AHC: Worst Possible Confederacy

With a POD of 1861, what is the worst possible Confederacy that can be made??? It cannot follow ANY Lost Cause Tropes, meaning it will have slavery until some point in the 20th century at bare minimum(and from pressure). Bonus points if any theocratic elements are installed.

Earlier attempt to secede succeeds, Rhett leads the Confederacy.
 
If CSA survives to this day, on 2017 the country is economically bankcrupted and still very racist country despite that segregation is not anymore exist. And country is too deeply religious and pretty hostile towards atheists, Jews and non-protestant Christians. The country is too very xenophobic and isolated.

Wouldn't the "worst" scenario involve a successful integration of modernity and slave based economics? As in a CSA or USA post quick CSA collapse that had made slavery profitable, or at least convinced much of the world into following some kind of model based on such a premise. Unlikely but if a slavery stained USA still manages to take over most of the North America and then (fuelled by slave holding interests) also takes or controls elements of South or Central America (perhaps even Pacifica or Asian territories as well) before slavery is proven not to be economically sound, it might skew global economics toward more harsher imperialism.
 
Without hijacking the thread, how does the rump Union react to sharing a large land border with a disastrous/unstable Confederacy?
 
Thing is, up until about 1925 TL 191 is in the "not too bad" to "not as bad as it could be" category. I'm not saying "good" but there is hope for gradual emancipation and that WWI will be the last war in North America.

A lot of people have already blown TL 191 out of the water.

Sure they have, and with justification, but it just seems hard to top a Genocidal Holocaust for worst of all possible worlds.
 
Without hijacking the thread, how does the rump Union react to sharing a large land border with a disastrous/unstable Confederacy?

Honestly it's anyone's guess. Even if the CSA didn't shit the bed spectacularly and turned into some kind of proto-Rhodesia, there'd almost certainly be a drive in the US to re-conquer/"restore"/"recover" the CSA. If the CSA is going to hell in a handbasket that can diverge to either there being an even bigger drive to invade ("Get them while they're down!"), or sit on the sidelines and munch on popcorn ("How's secession working out for you?"). Certainly, if the CSA is collapsing/on the way to collapse/embroiled in a Civil War, that means the US now shares an enormous land border with a failed state; they're going to do something, if only to get a handle on the unavoidable humanitarian/refugee crisis.

If the Confederacy really is flaming out, it wouldn't be all that shocking for some of the border states to say "Fuck it", re-secede, and try to re-join the Union. Yes, it's a cliche at this point, but Texas would try and jump ship if things were looking really hairy.
 
These do look pretty horrible in these scenarios(the TL-191 direction is less realistic and is parallel to Nazism but still qualifies). Then again, a nation explicitly founded on slavery and with implicitly religious tenants is probably going to be ugly.
What do you mean by this?
 
Interesting thread. Offhand, the version of the CSA in David Poyer's novel "The Shiloh Project" is a pretty close runner-up to the dystopian vision of the CSA that is presented in the TL-191 series.

The major difference is that the POD in "The Shiloh Project" is a Confederate victory at Gettysburg and no genocide against the "Conditionally Emancipated" ex-slaves.

However, in that book, the South is a closed-off police state, with barbed-wired fences, guard towers, minefields, etc. separating it from the Union and the rest of the world and life for the average African American in that version of the CSA is, well, not very good, to say the least.

And there is a hint toward the end of a "Final Solution" to the black "problem" in that version of the CSA. It is not suggested to be coming from the CSA government, but rather certain white Southerners who want to "purify" the South.

With guns, ropes, bullets, and fire, among other things.

Like I say, it is not a good place to be if you're black.
 
The flip side of the coin is 'worst possible Confederacy...for the Union, in which case maybe this could happen:

Trent affair is handled with less restraint by both sides and while negotiations continue the Confederates seize Arizona and New Mexico along with the armory in St Louis MO. Maryland secedes and the British negotiate an end to the war with the French. California secedes a few years later taking Nevada with it as the US experiences a post-war bust and is unable to complete the Transcontinental Railway while Californian and Confederate agitators encourage it's breakoff. Cascadia forms from an angry British Columbia, most of Washington Territory, and Oregon as Montana and Wyoming are distant frontier provinces that are lost eventually. Without the gold and hard specie the American industrial boom slows tremendously compared to OTL and the CSA welcomes Kansas, Cuba, and eventually southern Illinois while overrunning Sonora and Chihuahua. Imperial Mexico makes a deal to get currency of its own while New England and Chicago ponder a future free from the ramshackle and increasingly totalitarian Washington-based government.
 
The flip side of the coin is 'worst possible Confederacy...for the Union, in which case maybe this could happen:

Trent affair is handled with less restraint by both sides and while negotiations continue the Confederates seize Arizona and New Mexico along with the armory in St Louis MO. Maryland secedes and the British negotiate an end to the war with the French. California secedes a few years later taking Nevada with it as the US experiences a post-war bust and is unable to complete the Transcontinental Railway while Californian and Confederate agitators encourage it's breakoff. Cascadia forms from an angry British Columbia, most of Washington Territory, and Oregon as Montana and Wyoming are distant frontier provinces that are lost eventually. Without the gold and hard specie the American industrial boom slows tremendously compared to OTL and the CSA welcomes Kansas, Cuba, and eventually southern Illinois while overrunning Sonora and Chihuahua. Imperial Mexico makes a deal to get currency of its own while New England and Chicago ponder a future free from the ramshackle and increasingly totalitarian Washington-based government.

That sounds like the outcome of "Come the Jubilee", but the POD was a Union defeat at Gettysburg followed by Washington falling.
 
Damn, I thought I had something good to contribute, but everything here is way better. I mean, worse. Whatever.

I kind of envisioned the South being forced to give up slavery in the 1880's or 90's, becoming a horrific cross between Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa - that is to say, the African-Americans (am I allowed to say 'blacks'? I've never been clear on whether that's considered an offensive term to Americans) are shoved into tiny reservations, made to run them without any help from the State, and frequently used for medical experiments, biological weapons testing, target practice, firewood, and other less than unsavoury things.

I mean, I don't really believe there's a limitation on the human capacity to be evil, but the above is about as bad as I can imagine.
 
The Confederacy couldn't afford such a system, and there is a huge coastline. Not really practical.

I'd say worst possible would be a genocide forced by economic concerns and revolts, and then eventual reunification and whitewashing of the genocide.
 
The Confederacy couldn't afford such a system, and there is a huge coastline. Not really practical.

I'd say worst possible would be a genocide forced by economic concerns and revolts, and then eventual reunification and whitewashing of the genocide.

A wall is also only practical along parts of the border. The Ohio and Rio Grande will make a wall infeasible while the mountains in Virginia and West Virginia to the same. I somehow don't see an Escape from New York style barrier crossing the Great Plains or Rockies either. More likely mines and walls of barbed and later concertina wire would be placed along with border forts and guard towers perhaps manned by state militias. Of course some will be better funded than others...
 
Was it even plausible for it to last this long?

Depends in how they leave and what they get. Seven or eight states inheriting 20% or more of the national debt and having to rebuild their infrastructure? Hell no. Thirteen or fourteen states (and two or three territories?) leaving as the war is just heating up thanks to British? Quite possible.
 
Depends in how they leave and what they get. Seven or eight states inheriting 20% or more of the national debt and having to rebuild their infrastructure? Hell no. Thirteen or fourteen states (and two or three territories?) leaving as the war is just heating up thanks to British? Quite possible.

So you're saying an early end to the war makes this possible?
 
So you're saying an early end to the war makes this possible?

Trent affair goes sideways and the British step in at the end of 1861 with Paris alongside them would do it. Having a better outcome for the Southern invasion of Maryland in 1862, especially combined with a different outcome in Tennessee, would work too.
 
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