American Civil War cliches

Confederate Victory TL Cliches:

1. Robert E. Lee becomes President of the Confederacy in the 1867 election.

I'm guilty of that one. But I think, unless health issues prevent it...which, in a CSA Victorious TL, Lee's health might be better in the postwar period, and he might live longer...Lee would be President. He very much viewed himself as the Confederacy's George Washington, and would have seen it as his duty, if he was asked to run. And if he does run, he will win. Nobody else in the Confederacy would have had a chance of beating him in an election.

2. The United States goes to war with the British Empire over Canada.

Guilty of that one too, and with far less justification, I freely admit.

3. The Confederacy becomes enlightened and abolishes slavery in about ten years.

Actually, prior to my THE BLACK AND THE GRAY timeline, this wasn't really a feature you saw very often in CSA Victory timelines, which were pretty uniform in presenting the Confederacy in very dystopic terms, with slavery surviving long into the 20th century, pogroms against the black population, etc. etc. My timeline kind of changed all that, and it is true that many timelines written since have had slavery being abandoned in the immediate aftermath (within 20 years) of the war.

I would tend to agree with you that slavery was not likely to be abandoned before the late 1890s or early 1900s (when the collapse of te cotton market and the advent of the boll weevil would have made slavery a liability and more likely to be abandoned) without some special circumstance being involved. My timeline at least had some justification, being based on a POD where the Confederacy won it's independence by adopting the Cleburne Memorial and massive use of black soldiers. Most recent "CSA Wins" timelines don't really give a justification for the early abandonment of slavery, and I consider that a major flaw.
 
Does anyone else think it's cliche that the Union's "fighting spirit" tends to be remarkably low once a foreign power intervenes. Historically a lot of the Union's reluctance to fight a war stemmed from a sort of "their problem, not ours" mentality in that if the CSA wanted to be their own country it didn't affect the Union so the Union had no right to dispute it. Once the British get involved though, I feel like that should change the whole equation. The Union would now be fighting an effectively defensive war against its oldest enemy. The same "their problem, not ours" mentality would actually help the Union gain internal support, since the British are now interfering with American affairs. The copperhead movement would die out pretty quickly in a new wave of nationalism.

If the British and Confederacy do win the war, which is a fair possibility, the US, according to cliche, manages to annex Canada in some following war. Again the US lacks the national will to just focus on and subsequently annex the Confederacy and be done with it. Admittedly the CSA is a harder nut to crack than Canada, but since the US clearly won by a fair margin for Canada to be on the table at all, the US should be able to annex the Confederacy. Really, with the US's major advantages I don't see the Confederacy being able to hold out for all that long in any timeline without serious British help, which seems at least somewhat unlikely considering the British distaste of permanent alliances at this point in history.

Instead the Union inevitably folds right after the British declare war and then hides in a corner until the Prussians/Russians/Borg-Sith-Draka alliance curbstomps the Confederacy's British and French BFFs. Finally the Union rises from the ashes completely ineffectively and takes the next four years to beat the CSA despite having a huge advantage in manpower, industry, and quite possibly training and doctrine as well (admittedly oversimplified, but arguably a fair assessment). Does that seem cliche to anyone else?
 
Instead, try creating a steam punk Civil War, that might be a new one.

In the immortal words of Jeff Spiccoli

Awesome! Totally awesome!:cool:

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As for victorious CSA cliches:

Facist CSAs:

Seriously. This was an attempt by a group of Americans to form a nation of their own because they had a hard time accepting federalism!!!

The subservience to the state that's required for facism is considerably more than is required by federalism.

In other words:

Not. Gonna. Happen.


And the equally preposterous:


After emancipation, despite being despised, disinfranchised and holding few if any rights...blacks stay in the CSA.

That's the one that always leaves me saying "Are you kidding me?"

Instead, I think it goes a bit more like this...

Meet alternate history's 19th century "migrant/"undocumented" workers.
 
The British were actually persistently fearful of America. The US was viewed as a Hercule's in the cradle that could and was and had been challenging British authority and was evolving by leaps and bounds economically. I believe around this time it was the 4th most industrialized state, and would by the end of the century become the 1st.

In fact I think that was more the US's view of itself... It's hard to avoid the conclusion that throughout the 19th century, America was a startlingly arrogant and presumptuous country which, despite a tiny navy and army, maintained a persistent, bizarre, totally unrealistic, and as it turned out, entirely prophetic belief in its own future prowess. We talk about a Manifest Destiny or whatever not because there actually was one, but because the USA came out on top.

Around the middle of the century, Britain started to take a friendlier line towards the US- not particularly because it was a threat (regardless of the views of Americans, it simply wasn't) but because it was considered that its foreign policy objectives were fundamentally quite closely aligned with those of Britain... There is no question- none at all, that a CSA genuinely allied to the UK and/ or France would have secured independence, probably on pretty favourable terms.
 
The British were actually persistently fearful of America. The US was viewed as a Hercule's in the cradle that could and was and had been challenging British authority and was evolving by leaps and bounds economically.
Only in the Americas.Outside the New World Britain had France to contend with in Africa and Russia preparing to invade India.

Anyway Britain was not the only Great Power and I don't read such sign of any of them taking the USA seriously.
 
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