Challenge: A Classic Civil War

Some argue that the American Civil War wasn't technically a civil war because, by strict definition, a civil war involves two or more factions competing to gain control over a country while the ACW was a region trying to secede from the rest of the country. I don't agree with that but I'm not here to debate it. I want you to try to create a scenario in which will be more similar to the former definition.

Example: John C. Breckinridge is somehow elected POTUS and forces territories to accept slavery causing a movement to try and overthrow him through armed force. Not vary plausible but you get the point.
 

Art

Monthly Donor
VERY plausible. . .

Very stupid. lt was the EXPANSION of slavery that made the American Civil War damn near inevitable. The thing is, because of the 2 economic systems, the North wanted Protectionism to protect native Iron and Cloth industries. The South imported damn near everything they did not make themselves.

Look at the Shenandoah Valley. Why did it supply food for the Army of Northern Virginia, the largest army the South could field. Jefferson Davis was the Secretary of War in Buchanans Adminstration, and moved federal arsenals south, so that they could be captured at a moments notice. I am sorry. My maternal ancestors were Scots-Irish P. W. T. , and owned slaves, 1 or 2, like they had owned thralls. I bet they treated them like their horses. Too dumb to know that it was the plantation owners who wanted all the land, just like in Ireland. It makes me ILL, thinking of them fighting against their common interest. But I love Eastwoods Josey Wales, even though it was written by the guy who wrote Wallaces segregation speech. Eastwood: Governments do not live together, people live together. . .

Ten Bears: There is Iron in your words of life, so there is Iron in your words of death. It will be life! LOVE that movie. That is My philosophy. So much as I have one.


P. S. Natty Bumpo, I am Autistic and hyperlexic. Know what that is?
 
Some argue that the American Civil War wasn't technically a civil war because, by strict definition, a civil war involves two or more factions competing to gain control over a country while the ACW was a region trying to secede from the rest of the country. I don't agree with that but I'm not here to debate it.

You are right - this from Wiki

A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic,[1] or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state.[2] The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.[1] The term is a calque of the Latin bellum civile which was used to refer to the various civil wars of the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC.
A civil war is a high-intensity conflict, often involving regular armed forces, that is sustained, organized and large-scale. Civil wars may result in large numbers of casualties and the consumption of significant resources.[3]

With regards to a POD that would set North vs South under the rules you have set, then the South would have had to have elected the President and he overruled Congress. That would give you a situation like the Brits had in their 3rd civil war.
 
Actually the Civil War *was* like that. Confederate ideology said all slave states were CS territory by virtue of sharing the same society and institution, and the Union Ten Percent plan was an attempt to weaken pro-CS governments by creating rival pro-US ones.
 
Actually the Civil War *was* like that. Confederate ideology said all slave states were CS territory by virtue of sharing the same society and institution, and the Union Ten Percent plan was an attempt to weaken pro-CS governments by creating rival pro-US ones.

True, but that war did not meet the technical definition of a civil war because both sides were not attempting to conquer the entire country. If the Confederacy had attempted to conquer the North it would, but that was never their aim.

For it to be a true civil war would require the South to remain in the union and to attempt to achieve their goals by military force and for the North to oppose them with military force. Given the disparity in population and resources the outcome would have been similar, barring some miracle. The only way to redress the balance would have been for foreign governments to intervene on behalf of the South, which they did not do in OTL and would have been even less willing to do in the case of a real civil war.

The interesting part would not be the war itself so much as the treatment of the South afterward. Would the slaves have been freed? Yes, but not in the same manner as OTL. Would the state governments have been interfered with? Certainly the top officials and military leaders would have been treated harshly, but the state senators and representatives? Members of Congress? Lesser officials?
 
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