Chapter 1 - Treaty of Paris (1867)
(Flag of the Confederate States of America, 1867) [1]
Chapter 0 Here
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Chapter 1 Below:
"Treaty of Paris (1867)"
...Confederate negotiators largely failed to accomplish most of their goals. American negotiators refused to budge on any major territorial concessions, including Confederate claims on Arizona, Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, and even the new American state of West Virginia. The only Confederate negotiating victory came on accident - American negotiators agreed to "popular sovereignty" in the Indian territories, having not been informed of several now-infamously brutal massacres of Native Americans that pushed even many previously pro-Union tribes towards opting for the Confederacy. The parties agreed to respect these borders in perpetuity, a pledge that has been kept so far despite universal skepticism at the time.
Unbeknownst to most observers at the time, more painful than any of the territorial concessions was the agreement of the Confederacy to assume its share of the pre-1861 national debts of the United States - as proportioned by population. American negotiators famously laughed in the face of Confederate negotiators who claimed it unfair when their American counterparts suggested counting slaves as "3/5ths" of a citizen for purposes of debt apportionment. Worst of all for the CSA was that the debt was denominated in US dollars, not the nearly useless Confederate dollar. Confederate inability to pay such debts, as small as they were by American standards (the 1867 debt of the USA was $4 billion, while the CSA share of 1861 debt came out to under $40 million), would eventually prove disastrous to its political class.
One 20th century Marxist Southron politician joked about what he called the "dual ironies of 1867" - first, how the assassination of pro-war President McClellan by an abolitionist radical famously elevated a pro-peace politician in the White House.[2] Second, in their quest for power, Slave Power bankrupted the new nation and sent nearly 400,000 Southrons to their graves, ensuring American economic dominance of the nascent Confederacy.[3] He lamented that "if not for the First Revolution, we would have at least gotten to vote on the terms of our subordination."
Modern historians largely have rehabilitated once-reviled Confederate diplomats, pointing to the weak bargaining position of the CSA. Although the Tennessee front went horribly for the Americans, Richmond and its ironworks were lost. Though CSA troops successfully escaped Vicksburg, the Mississippi was lost.[4] Confederate troops hadn't ventured onto American territory since the unsuccessful 1862 Maryland campaign (though historical documentation strongly suggests General Lee would have mounted a similar campaign in Pennsylvania if not for his death by friendly fire at Chancellorsville).[5] The economy was in shambles and much of Europe had easily adjusted to the loss of Dixie cotton. Ironically, the primary destination of cotton would soon be to textile mills...in America.
Despite the lack of any better options, the Treaty of Paris triggered revulsion among the Confederate public elite. President Davis was famously unable to get the Confederate Senate to ratify the treaty and was forced to pass the terms as a bill in Congress (with simple majorities). With some angered at his autocratic violation of state rights throughout the war and others screeching at this "betrayal", the upcoming 1867 elections would prove to be an ordeal for the new nation.
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[1] The OTL CSA adopted the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia into its national flag because of the national prestige of R.E. Lee. But here, Lee is dead, and the ANV is not the most successful CSA army, so that doesn't happen.
[2] McClellan was pro-war, but his VP, Pendleton, was not.
[3] A longer war means higher casualties, on both sides. And IIRC, the OTL CSA was already scrapping the bottom of the barrel, so this hurts going forward.
[4] No Vicksburg surrender means more CSA fighting power, which means the CSA can last longer in various meat grinders.
[5] This butterflies out Gettysburg. Not blowing manpower in Gettysburg also delays the collapse of the Army of Northern Virginia.
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FOREWORD (probably tl;dr)
Hi. I've lurked a lot and read lots of good TLs, so I decided to try my own hand at something! It's basically my first timeline, so uh, good luck me.
Oh no, another cliche US Civil War timeline? Well, maybe? To make it worse, I really don't know much about military history of the US Civil War itself (or really any military history at all). My knowledge of the U.S. South largely starts in 1865 (and peaks with the Civil Rights Movement). What I have studied is developmental economics and to a lesser extent, African-American studies. On this subject, I'm a huge fan of C. Vann Woodward's books on Jim Crow, John W. Cell's The Highest Form of White Supremacy, a fantastic comparison/contrast of Jim Crow and South Africa, and obviously anything written by W.E.B. DuBois. I was also interested by the discussion of the US South in Why Nations Fail (as an example of an extractive oligarchy created by fundamentally broken political institutions).
So the focus is far less on Civil War villainy/heroics, and more on the social and political development of the CSA in the context of a wider world. What I don't plan on is a CSAwank (I obviously have no sympathy towards the Dunning School/Lost Cause) nor a CSA dystopian hatesink (I remember someone making a good point about a sort of US narcissism where people with regional prejudices grind jump straight into polemics because they think their history created the most heroic/evil people ever). The CSA almost certainly ends up a significantly worse place than the OTL US South and probably OTL Mexico...but things get better...eventually. As the title strongly implies...the CSA...sort-of-muddles-through. So here we go with my first post.
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