Confederate Victory: When does the Confederacy become a pariah state?

There's another factor to consider: the fact most Southern wealth is illiquid either because it's land or because it's in something most European and American countries consider as morally unacceptable.
in certain Jews whom the diarist Jones accused of profiteering on shoes, and of buying real estate because they had no faith in Confederate money
Interesingly, on the Union side, Grant wrote several orders banning Jews from his area of operation due to the same stereotype.
Statements of the same kind can be found in all newspapers. It was with good reason that, a quarter-century after the war, the principal historian of Confederate finance included in his book a section headed, "The Moral Decadence of the South."
It reminds be about the final chapter of De Gaulle's Discorde chez l'ennemi, describing the collapse of the German Empire in Summer 1918.
 
Augusta Academy very much is representative of the developments of the northern South in the education sphere. It was founded in the 1749 to educate mainly wealthy teens and after the Revolution they changed their name to Liberty Hall academy. It became a hot bed of gradual emancipationist sentiment and enrolled its first free black man John Chavis a Revolutionary War veteran. George Washington gave the academy $20,000 enough to convert it to a college which took on his name Washington College.

The school started moving away from being a gradual emancipationist hotbed into a fire eater hotbed in the 1830s thru 50s as regional tensions built and northern abolitionist tactics changed. The Civil War left the college broken and destitute. Lee stepped in and saved the college after the Civil War. But, the South didn't have enough capital at that point to save the college and he had to rely in no small part on northern industrialists. One goes there today one can find statues to these industrialists like Cyris McCormick as donations over $10K seemingly won one a statue or a building name. The McCormick money was used to expand the college into the hard sciences to advance manufacturing, architecture, and agricultural techniques to get the South off feudal farming.

The college which later renamed Washington and Lee came to promote the development of manufacturing and industrial advancement. Would that have happened if an independent South existed, or would the college have followed Jefferson's University of Virginia track of supporting 'agrarian ideology' and the development of a farmer class across the South with new technologies Jefferson had hoped would in time end the need for endless stoop labor?

My suspicion is the duration of the war matters here. The longer the war the more federal power and industrial power proves itself useful.

I think it would also depend on how other schools in the state are developing. VT comes to mind as a school that (if it is created ITTL) would compete with that sort of educational model.
 
Interesingly, on the Union side, Grant wrote several orders banning Jews from his area of operation due to the same stereotype.
And there was a big public backlash, with the Lincoln administration revoking his bans. It was a big problem for Grant later too, as during his presidential campaigns he was condemned for the order, and publicly downplayed the order as not *really* being anti-semitic (which was blatantly untrue frankly), but did at least learn his lesson and tried to make amends publicly by being friendly to Jews, and even being the first US president to go to a Synagogue service IIRC.
 
Last edited:
One solution was to utilize the 3.5 million enslaved plantation workers, but many of these were already being impressed by the military to construct fortifications. The Confederate Congress passed legislation in 1863 authorizing the national impressment of slaves, with compensation to their masters. Thousands of Negroes would serve as "teamsters, cooks, hospital attendants, construction workers, and as skilled/unskilled laborers in many industrial plants." The planters naturally feared, however, that their valuable personnel would be abused by negligent foremen. The government was also not often accurate in terms of its contracted agreements as well as reimbursement, requiring further ordinances. It would also grant the slave a pernicious taste for independence and time away from the fields, as James Hammond of South Carolina would put-it.

Yes, the planters very often didn’t want their slaves to be leased out to the army.

There was an even deeper resistance among the Virginia’s major landowners when the time came to release their slaves for military service and sign the documents promising freedom to their slaves for military service.

The Richmond Congress punted on the issue of freedom for service after belatedly authoring 300K black troops leaving Davis to issue an EO to the War Department that it be done somehow.

The final numbers the last months of the war were such that Virginia Governor was pardoning slaves on death row for military service.

B0-A63981-595-B-48-E0-A2-AF-50-CECE6-A0-FAB.jpg


The state legislatures were going to have to pass a new set of impressment and confiscation acts to be able to go over the planters heads if they wanted to meet the numbers the army wanted, but the war ended before that point.
 
Last edited:
Once they invade Haiti a sovereign nation state and once start enslaving every single people there including the rich blacks, which results into a horrible war. And after successfully crushing the Haitian army and all organize resistance and their government collapse France demands the confederates to pay the indemnity of the Haitians, which they refused
 
Once they invade Haiti a sovereign nation state and once start enslaving every single people there including the rich blacks, which results into a horrible war. And after successfully crushing the Haitian army and all organize resistance and their government collapse France demands the confederates to pay the indemnity of the Haitians, which they refused
Or when they start helping rebels in Cuba.
 
Or when they start helping rebels in Cuba.
Cuba's a different matter, being a Spanish colony. There's an affinity there between the Cuban elite and the South that the South can exploit to its advantage. Haiti, on the other hand, is a sovereign country that represents the South's worst nightmare, so I don't think the South would want to touch Haiti at all.
 
They always were a pariah state. Britain and France did not bother with recognition/intervention despite the fact that it would check the growing power of the United States.
Not quite the case in terms of neo-Napoleonic France.

"Slidell had written Judah P. Benjamin in February, 1862, that nearly everybody in France expressed a marked partiality for the South, and that the Emperor, members of the Ministry, and other high officers were really quite indifferent to the supposed evils of slavery. 'The Republicans and Orleanists think that Napoleon III will soon recognize the South, or at least declare the blockade insufficient.' Confederate hopes had still run high (in Summer 1863). August Belmont thought that Lee's invasion, the Roebuck-Lindsay diplomatic maneuvers, the (proposed) peace talk by Alexander H. Stephens, and the Draft Riots, were a well-connected effort to bring about foreign recognition. But after Roebuck's humiliation, and the news of Gettysburg and Vicksburg, intervention was impossible. 'So the farthing rush-light of hope blinks and goes out once more,' exclaimed the Richmond Examiner.

With rising chagrin John Slidell, a far abler and more adroit man than his associate James M. Mason, and as quick in his perceptions as in his mastery of Parisian speech, saw the tide of opinion turn against him. Edouard Antoine Thouvenel in the Foreign Ministry, a man of natural reserve and frigid demeanor, had always been chilly toward the Confederate envoy. He bade Slidell be patient and quiet, making it plain that the French Government would not act until Great Britain took the lead or at least acted with her. While not as rude as Lord John Russell was to Mason, he was not encouraging. Slidell could only seek a little comfort in the Duc de Morny, a half-brother to the Emperor and a grandson of Talleyrand, who had a taste for intrigue, diplomatic adventure, and money-making, and who saw the Confederacy might be induced to abet Napoleon's Mexican schemes. Morny, desirous of an easy fortune and a quiet enhancement of French prestige, believed that Mexico, if seized with Southern acquiescence, might afford both. Slidell also sought encouragement from another slippery adventurer of the imperial entourage, the Count de Persigny, Minister of the Interior.

But did Morny and Persigny really account for much?

Clearly, Thouvenel held the reins of far greater power, for his ministry was in control of all diplomatic action, and his caution had the approval of responsible men. Slidell was too shrewd to be self-deceived. He cautioned the Confederate government against wasting money on privateers, which the Powers had tried to outlaw by the convention of London; such vessels could do nothing but make enemies, for neutral ports would not accept their prizes. Instead, all Confederate resources should be put into commerce destroyers. Slidell also urged Benjamin to send him money to buy French journalists, suggesting that a few thousands in gold might bring one of the leading journals aggressively behind the South. But here he was outwitted and outbid by the expert American newspaperman, John Bigelow. This old-time associate of Bryant, now consul-general and publicity director in Paris, with a longer purse and better cause, executed a series of master strokes in obtaining the support of the most widely-circulated Parisian papers: Le Temps, Le Siècle, l'Opinion Nationale, La Presse, and Journal des Débats. These sheets persuaded French readers that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was a faithful picture of the outrages of slavery."

(To be continued)
 
Last edited:
By the way, Confederate white and total population would have been much lower than IOTL, and this would have ultimately limited its potential. Specifically, IOTL, much of the modern Southern white population comes from internal movements from the North. There is internal movement, and then there is emigration, the latter would be much much less likely for Americans. Meanwhile, just like IOTL, the vast majority of immigration flows (including loads of poor Southern whites leaving the South as well) to North America would have gone to the North.

At the same time, Black population would have been much higher, since they already grew extremely fast IOTL and also, there would have been no Great Migration, and the Confederates would have certainly tried to prevent them from leaving. The possibility of a Black majority Confederate could not be ruled out.

Demographic trends like these mean that the CSA could have easily ended up like Rhodesia.
 
~1910 is when they'll start having reputation problem that'll start causing investors to leave if they stay entirely on the nose, do not even attempt to pretend to scale it back, have an incredibly rigid legislation about that, do not even try to use their leverage in other ressources and have a stupid foreign policy, that's when you had early condemnation of labour condition in african colonies

If they do however, it's impossible to predict and depends entirely on the geopolitics, their backing, the ideologies and democratic status of other great powers, the development of egalitarian thought, black nationalism.... Can only work on a case by case basis. It's easy to imagine a world where a CSA with roughly Apartheid South Africa policies has many trade partners in the 2020s
 
Probably US becomes a pariah state instead as CSA would've been in a major partnership with Britain and France, and that's two main powers at the time, so nobody who is a friend of theirs can be a pariah by definition, the for on the other hand...
 
Probably US becomes a pariah state instead as CSA would've been in a major partnership with Britain and France, and that's two main powers at the time, so nobody who is a friend of theirs can be a pariah by definition, the for on the other hand...
If they do unpopular things like invading Haiti and enslaving each and every person there. That is one way you can alienate people from all over the world. Making csa a pariah state
 
Probably US becomes a pariah state instead as CSA would've been in a major partnership with Britain and France, and that's two main powers at the time, so nobody who is a friend of theirs can be a pariah by definition, the for on the other hand...
This is where we get into a semantic discussion, I'd make the case that even if USA goes insane revanchist, it's population size, natural resources, and massive industry mean that it is unlikely that such a state ever becomes so isolated - as it is just that valuable as an ally.
 
Probably US becomes a pariah state instead as CSA would've been in a major partnership with Britain and France, and that's two main powers at the time, so nobody who is a friend of theirs can be a pariah by definition, the for on the other hand...
Until CSA attempts to realize its ambitions in Central America and the Caribbeans.

In addition, the US is too big as an economic/industrial power and as an investment destination to be ignored.
 
Last edited:
If they do unpopular things like invading Haiti and enslaving each and every person there. That is one way you can alienate people from all over the world. Making csa a pariah state
But would they? To my understanding an actual CSA if survived wouldn't have resources to do shit at least for a long time and would've slowly turned itself into UK and France's junior ally
 
Probably US becomes a pariah state instead as CSA would've been in a major partnership with Britain and France, and that's two main powers at the time, so nobody who is a friend of theirs can be a pariah by definition, the for on the other hand...
This of course is why Germany was a parish state before WWI, and Russia as well before the Franco-Russian alliance.
 
This is where we get into a semantic discussion, I'd make the case that even if USA goes insane revanchist, it's population size, natural resources, and massive industry mean that it is unlikely that such a state ever becomes so isolated - as it is just that valuable as an ally.
Unless something troublesome happens there, like a socialist revolution for example, or it ends up on a loosing side of a World War(likelihood of both of those increase greatly in such a scenario I think)
 
But would they? To my understanding an actual CSA if survived wouldn't have resources to do shit at least for a long time and would've slowly turned itself into UK and France's junior ally
If they want to like having a labour shortage and like they don't want to alienate Britain If they are to open the trans Atlantic slave trade again. So they instead go for Haiti and like it's nearer and etc
 
But would they? To my understanding an actual CSA if survived wouldn't have resources to do shit at least for a long time and would've slowly turned itself into UK and France's junior ally
The CSA had its own ambitions in Central America, and Emperor Maximilian would have opposed it.

In addition, Franco-Prussian War and the following regime change in France could have still happened a.k.a Maximilian would have been thrown under the bus in such scenario. The CSA would have attempted to make a move in that case.
 
Last edited:
The CSA had its own ambitions in Central America, and Emperor Maximilian would have opposed it.

In addition, Franco-Prussian War and the following regime change in France could have still happened a.k.a Maximilian would have been thrown under the bus in such scenario. The CSA would have attempted to make a move in that case.
It should also be noted that French Republicans supported the Union, as did the Orleanists. If either one of that group ends up in power after an alt-Franco-Prussian War any alliance between France and the CSA would have been short lived.
 
Top