Challenge: Make a "Nice" Confederacy

Make a Confederacy that gets along reasonably well with its neighbors, is a member of ALT-Nato (memories of the war of Southern Independence are no more relevant than memories of the Revolution are to US-British relations otl).

It has a reasonable standard of living of its citizens and has a comparable standard of living to the US and Canada.

It has dealt with its racial issues better than it did otl because they were stuck with all those black people who couldn't go North and didn't want to fight an insurgency every 25-50 years or so.

It includes at least the 11 original Confederate State minus West Virginia. And all of this has come about without any violent revolutions (lots of pressure is probably mandatory) and the CSA head of state is the direct successor to Jefferson Davis.
 

Pax

Banned
My timeline on the writer's forum is pretty close. There was a civil war in the 1890s and the president isn't a direct successor to Davis, however. Also, NATO/it's equivalent isn't a thing yet.
 
After they win in the Civil War, they go through a period where they try and maintain the same systems as before the ACW. But in the early 1880s, amidst economic decline, some of the generals who won the war overthrow the government and write a new constitution which ends slavery and helps distinguish the nation from the United States. [General name], despite his dictatorship, is often credited with saving the Confederate States.

By the middle of the 20th century, the Confederate States of America has both built its native industry as well as attracted plenty of industry from the United States and foreign countries. They stayed neutral in World War I, but in World War II, they fought alongside the United States and the Allies thanks to the aggressive U-Boat campaign in Atlantic. In the 1961 presidential elections, Martin Luther King Jr.--the first black president--was elected president as part of a coalition of blacks and poor whites, after the most contested election in CSA history.

Although poverty exists, and is much more common than in the United States (indeed, CSA immigration at one point was common), the modern CSA is developing rapidly, and is one of the most powerful economies in the world.
 
The key thing is getting the elite of the rump United States to decide that the economic prosperity that comes with peaceful coexistence with the Confederacy is worth more than the prestige/profits that would come from ruling it. Probably not too hard, considering that in any Confederate victory scenario, the elites will have probably decided just this. Once that's settled, the United States and Confederate States have every bit of interest in cooperating with one another, both because their economies are dependent on one another, but also because greater inter-American solidarity prevents European powers from playing them off each other to their own benefit......you know, the reason the United States became a thing in the first place. Those pressures aren't going to go away.
 
Could the P.O.D be that slavery isn’t an issue in 1860, either having Jefferson create a diplomatically and economically acceptable to the southern states.

The divide could be seen as an aggressive few north states against a south that simply want to go in alone.

With four states in norther America. Canada, Mexico CSA and USA all working together in a North America Alliance within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
 
The key thing is getting the elite of the rump United States to decide that the economic prosperity that comes with peaceful coexistence with the Confederacy is worth more than the prestige/profits that would come from ruling it. Probably not too hard, considering that in any Confederate victory scenario, the elites will have probably decided just this. Once that's settled, the United States and Confederate States have every bit of interest in cooperating with one another, both because their economies are dependent on one another, but also because greater inter-American solidarity prevents European powers from playing them off each other to their own benefit......you know, the reason the United States became a thing in the first place. Those pressures aren't going to go away.

You certainly want to stop the CSA from allying too much with the British and squeezing the US from both sides.
 
No one today considers Brazil a pariah state, even though it still had slavery until the 1880's. The African slave trade still persisted in Saudi Arabia until around 1960 or so. in both cases, the stain associated with the practice is long forgotten. My great great grandfather was a fairly active Abolitionist in New York prior to the Civil War, but post-CW several of his children moved south and their decndants remain southerners to this day. My point being that it doesn't take all that long, once slavery is banned for a somewhat "nicer" appearance to take hold in international relations.

I suspect that the institution of slavery would not last past 1900 in a victorius CSA, for both moral and economic reasons. With the rise of organized labor in the late 19th century. Something like an anti-slavery Populist political party will arise by 1880 or so and by 1900 a the pressure to eliminate the process will begin, first in the border states and gradually move southwards. My guess is the last holdout will be South Carolina.


Not to nit-pick, but a CSA survival would probably butterfly both World Wars and NATO. The Czar might even still be around, and (unfortunately) the noble Dr. King would never have been born, although Black civil rights leaders similar to him would arise.
 
No one today considers Brazil a pariah state, even though it still had slavery until the 1880's. The African slave trade still persisted in Saudi Arabia until around 1960 or so. in both cases, the stain associated with the practice is long forgotten. My great great grandfather was a fairly active Abolitionist in New York prior to the Civil War, but post-CW several of his children moved south and their decndants remain southerners to this day. My point being that it doesn't take all that long, once slavery is banned for a somewhat "nicer" appearance to take hold in international relations.

I suspect that the institution of slavery would not last past 1900 in a victorius CSA, for both moral and economic reasons. With the rise of organized labor in the late 19th century. Something like an anti-slavery Populist political party will arise by 1880 or so and by 1900 a the pressure to eliminate the process will begin, first in the border states and gradually move southwards. My guess is the last holdout will be South Carolina.


Not to nit-pick, but a CSA survival would probably butterfly both World Wars and NATO. The Czar might even still be around, and (unfortunately) the noble Dr. King would never have been born, although Black civil rights leaders similar to him would arise.
Just look at Germany and Japan’s international reputation today.

In two generations, no one will care what they before did if they behave afterwards.
 
Probably too vague an idea to be of any use, but could something like this occur:

- CSA gains independence in Civil War.
- Trundles along with some support from Europe for a little while, but eventually the economy fails for reasons X, Y, Z.
- Loses European support, fights its own internal civil war. Handwavium stops the US from reabsorbing any territory.
- Winds up being subject to a communist revolution in the early 20th.
- With communism comes equality. Blacks/whites/whoever else are all red.
- Communist experiment eventually fails, state becomes a dictatorship by mid-20th.
- In another few years the geopolitical tides are turning and the dictator's foundation begins to weaken. Eventually it collapses entirely and the CSA undergoes a liberal revolution.
- By the ATL 'modern' day the CSA is just another liberal, left-leaning nation with a spotty history, but no worse than anyone else really.

So we get a "nice" CSA by 2018. "Nice" in the same way that the OTL USA is "nice", or that European nations are "nice". That is to say, not without problems, but by no means is it bad.
 
Hard to see a "nice" CSA. If slavery is handwaved away before 1860, there is no ACW no CSA. A CSA that gains independence has made slavery a key part of its fundamental document - the constitution. At some point after the 1860s slavery will probably go away, however only on a state by state basis. When slavery ends the black ex-slaves won't be totally free, peonage worse than the sharecropper system will be there, expect zero or close to it funding for black only schools, extremely tight Jim Crow approaching apartheid, etc. With time this may (or may not) soften appreciably. OTL while there was a significant migration of blacks out of the "CSA" there remained a substantial black population left behind, and there was no relief from Jim Crow except as enforced by the federal government. Simply having a larger black population is not going to change this in to unicorn and rainbow race relations. Don't see this as "nice" by any definition.

FWIW Brazil, Germany, Japan, and others have all "moved on" from their past - if the CSA becomes a democracy with universal suffrage, at a minimum de jure racial equality then it may be considered "nice" by other countries. If not...
 
Top