I've always figured that the confederate officer corps, particularly amongst the younger officers would be the biggest proponents for modernization in the CSA. They would be a highly educated, professional class that would be well aware of the military applications of industrialization. Many of their members would come from the CSA's ruling families, with others promoting themselves based on merit (how many other avenues for social advancement are there in the south) However said individuals would tend to be of a different generation than those in power, and increasingly frustrated with the political promotion of the Confederacy as an agrarian republic.
WI: CSA a Cotton/Tobacco/Oil Banana Republic?
- Thread starter Lycaon pictus
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I've always figured that the confederate officer corps, particularly amongst the younger officers would be the biggest proponents for modernization in the CSA. They would be a highly educated, professional class that would be well aware of the military applications of industrialization. Many of their members would come from the CSA's ruling families, with others promoting themselves based on merit (how many other avenues for social advancement are there in the south) However said individuals would tend to be of a different generation than those in power, and increasingly frustrated with the political promotion of the Confederacy as an agrarian republic.
Why would they be more frustrated than their parents?
Take the Lees for instance.
Just because we have three of them to study (two sons of Robert and one nephew).
Lycaon pictus
Donor
I hadn't thought of this at all. Instead of killing the new president, of course, the Vice-President-for-Life would pick some amiable nonentity to occupy the office while keeping real power in his own hands. That way he'd be able to do this more than once without having trouble finding volunteers for the job of "President." And of course, if any of these "Presidents" stepped out of line, they would die unexpected and tragic deaths and the Vice-President-for-Life would finish the term. This would preserve something of an illusion of democracy.
As for what sort of political parties might form, and what role they might play… I'd have to do a lot more research.
Like I said before, the politics would probably be centered on a strong national government vs a weak one with more power to the states. Nationalists vs. Libertarians.
I can think of a couple reasons. The army will likely be one of the few truly national institutions possessed by the confederacy. While the confederate constitution guarantee's a week federal government, security demands will likely force it to maintain a fairly large and expensive military/paramilitary establishment. The older generation will likely be more enamored by their individual state identities while the 1st confederate generation will likely have a keenly defined sense of national identity. In order to allow for modernization the state will have to be centralized.
Economically the confederacy is likely to decline. King cotton won't last forever, and the confederacy being dependent on the outside world for most of its manufactured goods and a sizable portion of its food will drain their currency. The aristocracy won't care too much because they stand to benefit from the relative increases in their status and wealth. The merit officers on the other hand are less likely to be happy about the situation.
The rest of the world is industrializing, and arming themselves with the weapons of industry. The confederate military is always going to be wary of their larger northern neighbor, whatever the martial failings the Yankee race may have. In order to keep rough military parity with the Yankee's, rifles, machine guns, and steel artillery will need to be purchased/produced and deployed. The desire to adopt these new weapons of war will likely be stronger with the young officers, than the old guard civil war era generals/politicians.
Lycaon pictus
Donor
Considering that in 24 hours this idea, born of me sitting around thinking sad thoughts about economics, has gotten almost as many views as The Dead Skunk and a lot more responses, I might just do that. I'd have to do a lot more research, though.
And the more I think about it, the more I think Southrons, especially the poorer whites, would view Yankees with a mixture of envy and resentment. Yankees are richer, they've obviously been doing something right, everyone wants to become one… but their moralizing about rights and their economic hegemony would be a bitter combination for Southrons. (To poor blacks, the U.S. would seem like a barely-attainable earthly paradise. Given what their lives would be like, word of persistent racism in the U.S. wouldn't faze them much.)
Super Parker Brothers
Banned
Let us start thinking about tarrifs and the control over waterways. How easy is it for the minerals of the Appalachians to go to the U.S.? Do either side have protective tarrifs? I see problem if there are tarriffs against the Yanks but not against the Europeans. Their corn is vital for the Southern larders. God forbidd if the boll weevil comes earlier. Does anyone think that the Southerners would force the unionists, abolitionists, and free blacks into the north? And could the Confederate government have the authority to do anything about Gavelston when the storm hits. I should also probably point out how it would be nearly impossible for the Confederates to buy Cuba from Spain without agreeing to inherit the four hundred million dollar debt on the area. I wonder if the British will keep the Mosquito Coast as well.
A few thoughts:
(1) My instinct is that poor whites would increasingly simply migrate to the US, probably to California. However, Brazil and Argentina should be a good parallel for this - what happened to poor whites in Brazil? If there is worrying amounts of depopulation, the slave patrols might increasingly stop whites fleeing too.
(2) "Southrons" sounds a bit too Lord of the Ringsish. If they were going down this route, "southerners" is more likely, but I doubt they would define themselves so consciously vis-a-vis their northern neighbour. I can imagine them calling themselves Americans (the true ones!) compared to the Yankees, or simply Confederates.
(3) I agree there would be political divide between agrarian farmers and the national security state, with the latter backed up by the small yet emerging urban merchant class. I can see the agrarian landholders controlling the state for the first few decades, albeit giving somewhat free reign to the army/slave patrol apparatus which would be a state within a state. The Presidency would genuinely change hands a few times in this early period. The landholders would increasingly restrict the franchise and become a hated class. At some point some entrepreneurial general or cabal would seize power by capitalising on this hatred, and we would get a similar situation to Putin's Russia.
(4) How dependent would the South really be on food on outside powers? They have wheat and cattle already plus potentially tropical fruit also. Whatever else they need they can buy from Brazil and the rest of Latin America.
There might not be an issue of the lawfulness of slavery, but side-issues there will be. There will be those wanting to tax the slave rental, in order to make the poor white labor more competitive. And that is just one side issue. Nearly everything that complicates the bureaucracy of livestock raising will have a (usually more complicated) counterpart in slave dealing and raising. On the apartheid South Africa, there was an enormous regulatory structure to deal with "native african labor" . Sure, they had not quite slavery, but what brought on the need to regulate was the slave-like condition in which the kept part of the population.
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David S Poepoe
Banned
Actually, Southron is an old term for those from Dixie. Its been used for several decades.
Southron as a term predates Lord of the Rings, right? We should be careful not to let OTL pop/literary culture bias as against certain terms or expressions.
Wolfpaw
Banned
I had actually thought about this very thing a few days ago, and I must say you put it very well. Great minds think alike and all that
A Veepship without term-limits opens a world of opportunities for a dictator. My only comment is that the Boss probably wouldn't bump the president off, he'd just have somebody pliable in charge.
I could honestly see Thomas G. Jones running with the support of the military and poor whites, while at the same time probably trying to take a softer line on slaves to try and alleviate discourage slave revolts.
Team him up with some bland, gentlemanly Old South planter as a sop to the aristocracy, and you have a revolving ticket made in heaven.
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During the ACW, the younger officers of the CSA army were not as a rule proponents of modernization, highly educated, professional, or aware of the military applications of industrialization. I'm not saying they couldn't become that, but it's far from certain they would.
The rich in the CS probably wouldn't allow it. Modernization means the decline of their dominance of the largely agricultrual South. The rich land owners are also most likely the only ones that will be able to afford the hefty price tag it takes to run for office. They would also try to form a semi-aristocracy while preserving the illusion of democracy.
Super Parker Brothers
Banned
Maybe have their slaves count as a whole person rather than three-fifths? I sense a rotten borough system coming on.
Super Parker Brothers
Banned
No idea. They probably didn't want election rules down in writing just yet. Might make the scum of the earth realise what they are fighting for.
But would the next generation be, particularly after matriculation at the confederate equivalent of West Point? An officer going through it, would by any definition of the times be highly educated. As isolated as the confederacy is, it won't exist in a vacuum, and the military applications of rail and steel artillery will soon become self evident, to them if not the old guard politicians and generals, There is a reason why military coups in the developing world are often lead by young officers justifying their actions as being necessary to bring about modernization and eliminate the corruption of the previous regime.
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Snake Featherston
Banned
The Confederacy's leadership would be stupid enough to try to keep itself non-partisan as long as possible. The rise of political parties would be inevitable and at first would mainly reflect the gap between the mostly-Episcopalian and rich planter aristocracy and the yeomen farmers, neither questioning slavery or white supremacy.
^Which is where my Nathan Bedford Forrest as Ali Jinnah idea comes from as those modernizers aren't exactly going to get along with the FFVs who want to keep the CSA ass-backwards.