AHC/WI: Eastern Tennessee Splits Off

kernals12

Banned
Eastern Tennessee is an interesting place. It is one of the only places in the South that has been staunchly Republican since the civil war, having voted against secession. If it were to have been made into a separate state like West Virginia, it would certainly have major cultural and political impacts both in the entire state. So is it possible for East Tennessee to become its own state? And what impact would it have as a loyal Republican bastion in the Solidly Democratic South?

Would it become a place of refuge for blacks fleeing Jim Crow?
 
Eastern Tennessee is an interesting place. It is one of the only places in the South that has been staunchly Republican since the civil war, having voted against secession. If it were to have been made into a separate state like West Virginia, it would certainly have major cultural and political impacts both in the entire state. So is it possible for East Tennessee to become its own state? And what impact would it have as a loyal Republican bastion in the Solidly Democratic South?

Would it become a place of refuge for blacks fleeing Jim Crow?

No, while race relations were better in the region compared to the rest of the South they were not conducive enough to allow for such to occur nor would many freedmen be interested in a state with so few economic prospects.
 

kernals12

Banned
No, while race relations were better in the region compared to the rest of the South they were not conducive enough to allow for such to occur nor would many freedmen be interested in a state with so few economic prospects.
They did have Knoxville and Chattanooga.
 
They did have Knoxville and Chattanooga.

Which are both relatively small settlements in the 19th Century and largely developed due to being apart of the larger State of Tennessee; Knoxville got the University of Tennessee as the most obvious example. If we're still talking about appeal to freedmen, I should point out that Knoxville did have race riots.
 
Time to recycle an old post of mine:

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[DBWI] WI No East Tennessee

Look, I don't want to get into any debate about whether the separation of East Tennessee from Tennessee was constitutional or not. For present purposes I will accept Lincoln's position that the "restored government of Tennessee" had sufficient authority to accept the separation. My real point is this: I have just done some arithmetic and have discovered that had Tennessee remained undivided, George W. Bush rather than Al Gore would have won the presidential race in 2000--even though Gore would still have won a popular plurality nationwide! Gore, who carried Tennessee far from overwhelmingly in OTL, would have lost in the "old" Tennessee--i.e., one including East Tennessee. The figures are as follows:

In OTL, as we all know, Gore won Tennessee but by an unimpressive margin, given that it was his home state. He got 694,525 (52.1 percent of the two-party vote) to Bush's 637,683 (47.9 percent). Bush easily won nearby East Tennessee, of course, by 424,266 to 287,195--which amounts to a 59.6-40.4 percent victory in the two-party popular vote of that state. In fact, Bush carried 27 of the state's 28 counties--Anderson, Blount, Bradley, Carter, Claiborne, Cocke, Grainger, Greene, Hamblen, Hamilton, Hancock, Hawkins, Jefferson, Johnson, Knox, Loudon, McMinn, Meigs, Monroe, Polk, Rhea, Roane, Sevier, Sullivan, Unicoi, Union, and Washington. Only Campbell County, on the northwestern edge of the state, went for Gore.

Now let's add the 28 East Tennessee counties to Tennessee. Result: Bush defeats Gore in this larger Tennessee by 1,061,949 to 981,720. In other words, Gore would get only 48 percent of the two-party vote in his own state! (Of course, it's possible that East Tennessee wouldn't have voted quite so heavily for Bush if Gore had had a "same-state" advantage there, but I doubt it. Even if the state stayed together, there would still be no love lost between East Tennesseans and a "Central"--as he would then be--Tennessean like Gore.)

In OTL, Gore won with 274 electoral votes for 265 for Bush, with one Gore elector from DC abstaining. (For those who have forgotten, the Electoral College consists of 540 members--there are 537 electors from the 51 states, corresponding to the 102 Senators and 435 Representatives; and to these you add the three electors from the District of Columbia. The "magic number" for a majority is of course 271.)

Had Tennessee remained undivided, there would be only 538 electors (with only 270 votes needed to win) and with Bush carrying all of Tennessee (with eleven electoral votes--right now, of course, Tennessee has eight electoral votes, and East Tennessee five; the loss of two electors is due to the fact that the combined states would obviously have two fewer Senators), the result would be 271-267 for Bush (actually 271-266 with one abstention--but I wonder if the woman from the District of Columbia would have abstained under those circumstances, since Bush's winning without a popular plurality would probably generate so much outrage among Democrats that all Democratic electors would be determined to stand together.)
 
Significant parts of eastern Kentucky were of similar politics to East Tennessee or West Virginia, too. In case of a succession by Kentucky having unionist bits attempt to succeed from the state are also possible. In such a scenario an amalgamation of succeeding bits forming a state of Appalachia from bits of Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and perhaps even North Carolina is not entirely impossible, though not especially likely either.
 
What if eastern Tennessee and west va formed the state of Appalachia

Eastern Tennessee did not border on the state of West Virginia. If you mean "southwestern Virginia" the fact is that it--and indeed much of the southern part of West Virginia as well--was actually pro-Confederate in sentiment during the War. To quote an old post of mine:

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…[O]ne should not view West Virginia monolithically. There was very strong pro-Union sentiment in Northwest Virginia, but there were also pro-secessionists in much of the area that later became West Virginia. The best study of this is Richard Orr Curry, *A House Divided: A Study of Statehood Politics and the Copperhead Movement in West Virginia* (University of Pittsburgh Press 1964).

Curry points out that it is important to distinguish between Northwestern Virginia, Southwestern Virginia, and the Shenandoah Valley. There had indeed been a time when all three of these regions had been united against the slaveholders of eastern Virginia. The goals of the West at that time had been universal manhood suffrage, popular election of the governor (and of judges, etc.), abolition of the governor's council, increased representation in the General Assembly, and an end to tax discrimination in favor of slave property. By 1830, the Valley had deserted the west, politically; and the Tran-Allegheny Southwest followed suit over the next few decades, leaving the Northwest as the only true "west." Partly, this was because slavery was taking root in these areas (especially the Valley) more than in the Northwest; also because internal improvements linked the Valley and the Southwest to the rest of Virginia.

Not only did the Northwest not get any program of internal improvements comparable to the Valley or the Southwest but such improvements as she *did* get, such as the Cumberland Road and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (the latter was hampered at every turn by the Virginia legislature and did not reach Wheeling until 1852) tended to link her to the North, not the South. Furthermore, the rivers of the area flowed westward into the Ohio, which encouraged trade with the Northwest, not the South. And of course slavery was not likely to flourish in a cold, mountainous area. Finally, not only did places like Wheeling become industrial centers, but they got a considerable Northern migration.

Thus far, Curry agrees with the traditional or "pro-Union" account of the origins of West Virginia. But he emphasizes an often-neglected point: West Virginia included a large number of Southwestern and Valley counties, and even Northwestern counties were not *all* against secession. He argues that the vote was about 30,000 to 10,000 against secession in northwestern Virginia but 9,000 to 4,000 for it in the other areas of the future West Virginia--which btw in terms of area (as distinguished from population) made up a majority of the state. The counties he gives as favoring secession are Logan, Boone, Wyoming, Mac Dowell, Mercer, Raleigh, Monroe, Greenbrier, Fayette, Nicholas, Clay, Roane, Calhoun, Gilmore, Braxton, Webster, Pocahontas, Randolph, Barbour, Tucker, Pendleton, Hardy, Hampshire, and Jefferson. (The present-day counties of Mingo, Grant, and Mineral did not yet exist; they were within pro-secessionist counties.)

So, while the creation of a West Virginia was logical, it was by no means inevitable that it should have its current borders. Half the counties and at least 36 percent of the population of what was to be West Virginia favored secession. (Secessionist sympathies in some counties may have eventually become stronger than the vote indicates. For example, Berkeley County, in the Valley, voted against secession, but furnished at least 400 Confederate troops as opposed to 200 Union soldiers.) A West Virginia confined to the counties which actually opposed secession would be an interesting what-if. It would have been much more Republican and much more "northern" in orientation than the West Virginia of OTL, which was Democratic for decades after the Civil War--once the test oaths were removed)--due to a coalition of ex-Confederates and ex-Copperheads.

Interestingly, at the 1861 Wheeling convention, John Carlile argued for a state of "New Virginia" that would not have included the Southwestern or Valley counties. The proper boundaries of the new state were also a subject of much debate at the 1863 constitutional convention.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...inia-stick-with-virginia.331591/#post-9831104


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More generally, it is a mistake to assume that all of "Appalachia" was as Unionist and anti-secession as East Tennessee. Western North Carolina was reluctant to secede before Fort Sumter and Lincoln's call for troops; but after those events, to a much greater extent than eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina acquiesced in secession. As John C. Inscoe and Gordon B. McKinney note in The Heart of Confederate Appalachia: Western North Carolina in the Civil War, "Yet western North Carolina's proximity to the far more prevalent Unionism across the state line did not necessarily make loyalists out of Carolina residents." https://books.google.com/books?id=Z1ntU2N9ze0C&pg=PA95
 
It makes the rest of Tennessee a solid Democratic state for the next century more or less, rather than one where Republicans occasionally stood a chance.

Which are both relatively small settlements in the 19th Century and largely developed due to being apart of the larger State of Tennessee; Knoxville got the University of Tennessee as the most obvious example. If we're still talking about appeal to freedmen, I should point out that Knoxville did have race riots.
Knoxville would almost certainly be the capital since it was the original TN state capital, so it would eventually be sizable.
 
Eastern Tennessee did not border on the state of West Virginia. If you mean "southwestern Virginia" the fact is that it--and indeed much of the southern part of West Virginia as well--was actually pro-Confederate in sentiment during the War. To quote an old post of mine:

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…[O]ne should not view West Virginia monolithically. There was very strong pro-Union sentiment in Northwest Virginia, but there were also pro-secessionists in much of the area that later became West Virginia. The best study of this is Richard Orr Curry, *A House Divided: A Study of Statehood Politics and the Copperhead Movement in West Virginia* (University of Pittsburgh Press 1964).

Curry points out that it is important to distinguish between Northwestern Virginia, Southwestern Virginia, and the Shenandoah Valley. There had indeed been a time when all three of these regions had been united against the slaveholders of eastern Virginia. The goals of the West at that time had been universal manhood suffrage, popular election of the governor (and of judges, etc.), abolition of the governor's council, increased representation in the General Assembly, and an end to tax discrimination in favor of slave property. By 1830, the Valley had deserted the west, politically; and the Tran-Allegheny Southwest followed suit over the next few decades, leaving the Northwest as the only true "west." Partly, this was because slavery was taking root in these areas (especially the Valley) more than in the Northwest; also because internal improvements linked the Valley and the Southwest to the rest of Virginia.

Not only did the Northwest not get any program of internal improvements comparable to the Valley or the Southwest but such improvements as she *did* get, such as the Cumberland Road and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (the latter was hampered at every turn by the Virginia legislature and did not reach Wheeling until 1852) tended to link her to the North, not the South. Furthermore, the rivers of the area flowed westward into the Ohio, which encouraged trade with the Northwest, not the South. And of course slavery was not likely to flourish in a cold, mountainous area. Finally, not only did places like Wheeling become industrial centers, but they got a considerable Northern migration.

Thus far, Curry agrees with the traditional or "pro-Union" account of the origins of West Virginia. But he emphasizes an often-neglected point: West Virginia included a large number of Southwestern and Valley counties, and even Northwestern counties were not *all* against secession. He argues that the vote was about 30,000 to 10,000 against secession in northwestern Virginia but 9,000 to 4,000 for it in the other areas of the future West Virginia--which btw in terms of area (as distinguished from population) made up a majority of the state. The counties he gives as favoring secession are Logan, Boone, Wyoming, Mac Dowell, Mercer, Raleigh, Monroe, Greenbrier, Fayette, Nicholas, Clay, Roane, Calhoun, Gilmore, Braxton, Webster, Pocahontas, Randolph, Barbour, Tucker, Pendleton, Hardy, Hampshire, and Jefferson. (The present-day counties of Mingo, Grant, and Mineral did not yet exist; they were within pro-secessionist counties.)

So, while the creation of a West Virginia was logical, it was by no means inevitable that it should have its current borders. Half the counties and at least 36 percent of the population of what was to be West Virginia favored secession. (Secessionist sympathies in some counties may have eventually become stronger than the vote indicates. For example, Berkeley County, in the Valley, voted against secession, but furnished at least 400 Confederate troops as opposed to 200 Union soldiers.) A West Virginia confined to the counties which actually opposed secession would be an interesting what-if. It would have been much more Republican and much more "northern" in orientation than the West Virginia of OTL, which was Democratic for decades after the Civil War--once the test oaths were removed)--due to a coalition of ex-Confederates and ex-Copperheads.

Interestingly, at the 1861 Wheeling convention, John Carlile argued for a state of "New Virginia" that would not have included the Southwestern or Valley counties. The proper boundaries of the new state were also a subject of much debate at the 1863 constitutional convention.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...inia-stick-with-virginia.331591/#post-9831104


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More generally, it is a mistake to assume that all of "Appalachia" was as Unionist and anti-secession as East Tennessee. Western North Carolina was reluctant to secede before Fort Sumter and Lincoln's call for troops; but after those events, to a much greater extent than eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina acquiesced in secession. As John C. Inscoe and Gordon B. McKinney note in The Heart of Confederate Appalachia: Western North Carolina in the Civil War, "Yet western North Carolina's proximity to the far more prevalent Unionism across the state line did not necessarily make loyalists out of Carolina residents." https://books.google.com/books?id=Z1ntU2N9ze0C&pg=PA95

Typo on my part I meant to say Western Virginia not West Virginia including South West Virginia as it was union leaning as well if not so much as the before mentioned areas.
 

kernals12

Banned
It makes the rest of Tennessee a solid Democratic state for the next century more or less, rather than one where Republicans occasionally stood a chance.


Knoxville would almost certainly be the capital since it was the original TN state capital, so it would eventually be sizable.
Montpelier, Vermont has less than 8000 people.
 
The college that became the University of Tennesse had existed in one form or another since 1794.

But it became known as the University of Tennessee and began to receive State support in the 1870s. Without that, it's not going to turn into anything, especially with access seriously limited to such a small body of students.
 
Unlikely; AIUI, trans-Allegheny Virginia had been seeking separation from Virginia for many years. This was in part due to "frontiersmen" in the Ohio Valley resenting control by the "aristocrats" of the long-settled Tidewater.

There was no such sentiment in Tennessee. The settlement pattern was the reverse of Virginia: East Tennessee was the oldest-settled area of the state.
 
Montpelier, Vermont has less than 8000 people.

Sure, but Knoxville had the railroad leading into Tennessee as well as traffic along the rivers there. As a state capital, no reason Knoxville wouldn't grow thanks to the river and nearby coal mines with the help of northern investment (as OTL). At this point I'd be surprised if it's much smaller than OTL.

I don't know if UT would still be in Knoxville TTL, but UT's predecessor would continue certainly (TTL maybe called "ETSU-Knoxville"). The main state university in East Tennessee (if that's what this state will be called, "Franklin" is the obvious other name), maybe "ETSU" (not to be confused with OTL's ETSU) might be in Chattanooga.

East Tennessee will look a lot like West Virginia though. Even OTL, the place is full of cities which seem well past their prime.

Unlikely; AIUI, trans-Allegheny Virginia had been seeking separation from Virginia for many years. This was in part due to "frontiersmen" in the Ohio Valley resenting control by the "aristocrats" of the long-settled Tidewater.

There was no such sentiment in Tennessee. The settlement pattern was the reverse of Virginia: East Tennessee was the oldest-settled area of the state.

East Tennessee had a fundamentally different economy than much of Middle Tennessee and West Tennessee, with the main link to slavery being the purchase of their crops to feed slaves in not only Tennessee but other states. They absolutely had a reason to separate from the rest of the state. The East Tennessee Convention (including quite a few notables in TN politics in that era) shows there was a clear desire of certain leaders at that moment to separate from the Union. If there was military force protecting them, then it's possible secession from the rest of Tennessee could have been accomplished.
 
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