This is generally what I was thinking too. I had a few people who I think would be the 'Founders of the Confederate Whig Party' since I'm kinda trying to do something of a developed political history as my main goal. Mainly It'd start off with people like Robert Toombs and Joseph Emerson Brown, prominent anti-Davisites who had grown to form their own party, while later major figures would be Benjamin Gratz Brown, Zebulon Baird Vance, and James Longstreet (the first Whig President)
Capital of the Confederacy
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This is generally what I was thinking too. I had a few people who I think would be the 'Founders of the Confederate Whig Party' since I'm kinda trying to do something of a developed political history as my main goal. Mainly It'd start off with people like Robert Toombs and Joseph Emerson Brown, prominent anti-Davisites who had grown to form their own party, while later major figures would be Benjamin Gratz Brown, Zebulon Baird Vance, and James Longstreet (the first Whig President)
Corinth, Mississippi? Railroad hub, doesn't border any Northern states, centrally located, not in a powerful state like Georgia or Virginia?
They could have always just carved Arlington/Alexandria back out of Virginia across the water from Washington for the sake of being obnoxious 😛
Philadelphia wasn't passed over for being too big. It was America's original national capital. Congress decided the capital needed to be an area directly under its control after the Pennsylvania governor refused to put down a riot directed at Congress. NYC was temporarily the national capital, but everyone knew it would be temporary, not because it was too big to the national capital, but because it was a part of New York that New York was unlikely to cede, and because being an island, it would be harder to defend against an opponent with a strong navy, like Britain. They chose to start a new city rather than pick an existing major city not because of any aversion to having a major city as the national capital, but because no state was going to just cede one of its major cities.
17 states have their most populous city as their capital. Far from a majority, sure, but also not a rarity. A further 11 have their second most populous city as their capital, so a majority have one of their two most populous cities as their capital. In the case of Minnesota, that 2nd biggest city that serves as the capital is right next to the slightly larger biggest city. Mayland's capital, Annapolis, is neither the biggest nor second biggest city, but it is located in a county right next to the biggest city, Baltimore, and the US Census Bureau considers it part of the greater Baltimore area.
Note that if a city is so big that the rest of the state feels it drowns them out in state politics, then you can have a push to keep the capital out of that city (or move it out if it's already there). You do see this with NYC, Anchorage, Las Vegas, and Chicago, but those are cases where the rest of the state feels their interests are being drowned out and they have the power to ensure the capital is located elsewhere.
At any rate on the issue of the Confederate capital, too far north and it would be too close to the USA-CSA border. Too close to the coast and it could vulnerable to an amphibious attack. Atlanta, Opelika, and Charlotte fit those criteria.
In a Confederate Wank I wrote years ago, the Confederacy put its capital in the center of the border between Alabama and Tennessee as the District of Dixie.
It is a general rule worldwide that a nation's most populous city is also the capital.
Otherwise is the exception. Although the exception may be on reasons other than a planned capital, like Washington or Canberra or Brasilia.
(Such as other cities growing larger over time)
Otherwise is the exception. Although the exception may be on reasons other than a planned capital, like Washington or Canberra or Brasilia.
(Such as other cities growing larger over time)
New Orleans feels like a bad idea to place the capital at (as their largest city) as it's on the coast and is susceptible to any naval attack.
Rattenfänger von Memphis
Donor
With the right fortifications, New Orleans could successfully resist naval attacks as it did in 1815 from the British. Five months earlier in August 1814, the capital of the United States, Washington, D.C. did not, was captured and burned by the British. Still the capital remained at Washington, D.C. because of what it symbolized to Americans.
Other close-to-ocean capital cities like London, St. Petersburg and Tokyo avoided capture for virtually all of their histories.
On the other hand, mere distance from the coast does not guarantee a capital city will not be captured by an enemy. Mexico City, 200 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, was captured twice : by the Americans in 1847 and by the French in 1863. Beijing (Peking), 93 miles from the coast, was occupied in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion.
Which enemy nation would launch a naval attack on New Orleans in TTL, and most importantly why, has to also be considered. I can only think of three capable of doing it: the United States, the British or the French. Since the United States is right next door and an intensely bitter fratricidal war with them has just ended, they would be the most likely IMO.
The British in TTL would no doubt have been relieved to see an American threat to British Canada cut in half, and greatly lessened, by the splitting up and weakening of the United States. Ditto the French with their imperial ambitions in Mexico. Both nations would have every reason to be pro-Confederate and the South would have every reason to encourage this friendliness since 9 million Southerners are facing the much larger 23 million people in the United States across a long border which is an on-going threat.
Which brings the discussion back to the choice of a capital for a new nation of just 9 million people. They would no doubt want to have their nation taken seriously on the world stage and impress other nations and to try to outshine the United States with its New York City (1,478,103), Philadelphia (674,022), Boston (250,256) and Washington, D.C. (132,000) and all the delights and distractions that they can offer, and impress, foreign visitors.
So why pick an isolated, far inland, tiny town that probably no European at least has ever heard of, as your capital to represent you before the world ? Most of the towns that have been mentioned in this thread as potential capitals have populations that, in OTL, ranged from 3,245 (Opelika) to 4,473 (Charlotte) to 7,401 (Columbus) to 7,426 (Danville) to 10,588 (Montgomery) to 15,389 (Augusta).
Compare this to European capitals in approximately the same time period who were often ignored by the Great Powers. Almost none of these countries had such a tiny town representing them as their capital. Lisbon (210,000), Bucharest (160,000), Amsterdam (279,221), Munich (230,023), Christiania AKA Oslo (151,239), Turin (173,305), Naples (448,743) and Stockholm (133,597).
And the South would not have wanted to be ignored. New Orleans, with its nearly 200,000 population, is the only serious, logical choice for a South that wants to put its best foot forward on the world stage. Other nations would no doubt recognize the Confederate States of America and send diplomatic representatives but I doubt they would hang out for long in an Opelika or a Corinth or a Columbia. They would all flock to New Orleans anyway. Like the song says “How Ya Gonna Keep’em Down on the Farm ( After They’ve Seen Paree) ?”
Not so much in the USA though. Very often capitals were either chosen precisely because they were not the biggest city (it certainly made sense for states dominated in population by rural farmers to set the instrument of their majority against the peculiar interests of the big city), or because while some visionaries intended it to be the kingpin of the rising state (much as DC was hoped to become a major economic center in its own right) it turned out their crystal ball visions were somewhat mistaken and somewhere else would prove the more natural economic center--but for reasons alluded to above, it would make no sense to move the capital there, not to the rural constituencies anyway!
The choice will have to survive political compromise is the problem. How will the eastern states feel about the economic and political center of the country be New Orleans?
Ggddaano
Banned
They won't like it. Plus, there are solid reasons for keeping in in Richmond for diplomatic purposes; the two "sister republics" of the USA and CSA can easily have summits and move diplomats back and forth across the border.
Ggddaano
Banned
Depending on the circumstances of the Confederate victory, there may or may not have been that same interest.
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