constitution, and thus being "reserved to the States respectively"), whereas the North held secession to be illegal. Even if the South had freed every single slave upon secession (which would be totally ASB in any case), Northern troops would still have been sent to bring the seceded states back into the fold by force of arms. The existence of "warmongering actions" by Southern forces make no difference in this matter.

The only way this scenario could possibly happen would be if the Constitution explicitly stated secession was legal, and provided a mechanism for states to secede. That would probably have other major consequences at an earlier stage, meaning a whole different TL. If a mass secession of multiple states were still to occur, and over the same issue, and secession were to be known as fully legal... I'd expect more slave states to vote for secession, not fewer.

But let us assume that there is a constitutional mechanism for secession, and it is rather restrictive. It requires some supermajority vote to make secession possible and is generally tricky. Only the Deep South, where slavery is considered the most important, actually manages to get a "yes"-vote. I suspect the aftermath would be a constitutional amendment to ban secession in the remaining Union. But a war would be unlikely. After all, secession would clearly be legal in this ATL.

As for the hypothetical Deep South confederacy in such an ATL... it would probably be rather poor and quite possibly a "banana republic" indeed. Ruled by a slavocrat oligarchy, where the poor whites are kept in line by the constant fear of possible slave uprisings etc. if they don't stay in line. Also, poor whites would likely fear (and deliberately be kept in fear) that if slavery were abolished, they'd have to compete with ex-slaves on the labour market. So in such a Deep South state, things would probably not get better in the forseeable future.

I don't see it being reabsorbed by the Union either, however. People who claim that sort of thing would happen do not seem to realise that in OTL, there are plenty of very poor countries that somehow don't just collapse and beg to be absorbed by more powerful neighbours. Nor do those powerful neighbours universally desire to absorb dirt-poor shitholes full of people they don't like...

So, basically, I'd expect this alt-confederacy to make it well into the twenthieth century; a glaring example of everything a civilised country should not be.
 
The simple fact is that this would not have happened, at least not with a POD immediately preceding OTL's Civil War. There seems to be some sort of myth stuck in many people's heads that somehow, the Union would have allowed secession, if only cooler heads had prevailed. This is as far from the truth as one can get. While the Southern fire-eaters were just about the most blustering hot-heads one might imagine, even if they had been calmly dignified and utterly pacific dimplomats, it would not have prevented war. Even if the Southern states would have seceded in an absolutely peaceful manner, and had not fired a single shot, Lincoln would have sent troops to subdue and re-conquer the South.

The North fough to preserve (or rather: to restore) the Union, which many in the north held to be indivisible. Even though slavery obviously was the issue that motivated the Southern states to secede, the war was not fought over the morality or legality of slavery. It was fought because the South held secession to be legal (pursuant to the Tenth Amendment; secession not being mentioned in the Constitution, and thus being "reserved to the States respectively"), whereas the North held secession to be illegal. Even if the South had freed every single slave upon secession (which would be totally ASB in any case), Northern troops would still have been sent to bring the seceded states back into the fold by force of arms. The existence of "warmongering actions" by Southern forces make no difference in this matter.

The only way this scenario could possibly happen would be if the Constitution explicitly stated secession was legal, and provided a mechanism for states to secede. That would probably have other major consequences at an earlier stage, meaning a whole different TL. If a mass secession of multiple states were still to occur, and over the same issue, and secession were to be known as fully legal... I'd expect more slave states to vote for secession, not fewer.

But let us assume that there is a constitutional mechanism for secession, and it is rather restrictive. It requires some supermajority vote to make secession possible and is generally tricky. Only the Deep South, where slavery is considered the most important, actually manages to get a "yes"-vote. I suspect the aftermath would be a constitutional amendment to ban secession in the remaining Union. But a war would be unlikely. After all, secession would clearly be legal in this ATL.

As for the hypothetical Deep South confederacy in such an ATL... it would probably be rather poor and quite possibly a "banana republic" indeed. Ruled by a slavocrat oligarchy, where the poor whites are kept in line by the constant fear of possible slave uprisings etc. if they don't stay in line. Also, poor whites would likely fear (and deliberately be kept in fear) that if slavery were abolished, they'd have to compete with ex-slaves on the labour market. So in such a Deep South state, things would probably not get better in the forseeable future.

I don't see it being reabsorbed by the Union either, however. People who claim that sort of thing would happen do not seem to realise that in OTL, there are plenty of very poor countries that somehow don't just collapse and beg to be absorbed by more powerful neighbours. Nor do those powerful neighbours universally desire to absorb dirt-poor shitholes full of people they don't like...

So, basically, I'd expect this alt-confederacy to make it well into the twenthieth century; a glaring example of everything a civilised country should not be.

There's only one way that could be remotely possible and I still think that it's a longshot at best. In 1814 (?), when the Federalists held the Hartford Convention urging New England to secede, maybe if the slaveholding states got wind of it, they could pull a "Me Too" and head off.
This could give us three separate "United States" (more or less), including New England, The South (by Gawd!) which include Kentucky, Tennessee and Louisiana (all admitted before 1814), and the Atlantic states (New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, possibly Virginia and Ohio).

Regards,
John Braungart
 
There's only one way that could be remotely possible and I still think that it's a longshot at best. In 1814 (?), when the Federalists held the Hartford Convention urging New England to secede, maybe if the slaveholding states got wind of it, they could pull a "Me Too" and head off.
This could give us three separate "United States" (more or less), including New England, The South (by Gawd!) which include Kentucky, Tennessee and Louisiana (all admitted before 1814), and the Atlantic states (New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, possibly Virginia and Ohio).

Regards,
John Braungart
Why on earth would the South *want* to secede at this point?
 
If the Federal government did not resist secession by the Deep South states, nor agree to settle the slavery issues on terms that would get them to rescind secession...

Then all the remaining slave states would declare secession too. Maybe not Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, or Missouri.

But the Upper South was never going to accept domination by an 18 of 26 majority of free states when they could leave at will. So a seven state CSA seems unlikely.

The "Border" states would eventually have to choose between emancipation and secession; they could go either way. If slaveowners there moved south, that would tip toward emancipation.
 
What would have happened if the original seven states of the Confederacy, the deep southern states of South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana , Florida, and Texas had been allowed to secede peacefully and themselves hadn't taken the warmongering actions which led to the Civil War. Basically what if cooler heads would've prevailed on both sides and the Deep South became it's own country. What would the country be like today, how would it's history play out?

Interesting question! Should note, btw, that those very same warmongering actions included the brutal takeover of the Texas state government from the pro-Houston faction; TBH, it was the only reason why North Carolina and Tennessee ultimately stayed in the Union, as Unionism had become weak in those states prior to the Austin Incident.
 

aspie3000

Banned
Interesting question! Should note, btw, that those very same warmongering actions included the brutal takeover of the Texas state government from the pro-Houston faction; TBH, it was the only reason why North Carolina and Tennessee ultimately stayed in the Union, as Unionism had become weak in those states prior to the Austin Incident.

The inspiration for the question came from Colin Woodard's book American Nations which basically pushes forward the theory that the United States and Canada are actually composed of eleven stateless cultural nations each with their own ethnographic, linguistic, political, cultural, religious, and various other characteristic. One of the nations he describes is the Deep South in which he describes like this.

The Deep South: Founded by Barbados slave lords as a West Indies-style slave society, for much of American history the Deep South has been the bastion of white supremacy, aristocratic privilege, and a version of classical Republicanism modeled on the slave states of the ancient world, where democracy was a privilege of the few and enslavement the natural lot of the many. It remains the least democratic of the nations, a one-party entity where race remains the primary determinant of one's political affiliations. From its beachhead at Charleston the Deep South expanded through the Southern lowlands before having its territorial ambitions in Latin America halted. In frustration, the Deep South dragged the federation down into a bloody civil war in an effort to carve out its own nation-state alongside its reluctant Tidewater and smattering of Appalachian allies. Successfully resisting the Yankee-led occupation, the Deep South became the center for the state's rights movement, racial segregation, and labor and environmental deregulation. Having forged an uneasy "Dixie" coalition with Tidewater and Greater Appalachia in the 1870s, the Deep South is locked in an epic battle with Yankeedom and its Left Coast and New Netherlands allies for control of the federation.

When the Civil War started the only states which seceded from the union to begin with were the states controlled by Woodard's Deep South which were the original seven states of the confederacy. I'm from deep southern South Carolina so naturally it interests me how a country run by the 19th century Deep South would operate and it would probably be as horrifying as one would imagine.
 
Did northerners not want secession? or was it the northern gov'ts? there's a difference. I suspect that if the gov't were to allow it based on principles of free peoples being free to decide their gov't (the basis of the founding of the USA to begin with), the population might grumble, but accept it. But, the northern gov't said no. the southern gov't wasn't exactly peaceful and neighborly, and all hell broke loose.

But, accepting the premise of a friendly divorce, what you are going to see is a country that can stand on its own. It's a region with a commodity to sell,a profitable way of raising that commodity, and mineral resources to eventually develop. You are likely to see slow, but steady industrialization. It's not going to become as industrialized as the north, but it doesn't have to be. It has the perfect trade partner to the north. In a friendly divorce, the south will not be some isolated backwoods country beset upon by outsiders looking to exploit them (this is where the banana republic comparison breaks down). It's not going to be a bed of roses in all aspects, but it can easily be a going concern. the states were going concerns within the OTL USA. the only thing that changes is now they have to bear the cost of a military, and sans a hostile neighbor to the north, they don't need too large a one.
 

aspie3000

Banned
Did northerners not want secession? or was it the northern gov'ts? there's a difference. I suspect that if the gov't were to allow it based on principles of free peoples being free to decide their gov't (the basis of the founding of the USA to begin with), the population might grumble, but accept it. But, the northern gov't said no. the southern gov't wasn't exactly peaceful and neighborly, and all hell broke loose.

But, accepting the premise of a friendly divorce, what you are going to see is a country that can stand on its own. It's a region with a commodity to sell,a profitable way of raising that commodity, and mineral resources to eventually develop. You are likely to see slow, but steady industrialization. It's not going to become as industrialized as the north, but it doesn't have to be. It has the perfect trade partner to the north. In a friendly divorce, the south will not be some isolated backwoods country beset upon by outsiders looking to exploit them (this is where the banana republic comparison breaks down). It's not going to be a bed of roses in all aspects, but it can easily be a going concern. the states were going concerns within the OTL USA. the only thing that changes is now they have to bear the cost of a military, and sans a hostile neighbor to the north, they don't need too large a one.

Yes, I'm glad to see someone positing something other than a banana republic in this scenario. The Deep South was the richest part of the United States of America because of their production of cotton. On top of that, it's a western Anglo Saxon capitalist democracy, I wonder often in these independent confederacy scenarios where the south turns into a third world hellhole whether this belief comes from an actual look at the facts or a (justified) hatred of the confederacy and a (not so justified) hatred of the Christian conservative south.
 
Yes, I'm glad to see someone positing something other than a banana republic in this scenario. The Deep South was the richest part of the United States of America because of their production of cotton. On top of that, it's a western Anglo Saxon capitalist democracy, I wonder often in these independent confederacy scenarios where the south turns into a third world hellhole whether this belief comes from an actual look at the facts or a (justified) hatred of the confederacy and a (not so justified) hatred of the Christian conservative south.

That's the problem right there. It's heavily vulnerable to fluxuations in cotton prices. Yes, the South had a more diversified economy than just cotton, but a lot of that was in the Upper South (coal in Appalachia, say). Adding Texas oil isn't a solution either, since you're just adding another commodity to be overdependent on. Maybe the South wouldn't be as bad as, say, Central America, but it would certainly be highly underdeveloped economically, maybe like Brazil. I mean, the majority of the trade wasn't even with the north, but with Britain instead. It was a mostly unindustrialised resource extraction economy, which historically probably means underdevelopment in some manner or another.
 
Yes, I'm glad to see someone positing something other than a banana republic in this scenario. The Deep South was the richest part of the United States of America because of their production of cotton. On top of that, it's a western Anglo Saxon capitalist democracy, I wonder often in these independent confederacy scenarios where the south turns into a third world hellhole whether this belief comes from an actual look at the facts or a (justified) hatred of the confederacy and a (not so justified) hatred of the Christian conservative south.

The problem is that any nation that is reliant on exporting one or two resources for their entire economy, as the South was, is not going to become a productive, well rounded nation. Why invest in education when you only need slaves/sharecroppers to do grunt work? Indeed, education is a bad thing for plantation owners in that scenario. Why create industry for yourself when you can import it from elsewhere in exchange for your rich resources? Inevitably, all the profits will go towards making the few controllers of that resource (cotton) wealthy, and then maybe to help facilitate its production. So that leaves no room for the development of institutions that first world countries have.
 
The inspiration for the question came from Colin Woodard's book American Nations which basically pushes forward the theory that the United States and Canada are actually composed of eleven stateless cultural nations each with their own ethnographic, linguistic, political, cultural, religious, and various other characteristic. One of the nations he describes is the Deep South in which he describes like this.

The Deep South: Founded by Barbados slave lords as a West Indies-style slave society, for much of American history the Deep South has been the bastion of white supremacy, aristocratic privilege, and a version of classical Republicanism modeled on the slave states of the ancient world, where democracy was a privilege of the few and enslavement the natural lot of the many. It remains the least democratic of the nations, a one-party entity where race remains the primary determinant of one's political affiliations. From its beachhead at Charleston the Deep South expanded through the Southern lowlands before having its territorial ambitions in Latin America halted. In frustration, the Deep South dragged the federation down into a bloody civil war in an effort to carve out its own nation-state alongside its reluctant Tidewater and smattering of Appalachian allies. Successfully resisting the Yankee-led occupation, the Deep South became the center for the state's rights movement, racial segregation, and labor and environmental deregulation. Having forged an uneasy "Dixie" coalition with Tidewater and Greater Appalachia in the 1870s, the Deep South is locked in an epic battle with Yankeedom and its Left Coast and New Netherlands allies for control of the federation.

When the Civil War started the only states which seceded from the union to begin with were the states controlled by Woodard's Deep South which were the original seven states of the confederacy. I'm from deep southern South Carolina so naturally it interests me how a country run by the 19th century Deep South would operate and it would probably be as horrifying as one would imagine.

Interesting. BTW.....this is gonna be kinda embarrassing, but I just now realized that this wasn't a DBWI. :coldsweat:
 
The inspiration for the question came from Colin Woodard's book American Nations which basically pushes forward the theory that the United States and Canada are actually composed of eleven stateless cultural nations each with their own ethnographic, linguistic, political, cultural, religious, and various other characteristic. One of the nations he describes is the Deep South in which he describes like this.

The Deep South: Founded by Barbados slave lords as a West Indies-style slave society, for much of American history the Deep South has been the bastion of white supremacy, aristocratic privilege, and a version of classical Republicanism modeled on the slave states of the ancient world, where democracy was a privilege of the few and enslavement the natural lot of the many. It remains the least democratic of the nations, a one-party entity where race remains the primary determinant of one's political affiliations. From its beachhead at Charleston the Deep South expanded through the Southern lowlands before having its territorial ambitions in Latin America halted. In frustration, the Deep South dragged the federation down into a bloody civil war in an effort to carve out its own nation-state alongside its reluctant Tidewater and smattering of Appalachian allies. Successfully resisting the Yankee-led occupation, the Deep South became the center for the state's rights movement, racial segregation, and labor and environmental deregulation. Having forged an uneasy "Dixie" coalition with Tidewater and Greater Appalachia in the 1870s, the Deep South is locked in an epic battle with Yankeedom and its Left Coast and New Netherlands allies for control of the federation.

When the Civil War started the only states which seceded from the union to begin with were the states controlled by Woodard's Deep South which were the original seven states of the confederacy. I'm from deep southern South Carolina so naturally it interests me how a country run by the 19th century Deep South would operate and it would probably be as horrifying as one would imagine.

It would be pretty horrifying, and probably have more legs than we'd like to think. I think the questions to be asked are 1) What kind of trading concessions does it give to the British? It's not going to have the same ability to negotiate for the terms of trade in it's cotton as the full US did; and 2) How does it replace labor? Historically, the Deep South had a burn rate they made up by buying people from the Upper South, who are now on the other side of a national border that bans the international slave trade. I see ideas to enslave some poor white accelerating in this circumstances, and 3) What (horrifying, horrifying) knock on effects are there when this nation, founded on racial supremacy and people who would try to breed human beings like animals, runs into the eugenics craze of the fin de seicle?
 
if the upper south has a slavery/trade ban imposed upon them, they join the lower south.

I think that a division of states has both sides sucking up to the border states, trying to woo them, or keep them from leaving.

what do the states do with the excess slaves, IF a trade ban is imposed? the north doesn't want them. they don't want slavery, but dark skinned folk aren't considered equal, so they don't want too many dark folk, either. Northerners, overall, were no real friend to people of color. Treating them better than whites in the south did is a mighty low bar.
 
Yes, I'm glad to see someone positing something other than a banana republic in this scenario. The Deep South was the richest part of the United States of America because of their production of cotton. On top of that, it's a western Anglo Saxon capitalist democracy, I wonder often in these independent confederacy scenarios where the south turns into a third world hellhole whether this belief comes from an actual look at the facts or a (justified) hatred of the confederacy and a (not so justified) hatred of the Christian conservative south.

Well, its a single commodity Agricultural society. Those tend to follow specific economic development trajectories. There's a reason for the term 'Banana Republic.'

Overall, the Confederacy had deep infrastructural problems. There was no integrated railroad network. There were a bunch of mismatched short lines of varying quality. Apart from that, it was a mixture of canals, rivers and roads of varying quality. Mostly rivers. The Confederate transportation infrastructure was not centralized or integrated, rather, what you had was a series of mini-networks, mostly not connecting effectively to each other, but extending to separate coastal ports, to facilitate exports and imports, rather than any kind of coherent internal market.

The result of this sort of infrastructure is that Confederate goods and manufacturing actually competed at a disadvantage with foreign imports. The Confederacy had difficulty shipping goods within itself. Rather, it used the same transport channels back and forth, that the imports did. Essentially, it would have to ship out to the port, over to the next port, and back up into the Confederacy.

It's notable that the Confederate constitution actually prohibited significant cross state infrastructure development.

The Confederacy also maintained a policy of low tariffs, something common to single crop agricultural exporters. It allowed for profitable exports. But it also made for cheaper imports, which in turn outcompeted local manufacturing. This also reduced the tax base of the Confederacy, so that it had limited funding to invest in infrastructure or governance.

The Confederacy had no financial structure to speak of, no banks, no stock market, no organised credit system. So wealth tended to be tied up in land and slaves, in tangible property. There was a shortage of capital for economic development.

So, I don't see any real case for the Confederacy, or any pseudo-Confederacy to industrialise or turn into an Anglo-Saxon economic powerhouse. The model seems to push towards Banana Republic.

In the case of the Confederacy, the boll weevil, a generation later is going to hit that economy like a rolling catastrophe. It will knock the foundations of that economy. Does that mean that the Confederacy will rebuild and industrialise at that point? Possibly. But their infrastructure will be junk, their tariff structure will be dysfunctional, and all the capital tied up in slaves and land will be worthless. There's not going to be any spare capital or resources to reinvest in new agriculture or crops, or industrialisation.

The best guess for the post-boll weevil confederacy will be a fire sale on Confederate assets, with foreign interests buying up immense amounts of property at rock bottom prices. Again, Banana Republic stuff.
 
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