Consequences of a quick US civil war.

Say Virginia didn’t secede, resulting in the second wa e of successions not happening. And also the confederacy get really unlucky in the first few battles resulting in the war only lasting a year or two. What long term consequences does this have?
 
The Southern economy is less damaged, so it takes less time for the South to catch up with the North in terms of per capita GDP. The war is easy enough that the Emancipation Proclamation is never issued. Instead, slavery is contained and gradually abolished. Owners are compensated and large numbers of slaves are colonized to Liberia and possibly other locations in Africa like the Congo. Depending on how successful colonization the South and America as whole could become much whiter.
 
Hm. With Virginia still in the Union, we get the Top 10 AH question, "What if Lee was General of the Union armies?"

IIRC, you also lose the only cannon foundry in the Confederacy?
 
If VA, NC, TN, AK stay in the Union, it is a short war indeed. You are reducing the CSA's manpower by close to 40% and adding a significant amount to the Union.
 
I don't think the Outer South is going to add troops to the federal effort against the Deep South unless the CSA invades them.
 
I don't think the Outer South is going to add troops to the federal effort against the Deep South unless the CSA invades them.

Certainly nowhere near the amount that mustered for the CSA, but there will still be some, even if they are volunteers that enlist in a different state.
 
How much animosity would there be in the Deep South towards the rest of the South for "betraying the cause?" What might the cultural impact of this be, would the idea of the "Solid South" and southern solidarity be just a fantasy in TTL?

I don't think the Outer South is going to add troops to the federal effort against the Deep South unless the CSA invades them.
All they need to do is stay neutral, pay lip service to the Union, and let the troops through while the Federal Government crushes the rebellion.
 
The Southern economy is less damaged, so it takes less time for the South to catch up with the North in terms of per capita GDP. The war is easy enough that the Emancipation Proclamation is never issued. Instead, slavery is contained and gradually abolished. Owners are compensated and large numbers of slaves are colonized to Liberia and possibly other locations in Africa like the Congo. Depending on how successful colonization the South and America as whole could become much whiter.
The Southern economy will not "catch up" to the North quicker; because slavery will hold it back. Plus the lack of industrialization and coordinating the railroad gauges will continue to lag behind the North. Not until the later invention of modern A/C (an invention in Buffalo, NY by Willis Carrier) will the South ever be able to be a realistic place to put a factory or a tall office building due to high humidity and heat. The North gave so much in the way of inventions and in capital investments, the Civil War actually made the South a place where they were willing to start investing in (carpet baggers) prior to that they invested heavily in the West (look at all that Leland Stanford, Jr invested in, built, and inspired in the West; he was originally from Albany, NY, no Civil War doesn't mean he then chooses the South instead; and most of his compatriots in the railroad business were also from that area of NY). The South will continue to be a backwater, and even more of a backwater.

Edit- and how could the US be EVEN MORE whiter?! The African-American population is only 14% of the total IOTL. Don't see that number possibly being any lower without affecting the total population totals resulting in the percentage remaining the same.
 
The Southern economy will not "catch up" to the North quicker; because slavery will hold it back. Plus the lack of industrialization and coordinating the railroad gauges will continue to lag behind the North. Not until the later invention of modern A/C (an invention in Buffalo, NY by Willis Carrier) will the South ever be able to be a realistic place to put a factory or a tall office building due to high humidity and heat. The North gave so much in the way of inventions and in capital investments, the Civil War actually made the South a place where they were willing to start investing in (carpet baggers) prior to that they invested heavily in the West (look at all that Leland Stanford, Jr invested in, built, and inspired in the West; he was originally from Albany, NY, no Civil War doesn't mean he then chooses the South instead; and most of his compatriots in the railroad business were also from that area of NY). The South will continue to be a backwater, and even more of a backwater.

Edit- and how could the US be EVEN MORE whiter?! The African-American population is only 14% of the total IOTL. Don't see that number possibly being any lower without affecting the total population totals resulting in the percentage remaining the same.

Atlanta built its first skyscraper in 1892. In 1930 a 22 story building was built in Richmond. How tall is tall?

My reasoning is that with major slave states remaining in the Union and without a protracted war resulting in an Emancipation Proclamation, after the war the South will be able to bargain for a gradual emancipation of slaves with compensation for slave owners and colonization of freed slaves. Because the war was less destructive the South isn't as far behind the North to begin with. Former slave owners invest the money they get from their slaves in industrializing the South. If roughly half of freedmen go back to Africa, African Americans will make up 7%/(86% + 7%) ~= 7.5% of the American population.
 
All they need to do is stay neutral, pay lip service to the Union, and let the troops through while the Federal Government crushes the rebellion.
I think that was one of the sticking points for the Outer South, they didn't want to contribute, and they didn't want to let an army through their borders to attack another state.
 
Does it even get termed a "civil war" or does it get brushed off as a "rebellion"?

It might be still called as civil war. There was two armies warring against each others. In Finland war of 1918 is pretty commonly called as Finnish Civil War altough it lasted only few months.

Much shorter ACW would mean longer lasting slavery. Lincoln wouldn't be assassinated and he might serve two terms. But his reputation is not so great as in OTL.

And another sequence is that France-Mexican War ends much earlier due American pressure and so there is not emperor Maximilian. This might cause intresting things in Europe.
 
I think that was one of the sticking points for the Outer South, they didn't want to contribute, and they didn't want to let an army through their borders to attack another state.
Well, one of the sticking points for the Federal Government would be sending troops through the states unmolested. What else could they do? A naval invasion would be resource intensive and expensive. And having to invade from the west simply because Virginia said "No" would be humiliating and show fatal weakness in a time where unity was needed. The best compromise I can think of is that Federal Troops would use Private Railways in the neutral states. That's it.
 

takerma

Banned
I think quick victory for the Union is possible even with split as it happened. With Virginia on Union side it will be not even called rebellion.. maybe “southern troubles” or something similar. Also massive amount of people don’t die, beneficial for everyone involved except slaves.

Can colonial project in Africa with a lot more resources and men actually work well in this TL? Would be really interesting to see a TL about that possibility
 
Well, one of the sticking points for the Federal Government would be sending troops through the states unmolested. What else could they do? A naval invasion would be resource intensive and expensive. And having to invade from the west simply because Virginia said "No" would be humiliating and show fatal weakness in a time where unity was needed. The best compromise I can think of is that Federal Troops would use Private Railways in the neutral states. That's it.
Which is more weak and humiliating: having some states unwilling to participate in a smaller war, or forcing the issue and creating a wider war? So yes, it will be conducted from the Mississippi River, and conquered ports. That does seem to preclude a quick war. Your previous post recognized the cultural bonds between the Outer South and the Deep South - so it would seem like the Deep South would have to break that bond. So maybe the OP should be the other way around, the first few battles go too well for the Confederates, they invade North Carolina and Arkansas and shock the country worse than Fort Sumter. The War of the Great Betrayal.
 
Can colonial project in Africa with a lot more resources and men actually work well in this TL? Would be really interesting to see a TL about that possibility
I forget which country, but I think the British tried a colonization society to the NE of Liberia. I don't know how well it worked for those people but Liberia had bad problems with disease and lack of infrastructure. Maybe more colonist can help deforest the jungle quicker. I think convincing Americans in the 1820s to fund a major colonization effort was near impossible, and by the 1860s it would be impossible.

Until the diseases are addressed, colonization of Liberia seems like a death sentence.
 
I don't get the thinking that exportation of former slaves is either desirable, doable, or a good thing. Both north and south quickly found out that free people of any color can be used and abused in a profitable manner. the barons of the day made their riches on the sweaty backs of used peoples. Free blacks are a valuable pool from which to get the masses to exploit.

The south likely doesn't suddenly decide to industrialize. It simply wasn't their mindset. They liked the grower society they had, and were content to import (either domestically from the north or foreign) manufactured goods. Climate was a factor, but it was not the only one, nor the main one. In a controlled emancipation scenario (which likely isn't going to spring up and happen immediately. probably looking at decades away), the plantation elites turn their attention to learning how to keep their overall society while technically not calling it slave based.

IF the border states which are sticking with the Union don't allow troop movement, the war may technically be longer, but the fighting is still going to last a similar length of time. There'll be a lag in fighting as neither side can initially get to the other, but as superior numbers and supplies pour from the Mississippi River and from sea, the South will be outmatched and conquered.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
I don't get the thinking that exportation of former slaves is either desirable, doable, or a good thing.

Long story short, and crudely put: the leading proponents knew damn well that black people had grounds to be angry about how they'd been treated. One of them literally wrote that black slaves were like dogs that they had constantly beaten. To remove the chain would be to run the risk of the by-now really messed up and furious 'dog' to turn on its abusive 'master'. Conclusion: we have to shoot the dog, or send it far away.

Sending all the former slaves "back to Africa" was considered, by its advocates, the more charitable of the only two "realistic" options. First, keep in mind that most avid propenents of 'colonisation' were from the South. But then; even opponents of slavery generally believed that black people were inherently inferior to whites, intellectually speaking. This was believed so widely that Lincoln expressed such thoughts as late as the mid-1850s (and was a proponent of sending all blacks to Africa). It appears that it was only the Civil War, and his resulting co-operation with black people of undisputable intellectual credentials - such as Frederick Douglass - that really changed his mind.

Of course, black people didn't suddenly turn into rabid beasts as soon as slavery was abolished. Very surprising, how racist stereotypes can be so wrong, eh? Still, consider OTL modern day, with black Congressmen representing Southern states, and contrast that with the (certainly in the South) near-universal belief that blacks were inferior. The simple reason certain peoples supported exportation schemes was that they wanted to prevent a situation where back people could ever be living alongside them as their equals (or, God forbid, their superiors). The fact that a whole lot of the exported people were going to die of tropical diseases hardly mattered to people who were fine using them as an expendable slave labour force in the first place.

So you see, once you start thinking like a completely immoral bastard, it suddenly makes a certain sort of sense.
 
I understand how the notion arose. I don't understand why people would still be thinking ( with the benefit of hindsight) that it would happen, considering what actually happened (and didn't happen) showed how wrong the assumptions/beliefs were.
 
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