Confederate Civil War

Basically ever new nation has a civil war as part of the maturation of its political system. I don't imagine the Confederate States, especially being as decentralized as it was, would be exempt from this.

So, how do you think this would affect a victorious (let's assume they leave with their core states, Kentucky, and the Indian Territory) Confederacy? What specific issues might spark the civil war, how would it play out, and when would it happen?

I'd imagine the Confederacy either having some stupid war over states rights in the late 1800s, probably ending in the Confederacy being divided. Alternatively, or in addition, some really nasty populist revolt in the 1900s (due to a lack of reform and the slaveocracy frustrating the yeomanry).

EDIT: I forgot to say, feel free to talk about slave revolts, but I'm not really counting those as "civil wars" just since it's a given that they would happen. I'm more interested in scenarios in which you have Whites as major participants in the uprising.
 
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Canada had rebellions in 1837-1838, not sure if that counts as a civil war though.

The Upper Canada one counts as a riot. The Lower Canada one was quite a bit bigger, but still not a civil war.

Honestly, the much more important part of the Rebellions of 1837 is that they caused responsible governance in the Canadas.
 

Greenville

Banned
After the southern states get their independence from the United States there is still much economic and internal recovery to be made after the Union blockade, cutting off of trade with the North, and battles fought which destroyed communities and infrastructure. All of this will take years to recover from. Food shortages, malnutrition, disease, failure of businesses throughout the Confederacy after the war because of slow ability to recover which sparks rioting and civil disorder across states and regions. The Confederate military is actively responding to putting down violence and disorder. Some states may get so tired of dealing with the inability of Richmond to govern or deal with the crisis, lose patience and secede. The army is so stretched thin already that it can't maintain a war of separation. If it does, it causes others to secede because of its similarity to how Washington did so during the war. I can see the Confederacy splintering into two or three different groups. Texas is one, Tennessee and others do the same.

Indian Territory will probably absolutely want nothing to do with either the United States or Confederacy and opt for independence and self-governance which it may achieve with a weak government. It could ally with Texas for protection if it goes independent.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
A large scale, organized slave revolt would be most likely, IMO.

The South had become very, very, very good at preventing that sort of thing in the pre-war years. It's not a coincidence that there were relatively few large-scale slave revolts before the war. Nat Turner's was the biggest and most famous and its direct impact was extremely localized in a single Virginia county.

Now if the Confederate victory took place after the Emancipation Proclamation and, more importantly, the large-scale recruitment of U.S.C.T. regiments, you have a very different story. (This is a major plot point in House of the Proud, by the way.)
 
Highlands were pro-Union. We would likely see large parts of the countryside outside of plantation territory in revolt (i.e. poor whites without slaves.) Ironically, it might actually become Marxist based (people forget Marxism was alive and well when the Civil War occurred).
 
The South had become very, very, very good at preventing that sort of thing in the pre-war years. It's not a coincidence that there were relatively few large-scale slave revolts before the war. Nat Turner's was the biggest and most famous and its direct impact was extremely localized in a single Virginia county.

Now if the Confederate victory took place after the Emancipation Proclamation and, more importantly, the large-scale recruitment of U.S.C.T. regiments, you have a very different story. (This is a major plot point in House of the Proud, by the way.)

The later the POD, the worse it is for the CSA.

If you have an earlier POD, before mass escapes, the Emancipation Proclamation, and Colored Troops, then there's a problem for a future revolt in that most slaves still haven't tasted freedom or been given guns, which makes it less likely for mass revolts outside the immediate border regions.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
It can be argued, though, that Confederate independence makes a slave uprising less likely, since slaves will now have the option of escaping to the United States.
 
Basically ever new nation has a civil war as part of the maturation of its political system. I don't imagine the Confederate States, especially being as decentralized as it was, would be exempt from this.

So, how do you think this would affect a victorious (let's assume they leave with their core states, Kentucky, and the Indian Territory) Confederacy? What specific issues might spark the civil war, how would it play out, and when would it happen?

I'd imagine the Confederacy either having some stupid war over states rights in the late 1800s, probably ending in the Confederacy being divided. Alternatively, or in addition, some really nasty populist revolt in the 1900s (due to a lack of reform and the slaveocracy frustrating the yeomanry).
I like this idea. You should explore it.

One of the many, many, many problems of the Confederacy was it was founded on and for slavery (if anyone reading disagrees, I respectfully decline debating you on this topic). At a certain point, economic and political realities will rear its ugly head and slavery will be done away with. Oh, discrimination will not end, but slavery will die one terrible old politician and convulsing state at a time... and then what? When you take away the founding block of a nation's existence, it does not pivot well. I can see the abatement of slavery being something that makes the Confederacy have a dark moment in front of the mirror. It'd be a fun timeline to explore.
 
1) the US took 100 years to mature?
2) Canada, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, for example, when did they have civil wars?

Well, all countries are continuing to mature? And I would say that the US was not particularly mature at that point. It certainly didn't resemble its current political system.

That's a good point that I hadn't considered, but I think Commonwealth nations may be a unique case. For one, any local rebels would have had to fight the entire British Empire, so that would have dissuaded a lot of potential wars in and of itself.

And has Norway really never, in its hundreds of years of existence, had a civil war?
 
Highlands were pro-Union. We would likely see large parts of the countryside outside of plantation territory in revolt (i.e. poor whites without slaves.) Ironically, it might actually become Marxist based (people forget Marxism was alive and well when the Civil War occurred).

I've thought about this before. You could even get Marxist highlands in a victorious Union timeline, like I suggest here: https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/wi-ahc-worse-coal-wars.422449/#post-15286196

I would think Appalachia and other Unionist strongholds would probably end up just shrugging their shoulders and accepting the new order, but you'd likely have some low level of guerrilla. The big thing is that they'd be the first to try to leave (running back to the Union) if the Confederacy is stressed.
 
WI If up-country hillbillies started the Southern Industrial Revolution? With all thier water and coal reserves, they could soon get into metallurgical production. Hill-country steel mills would soon surpass plantation owners in profitability.
Hillbilly coal miners would have little patience by the "airs" of plantation owners.
The two different economies would be at odds, but they need to cooperate to build railroads????????
 
I think the state most likely to get involved in a Confederate secession crisis is Texas. Texas was an independent country for nearly a decade, and Texans hadn't forgotten. It's less about looking back on the (questionable) successes of Republican Texas than the inspiration it provides. Texas is also large, very likely the westernmost Confederate state, far from the centers of power.

There are a couple of good friction points. The Comanches ran rampant in Texas during the Civil War, and this was a long running issue. OTL during the next decade, the Feds prevented the Texans from taking action and took little effective action themselves. I don't know that the Confederacy will try to stop Texas from attacking the Comanches, but I don't think it's in a great position to assist. It certainly isn't going to be stationing soldiers in the Union forts that were abandoned when the war started. The biggest effect of the Comanche wars was psychological - they were killing hundreds a year, but thousands fled. I think the Texans will take them out in the end, maybe even sooner, but it may spark the same kind of resentment that OTL Texas felt against the Union. And the fact that Texas accomplished it alone will reinforce ideas of independence.

There's also Mexico. A Confederate victory will probably skew Mexican history from there on in, but it's a fair estimate to say Mexico will remain troubled in some way for the foreseeable future. I can easily see cross-border raids into Texas that the Texans can't adequately respond to since their own forces can't strike back over the border. And if they do, the distant Confederal government is more likely to try and stop Texas than start a war over some stolen horses and burned-out border towns. (One could also envision a similar dynamic with the Comanches - conceivably, the US could purposefully let them use US territory to regroup beyond Texan reach. OTL the distant Easterners, Northern and Southern, felt a lot more sympathy for the Comanches - the natives of their own areas having been suppressed, exiled, or exterminated long ago).

And then there's oil. After all of the above, as Texas is left alone to rot, the Confederacy did nothing. But when the oil comes, they're going to want a piece of it. Or if nothing else, some kind of regulatory control - the OTL early unregulated Texas oil industry was an economic disaster that required Federal intervention and birthed an active culture of oil smugglers. That will be even easier when Texas shares an enormous border with two other nations, as well as its huge coastline. Ignoring inconvenient Confederate laws becomes ever more common.

To apply these in just one scenario, I can imagine a Texas that had to fight a long, basically independent guerrilla war against American-supported Comanches. The Rangers were turned into a more permanent, formal institution after Confederate independence, its outlines laid down by war veterans and sharpened by the extreme violence of anti-Comanche actions. Similar to OTL, early in the 20th century there's some kind of Mexican Revolution. Semi-ideological bandit freedom fighters in the mold of Pancho Villa are raiding across the border. As in OTL, Texas is in a state of heightened paranoia. Again, the weak and distant Confederal government does nothing. Texan-led retaliation raids over the border (which hit regular Mexicans more than actual bandits) and state-sponsored suppression and violence against Tejanos feed into the cycle. Maybe a José T. Canales analogue is raising heck over it in Richmond, although I don't know that the Confederal government would care. At the same time as this is going on, the central government is trying to crack down on oil smuggling and control prices and extract taxes. Texans feel they're paying out the nose and getting nothing in return, as usual (or so they claim). Then a European war raises its ugly head, and a paranoid, heavily armed Texas in the midst of severe internal troubles is told it needs to send all its men thousands of miles away to fight some foreigner's war. Under the leadership of a popular and charismatic governor, they decline. One thing leads to another, and that leads to the Second Texas Revolution.
 
I think the state most likely to get involved in a Confederate secession crisis is Texas. Texas was an independent country for nearly a decade, and Texans hadn't forgotten. It's less about looking back on the (questionable) successes of Republican Texas than the inspiration it provides. Texas is also large, very likely the westernmost Confederate state, far from the centers of power.

There are a couple of good friction points. The Comanches ran rampant in Texas during the Civil War, and this was a long running issue. OTL during the next decade, the Feds prevented the Texans from taking action and took little effective action themselves. I don't know that the Confederacy will try to stop Texas from attacking the Comanches, but I don't think it's in a great position to assist. It certainly isn't going to be stationing soldiers in the Union forts that were abandoned when the war started. The biggest effect of the Comanche wars was psychological - they were killing hundreds a year, but thousands fled. I think the Texans will take them out in the end, maybe even sooner, but it may spark the same kind of resentment that OTL Texas felt against the Union. And the fact that Texas accomplished it alone will reinforce ideas of independence.

In their Declaration of Causes for Secession, Texas said "The Federal Government...has for years almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against the Indian savages on our border, and more recently against the murderous forays of banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico; and when our State government has expended large amounts for such purpose, the Federal Government has refuse reimbursement therefor, thus rendering our condition more insecure and harassing than it was during the existence of the Republic of Texas." I doubt the Confederacy would do a better job of providing troops or funds for this.

And then there's oil. After all of the above, as Texas is left alone to rot, the Confederacy did nothing. But when the oil comes, they're going to want a piece of it.

The Confederate Constitution allowed tariffs on exports. Oil would probably be one of the highest Confederate export tariffs.

To apply these in just one scenario, I can imagine a Texas that had to fight a long, basically independent guerrilla war against American-supported Comanches. The Rangers were turned into a more permanent, formal institution after Confederate independence, its outlines laid down by war veterans and sharpened by the extreme violence of anti-Comanche actions. Similar to OTL, early in the 20th century there's some kind of Mexican Revolution. Semi-ideological bandit freedom fighters in the mold of Pancho Villa are raiding across the border. As in OTL, Texas is in a state of heightened paranoia. Again, the weak and distant Confederal government does nothing. Texan-led retaliation raids over the border (which hit regular Mexicans more than actual bandits) and state-sponsored suppression and violence against Tejanos feed into the cycle. Maybe a José T. Canales analogue is raising heck over it in Richmond, although I don't know that the Confederal government would care. At the same time as this is going on, the central government is trying to crack down on oil smuggling and control prices and extract taxes. Texans feel they're paying out the nose and getting nothing in return, as usual (or so they claim). Then a European war raises its ugly head, and a paranoid, heavily armed Texas in the midst of severe internal troubles is told it needs to send all its men thousands of miles away to fight some foreigner's war. Under the leadership of a popular and charismatic governor, they decline. One thing leads to another, and that leads to the Second Texas Revolution.

That's one of the more credible timeline ideas on this forum.
 
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