Anaxagoras
Banned
Southerners hated paying taxes and a warship construction program capable of building a fleet to take on a European power is going to be massively expensive.
Would the CSA ever manage to conquer Cuba?
- Thread starter machine3589
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Southerners hated paying taxes and a warship construction program capable of building a fleet to take on a European power is going to be massively expensive.
They wanted Cuba before, during, and after the Civil War. It was their own southward aimed version of Manifest Destiny. Also, the Confederates had a problem with soil exhaustion, which required new lands to cultivate. The Confederates also had their version of the White Man's Burden, which wanted to bring the 'blessings' of slavery to Latin America.
People hate paying taxes to authorities they don't respect and for reasons they don't approve. Americans in the 18th century didn't want to pay Parliament taxes, but had no problems paying their state governments, nor the federal government once it was established.
Southerns had no problem funding the fugitive slave act. If they want Cuba, they'll pay for it.
bguy
Donor
They wanted Cuba before the Civil War because they needed more slave states in the Union to balance the free states in the Senate. That's no longer an issue if the South has formed its own nation.
And what's your basis for believing that the South was interested in expanding into Cuba after the Civil War? My understanding is the exact opposite, that the South was generally hostile to overseas expansion in that period.
From "The Political Economy of Grand Strategy" by Kevin Narizny:
"Amply evidence exists that southerners were reluctant to pursue an active grand strategy in the periphery. Throughout 1865-1941, the South was far less likely than the Northeast to support treaties extending American influence in the periphery, including an 1884 agreement to give the United States exclusive rights to build a canal in Nicaragua (in contravention of the Anglo-American Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850), the annexation of Hawaii, the annexation of the Philippines, the establishment of a de facto protectorate over Cuba via the Platt Amendment, and intervention in the Dominican Republic via the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine."
(I would also add the proposed annexation of the Dominican Republic during the Grant Administration to that list, which also was opposed by Southerners.)
Narizny then goes on to point out how the South had little economic interest in expanding in the Caribbean since the export market for its goods in the Caribbean was negligible, since the sugar and tobacco growers in the South would vehemently oppose such expansion since they were already competing against Latin American producers, and since aggressive expansion into the Caribbean would risk damaging the South's relations with its primary trading partners in Europe (who OTL accounted for about 93% of the South's cotton exports up to the First World War.) Those reasons all seem valid to me, and indeed would be even more compelling for the Confederate States (who are going to be far more dependent on European good will than the southern states were after the Civil War in OTL.)
Yes, of course. The Continental Army was constantly overflowing with supplies, due to joyous tax paying that flooded governmental coffers during the Revolution. And the Continental Dollar became a byword for value for the same reason.
I'd forgotten those facts.....
Sarcasm off. Seriously, US citizens hated paying taxes of any sort to any government in those days. Whisky Rebellion, Shay's rebellion. The problems fighting for independence. The War of 1812.
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frlmerrin
Banned
Yes and no.
If we deal with a Confederate states becoming independent as a result of an Anglo - French conflict with the Union over Trent one ends up with a relatively debt free Confederacy with a successful economy and lots of spending power. They are also likely to end the Civil war with a modest force of state of the art ships including ironclads. The Union by contrast would be heavily in debt with an economy in ruins and no secure way of funding the government including the navy. Thus the Union will no longer be a power in the Gulf of Mexico and cannot provide a counter balance to the Confederacy. In such a situation the Confederacy would be inclined and have the resources to take Cuba. There are a couple of caveats to this. First before the coup in Spain the Confederates are likely to come up against an aggressive modern Spanish navy and lose. Second they need the tacit approval of the British to do this and they probably won't get it as the century draws closer to a close and they still have not ended chattle slavery.
In the event of a Confederacy which wins its independence early in the Civil War a conquest of Cuba is still possible but unlikely. A Confederacy that becomes independent in 1864 is going to be in a poor position to take Cuba until the new century if at all.
If we deal with a Confederate states becoming independent as a result of an Anglo - French conflict with the Union over Trent one ends up with a relatively debt free Confederacy with a successful economy and lots of spending power. They are also likely to end the Civil war with a modest force of state of the art ships including ironclads. The Union by contrast would be heavily in debt with an economy in ruins and no secure way of funding the government including the navy. Thus the Union will no longer be a power in the Gulf of Mexico and cannot provide a counter balance to the Confederacy. In such a situation the Confederacy would be inclined and have the resources to take Cuba. There are a couple of caveats to this. First before the coup in Spain the Confederates are likely to come up against an aggressive modern Spanish navy and lose. Second they need the tacit approval of the British to do this and they probably won't get it as the century draws closer to a close and they still have not ended chattle slavery.
In the event of a Confederacy which wins its independence early in the Civil War a conquest of Cuba is still possible but unlikely. A Confederacy that becomes independent in 1864 is going to be in a poor position to take Cuba until the new century if at all.
Cotton + Tobacco <> a lot of spending power (particularly after the bol weevil hits) and the CSA would have nothing else to offer. Also the CSA will give up chattel slavery no earlier than 1905 or so. People don't fight and die for something and then give it up quickly. Calling it something else won't work as they could have done so before the war and saved a lot of blood and treasure.
frlmerrin
Banned
Johnrankins,
Not sure why you have attached this blather to a quotation of my post. More than half of what you say is irrelevant to what I wrote. Please explain yourself better.
You said
. The CSA wouldn't have that much spending power even with a short/no war. Cotton and tobacco simply weren't THAT valuable. A handful of planters being pretty rich doesn't effect the economy as a whole. The world was already becoming more and more industrialized and cash crops won't cut it by itself. Besides the bol weevil will hit a generation or so later devastating the cotton crop.
I admit I read it wrong for the second point.
You did say they wouldn't end chattel slavery and somehow I read it that they would have.I think Antebellum, there was a lot of talk of taking CUba and making 5 states out of it. It was more of a ploy to add slave states in the Senate than a desire for Cuba's resources. Once war breaks out, the need for Cuba disappears.
There was also tobacco plantations you could set up in Cuba. There were plenty of people in the US wanting to take Cuba even after the ACW.
Interesting to read all the replies. From what I've learned of the CSA on this website, it appears that it could only survive the war and win its independence through the aid of European powers, and that it's continued survival and expansion after the war would also depend heavily on the good will of European powers.
Is that correct?
I thought the Southern US has a large chunk of the USA's oil reserves. Couldn't the Confederacy support itself on that much like most of the Middle Eastern states?
Is that correct?
I thought the Southern US has a large chunk of the USA's oil reserves. Couldn't the Confederacy support itself on that much like most of the Middle Eastern states?
Ultimate Paragon
Banned
Indeed there were. Many wanted to annex Cuba after the Spanish-American War.
No.
Britain, the US and probably France wouldn't let them.
And that's totally ignoring that Spain wouldn't be a complete push over.
Generally a victorious Confederacy will be doing wankishly well to hold onto all of its territory let alone expanding.
Interesting thought that just came to me: Perhaps in a Confederate victory TL we could see a late 19th century anti-smoking movement in response to the Confederate economy being so reliant on the stuff?
Britain, the US and probably France wouldn't let them.
And that's totally ignoring that Spain wouldn't be a complete push over.
Generally a victorious Confederacy will be doing wankishly well to hold onto all of its territory let alone expanding.
Interesting thought that just came to me: Perhaps in a Confederate victory TL we could see a late 19th century anti-smoking movement in response to the Confederate economy being so reliant on the stuff?
bguy
Donor
How many of those people were Southerners though? John Morgan is really the only prominent Southern expansionist I'm aware of from that period. Otherwise most of the leading imperialists of that time were northerners (e.g Roosevelt, Lodge, Mahan, Beveridge, Foraker, Platt).
What sugar beet lobby? The first successful.commercial beet sugar operation apparently didnt start until 1879. I doubt there was a huge beet sugar lobby in 1898, just 20 years later.
Besides, no one objected to Hawaii (on competitive grounds, at least).
A Successful CSA Shrinks and Shrinks and Shrinks regardless of it's victory in succession. The idea that a nation so absolutely buggered, so ridiculously riddled with problems expanding into the useless deserts of Northern Mexico, or starting a naval war with Spain to land on a hostile Island is beyond preposterous in itself; but the notion of them actually succeeding in military victory and annexation is properly insane.