A couple of possible scenarios - Does anyone else have any recommendations?
1) Napoleon quits while he's ahead, and France remains the dominant power in western and central Europe throughout the 19th century. Greater economic development and restrictions on emigration lead to far fewer people from the German states going to the US in the early to mid 19th century and far fewer from the Italian states in the later 19th century. (In this scenario, Italy and Germany are never united, and remain divided into a number of states under more-or-less benign French domination. On the other hand, economic development comes sooner and is more evenly spread.) The Potato Famine is "butterflied" out, so there is less immigration from that quarter. Overall, population growth in the non-slave states is lower than in OTL. When the southern states secede, they win because the northern states have fewer men to fight with. On the other hand, the border between the CSA and USA becomes a giant sieve as many slaves risk escaping to the non-slave states where factory jobs are plentiful. The large movement of blacks to industrial cities happens earlier than in OTL. Some former slaves get homesteads in the western US, too, as do some immigrants from Mexico and even South America. Meanwhile, Russia liberalizes more than OTL, Jews and Catholics get most of the same rights as Orthodox, there are no pogroms or "black hundreds", and much less Jewish, Polish, Ukrainian immigration.
RESULT: In 1915, the US population is a mixture of WASPs, blacks, Mexicans and Chinese in California even more than in OTL, and also considerably more people of French/Quebecois descent. Most people in the US of European background are still descended from English or Scottish Protestants. The states of the CSA are in poor economic shape - they have ended slavery or are in the process of gradually doing so, but are just beginning to favor the development of industry.
2) There is a major slave uprising in South Carolina during the 1820s, led by a free black man. Almost all of the slaveholding states pass laws demanding that free blacks leave the state by a certain time or face enslavement. The newly-independent Mexican government offers these free blacks plots of land in their thinly-settled province of Tejas, and thousands move there. When white settlers move into Tejas and revolt, the Mexicans raise free black regiments to help fight them and welcome runaway slaves. The US backs the white settlers and goes to war with Mexico. The fighting in Tejas has the elements of race war. Anti-slavery feeling in the north is inflamed, and ultimately several anti-slavery states secede and form the Union of Free American States (UFAS). When the dust has cleared, the northern part of Tejas becomes Texas, a slaveholding state in the USA. Southern Tejas remains a Mexican province, populated largely by black setters and soldiers. The USA gets most of the territory that it did in OTL 1848, except for the southern part of California. New England, New York, and Michigan are now a separate country. Mexico develops a more stable government than in OTL under Iturbide’s descendants, and evolves into a constitutional monarchy. To counteract the USA, Mexico cultivates close ties with Great Britain and encourages native Mexicans, British, people from UFAS, to settle in southern Tejas and California. Within the USA, there is no Civil War – slave states start to pass graduated emancipation laws in the 1870s as low cotton prices and a steady loss of escaping slaves make slavery increasingly unprofitable.
RESULT: At the end of the 19th century, Mexico is larger and more prosperous, but its northern tier has a very large number of English speaking people, both black and white. Southern Tejas and southern California are considered havens for free blacks for generations – a good place to start over, and a place where the racism is less intense than elsewhere.
1) Napoleon quits while he's ahead, and France remains the dominant power in western and central Europe throughout the 19th century. Greater economic development and restrictions on emigration lead to far fewer people from the German states going to the US in the early to mid 19th century and far fewer from the Italian states in the later 19th century. (In this scenario, Italy and Germany are never united, and remain divided into a number of states under more-or-less benign French domination. On the other hand, economic development comes sooner and is more evenly spread.) The Potato Famine is "butterflied" out, so there is less immigration from that quarter. Overall, population growth in the non-slave states is lower than in OTL. When the southern states secede, they win because the northern states have fewer men to fight with. On the other hand, the border between the CSA and USA becomes a giant sieve as many slaves risk escaping to the non-slave states where factory jobs are plentiful. The large movement of blacks to industrial cities happens earlier than in OTL. Some former slaves get homesteads in the western US, too, as do some immigrants from Mexico and even South America. Meanwhile, Russia liberalizes more than OTL, Jews and Catholics get most of the same rights as Orthodox, there are no pogroms or "black hundreds", and much less Jewish, Polish, Ukrainian immigration.
RESULT: In 1915, the US population is a mixture of WASPs, blacks, Mexicans and Chinese in California even more than in OTL, and also considerably more people of French/Quebecois descent. Most people in the US of European background are still descended from English or Scottish Protestants. The states of the CSA are in poor economic shape - they have ended slavery or are in the process of gradually doing so, but are just beginning to favor the development of industry.
2) There is a major slave uprising in South Carolina during the 1820s, led by a free black man. Almost all of the slaveholding states pass laws demanding that free blacks leave the state by a certain time or face enslavement. The newly-independent Mexican government offers these free blacks plots of land in their thinly-settled province of Tejas, and thousands move there. When white settlers move into Tejas and revolt, the Mexicans raise free black regiments to help fight them and welcome runaway slaves. The US backs the white settlers and goes to war with Mexico. The fighting in Tejas has the elements of race war. Anti-slavery feeling in the north is inflamed, and ultimately several anti-slavery states secede and form the Union of Free American States (UFAS). When the dust has cleared, the northern part of Tejas becomes Texas, a slaveholding state in the USA. Southern Tejas remains a Mexican province, populated largely by black setters and soldiers. The USA gets most of the territory that it did in OTL 1848, except for the southern part of California. New England, New York, and Michigan are now a separate country. Mexico develops a more stable government than in OTL under Iturbide’s descendants, and evolves into a constitutional monarchy. To counteract the USA, Mexico cultivates close ties with Great Britain and encourages native Mexicans, British, people from UFAS, to settle in southern Tejas and California. Within the USA, there is no Civil War – slave states start to pass graduated emancipation laws in the 1870s as low cotton prices and a steady loss of escaping slaves make slavery increasingly unprofitable.
RESULT: At the end of the 19th century, Mexico is larger and more prosperous, but its northern tier has a very large number of English speaking people, both black and white. Southern Tejas and southern California are considered havens for free blacks for generations – a good place to start over, and a place where the racism is less intense than elsewhere.