A CSA question

Did there need to be a CSA? All alternate histories, and game mechanics, assume that if the Southern states break away they will form a Confederacy. Why?

After all, South Carolina's secession was to become INDEPENDENT and then it acceded to a new confederal organisation of states. Could it not have remained independent and just formed an alliance instead?

Was this idea mooted at the time, or in times past? Or was it always assumed by all that if the Southern states left they would form a union of their own?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 

CalBear

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Moved to pre-1900. Might be a Chat item, but we'll try it here. Definitely not a Forum Rules item.
 
Did there need to be a CSA? All alternate histories, and game mechanics, assume that if the Southern states break away they will form a Confederacy. Why?

After all, South Carolina's secession was to become INDEPENDENT and then it acceded to a new confederal organisation of states. Could it not have remained independent and just formed an alliance instead?

Was this idea mooted at the time, or in times past? Or was it always assumed by all that if the Southern states left they would form a union of their own?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf


Sort of a Commonwealth of Independent States? I can't imagine how such an alliance/commonwealth would hold together for very long.
 

Philip

Donor
If only a few states secede, and they lack territorial contiguity, a collection of allied states is a likely outcome.
 
If only a few states secede, and they lack territorial contiguity, a collection of allied states is a likely outcome.

I agree here. The states already have a history of working together, especially with their immediate and regional neighbors. I think it fairly likely that they will seek security in numbers rather than independently.

Now if only South Carolina seceded that would be interesting.
 
The Southern states had to form a government of their own, if for no other reason than need to provide some kind of common defense against the US government's attempts to re-assert control of the South. One state with control over all the armies is much more efficient than 11 mini-armies.
 
most of the seceeding states were not equiped to be self-sufficient like that. it would have taken a massive effort that many in the south might not have been able to accomplish. they probably figured that their chances of leaving were better if they stuck together rather than having to fight one-by-one.
 
The Southern states had to form a government of their own, if for no other reason than need to provide some kind of common defense against the US government's attempts to re-assert control of the South. One state with control over all the armies is much more efficient than 11 mini-armies.

On the other hand, had the states seceeded and not formed any broader union or confederacy would the Federal Government have considered it that essential to resort to military force to coerce them back in the Union. One might argue that it would be the formation of a large (con)federal union of the southern states that was the true tipping point making US military coersion inevitable, not the individual successions. Possibly, had each southern state remained independent, the US might have decided to wait things out until they decided, individually, that survival as 7-11 independent nations was unlikely and ask for readmission.
 
Since OTL the US waited until it was attacked to wage war, the presence or absence of a (con)federation won't change that policy.
 
Individual states alone would likely not have survived and been incorporated back into the union in one form or another. In fact, without the promise of some form of Confederate government, it is likely some states would not have seceded at all.

Possibly, had each southern state remained independent, the US might have decided to wait things out until they decided, individually, that survival as 7-11 independent nations was unlikely and ask for readmission.

Alone and isolated, it would be much easier for the Federal government to bring individual states back under its authority. If Georgia or Louisiana stay in the Union or later defect back, then South Carolina or Texas are surrounded by the Union. Not every state is self sufficient in things like salt, armaments, food, or other supplies, and without a larger market and supply base, they would be hard pressed to provide for their own needs. And having no form of unified command would doom any military defense.

So pretty much they had to band together.
 
I think, too, that the seceding states were still following the pattern of two or three generations back, when the thirteen colonies determined to band together.
 
I agree that whatever Southern states secede (even if it's not all eleven that eventually formed OTL's Confederacy), they have to form a Union (tee hee) if their secession is going to be any more meaningful than a bunch of crazy people acting stupid before they eventually shamefully crawl back to the United States.

To go out on more of a limb, it also makes sense because of nationalism. The South has always seemed to me to have a much more coherent sense of regional (almost national) identity than the North. It makes sense for people in South Carolina to band together with people from Louisiana (for example) because people in those states view each other as being part of the same (pseudo)national community; much more so than they see themselves as forming a community with people from, say, Massachusetts.
 
I agree that whatever Southern states secede (even if it's not all eleven that eventually formed OTL's Confederacy), they have to form a Union (tee hee) if their secession is going to be any more meaningful than a bunch of crazy people acting stupid before they eventually shamefully crawl back to the United States.

To go out on more of a limb, it also makes sense because of nationalism. The South has always seemed to me to have a much more coherent sense of regional (almost national) identity than the North. It makes sense for people in South Carolina to band together with people from Louisiana (for example) because people in those states view each other as being part of the same (pseudo)national community; much more so than they see themselves as forming a community with people from, say, Massachusetts.

I agree with the body, while disagreeing with your point. :) I'd argue that the problem was that there was more coherent regional identity in the North, rather than less. New England very much thought of itelf as a body, New Jersey "looked to" Pennsylvania (or sometimes New York), the Midwest was very much a unit that felt connected to Pennsylvania, et cetera. In the southern states there were indeed regional identities, but forty years of political conflict had made economic identity stronger in very real ways. So while Texans would have been unlikely in 1855 to describe themselves as being in the same region as, say, North Carolina, they did recognize the shared interest in defending the Peculiar Institution.
 
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