A Civil Cold War?

What are the possibilities that the southern states could leave the union and for shooting not to break out and for it to just turn into a cold war?
 

Typo

Banned
With Lincoln? Pretty much none, Fort Sumter was just one of the many federal properties in the south.
 
For this to happen, you would need a scenario where the majority of the people in the North are happier at the thought of being rid of the South than they are unhappy at the thought of slavery continuing to exist indefinitely. Getting a solid-enough majority of northerners to think that way probably requires a POD well before 1860; perhaps nullification becomes an established principle in the 1830's, so the southern states have been ungovernable for ~30 years and their secession just formalizes a long-established de facto situation?
 
would it work if the south adopted the attitude of realizing their material weakness and refusing to fire the first shot?
 
For this to happen, you would need a scenario where the majority of the people in the North are happier at the thought of being rid of the South than they are unhappy at the thought of slavery continuing to exist indefinitely. Getting a solid-enough majority of northerners to think that way probably requires a POD well before 1860; perhaps nullification becomes an established principle in the 1830's, so the southern states have been ungovernable for ~30 years and their secession just formalizes a long-established de facto situation?
:confused:
No, you have to have a majority of people in the north less unhappy to see the south go than to wrack the country in civil war, wasting money and lives.

The number of fervent abolitionists in the north wasn't anything like high enough to fight a war against slavery, and Lincoln didn't try. Sure, he wanted to abolish slavery, and sure he welcomed the support of the abolitionists, but he himself said that he'd entrench slavery (?forever?) if it would keep the Union together.

To grossly overstate the issue, for the South the Civil WAS over slavery, and they denied it (later), while for the North it wasn't - but they claimed it was (later).
 

Typo

Banned
Sort of but with actual seccession and then an ensuing non shooting cold war
Then the north will just attempt to enforce federal authority within the south, such as collecting duties and tariffs, until the south is provoked enough to fire.
 
Sure, he wanted to abolish slavery, and sure he welcomed the support of the abolitionists, but he himself said that he'd entrench slavery (?forever?) if it would keep the Union together.

Lincoln was very much for the abolition of slavery, but he believed a cushioned, phased abolition of slavery was the only answer. He thought that it might take as much as a century to wean the South off of slaves.
 
The problem is that the election of any Rebublican candidate for President, whether it happened to be Lincoln or Seward, or someone else, had, by late 1860, become the final straw for most of the deep South's power class, to justify seceding, with the position of the Republican leadership in Washington being to take whatever action necessary to keep the Union together.

If somehow a Democrat or a more pro-South candidate won the 1860 election, then I think we would have seen a much slower rate of secessions by the Deep South. But the election of 1860 for many in the Deep South was merely a pretext for secession, and I have no doubt that even with a pro-South President elected in 1860, there would have still been secessions by most Deep South states. There would simply be other reasons that the power class would have found to justify secession, including a Republican dominated congress, etc.

But this is where you could possibly have sometype of cold war develop when the Deep South secedes, but a pro-South president does not take any action to stop it or reverse it. If the president turns out to be fairly weak, look for the Republican congress to impeach him and his equally weak VP, such that a Republican comes to power, and take action to bring the Deep South back into the Union. But if this had happened, I would believe the North would be much more factured in its support for war, for reunification, etc. You probably would have also seen all the border states then secede to join their Southern cousins. Plus if the cold war had lasted long enough (say 1 to 2 years) before the war broke out, the South might have been more prepared and better armed, and so who knows how such a war would have gone.

One other scenario would be the pro-South President being very strong and politically adept and somehow maintaining the new status quo, and then eventually working out some type of long term solution with the seceded states.
 
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