CSA Wins: The Future of the County, An Analysis

I'll weigh in firmly against a British war against the CSA over the cause of slavery. It will not happen. end of story. They may have talked the talk, but there is no historical reason to believe they would take up arms over slavery. They didn't intervene on the part of the north, so why are they now going to become a beligerant against the south afterwards? It isn't going to happen.
 
How well the CSA does depends on the economic model they use.
importing manufactured goods and exporting cotton and tobacco makes sense if the profits form cotton and tobacco are high enough.
In general if they go for a policy of free trade they should prosper.
London was of the big sources of capital in the world then.
if the CSA is smart they will not go down the road of imperial expansion.
if they stay out of foreign wars they should have a better chance of prospering.
The dust bowl and the boll weevil will hit them hard.
The WWI might not to see American intervention in the war with the nation being divided in 2.
I could see the CSA not have a federal reserve.
Would be interesting to see what effect the CSA had on the 1920s probation of alcohol.
 
I seriously doubt that the British would invade. Also consider that the US would probably not be all that enthusiastic over the British invading territory that many in the north would view as still being theirs. Would the British be willing to risk a war with the north as well over a purely internal matter in the CSA? I don't believe they would.
 
I'm happy to take up the debate via PM if you wish.
I hope you won't take it amiss if I say I'd rather not. It's not because it wouldn't be interesting: it's more that I don't like the idea of cutting people out of the conversation. As you can tell from the post numbers vs joining date, I lurk a lot more than I post: there are no doubt people who would be interested to read the discussion even if they don't feel inclined to post. On the other hand, it's going to get fairly repetitive if it's just the two of us. Let's park it for now, and see if it comes up again in the future.

In that case, though, I think that the Confederate government would back down since it is against their own constitution. Much as the USA backed down in 1862 (in part) because they recognised that their own actions were illegal in terms of the rights of neutral ships.
The act was illegal when committed, so I'm not sure moving the prohibition from the common law to the constitution would have any effect on those who committed it. The North was in an unaccustomed position of being the blockader, when normally it's the third party. However, selling black people into slavery is pretty much the South's thing. It's not as if the preachers who said that slavery was divinely ordained, or the amateur ethnologists who said that the negro was fit for nothing other than manual labour, followed it up with the proviso that "unless they're a British subject".

Furthermore, in the case of the Trent it was a direct agent of the Federal government (Wilkes) who committed the act, and within the power of the Federal government to rectify the offence. Once the British subject has disappeared into the internal slave network, just like Brodie did, the Confederate government is dependent on local elites to find them- all the more so given the emphasis on weak central government. Will those local elites really be too bothered about tracking down a black foreigner, or will they be more inclined to view it as truckling to Britain? And how patient was Britain traditionally, when faced with heel-dragging on the part of foreign governments?

The other issue, of course, will be how friendly the Confederacy feels towards Britain. I think there's a perception that the South was always looking for Britain's friendship, which isn't the case later in the war. They withdraw their ambassador in August 1863, expel British consular agents in October 1863, and take a far more hostile stance in journals and newspapers. In fact, Owsley said that by 1863 Britain was the Confederacy's second worst enemy behind the Union.

The disagreement is how far British attitudes would change. My view remains that they would be unlikely to evolve so far as using Confederate internal slavery as a trigger for war.
But as you said, I think we'll have to agree to disagree on that.
I agree that those advocating a war would remain a minority. Equally, though, I think we've demonstrated that Britain is not going to cozy up to the South, that the relationship is likely to be rocky, and that a war between the two triggered by a slavery-related incident is not impossible. It also seems that the disagreement comes from how conciliatory we think the South would be in the event of a dispute, which obviously affects the likelihood of it spilling over into war.

They didn't intervene on the part of the north, so why are they now going to become a beligerant against the south afterwards?
For one thing, it's a civil war; for another thing, it's a civil war that the North claimed to be able to win within ninety days, by which time Britain has proclaimed its neutrality. The more pertinent question is, if slavery is unimportant to the British, why do they initially sympathise with the North then withdraw that sympathy when Lincoln proclaims he has no intention to abolish slavery and starts sacking abolitionist generals?

"Although I would not discourage in those who differ from me any demonstration of sympathy with the American president in the emancipation proclamation he has recently issued, I must confess I could not myself conscientiously unite in or promote any such demonstration, without being able to perceive in the decree something more deserving of sympathy than appears to be the case... His decree cannot be looked upon otherwise than a mere time-serving act of policy or expediency, which has been wrung out as a sort of last resort… It does not therefore call for any expression of sympathy from us, however much we may rejoice that the thing has been done at last, which ought to have been done at first, and which had it been done earlier, much carnage and many thousands of lives might have been spared... Let us thank God, and take courage in the belief that out of the distant hemisphere, He will still work deliverance for the slave. - Wilson Armistead, President of the Leeds Anti-Slavery Society (Leeds Mercury 15 October 1863)

Also consider that the US would probably not be all that enthusiastic over the British invading territory that many in the north would view as still being theirs. Would the British be willing to risk a war with the north as well over a purely internal matter in the CSA? I don't believe they would.

If the North believed Britain was trying to annex the South, she might protest. But territory in the South has no conceivable strategic value for Britain, and I'd give the North credit enough to realise that. More likely is that there would be a great deal of schadenfreude among the population in seeing the South stumble arrogantly into a war and suffer some humiliating defeats.
 
So what does a post war confederacy look like?
I presume you mean post UK intervention, rather than post civil war? Well, it depends entirely on the nature of the intervention. I'll lay out three scaling scenarios of what I think war might look like and its results.

A mild intervention might result from a British abolitionist preacher getting tarred and feathered, or some black British sailors landing and being beaten by a mob before being arrested for the crime of being free coloured people. Britain blockades the relevant port until the Confederate government apologises. The New York Herald declares that Canada must be annexed for this violation of the Monroe doctrine, and all the other Union papers enjoy seeing the South humiliated. A few slaves with access to a boat make it out to the Royal Navy and are taken to Canada or Sierra Leone.

A moderate intervention could result from a repudiation of debt, and could be performed with or without allies (for a comparison, see the 1861 Vera Cruz intervention). A Confederate port is occupied by a military force, again until appropriate restitution is made or until the occupying force loses interest. Slaves near the port start coming in and are liberated: some are taken off when the navy departs, though some presumably have to be left. The New York Herald declares that Britain is threatening world peace and Canada must be annexed.

The most serious that British intervention would probably have got would, in my opinion, result from something like a boarding incident. Let's say that a Confederate-flagged ship refuses to heave to, is fired on, and when the British boarding party lands the midshipman in charge is stabbed with a bowie knife. President Robert Barnwell Rhett refuses to apologise, or has Confederate navy ships start boarding British-flagged ships as a retaliatory measure, and Britain declares war. An important port, most likely Charleston or New Orleans, is occupied, and the Royal Navy sends ships into Hampton Roads to threaten Richmond (though they may choose not to bombard it). The land force which accompanies the expedition consists of between a division and a brigade, and spends its time protecting the port and making short patrols into the local area, freeing slaves as it goes. The New York Herald declares that this moment of weakness for Britain is the perfect opportunity to annex Canada.

In any of these scenarios, it's possible that the news of potential liberation or the perception of Confederate weakness might trigger a slave insurrection. I wouldn't be surprised if a large number of ex-Union army Springfields make it into the hands of those slaves somehow. Britain's reaction to such a slave rebellion is contestable: certainly, most newspapers decry any attempt to launch one via the Emancipation proclamation. However, there's a minority of newspapers which actually say that the South might deserve a slave rebellion, and we've already discussed that attitudes might harden. Overall, I think they'd protect Confederate citizens where it was in their power to do so, but they wouldn't have the troops or the inclination to suppress the whole thing.

It's just occurred to me in writing this that some people might have misinterpreted the scope of what I meant by "war". Other countries have a much grander tradition than the traditional British expeditionary one. Hopefully, this clears things up a little.
 
So putting aside for the moment how likely British invernetion is, I think everyone can agree a CSA-UK war could happen, and everyone knows Britain would win.
So what does a post war confederacy look like?

Humiliated, a bit vengeful, less a friend of the 'English' as before. It would then be unlikely the CSA would support Britains affairs in global politics. No Confederate legions on the Western Front in 1916 as some Alt Hist writers propose.

The CSA may also become a looser union or states break off as they blame each other for the war with Britain. Or, they may pull together, or both with some breaking away and the remainder pulling together more tightly.

The largest question is if the British bankers continue to invest here, or if they decide to cut losses and reduce their risk. The businessmen of the South may be lucky, or they may have to go pleading for money elsewhere. Even with Yankee bankers from New York :eek: If enough bankers decide the South is a bad risk it will stagnate economically until the 20th Century or beyond. The exception of course is Texas which whatever else happens will see the oil boom as the 19th Century fades away. Lousisana will benefit there as well. Conversely the Appalachia, the pine woods country of Mississippi/Alabama, the old Tidewater counties of the east coast, and Florida are liable to do even worse than OTL if the investment declines.

Migration out, to the western states is probable if the economy declines. Skilled craft apprentices, broken small farmers, town laborers will be looking for opportunities elsewhere.
 
A while back I wrote an analysis on the future of slavery in a victorious CSA. This time, I'm going to write my thoughts on the future of the CSA as an independent polity.

Some interesting points, though you overstate some of them and the Confederacy was not an amorphous gray mass.

Let’s start with the Confederate economy. While cotton was the largest share of the economy, it was only the majority in the planter dominated states of South Carolina, Mississippi, and Alabama. The rest of the Confederate states had more diversified agriculture. Some, such as Texas and Florida, derived a significant part of their economy from livestock. While the Confederacy lagged badly on industry, Virginia and Louisiana had a per capita manufacturing comparable to most Union states.

You’re quite correct that the Confederacy had almost no hard currency, even a short war will require the Confederate government financing itself on inflation and public debt. Slaves had a fairly high liquidity, but in the short run the Confederate economy will go through hard times. After the war, Confederate slave prices will probably drop as many Union slaveholders sell their slave south to avoid the risk of emancipation.

Two other factors will lead to long term Confederate economic difficulties. Immigrants seldom moved to slaveholding states – several Union states had more immigrants than the entire Confederacy. In addition to capital shortages, the Confederacy would lack consumers and have a shortage of workers. Another problem is that cotton and tobacco, two of the most common southern crops, were hard on the soil. Soil depletion will undermine Confederate agricultural productivity.

The Deep South probably would end up debt ridden with a lack of native industry and dependant on exports, The Trans-Mississippi and the Border States have a chance of avoiding the Third World Trap, but their best chance is if they separate from the Confederacy.

Would the Confederacy be imperialistic? The American south was before, during, and after the Civil War. Independence will not reduce southern support for Manifest Destiny and the Knights of the Golden Circle. I don’t know if the slaveholding economic system would collapse if it could not expand, but Confederate leadership definitely believed so. Soil exhaustion would also lead to economic pressure for Confederate expansion.

Slavery will not breed itself out of existence. Slave and free populations were growing at nearly the same rate in the American South. The Deep South had less slaves than they needed and were importing heavily from Border States. This could indirectly lead to the end of slavery in Confederate Border States. In addition to their black populations decreasing, the Border States used large numbers of slaves in industry and had found slave industrial workers performed significantly better if given enough of a wage they could eventually free themselves and their families.

As you note, Confederate expansion is problematic. The Confederacy of OTL failed abjectly in every attempt to acquire Union territories and slaveholding states or persuade Mexican states to join them. Caribbean expansion will require a navy, which is expensive. Expansion into Mexico would be against greater odds than the US faced in the Mexican-American War.

Short term, the Confederacy will be dependant on foreign capital, but it is not certain whether there would be a dominant foreign investor, or if that dominant investor would be the Union, Britain, or France. The Confederacy clearly considered all of the US slaveholding states, a route to the Pacific, and the major mineral producing parts of the US territories to be rightfully theirs, so short term significant tensions would remain between the Union and the Confederacy.

A war between Britain or France and the Confederacy is quite possible, but the most likely reason would be Confederate expansionism. They will not go to war with the Confederacy to end slavery. Slavery still could trigger an Anglo-Confederate War, but it would be the Confederacy declaring war in response to British anti-slavery patrols. Germany might cooperate with the Confederacy to seize coaling bases in the Caribbean, but that would not be a permanent alliance.

Nobody is going to embargo the Confederacy over slavery in the time frame you envision and the embargo would fail, since it would not be universal. Slavery will not go away if the price collapses, it will expand the number of Confederates who own slaves. There were also social reasons the majority of white southerners favored slavery and these will not go away even during an economic collapse.

There was a lot more to southern society than rich planters, poor whites, and slaves. The governments of Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia were dominated by smallholders who often had significantly different interests than the planters. Those states favored industry and had relatively diverse economies.

I expect poor white Confederates try to emigrate to the Union in bad economic times and free blacks to attempt it regardless of economic conditions. That doesn’t mean “graybacks” from south of the border will be welcomed by the Union.

The Confederate economy could fold on itself in the first decade or if a Depression hits at the same time as the boll weevil, but otherwise the Confederate economy would be stable, if nothing spectacular. Embargos over continued Confederate use of slaves would not occur any sooner than OTL’s opposition to apartheid and have no chance of bringing down the embargoed economy.

The Confederacy's great weakness was political, not economic. It was founded with the idea that any sate could leave at any time for any reason. Every presidential election and every major political decision risks the Confederacy losing states or even fragmenting. The most likely Confederate end game is balkanization.
 

The Sandman

Banned
So what are the chances that the CSA tries to grab a piece of Africa for itself?

The Congo seems a particularly likely target, as IIRC there were no coherent states in the area by the late 1800s and therefore would be no organized opposition to the Confederacy seizing an area to turn into their own little nightmarish hellscape a la the OTL Congo Free State.

Which also probably means that the CSA starts slaving again, using the fig leaf that it's an internal matter since they're only moving slaves between parts of the CSA.

The Danish West Indies (the modern USVI) are also a target, since Denmark almost certainly lacks the ability to defend them.

And Hispaniola will be invaded; not just because Haiti and the Dominican Republic have no foreign protectors, but because the very existence of those nations (especially Haiti) would probably be seen as unacceptable according to Southern racial ideology.
 
See, imagine for a moment that the CSA does not expand. As slavery continues, the Deep South states (the newest territories of the CSA) will eventually become saturated with slaves. Once this happens, the price of slaves will continuously decline as the number of slaves naturally increases through positive birth rates. In other words, slavery would breed itself out of existence. The only way to stop that from happening is to conquer new territories that can absorb excess slaves and keep the prices high. That's why many anti-slavery politicians wanted to block the expansion of slavery; without expansion slavery will eventually collapse. .

I'm not following your reasoning here. If I've got a plantation, isn't it in my best interests to have the price of labor (slaves) be as cheap as possible? Wouldn't my profits be larger then? It seems to me that it would be an increase in the cost of slaves that would damage the institution of slavery more than anything. If the cost of buying a slave (in addition to the costs of providing him/her with food and shelter) becomes too high, at some point it would seem to be not worth it.

Also, I'm doubtful that the CSA was ever approaching any kind of a glut of slave labor. The 11 states of the CSA covered an area the size of Western Europe. Fewer than four million slaves worked that land. That's a pretty low density, really. I think they could have increased the slave population a lot higher before any real glut occurred.
 
Last edited:
So what are the chances that the CSA tries to grab a piece of Africa for itself?

The Congo seems a particularly likely target, as IIRC there were no coherent states in the area by the late 1800s and therefore would be no organized opposition to the Confederacy seizing an area to turn into their own little nightmarish hellscape a la the OTL Congo Free State.

Probably not, because most likely the Brits, Germans (maybe just North Germans, depending on the butterflies) and most Europeans would object to a "controversial" state getting the ressource-rich Congo. Maybe control over the coast and a few miles inland, but nothing more (comparable to the American Congo in "Union and Liberty").

Also regarding the slave transport thing... Unlikey due to the fact that it simply wouldn't be necessary to ship slaves to the CSA homeland. They have enough blacks there and those Congolese slaves would be of better use in Africa anyways.

The Danish West Indies (the modern USVI) are also a target, since Denmark almost certainly lacks the ability to defend them.

And Hispaniola will be invaded; not just because Haiti and the Dominican Republic have no foreign protectors, but because the very existence of those nations (especially Haiti) would probably be seen as unacceptable according to Southern racial ideology.

Denmark would rather sell their West Indies to someone than to cede them to the CSA. And if war were to erupt Denmark would fight and fight well with other anti-CSA states maybe joining in on the action to use the distracted navy as an advantage (Mexico and the US come to mind).

And I'm no expert on the DomRep, but Haiti had quite a few friends, including the German states. I'm pretty sure Prussia wouldn't want a nation friendly to the German people get enslaved (Germans were, together with Poles, the sole Whites allowed to purchase land in Haiti for quite a while and Imperial Germany had good relations with Haiti later as well). Also again the Brits. Maybe even Spain, with them then seeing Cuba and PR in danger.
 
Probably not, because most likely the Brits, Germans (maybe just North Germans, depending on the butterflies) and most Europeans would object to a "controversial" state getting the ressource-rich Congo. Maybe control over the coast and a few miles inland, but nothing more (comparable to the American Congo in "Union and Liberty").

Not even that unless the CSA bans slavery first(Fat chance!!). GB would never allow a slave holding country get part of Africa and it has the RN to prevent it.
 
Top