Poll: When Would the CSA Eliminate Slavery

[Fiver]

Also imperialist leader in Europe might feel bold. Monarchs often took advantage of people when their down and cared more of expansion over common sense. For example, Britain and France is more aggressive with Venezuela or Mexico because they think US can’t say as much after losing war since they aren’t a “serious power” to them. They are ignorant and egotistical. A Wilhelm type monarch could easily feel more comfortable getting involved in Western Hemisphere. Every time US gets mad at Europeans fooling around in the Western Hemisphere the Europeans might call in the CSA as help.

With an independent Confederacy, European powers certainly would become more prone to intervening in the Western Hemisphere, but what makes you think the CSA would like that any more than the USA would?

Interest can easily change over time between countries. The more divided US the more Europeans think they can involve themselves here. A United US keeps them out better. CSA could have a easier time in Central America if Europeans are constantly getting involved in area trying to get control or set up plans for a canal you could see a power vacuum form in region after European interest fail money but the methods used in area might have left it very unstable and economic hardship which CSA takes advantage.

Without radical changes, both the US and Britain would oppose Confederate expansionism. The Confederates would also need to build a real navy. Latin American countries would not welcome the CSA - conquest would be slow and bloody even if it was usccessful. And tropical diseases would play havock with the Confederate invaders.

 

[Modern Imperialism]

And I am pointing out that the Confederate population would never tolerate that level of centralization, the Confederate leadership saw no need to industrialize, and Confederate law would not allow it. You could only get this after a centralizing group, most likely fascist or communist, overthrew the existing Confederate government.



That is what happened to the CSA in OTL. If they somehow achieve independence, the Confederacy is still likely to collapse "due to being over ambitious or losing a major war it should not have gotten into".



So you are saying the abolitionists were "extreme elements"? And that the advocates of treating people as property "created on balance"?

Confederate leaders held beliefs that directly contradicted America's founding ideals.

"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness…" - Declaration of Independence.

"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth." Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy

You do realize many of the founding fathers had slaves right? When they wrote that they only had certain people in mind. Jefferson and Washington both had slaves and believed in those writing but in a different way then you or I do. Blacks were not considered men like white men were by many. They did not see blacks as even the same species or race at times. When they said all men are created equal their going by their definition of men which isn’t a black person or slave. To them equality only applies to males they consider humans like them. So depending how you twist the argument they are not going against the founding principles of this nation in the minds of many. Why did you think they often referred to black people as “boys” because they did not see them as men. To them you can’t give equality to someone who “god has made inferior by nature”. The argument is based around the “humanity level” of black people. Even many in the north and opponents of slavery were unsure about considering black peoples as normal citizens with the same rights as them because they did not see them as humans like them. Do you understand the racial mindset of both the north and south at all?

 

[Fiver]

I’m saying wouldn’t the south become more brutal and repressive as a response to domestic unrest.

The slaveholding states were more brutal and repressive in response to real and imagined domestic unrest. That didn't make them better soldiers.

 

[Modern Imperialism]

The slaveholding states were more brutal and repressive in response to real and imagined domestic unrest. That didn't make them better soldiers.

People refine their tactics and get better at oppressing people. That is just them being practical about it. Better trained men are better at fighting unrest. That is common sense especially in a society that is very Darwinistic in outlook. A trained thug is better then an untrained one. He might act like a thug but that doesn’t mean they would not teach them how to use a gun, track people, fight in units, and teach them martial skills(martial skills and book smarts don’t always go hand and hand. A nomad for example might have more martial skills while a wealthy Chinese merchant or noble is much more book smart or literate). Look back at my other post because I’m pretty sure your cherry picking points and not reading the whole thing.

The Wehrmacht did a lot of terrible stuff during ww2 but they were still well trained and armed soldiers. Same goes for the Japanese military too. Because they are doing terrible things doesn’t mean they aren’t organized and get more efficient at doing it.

 

[Thomas1195]

And I am pointing out that the Confederate population would never tolerate that level of centralization, the Confederate leadership saw no need to industrialize, and Confederate law would not allow it. You could only get this after a centralizing group, most likely fascist or communist, overthrew the existing Confederate government.

And both China and Russia spend significantly on education and have proper national education systems. With an independent CSA, just kiss goodbye to such systems, as they would be considered as statist.

Russia still inherites quite good basic infrastructures and human capital from former Soviet Union, unlike a war-torn CSA with near zero industrial base (most were in heavily damaged border states) and zero human capital.

 

[Fiver]

Countries this size often fall to a strongman. These strongman usually force reform through authoritative practices and military support. They are still right wing regimes but they understand change is needed even if it forced is required a bit(could the south have a Caesar type leader or general take power after war due to unrest which leads to reform of some type). Many could also be populist who rally around poor white support bases(mob rule). This is justified to the public by “keeping order” and other propaganda methods. The CSA will have great periods of unrest but dictator can greatly change a nation in short period given natural resources of confederates(one or few men controlling the nation that size if they know how to do it with the restrictions of public opinion taken into consideration could change a lot. The south could just get lucky and get a calculating leader).

Strongmen often make a great noise about making things better for everyone, but they are their for the power and the money, with corruption and nepotism resulting in little, if any, benefit for the general public.

I’m saying wouldn’t the union keep progressing relatively stable while violence in south only gets worse on their own but learn through many failures or learn how to change oppressive tactics? Could US and CSA have a Austria-Hungry vs Germany power gap by 1900?

An Austria-Hungry vs Germany power gap would still mean the Union had 3 times as much industry as the Confederacy and requires that the Confederacy have more industry than France or Russia.

 

[Fiver]

When a great depression hits southerners might be better off then other places to extent because authoritarian regime can use its power to feed its population and provide work even if either is that good your at least surviving. A liberal republic can be plagued with slums and political unrest if mismanaged during this situation. The north could be plagued with so many issues 50 or more years down road a CSA who has learn to weather this better. A desperate and prideful nation have public masses that are often lead on to feel the same(many follow the crowd). Fanatical might not be the right word but desperate and have nothing to lose

Weathering more financial crises would not make the Confederacy stronger, it just means more of their population would be impoverished and desperate.

The danger of southern independence is them forming a highly aggressive and dick swinging form of nationalism.

The Confederacy already had this type of nationalism. How else do you explain the Confederacy attacking the Union and starting the war?

Nationalism in CSA could grow to play of fears and self preservation mindsets. Think Japanese citizens killing themselves when us troops invade, Wehrmacht fighting until the last man against USSR, or Israelis when they fight against Arabs. The people there will often be raised thinking they are most noble people. They aren’t growing up in USA anymore but CSA. They will fear “Yankee influence”(unknowable public believe this. Politicians lie about it since they often work with Yankee capitalist. Good number of the public believes it while the elites are much more flipping on that). They will be told Yankees will destroy everything they love and “let blacks rape their women”.

Most of the white Confederate thought this before the war. They saw themselves as far better than the Yankee "mongrels". And they firmly believed the Yankees were out to trigger a "servile insurrection" which would destroy everything they loved - just read the Confederate Declarations of Causes for Secession".

 

[Fiver]

Democracy have higher possibilities and secures better life conditions in the long run but can fail in time of chaos if managed poorly. Authoritarian societies or people who grow use to them(like the southerners in independent CSA) might become more accustom to coping and dealing with terrible situations. As long as their feed and safe they are content. People in north are accustomed to stability and a better living situation. Losing the south only increases that but that might hurt it once it experiences it’s first serious crisis in a while. Complacency and luxury can destroy a society if your not self aware of it

Any form of government can fall in times of crisis if managed poorly. Authoritarian regimes are at least as likely to be poorly managed as democratic republics. And a democratic republic can replace poor leadership by an election - an authoritarian regime needs an assasiantion, a coup, or a civil war to replace poor leadership.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

They are thuggish so the G code is a good comparison. Also there are always exceptions towards the norm but the majority of the time they usually aren’t killing white women and children most of the time(my observation, I notice they kill the men much more often then women and kids. Remember what people do during a war is much more extreme then peacetime). Shitty people still have limits. There is a variety in extremes. It’s harder for a lot of people to kill women and children. Many criminals now for example will kill pedos in prisons even if they serial killers or harder murders. Many in the south don’t believe in killing women and children(more so white ones)

Edit: If your not from the south look at African American culture to understand southern culture better. The similarities are striking. Many of my africana teachers will often point to many of the negative traits of African American culture being rooted in southern culture as well(that where the majority lived especially back then. They often took many traits and behaviors from them). But the more positive traits of the culture are the same too. That’s the ironic part of slavery it turned the slaves more into the image of their master without either side realizing it. Think of all the negative traits tied to black and southern culture. They are almost exactly the same. You can tell how a society might develop by examining how they reacted to many things in otl. Similar situations might give us a good idea on what they might do. Also the situation you mentioned was CSA firing on partisans who were companied by women and children I think in North Carolina correct? It was a massacred by not really a organized or plan(just them firing reckless into a group of people off impulse and women and children getting into the cross fires). This is terrible but not planned or desired. You seem to be cherry picking information a bit.

I'm not sure if you're just fantastically bad at arguing online or deliberately trolling here. Someone countering your malarkey about cultures of honor or whatever by pointing out how in OTL women and children were tortured to death in defense of white supremacy in the South is definitely not an invitation to continue to defend the honorable Southron. I can't tell whether you've just vanished completely up the ass of these reams of text you're spouting or what, but I'm going to be charitable and assume you're just being obtuse to the point of inflammatory. Please be reasonable and recognize that if you're antagonizing people, perhaps you could tone it down a notch rather than blowing harder.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

US Census data shows the Confederacy would have difficulty attracting any immigrants. In 1860, there were over 233,000 immigrants in the states that would form the Confederacy. That's about 1-in-40 people and half of those immigrants lived west of the Mississippi. For contrast, there were 3.8 million immigrants in the states that would stay with the Union, about 1-in-6 people.

One obstacle to immigration in the South was the racial hierarchy. The high price of slaves (due largely to their use in industry) meant that it was ineffective to have slaves doing labor like ditch digging, but having migrant labor do it as you would in the North meant you'd created a white underclass effectively under the black population. There were a lot of tensions in cities like Memphis and New Orleans in the 1850's caused by this, and it's likely that even if anyone wanted to move to the Confederacy to work, they'd be discouraged from doing so.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

I didn't mean to lock this

 

[Fiver]

Doesn’t raw size in numbers matter less if they could at least lessen technology gap(decade at most)? Isn’t the more modern the wars gets the more doctrine, equipment, organization, training, and logistics matter more so then numbers?

The Union produced two generals who thought on the strategic level - the Confederacy produced none. Union army equipment was at least equal to the Confederates. Union naval equipment was superior in both quantity and quality. The Confederates had no advantage in training and were notably worse at logistics. Confederate organization suffered from having too many military departments, but they had the advantage of new recruits were used to bring veteran units back up to strength. In the Union army, new recruits were formed into new units, so they could not learn from veterans, while the veteran units eventually lost so many men they became less effective.

Would a independent CSA possibly industrialize as a war type economy due to unstable situation and economic struggles over the first few decades?

The Confederacy industrialized before, during, and after the war, but they would only adopt a war economy during a war.

 

[Sicarius]

Also the situation you mentioned was CSA firing on partisans who were companied by women and children I think in North Carolina correct? It was a massacred by not really a organized or plan(just them firing reckless into a group of people off impulse and women and children getting into the cross fires). This is terrible but not planned or desired. You seem to be cherry picking information a bit.

What are you talking about? Do you actually think the list of names I posted are Civil War-era partisans?

 

[Fiver]

Even if the army is still voluntary the demand might be higher for guns in the south among the common market(gun ownership could be much higher and market demand encourages industries.

As repeatedly noted, the Union had 3.8 taxpayers for every Confederate taxpayer, so even if half as many Union citizens owned guns, there would still be almost twice the market. After the war, the Confederacy is going to have a hundreds of thousands of military surplus rifles, which the government will sell off to help reduce the Confederacy's national debt. That will probably result in most or all of any Confederate arms industry going bankrupt.

The advantage CSA has is the US capital and major cities are close to their border(unlike Mexico. Geography can go for or against US here).

Both the Union and Confederate capitols are close to the border. Most of the Union's largest cities and manufacturing centers are not near the border. Most of the Confederacy's largest cities and manufacturing centers are near border or the ocean. This is an avantage for the Union, not the Confederacy.

 

[Fiver]

Doesn't that just apply to the federal government? So the individual states could eventually abolish it in their own territories.

That would depend on the Confederate Supreme Court's opinion. The US requires the individual states to also follow the Bill of Rights, so a Confederate Supreme Court would probably insist individual states had no right to end slavery. Even if an individual Confederate state ended slavery, the Confederate Constituion said that "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired." This was based on court cases in the US shortly before the Civil War. In practice, it would mean that if Virginia ended slavery, a man from Alabama could move to Virginia with his slaves and never, ever have to free them.

 

[Fiver]

A CSA during a Great Depression situation might weather it better then union especially if they get cut off from global market and learn to become self sufficient.

The Union would have a more diverse economy, a harder currency, and a smaller percent of the population living near the poverty line, so they would have a much better chance of successfully weathering a Depression.

 

[EnglishCanuck]

The Union produced two generals who thought on the strategic level - the Confederacy produced none. Union army equipment was at least equal to the Confederates. Union naval equipment was superior in both quantity and quality. The Confederates had no advantage in training and were notably worse at logistics. Confederate organization suffered from having too many military departments, but they had the advantage of new recruits were used to bring veteran units back up to strength. In the Union army, new recruits were formed into new units, so they could not learn from veterans, while the veteran units eventually lost so many men they became less effective.

I'd argue the Union produced 3 or 4 strategic thinking generals, one strategic thinking admiral and one strategic thinking president. The Confederacy OTOH produced many men who were tactically skilled par excellence with maybe the exception of Lee's thinking he could inflict a defeat so politically damaging the Northern government would switch hands and the peace faction would win. That is at least a realistic strategy vs the pie in the sky thinking of the Confederate cabinet that the European powers would be obliged to save them simply because of "King Cotton" or that they could hold all of their territory in a suicidal forward strategy.

As for veterans, well that is probably one of a very small number of militarily smart moves the Confederacy made. They had others, which let them fight on for far longer than they should have been able to, but that was something which kept their armies which were almost literally falling apart together for so long.

 

[Thomas1195]

The Union would have a more diverse economy, a harder currency, and a smaller percent of the population living near the poverty line, so they would have a much better chance of successfully weathering a Depression.

Also, the Confederate would be far more dependent on foreign capital if it somehow industrializes, thus the consequences of capital flights would be much bigger.

 

[Thomas1195]

they could hold all of their territory in a suicidal forward strategy

The problem is that as Fiver pointed out, most of the Confederacy's largest cities and manufacturing centers are near border or the ocean.

maybe the exception of Lee's thinking he could inflict a defeat so politically damaging the Northern government would switch hands and the peace faction would win.

The problem is that by the latter half of the war, the North was willing to play attrition warfare rather than decisive battles. It was too bad that most ww1 military commanders learnt the lesson from Franco-Prussian War rather than American Civil War.

 

[EnglishCanuck]

The problem is that as Fiver pointed out, most of the Confederacy's largest cities and manufacturing centers are near border or the ocean.

I'm probably one of the few people who is fair to Jefferson Davis in saying that in 1861-62 he had some impossible political/military choices to make, but his forward strategy in Kentucky/Tennessee was almost a non starter compared to a forward strategy in Virginia. The aggressive acts in 1863 to hold ground in exchange for buckets of blood were somewhat pointless militarily.

Though, the failures in the West are far beyond Davis to control (the personalities involved were toxic in the extreme and the acrimony between men such as Bragg, his subordinates, and Johnston and Davis almost beggars belief) he had a hand in essentially allowing the futile forward strategy to continue beyond the point they were militarily viable.

The problem is that by the latter half of the war, the North was willing to play attrition warfare rather than decisive battles. It was too bad that most ww1 military commanders learnt the lesson from Franco-Prussian War rather than American Civil War.

I wouldn't say the North was willing to fight attrition, the combined 50,000 casualties of the Overland Campaign and the subsequent siege of Petersburg/Richmond shocked the Northern public and convinced Lincoln he might be thrown out of office. It was only the events of September and the March to the Sea that showed the war was/would being/be won, and definitively proved the Confederacy was about to topple over to observers in 1864 who had at that point been at war for over three years. The trench battles of the Overland were, broadly speaking, an anomaly of the war, at least insofar as the rapid entrenchment and maneuver were concerned (very different from the conditions on the Western Front in WWI, and the Eastern Front was far more maneuverable), most battles were still fought in the field with only limited cover taking advantage of terrain rather than immense field works.

Then the scale of the Austro-Prussian/Franco-Prussian War should be taken into account. The combined 400,000 men on the field at Sadova (and the fact the Prussian maneuvers and railroad use crushed the Austrians in six weeks) puts any comparable battle in the Civil War to shame. The battle of Sedan (roughly 300,000 men) essentially crushed the Second French Empire in an afternoon, while the Siege of Metz solidified it far more than the comparable siege at Vicksburg (over 150,000 captured vs 30,000) while the Siege of Paris dwarfed anything that would be seen until WWI.

The Prussian maneuver of men and equipment was stupendous, and the tactical lessons of the war were very different from any seen on an ACW battlefield. If the Union had possessed Krupp cannon they would have blasted through the Confederates before Pickett was even able to get to the fences at Gettysburg!