Dixieland: The Country of Tomorrow, Everyday (yet another Confederate TL)

[Chris Triangle]

IMO Stanford was not really as passionate about anti-Chinese politics as he seemed, he just knew it was what worked politically. That's not to say he wasnt anti-immigration or disagreed with the platform but I mean, come on, the guy hired Chinese laborers for his company and it worked out well for him so it's hard to believe he personally considered it at the top of his list of concerns. On the other hand, I think he wouldn't be a big fan of organized labor. Railroad men generally didn't like strikes. He'd probably be willing to stoke xenophobia if it helped him distance himself from populist stuff like that. But on another note, the alternative course of his life might butterfly away the establishment of Stanford University. Maybe even Silicon Valley?

Oh hey, with these riots in SF are we gonna get a mention of Emperor Norton here?

 

[TastySpam]

IMO Stanford was not really as passionate about anti-Chinese politics as he seemed, he just knew it was what worked politically. That's not to say he wasnt anti-immigration or disagreed with the platform but I mean, come on, the guy hired Chinese laborers for his company and it worked out well for him so it's hard to believe he personally considered it at the top of his list of concerns. On the other hand, I think he wouldn't be a big fan of organized labor. Railroad men generally didn't like strikes. He'd probably be willing to stoke xenophobia if it helped him distance himself from populist stuff like that. But on another note, the alternative course of his life might butterfly away the establishment of Stanford University. Maybe even Silicon Valley?

Oh hey, with these riots in SF are we gonna get a mention of Emperor Norton here?

Yeah, you're 100% right about that. I was thinking about doing a minor update on Stanford. Basically, he's really just an opportunist who doesn't really believe in the cause and figures by heading it, he can actually stop most of their most aggressive reforms. This makes 1884 turn out very interestingly...

 

[TastySpam]

Well as messed up as the CSA is your USA appears to be tracking a close but more SOBER path the the madness verse Rupublican Union/New USA. Great story keep it up

Yeah tbqf, I'm not really into dystopias that much. The USA isn't anywhere near a dystopia right now. It's certainly worse on the anti-Catholicism front, but Mexico and Cuba are also a somewhat nicer place than OTL, so that's probably a net neutral for New World Catholics. Lots of descriptions of really terrible things make people think dystopia, but the real world also has lots of terrible things. Like the ITL Congo Free State was bad...but it ended mercifully a lot earlier than the OTL Congo Free State, so that's probably a genuine improvement.

The place that's genuinely a lot worse off right now though is most of Central America. The United Provinces are a real piece of work.

That being said, positive and negative trends in a country compared to OTL are not guaranteed to last.

Oh hey, with these riots in SF are we gonna get a mention of Emperor Norton here?

Honestly, he was probably murdered while standing up against the rioters. Which I guess makes him even more famous.

 

[DAv]

Oof, not good for Catholics at all at this point in time. Seems like the entire thing could be the major wedge to drive between different nations completely and is only getting worse. I feel the turn of the century is going to be really unpleasant at this point in some ways. Still, there are better things as you say at least, so hopefully it'll balance out.

 

[Tanner151]

The alt-WW1 here could have both sides have represented by Catholicism/Orthodoxy versus Protestantism. Maybe not the focus but since nations here are being aligned heavily due to religion this could have a major effect on political alliances in a few decades.

 

[Alpha-King98760]

I wonder how Orthodox and Jewish immigration will effect the CSA?

 

[Fiver]

Realizing that both of the two candidates supported the Supreme Court and that both of the two candidates were opposed to a federal Chinese Exclusion Act (which was probably still constitutional under the current precedent due to the plenary power doctrine, but who knows), angry Westerners and labor organizers mobilized into what they believed could be a third force in US politics. The "Anti-Oriental Movement" was organized throughout the Western United States. At their first nominating convention, Senator Leland Stanford of California and Senator Sylvester Pennoyer of Oregon were chosen as their presidential and vice-presidential candidates. The Anti-Oriental Party had a platform of expelling all Chinese from the USA, "exterminating all uncooperative Indian tribes", promoting organized labor, free silver, repealing the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, and instituting maximum workweeks, minimum wages, a ban on child labor, and other economic regulations. They also snuck in a platform plank about outlawing freemasons in hopes to drawing anyone who was old enough to remember the Anti-Masonic Party.

Leland Stanford was a freemason., so the AOP needs a different candidate or no anti-mason plank.

 

[Fiver]

Most states banned funding to Catholic Schools and prohibited any educational instruction in a non-English language.

The last point is going to go over very poorly with German-Americans, who believed strongly in public education and tended to live in primarily German towns and neighborhoods where their schools were often taught in German. The German-Americans were mainly Protestants and probably strongest in the Midwest.

 

[LuckyLuciano]

Leland Stanford was a freemason., so the AOP needs a different candidate or no anti-mason plank.

William Wirt was also a freemason (and as TastySpam points out Stanford was also an opportunist)

 

[Chris Triangle]

William Wirt was also a freemason (and as TastySpam points out Stanford was also an opportunist)

Don't forget that he had the good fortune to be able to switch parties while already holding a major political office. This helps minimize any issues like the Freemason problem which would have made campaigning from the ground up more difficult. By doing this, the base will rally around you and you can start to take control of your movement without ever having had to campaign.

 

[Chris Triangle]

The last point is going to go over very poorly with German-Americans, who believed strongly in public education and tended to live in primarily German towns and neighborhoods where their schools were often taught in German. The German-Americans were mainly Protestants and probably strongest in the Midwest.

That's one more reason why I think this anti-Catholic fire might just start to slowly burn itself out one day. Anti-catholicism isn't going away anytime soon but this frenzied paranoia might ease up. The anti-alcohol furor though, which looks very much like OTL, has yet to come to a head so... Hmmm.

Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be as much of the prohibitionist sentiment in the Confederate States even though they historically were mostly on board with it and save for Jackson and his community, which was very much dry, there has been no mention of alcohol bans. Could have something to do with the experience of the war. Could have something to do with different religious sentiments in the region ITL (though we have no evidence there are). Perhaps we just haven't heard about it yet? In any case, temperance is a very complex issue that was quite important in this era so I'll leave it to Tastyspam.

 

[Jürgen]

That's one more reason why I think this fire might just start to slowly burn itself out in a generation or so. Anti-catholicism isn't going away anytime soon but this frenzied paranoia might ease up. The anti-alcohol furor though, which looks very much like OTL, has yet to come to a head so... Hmmm.

Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be as much of the prohibitionist sentiment in the Confederate States even though they historically were mostly on board with it and save for Jackson and his community, which was very much dry, there has been no mention of alcohol bans. Could have something to do with the experience of the war. Could have something to do with different religious sentiments in the region ITL (though we have no evidence there are). Perhaps we just haven't heard about it yet? In any case, temperance is a very complex issue that was quite important in this era so I'll leave it to Tastyspam.

Temperance was a common across the Protestant world. Sweden still limit the sale of alcohol to state owned alcohol shops. But it was in general popular movement, not a elite one, a attempt at social engine a more well off working class. The social dominance of planters could lead to them not being interested in that kind of social engineering.

 

[TastySpam]

Don't forget that he had the good fortune to be able to switch parties while already holding a major political office. This helps minimize any issues like the Freemason problem which would have made campaigning from the ground up more difficult. By doing this, the base will rally around you and you can start to take control of your movement without ever having had to campaign.

Politicians are of course, not always that consistent. It's notable that even though Stanford did not win, Anti-Oriental candidates, many of them close friends of Stanford, swept local offices in California.

That's one more reason why I think this anto-Catholic fire might just start to slowly burn itself out one day. Anti-catholicism isn't going away anytime soon but this frenzied paranoia might ease up. The anti-alcohol furor though, which looks very much like OTL, has yet to come to a head so... Hmmm.

Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be as much of the prohibitionist sentiment in the Confederate States even though they historically were mostly on board with it and save for Jackson and his community, which was very much dry, there has been no mention of alcohol bans. Could have something to do with the experience of the war. Could have something to do with different religious sentiments in the region ITL (though we have no evidence there are). Perhaps we just haven't heard about it yet? In any case, temperance is a very complex issue that was quite important in this era so I'll leave it to Tastyspam.

Temperance was a common across the Protestant world. Sweden still limit the sale of alcohol to state owned alcohol shops. But it was in general popular movement, not a elite one, a attempt at social engine a more well off working class. The social dominance of planters could lead to them not being interested in that kind of social engineering.

Canada also had prohibition! It's an issue in the USA - Blaine linked it to immigration. It's not really an issue in the CSA for the simple fact that the CSA is incredibly politically messed up, so it's not a priority right now...

 

[TastySpam]

The last point is going to go over very poorly with German-Americans, who believed strongly in public education and tended to live in primarily German towns and neighborhoods where their schools were often taught in German. The German-Americans were mainly Protestants and probably strongest in the Midwest.

Yes, it's notable that the GOP won Germans in a landslide and then immediately pissed them the hell off. It's part of why the US doesn't ever get a one-party system.

My impression is that everytime, including modern times, a party in America thinks it has a permanent majority, it immediately ****s it up by taking a part of their coalition for granted and telling them to sod off. It's a very bipartisan hubris.

 

[LuckyLuciano]

I have an interesting prediction: seeing as how to CSA has been absolutely devastated by the war with Spain, while Spain is better off than OTL, perhaps TTL World War will have Spain be involved while the Confederacy acts as the neutral power that Spain was ITTL. Perhaps that means we'll see the Confederate Flu of 1918, as they'll be the only ones reporting on it. Some historians even believe that the flu originated in Haskell County Kansas, which is pretty close to the Confederacy.

 

[Stretch]

Um, can anyone make a map of what things look like in the world as of the latest update? Just that it makes it easier to picture the changes.

 

[GOU Limiting Factor]

If liquor smuggling across the Mason-Dixon becomes a problem for the USA, the CSA will have Prohibition in short order, and US 'help' in enforcing it, right down to the county level if need be. Seriously, the Treaty Power was just used to abolish the CSA's raison d'être; if they managed that, extending Prohibition southwards would be a pretty light lift by comparison.

This is, I think, an overlooked aspect of US-CS relations in a lot of timelines and I'm really glad you're exploring it; US soft power is far more dangerous to Confederate institutions and ambitions than the threat of invasion or occupation. Armored divisions don't need to roll south if US financial, cultural, and diplomatic influence can make Richmond into a tractable lapdog without a shot being fired.

 

[Odinson]

If liquor smuggling across the Mason-Dixon becomes a problem for the USA, the CSA will have Prohibition in short order, and US 'help' in enforcing it, right down to the county level if need be. Seriously, the Treaty Power was just used to abolish the CSA's raison d'être; if they managed that, extending Prohibition southwards would be a pretty light lift by comparison.

This is, I think, an overlooked aspect of US-CS relations in a lot of timelines and I'm really glad you're exploring it; US soft power is far more dangerous to Confederate institutions and ambitions than the threat of invasion or occupation. Armored divisions don't need to roll south if US financial, cultural, and diplomatic influence can make Richmond into a tractable lapdog without a shot being fired.

I believe there was a hint of a second revolution somewhere down the line. I'm predicting this is in part fueled by Confederates who want to get their country back, possibly during the upcoming Great War. Maybe even with some Spanish assistance.

 

[GOU Limiting Factor]

I really don't see it mattering, frankly. The United States is just too much of an economic and cultural juggernaut, and about to become more so; around 1900-1910 it's just going to be insuperable to any realistic foe. And it's not like they won't have an army to send south as well; military technology is about to go from relatively cheap to staggeringly expensive, especially things like artillery ammunition in adequate quantities for industrial warfare.

An intransigent CSA could hold off US-backed reform longer, but ultimately it's going to bend if it doesn't want to break, or be broken.

 

[traveller76]

I could see lots of smuggling between the US and CS to avoid tariffs and taxes on things like alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. Some of the Confederate states may be open to these alternate sources of income. The rebuilt New Orleans would probably resume its reputation as a party city also.