DBWI: AHC The CSA not economically dominated by the US

I think if New Orleans and Lousiana in general was quicker to adopt the Railroad it could definitely help the CSA in competing with the North. If you look at the New Orleans in 1830 it was as rich as any northern city and definitely richer than Charleston (an early adopter of railroad in the south). There were proposals for some time for a Orleans to Nashville railroad as early as 1835. If New Orleans did this than I think rail investment would spur other industrial development.

New Orleans has always been a center of progressivism in the CSA and seeing that city prosper would hopefully the religous populism of Texas and Conservatism of Virginia could be mitigated.

True, if it is enough to stop secession and the war. Otherwise most of the railroad and the factories will be burned down by Union troops because I don't think New Orleans by itself could possibly make that much of a difference in the war effort. The South won that war by the skin of its teeth when Sherman wasn't able to take Atlanta until after the election and Little Mac was elected.
 

frlmerrin

Banned
As you know US citizens and corporations own 70% of the banks in the CSA along with 80% of its railroad mileage, 70% of its steel mills, 70% of its airports, 75% of its textile mills, 75% of its tobacco manufacturing, 65% of its timber industry and refines 70% of the oil the CSA produces. In the average year an estimated 5% of GDP is sent north in the form of dividends and interest. Is there any way of preventing the CSA from being so dominated by it northern neighbor?

I'm sorry this is complete ASB. The USA is well on the way to being an economic dwarf in the event of an independent CSA. If anything the reversal of your supposition is more likely than what you have posted. Much more likely is significant domination of both economies by the British and Europeans. If you want to poist this, I suggest you present an argument as to how it would come about.
 
A big part of it was the crippling debt and inflation after the war. The CSA probably could have industrialized much quicker if its debt after the war wasn't 175% of GDP and didn't have an inflation rate of around 35% a month! It didn't get its debt and inflation rate down to reasonable levels until around 1900 or so. One effect is that the CSA has one of the lowest inflation rates and government debt in the world today. The Confederates are terrified of inflation and do almost anything to avoid it.

I think if New Orleans and Lousiana in general was quicker to adopt the Railroad it could definitely help the CSA in competing with the North. If you look at the New Orleans in 1830 it was as rich as any northern city and definitely richer than Charleston (an early adopter of railroad in the south). There were proposals for some time for a Orleans to Nashville railroad as early as 1835. If New Orleans did this than I think rail investment would spur other industrial development.

That might actually work, I think.

New Orleans has always been a center of progressivism in the CSA and seeing that city prosper would hopefully the religous populism of Texas and Conservatism of Virginia could be mitigated.

It could happen, I think. Unlike most other places in the C.S.A., particularly in the days after slavery ended, N.O. was pretty libertine, at least by Victorian standards; compare the Big Easy in 1900 to straight-edge towns of Augusta & Macon in Georgia, Jackson in Miss., and Birmingham & Montgomery in Alabama.....the differences were quite stark, really. Hell, even Tulsa(Oklahoma), Albuquerque, St. Louis, and Providence, R.I. here in the U.S. could be given a run for their money!

(P.S., but if you think the populism in TX was bad......you'd be horrified by some of the stuff coming out of Mississippi these days.....believe me.)

I'm sorry this is complete ASB. The USA is well on the way to being an economic dwarf in the event of an independent CSA. If anything the reversal of your supposition is more likely than what you have posted. Much more likely is significant domination of both economies by the British and Europeans. If you want to poist this, I suggest you present an argument as to how it would come about.

OOC: Sorry, but.....I highly doubt that. Also, check my replies.
 
True, if it is enough to stop secession and the war. Otherwise most of the railroad and the factories will be burned down by Union troops because I don't think New Orleans by itself could possibly make that much of a difference in the war effort. The South won that war by the skin of its teeth when Sherman wasn't able to take Atlanta until after the election and Little Mac was elected.

With the battles of the Civil war being as close as they were a POD in 1830 or so, a close retreat for the Confederates could turn to a route for the North. Providing rail transportation based in New Orleans north to Nashville and West to Texas would add much to the military preparedness of the South.
 

NothingNow

Banned
I think if New Orleans and Lousiana in general was quicker to adopt the Railroad it could definitely help the CSA in competing with the North. If you look at the New Orleans in 1830 it was as rich as any northern city and definitely richer than Charleston (an early adopter of railroad in the south). There were proposals for some time for a Orleans to Nashville railroad as early as 1835. If New Orleans did this than I think rail investment would spur other industrial development.
That, earlier mosquito-control measures by the states, and *Birmingham being developed much sooner would drive a lot of growth in the southern economy.

That, and you had whole parts of the gulf-coast burning perfectly good timber, and pines that could've produced plenty of turpentine (a rather useful solvent,) to produce more upland cotton, right up to the blight, thanks to that Crop insurance program the planters forced on a good many of the state governments.
That little bit of stupid wrecked the Confederate economy pretty severely, and for a good few years, drove an explosion in the price of extra-long staple cotton, (which was always more valuable to begin with, and resistant to the blight.) Hilariously, that actually led to ELS Cotton leading production again in the 1900s, despite having been only ~10% of Confederate cotton production five years before the blight, thanks to Florida and West Texas cotton planters switching over en masse durring the blight.

Of course, it also kept the CSA up to it's neck in debt for another generation, with all of those interest payments just going north, or overseas.

New Orleans has always been a center of progressivism in the CSA and seeing that city prosper would hopefully the religous populism of Texas and Conservatism of Virginia could be mitigated.
Probably not. New Orleans always had a certain, debauched reputation, and Louisiana is very, very Catholic, so having the big easy influencing the rest of the CSA religiously is rather far fetched.

It's like expecting South Floridians to have any meaningful influence on the Florida State government without some state legislators or their families being taken hostage.
You've really got to feel for those SFLF guys. Essentially being screwed by the legislature constantly for over a century really hasn't endeared them to the Confederacy, especially since the railroad didn't reach Tampa till 1910, and Naples in 1911. Meanwhile, Tampa was the fastest growing city in the state during that same period, and since the end of the first world war, has usually been the second largest city in the state.

Of course, since they're mostly Italians, Cubans, and other, "non-white" or "undesirable" groups, that doesn't matter, thanks to the tiered voting system the State has, so the only reason Tallahassee even notices the region is to collect property and poll taxes, or when someone assassinates a state official.

Really solving that ongoing string of civil wars, and investing in real economic growth down there, like the Phosphate deposits that started seeing exploitation in the 1970s, would drive a good amount of economic growth too, since the region is where commercial citrus production in the Confederacy began (although it hasn't exactly thrived with State militiamen trampling through the groves every decade,) and cigar making has been a respectably sized industry there as well, albeit all geared towards export outside the CSA.

Of course, South Florida's main imports these days are pretty much food, tobacco, liquor, trucks, farm equipment and ammunition.

OOC: Yeah, without Flagler et al, South Florida remained the ass-end of nowhere for the CSA. Following the taxes imposed to pay off the crop re-insurance debts, and the imposition of more oppressive racial policies on a very diverse area long used to minding it's own business, it created the conditions for South Florida to spontaneously develop a ongoing popular insurgency, when paired with the revolutionary cycle in Cuba. The CSA as a whole hasn't gotten involved in it, preferring leaving it to Tallahassee to deal with.
It isn't a pretty state of affairs at all, and it's been flaring up in spurts since the thirties.
 
I'm sorry this is complete ASB. The USA is well on the way to being an economic dwarf in the event of an independent CSA. If anything the reversal of your supposition is more likely than what you have posted. Much more likely is significant domination of both economies by the British and Europeans. If you want to poist this, I suggest you present an argument as to how it would come about.

OOC: In which universe are you from? In this one the US by the time of the ACW was either the second or third largest industrial economy in the world and almost all of it was in the North. The North produced steel, paper, books, railroad equipment, flour, furniture etc. while the South produced cotton and tobbacco. That is about all it produced. Even its clothing and cigars came from the North. Lowell, Mass spun much more cotton than the entire South combined!
 
With the battles of the Civil war being as close as they were a POD in 1830 or so, a close retreat for the Confederates could turn to a route for the North. Providing rail transportation based in New Orleans north to Nashville and West to Texas would add much to the military preparedness of the South.


OOC: How big do you think New Orleans could get? Even if New Orleans doubled in size it would be small part of the CSA economy as a whole. You would need several cities to grow in size or have several new cities to have that much of an impact for the Southern economy. New Orleans couldn't do all the heavy lifting by itself.
 
That, earlier mosquito-control measures by the states, and *Birmingham being developed much sooner would drive a lot of growth in the southern economy.
That, and you had whole parts of the gulf-coast burning perfectly good timber, and pines that could've produced plenty of turpentine (a rather useful solvent,) to produce more upland cotton, right up to the blight, thanks to that Crop insurance program the planters forced on a good many of the state governments.
That little bit of stupid wrecked the Confederate economy pretty severely, and for a good few years, drove an explosion in the price of extra-long staple cotton, (which was always more valuable to begin with, and resistant to the blight.) Hilariously, that actually led to ELS Cotton leading production again in the 1900s, despite having been only ~10% of Confederate cotton production five years before the blight, thanks to Florida and West Texas cotton planters switching over en masse durring the blight.
OOC: These things might have helped the South but not enough to be competitive with the North. The South was simply too far behind.
I doubt any Southern state would have crop insurance. All the Southern states were flat broke by the end of the war. The CSA government itself was in debt to the tune of 200% of GDP and the Southern states were mostly just as bad or worse. I reduced it to 175% as they actually won the war in TTL and so are likely better off. Even with the reduction the CSA will be on a debt treadmill for a couple of generations.
 

NothingNow

Banned
OOC: How big do you think New Orleans could get? Even if New Orleans doubled in size it would be small part of the CSA economy as a whole. You would need several cities to grow in size or have several new cities to have that much of an impact for the Southern economy. New Orleans couldn't do all the heavy lifting by itself.

OOC:You're seriously underestimating New Orleans' actual potential here buddy. We've established it as a major financial and commercial center for the CSA, as it traditionally was for the Antebellum US. It's also one of the few Southern Cities that attracted immigrants before the ACW and post war would continue thriving on the river trade, and the import/export business.

It won't save the CSA, but it can sure as hell be a leading city in it.

OOC: These things might have helped the South but not enough to be competitive with the North. The South was simply too far behind.
No shit sherlock. They're fucked, but it's a DBWI. A bit of overoptimistic numbers work isn't at all unusual.

I doubt any Southern state would have crop insurance.
Of course not. The only reason they had it ITTL was because the planters in several states decided it'd be a great way to cover their own asses, and pretty much either forced it through, or bought enough votes to make it work. It's not at all unusual to see that level of corruption in an oligarchic nation. Only difference is the timing, with the programs being rolled out right as the debt becomes manageable, and the cotton blight is right over the horizon.
 
OOC:You're seriously underestimating New Orleans' actual potential here buddy. We've established it as a major financial and commercial center for the CSA, as it traditionally was for the Antebellum US. It's also one of the few Southern Cities that attracted immigrants before the ACW and post war would continue thriving on the river trade, and the import/export business.

It won't save the CSA, but it can sure as hell be a leading city in it.


No shit sherlock. They're fucked, but it's a DBWI. A bit of overoptimistic numbers work isn't at all unusual.


Of course not. The only reason they had it ITTL was because the planters in several states decided it'd be a great way to cover their own asses, and pretty much either forced it through, or bought enough votes to make it work. It's not at all unusual to see that level of corruption in an oligarchic nation. Only difference is the timing, with the programs being rolled out right as the debt becomes manageable, and the cotton blight is right over the horizon.

OK, agreed as New Orleans quite likely to be a leading city in the CSA and could well wind up being the "New York" of the CSA in the sense of being the largest city and most important financial center, albiet at the fraction of its size.

OK, we are agreed that the South is too far behind the North to catch up but the right policies might help the CSA grow considerably larger than otherwise.

I see, the planters take advantage of a temporary situation where the CSA finances are finally getting into decent shape. Yeah, I can see that.
 
I think that if WWI could somehow be avoided the US wouldn't gobble up all the CSA property the French and Brits were forced to sell when they went after each other.

OOC:In this alt WWI GB, Germany and Italy fought France, A-H, Russia and the Ottoman Empire. The US stayed neutral selling arms to all.


The CSA might have been with the Triple Entente and the USA might have been with the Central powers if They weren't getting along then. I think the CSA would be in the Entente since a lot of Their trade was with Great Britain.
 
The CSA might have been with the Triple Entente and the USA might have been with the Central powers if They weren't getting along then. I think the CSA would be in the Entente since a lot of Their trade was with Great Britain.

In this alt-WWI there is no Entente or Central powers. Because of butterflies I changed the sides. GB is allied with Germany and Italy. France is allied with AH, Russia and the Ottoman Empire. Neither the US or the CS is sure which side will win so they stay out of it. GB, Germany and Italy eventually win. Russia has a different Communist Revolution which falls apart after WWII which has different sides as well. Maybe Russia, A-H which isnt broken up after the alt-WWI, China and Italy vs GB, US, and Japan .
 
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