I think the US would be considerably more leftist. For one, the most conservative region of the country would of course be gone. Perhaps even more importantly, without a great migration the north would be much more homogeneously European, which would remove the barrier of racism against working class unity.
CS Victory: US Culture?
- Thread starter Wolfpaw
- Start date
it mgiht not go so leftist...after having half their country secede and (if brtiian and france got involved) being interferred with by foreign powers, it might make the us pissed off...either way got at least a generation fo vengeful people
I think both of these statements can probably be true. Yes, there will likely be nationalism/revanchism in the USA, but it will fade in time, and in part it will fade because of immigration because immigrants and their descendents won't have any memory of the old Union and won't be hugely invested in restoring it.
Instead of race, I suspect the great dividing lines ITTL's USA will be class and ethnicity, with divisions between WASP-y types whose ancestors were in America before the war and working-class white ethnics who came later. Assuming a two-party system remains in effect, this division might translate into the division between who supports which political party.
Wolfpaw
Banned
I think it's far more likely to see the CSA implode rather than give blacks anything approaching civil rights.
While the south will invariably do everything in its power to keep its slaves within its borders, I don't exactly see the underground railroad ending. Blacks will be unpopular, no northern politician in their right mind would advocate laws repatriating them to the CSA. Consequently, a steady stream of blacks will flee bondage, and seek a better life in the north. Most of these refugees will likely end up in the Midwestern industrial cities, Chicago being the foremost of them. Theirnumbers will certainly be smaller than the Great Migration, but said emigration will nevertheless continue for as long as the South is governed by a white supremacist ideology.
As far as Yankee black culture goes, I imagine there to be a rift between the "Gentile" Harlem and east coast blacks who were freed for generations, and those in Chicago whose memories of slavery and oppression were far more recent.
Wolfpaw
Banned
Philadelphia is a good template to look at here, where the genteel descendents of freedmen pursued white-collar careers (doctors, lawyers), were HUGE into Booker T. Washington's ideas of "pull yourself up" rather than Du Bois's call for equality, and largely looked down on the poor blacks moving up from the South and taking whatever work they could get (street sweepers, garbagemen, servants, etc.)
I find it to be believable that the US would have strong anti-British/French feelings if they both helped the CSA. But I wonder what US relations would be like with both those countries if the CSA won without either getting involved.
Also I'm trying to do a CSA victory TL that involves a small amount of help from the French who help break the US naval blockade and start trading with the CSA will Britian continues a neutral stance. Could anyone tell me what kind of relations might exist between the US, Britain, and France in such a TL? Especially if Nap III is still dethroned after the Franco-Prussian war.
Also I'm trying to do a CSA victory TL that involves a small amount of help from the French who help break the US naval blockade and start trading with the CSA will Britian continues a neutral stance. Could anyone tell me what kind of relations might exist between the US, Britain, and France in such a TL? Especially if Nap III is still dethroned after the Franco-Prussian war.
Really there's no way to be sure after all. California had their anti-Chinese riots and didn't care at all about their chinese citizens. While Chicago, New York, and Boston were all very unfriendly towards european immigrants. America was close at times to going towards a Right wing anti-immigrant state. There's no butterfly law that doesn't prevent that from happening just because the South sucedes.
The region of the country which was most anti-immigrant was the South...
Yeah, which was somewhat ironic. Dubois came from a prominent freedman family and advocated creating an equal African American political/intellectual/economic elite whereas, Washington was born a slave and preached a program of self-improvement, entrepreneurship, and political non-participation.
Wolfpaw
Banned
I dunno, that sorta makes sense to me.
Du Bois: "Wow; this is a bunch of horseshit. Things gotta change ASAP."
Washington: "If I can do it, you can, too!"
I don't think so, for a while Chinese immigrants were totally outlawed. This was mainly due to the Californian whites' not southerners. Also alot of the anti-immigrant phobia was also rolled into the Red Scares of the early 1900s.
Thats true, the 19th century was racist. I believe they were literly called the "Anti-Chinese Laws" Nevertheless, the bedrock of American nativism was in the South whose citizens were proud of their pure WASP heritage and fearful of outsiders who might taint it. Without their political clout, the strength of nativism is greatly diminished.
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Snake Featherston
Banned
The USA in all probability winds up sharply more like Canada and the European states of its time than the Confederacy. Without the Southern states that were in the old Confederacy it embraces industrialization and capitalism on a much more sweeping fashion while the absence of the reactionary planter elite prompts the emergence of Social Democracy, Socialist, and Communist movements as *the* challenge to the elite. The USA now has every reason for a larger land army, will be orienting itself against slavery and to some extent for greater racial equality in its own territory, and the more the CSA degenerates into a basket case, the less the USA will actually consider a full-fledged re-absorption of the Confederacy unless it has no choice. The CSA will probably wind up surviving in the fashion of Zimbabwe and North Korea, given money to avoid its collapse and the ensuing but inevitable disintegration.
Thus the USA winds up more militarized than IOTL (if for nothing else than the desire to AVOID a war caused by the inevitable attempts by slaves to run over the US-CS border and the inevitable slavecatcher raids that follow), but more European-style than IOTL in terms of political situations and challenges (industrializing, democracy, no giant agrarian caste system stuck in an 1880s timewarp into the 20th Century), and in all probability as the CSA proves to be an economic sinkhole keeping one eye on its rickety former cousin without focusing too much on the Confederacy at all.
Thus the USA winds up more militarized than IOTL (if for nothing else than the desire to AVOID a war caused by the inevitable attempts by slaves to run over the US-CS border and the inevitable slavecatcher raids that follow), but more European-style than IOTL in terms of political situations and challenges (industrializing, democracy, no giant agrarian caste system stuck in an 1880s timewarp into the 20th Century), and in all probability as the CSA proves to be an economic sinkhole keeping one eye on its rickety former cousin without focusing too much on the Confederacy at all.
Snake Featherston
Banned
The OTL CSA refused to scrap slavery in any meaningful sense when it was in the process of being conquered and was by the end whatever territory Lee's army was on at that precise moment. An ATL CSA that wins a shorter war will abolish slavery the day Hell freezes over and not a moment before. What will, however, change is that the plantations won't last forever. The CSA will also have *a* free black minority which people usually forget about.
And there will be a Civil Rights movement in any ATL CSA the moment there's Anarcho-Capitalist movements in any ATL USSR.
Snake Featherston
Banned
There were always free blacks in the states that became the Confederacy. The institution will last forever, whether or not the plantations do is a different question.
Wolfpaw
Banned
You should see some of the other stuff Snake dishes out; some of the best brain candy around these parts.I have been inspired.
I had wondered about the West coast. Look at this map.
Would California, Nevada, and Oregon try to break off from the US if the CS won?
Would California, Nevada, and Oregon try to break off from the US if the CS won?