Help with Confederate/Union split, but no Civil War.

Thinking of a scenario where the United States was divided, but there wasn't a war. A resolution which kicked-out all states who failed to free slaves by January 1, 1860 (or insert alt date). Thus the Emancipation Proclamation in this case carries a different meaning.

Would the number of states (given the ultimatum of freeing slaves) equal that of those who actually seceeded?

Where would the border states likely end up?

How does Texas react in this situation?

What is the impact on both nations with the split, but without the bloodshed?

What are the international implications for both countries?

How does this effect expansion and settlements of western territories?

Thanks in advance!
 
This is even more improbable then your "Nazi Germany invades the USA" thread. Actually, this is beyond improbable. The chances of such legislation even being introduced in Congress pre-Civil War is somewhere between ZERO and ZILCH. Proposing such a resolution would have severe health risks attached to it as well. Speculating on what would happen if such a resolution were adopted is pointless because w/o the direct intervention of an abolitionist alien space bat, it's not going to happen.
 
President William Lloyd Garrison perhaps?

Otherwise this is really an implausible event.

Even having the South leave without there being war is very unlikely. Pretty much everyone knew since 1832 that any attempt at secession would lead to war. Avoiding war would take a President backed by a political party that was willing to commit political suicide in the North just to make a point. Even then there's a good chance said President is impeached and war occurs anyway.

Benjamin
 
There were groups in the North that did feel that the South should be allowed to go their own way, so your WI is not ASB. A few editorials did appear in Northern newspapers from what I recall.
 
What about the 13th Amendment being proposed in 1860?

I don't see it getting through the Senate with 2/3 votes (the House may have been possible with a sizable Republican majority). However, though not ever used, an amendment can be proposed by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures.

For = CA, CT, IA, IL, IN, MA, ME, MI, MN, NE, NJ, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, VT, WI

Against = AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, NC, MS, SC, TN, TX, VA

Border States = DE, KY, MD, MO

Without the border states, the tally is at 62%. With all four the number is 66.67% exactly the number needed. This means everything would be thrown into influencing each of the border state's decisions. This seems like it could be very interesting.

However it still would need to be ratified by three-fourths of states. And that would be an issue.

Perhaps something similar to Britain's 1833 emancipation bill occurs with a provision which allows the planters to be heavily compensated, and slaves on the plantations for until February 1, 1865 (a total of five years).
 
For a non war secession you have got to keep Lincoln out of the White House if not out of the presidential election. He was about as popular with the south as Obama would be in a Tea Party. The catch is that he would out orate his opinion, or for that matter today's politicians.
 
A split without a civil war would have been difficult, but based on several pretty good (and not at all pro-southern) histories of the ACW, it wouldn't have been totally impossible. Up until Fort Sumter, the north, and especially the border states, were very divided as to a response to the secession crisis, with a substantial body of opinion in favor of "Let the wayward sisters go." There was also a very understandable reluctance to support a policy that led to shooting at American kids who happened to reside in a different state. A unified northern response in favor of war pretty much required that the south fire the first shot, or at least make the first overt act of war.

That being said, the border states, including Virginia and North Carolina, almost certainly would not have seceded in the absence of a war. The resulting Confederacy would have been even more non-viable economically than the historic Confederacy was, since most of what little industry the south had was in Virginia.
 
The best POD for a "South Secedes Without War" scenario would probably be that a less able commander be put in charge of the federal garrison that ended up at Fort Sumter. If the garrison had remained in the mainland fort rather than moving to the much more defensible (and easier to reach from the sea) Fort Sumter, and under a less than determined commander, the situation of the garrison would have been obviously and completely hopeless, and I could see a commander surrendering without a fight rather than getting his men massacred.

That would have still left a federal base in Florida as a potential flashpoint, but it wasn't in the middle of a major port in a state that more than most of the rest of the Confederacy appears to have been very willing to go to war.
 
The Confederacy that resulted from a non-War secession would have been essentially a banana republic, with a huge gap between rich and poor, essentially no industry, and almost totally dependent on cotton as a cash crop. It would not have industrialized, at least not as long as cotton was king, because the southern elite wanted cheap imported goods and opposed tariffs--a policy that would have made it impossible for infant southern factories to compete with well-established ones in the north and in Europe.

Since cotton is a potent soil destroyer, I suspect that the resulting Confederacy would get poorer and poorer, with the already small white middle class shrinking further, and poorer whites being forced to immigrate to the more prosperous north. As southern soil got destroyed, eventually plantation owners would descend into poverty too, starting in the east and spreading west. As southern whites left to find jobs, the population of the Confederacy would gradually have a higher and higher percentage of slaves, many of them considered surplus as the cotton economy shrunk.

I'm not sure where it goes from there, but this would almost certainly not end well for the deep south states. They would end up even poorer than they did historically, with a higher percentage of deliberately uneducated African-Americans, essentially no middle class, and highly wedded socially and politically to an increasingly non-viable cash crop.
 
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