How long would an independant CSA have lasted?

Dialga

Banned
How *could* one possibly have slavery exist in a modern, industrial nation to the present day? Once you have industrialization and mechanization, you really don't *need* slave labor.

Sooner or later, those parts of the CSA's constitution that call for the perpetuation of slavery will be expunged.
 
I would tend to agree on this point, slavery was of paramount importance to the CSA and I dont see any reason it wouldn't be sustained (barring re-conquest by the union). As for Brazil retaining it youll need to have the monarchy overthrown earlier, the royals were anti-slavery, but in Europe's case I dont see them re-introducing it, leaves a poor image of themselves vis-a-vi other Europeans.


They would have had to end slavery by 1900. Any state that still had slavery by then would have been completely isolated from all the major powers, who would have refused to deal with such a "backward and uncivilized" people. While they might have diversified a bit their economy would still rely heavily on exports of cotton to Europe, who would refuse to deal with any nation they considered barbaric.
 
Though the CSA as a whole may not abolish slavery, I can see states such as Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee abolish it sometime in the mid-to-late 1800s, and this may cause the CSA to break up as the Northern states rejoin the USA. Texas also breaks off(or tries to, at least) after oil is discovered, rather than get burdened with trying to keep the Confederate economy afloat. A rump CSA consisting of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina may continue to exist to the present day.
 
The OP posits a POD of 1864. By that time, the Confederates had been run out of Arizona and could kiss goodbye any chance of getting Kentucky and Missouri. Indeed, they might be deprived of Tennessee in any 1864 scenario.

EDIT: Of course, this is assuming that the front lines ITTL are more or less where they were IOTL at the beginning of 1864.

If the scenario is anything like ours in 1864, the South loses a lot more than that even if Lincoln loses the election and negotiated peace follows. The Union Army controls the entire Mississippi River and much of the territory around it. Any peace conference probably takes that in effect with multiple states remaining in the Union, dividing the Confederacy. Besides Tennessee, the Confederacy likely loses Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi and perhaps part or all of Alabama by the time the treaty is signed. Even victories in Atlanta and Virginia by 1864 can't hide most of the western Confederacy has been lost.

If so, Texas is completely cut off from the other states and probably becomes independent at some point.
 
They would have had to end slavery by 1900. Any state that still had slavery by then would have been completely isolated from all the major powers, who would have refused to deal with such a "backward and uncivilized" people. While they might have diversified a bit their economy would still rely heavily on exports of cotton to Europe, who would refuse to deal with any nation they considered barbaric.

I'm not sure thats entirely true, leaders like Napoleon III wanted to help the Confederacy and its slavery simply due to cotton shortages. Sure the nation might be seen as "backward and uncivilized" but I doubt states would shun them from diplomatic exchanges because of it, heck there are some states today that could certainly be considered barbaric but are still dealt with by so called civilized nations.
 

katchen

Banned
If the scenario is anything like ours in 1864, the South loses a lot more than that even if Lincoln loses the election and negotiated peace follows. The Union Army controls the entire Mississippi River and much of the territory around it. Any peace conference probably takes that in effect with multiple states remaining in the Union, dividing the Confederacy. Besides Tennessee, the Confederacy likely loses Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi and perhaps part or all of Alabama by the time the treaty is signed. Even victories in Atlanta and Virginia by 1864 can't hide most of the western Confederacy has been lost.

If so, Texas is completely cut off from the other states and probably becomes independent at some point.
Arkansas south of the Arkansas Valley and west of the Mississippi and Louisiana west of the Missisisippi Valley remained in Confederate hands until the end of the War and would likely have become part of an independent Texas rather than be reincorporated into the Union. The Union would very likely be left with only the Mississippi River Corridor to New Orleans as part of a peace settlement.
 
The question for me would be what happens in the west. Does the CSA get to keep its Arizona Territory?

No.

What about the Indian Territory?

No.

And Missouri and Kentucky?

No.

The CSA military really had no significant logistic capability to move far afield. They were not going to California. They were not going to be striking into vast thinly populated territories where the institution of slavery had no real opportunity.


The big question is Latin America - I can see the CSA being a hotbed of fillibusterers and adventurers and the chances of it getting drawn into some dispute between Panama and the Rio Grande is very high.

I don't think either the British or the Union will be tolerant of filibusters from the CSA. The history of filibusters OTL is pretty crap anyway. The notion of Confederate Slaver Imperialists being able to successfully displace local governments and take over is ... farfetched. Among other issues, fierce local opposition, British and American opposition, lack of money and resources from the Confederacy, and lack of power projection capability by the Confederacy.

Frankly, I don't see the Confederacy making significant gains anywhere in Latin America. I don't even see them successfully winning a war with Spain over Cuba.

The most likely outcome for the long term future of the Confederacy is the likely departure of Texas and Louisiana as cultural and economic outliers. Florida might possibly leave to go its own way, that's iffy. Some of the border states might rejoin the Union.

I do see some long term prospect for the Confederacy in its reduced form as a core of nine or ten mostly Atlantic or Gulf Coast states. Backwards, ignorant, violent and underdeveloped, but carrying on as a nation.
 
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I think this is where most of the counterfactual books, like Ransom's and Tsouras's, that deal with Confederate independence go soft and squishy. They always end with the Confederacy rejoining the Union, either willingly or at the point of a bayonet.

I vehemently disagree. The failure of the rebellion sparked what we would call anti-government terrorist movements (i.e. the KKK and such) and anti-government banditry (i.e. the James Brothers and such), and that was before the CSA was truly established in any meaningful way, and keeping in mind that as much as 1/3 of the white population of the country actively opposed the rebellion in the first place. It left bitter legacy of resentment and polarization that lasts to this very day.

Those attitudes, comparatively weak as they were in 1865, would only have hardened into cement by, say 1920 or whatever. Imagine the guerrillas that would spring out of that...

Say Lincoln had lost reelection and the new administration negotiated a piece deal with the Confederate States Of America recognizing them as an independent nation. How long could have this new nation stayed together? Would they really have been able to make a viable economy almost solely of selling cotton to Europe? How long would this economy be viable? How would they have dealt with their lack of manufacturing and supply problems that were so common during the war? Would the country have had anything to hold them together after the ending of slavery at the most 40 years later? If the CSA did break up would the individual states become small countries like Europe or would the Union have tried to annex them back in?
 
They would have had to end slavery by 1900. Any state that still had slavery by then would have been completely isolated from all the major powers, who would have refused to deal with such a "backward and uncivilized" people. While they might have diversified a bit their economy would still rely heavily on exports of cotton to Europe, who would refuse to deal with any nation they considered barbaric.

Yes. The Confederacy could have very easily moved from a system of outright chattel slavery, to a system of essentially serfdom and second-class citizenship for blacks, without much trouble if it was done later than the first few decades of the CSA's existence. The key part would be that for the planter elite, virtually nothing would change. Blacks would work on the same plantations they worked on as slaves. They would make virtually nothing in wages. They would be treated as less than second-class citizens and would have zero political power. They would have restrictions on their movement and what they could do. They would get no education.
The Confederate elite would be happy to accept slavery by another name if it would benefit them by taking international pressure off, in my opinion.

I can see the Confederacy existing as a very poor and backward state indefinitely. I don't think the US would be keen to try and re-annex them once the separation was complete.
 
Yes. The Confederacy could have very easily moved from a system of outright chattel slavery, to a system of essentially serfdom and second-class citizenship for blacks, without much trouble if it was done later than the first few decades of the CSA's existence. The key part would be that for the planter elite, virtually nothing would change. Blacks would work on the same plantations they worked on as slaves. They would make virtually nothing in wages. They would be treated as less than second-class citizens and would have zero political power. They would have restrictions on their movement and what they could do. They would get no education.
The Confederate elite would be happy to accept slavery by another name if it would benefit them by taking international pressure off, in my opinion.

Well, except that slaves were valuable property and securitable assets. A slave was worth money, could be bought and sold. I suppose the question is how willing were elites to surrender that asset without compensation?

I only see the situation coming about if and when slaves become valueless.
 
You are missing one huge factor, namely that slave ownership represented a capital investment. In fact, it represented an enormous capital investment. Some studies indicate that the 1860 value of the South's slaves exceeded what would have been the GDP for the entire United States of America.

As I've observed elsewhere, the cotton economy of the South was headed for a fall whatever happened... because that did in fact happen due to events that had nothing to do with the Civil War whatsoever. For an independent South, the decline in value of land and slaves doesn't help make it cheaper for the state to buy the planters out of slavery with bonds, because the economy as a whole would be in a depression anyway.

Basically, it would have been a Deep South 1880s version of the Fiscal Crisis of 2008 bank bailouts.


Yes. The Confederacy could have very easily moved from a system of outright chattel slavery, to a system of essentially serfdom and second-class citizenship for blacks, without much trouble if it was done later than the first few decades of the CSA's existence.
 
should it survive it would eventually end slavery just due to its attempt to survive in the world. It will be difficult when people turn from simply not caring to issuing embargoes, etc. to not do so. So, how late is open to preference, no matter how misguided it may be, but all states would eventually get rid of it, and this would be well before 1920.

Now, how long it would last depends on how the US fares without the southern states, as they do have their major perks. As also affecting this situation is any other states (Utah, etc.) that may get ideas in the event that the South is successful in their ventures. So, it is important to view how the world reacts outside, to judge the inside in this CSA.

Secondly, it heavily depends on leadership. If they have a string of Jefferson Davis's, they'll be gone by 1920. If we have a string of very strong leaders.... it could last a lot longer.

simply saying it would crumble quickly, "cause slavery" is not only short sided, it is not a very good assessment. In short, its hard to tell as well..... it's all guess work to what would occur. But..... most would just like to say roughly 30 years.... But I tend to think in a longer perspective.
 
More than a few mainstream historians are on record as believing that Confederate independence would have bolstered slave regimes elsewhere, and retarded the spread of liberal democracy in the West generally. Basically, progress towards an end to chattel slavery and to one man, one vote government would have been set back for at least a generation.

It's not unreasonable to think that. There are plenty of examples. Hell, Europe itself spent the 1850s in deep reactionism, and the British parliamentary faction that supported the South was the most bent on turning back the clock on British democracy.

Furthermore, embargoes and the like simply were not a tactic used to enforce morality in the 19th Century. They don't even figure into this calculation. The single largest force dictating an end to slavery in an independent CSA is economic, not moral or political.

So "the inevitable end of slavery" might mean sometime in the 20th Century, not the 19th.

The one thing I would point out -- and this is where Turtledove totally blows it -- is that even if the UK helped the South win its independence, that would not necessarily make them close allies. The British were profoundly anti-slavery, even among the Tory anti-democrats, and their foreign policy was based on the idea of playing balancer and avoiding permanent alliances with anyone. The idea they would form an enduring alliance with the CSA is simply ludicrous.

should it survive it would eventually end slavery just due to its attempt to survive in the world. It will be difficult when people turn from simply not caring to issuing embargoes, etc. to not do so. So, how late is open to preference, no matter how misguided it may be, but all states would eventually get rid of it, and this would be well before 1920.

Now, how long it would last depends on how the US fares without the southern states, as they do have their major perks. As also affecting this situation is any other states (Utah, etc.) that may get ideas in the event that the South is successful in their ventures. So, it is important to view how the world reacts outside, to judge the inside in this CSA.

Secondly, it heavily depends on leadership. If they have a string of Jefferson Davis's, they'll be gone by 1920. If we have a string of very strong leaders.... it could last a lot longer.

simply saying it would crumble quickly, "cause slavery" is not only short sided, it is not a very good assessment. In short, its hard to tell as well..... it's all guess work to what would occur. But..... most would just like to say roughly 30 years.... But I tend to think in a longer perspective.
 

katchen

Banned
Indeed. It would take something like very strong trade unions building walls against CSA cotton and textiles to make CSA slavery uneconomical. Wharfies and longshoremen refusing to unload ships bringing in CSA cargo , teamsters refusing to handle CSA cargo, textile workers refusing to make garments out of CSA textiles and nobody losing their jobs over it. That sort of thing. Which was starting to be possible in Europe after WWI.
An analog to that would be the sanctions against South Africa that finally forced the DeKlerk Government to dismantle Apartheid. The political and economic environent of the1990s was sufficiently organized and disciplined (and prices of gold and platinum sufficiently low) to where sanctions had enough of an impact to move the South African business community to support an end to apartheid.
Had they held out even ten more years let alone to the present day, that never would have happened. Gold and platinum shot through the roof and China engaged in a policy of doing business with any nation no matter how reprehensible it's domestic policy. International discipline broke down. If apartheid had held out until 2005 it probably would still be going strong today. :(
 
Furthermore I can see a great many scenarios where it ... by diligent diplomacy manages to get Brazil to retain it and at least one European nation to introduce it in its African colonies.
I would like to hear this thought described in greater depth. Which country? Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Leopold/Belgium, Italy? Through what diplomatic means? When?

E:
How *could* one possibly have slavery exist in a modern, industrial nation to the present day? Once you have industrialization and mechanization, you really don't *need* slave labor.
There are more slaves today than at any time in history, about 27 million globally. And they're in America, too - somewhere between 17,000 and 50,000 people are trafficked here annually. Farmworkers, domestics, and sex slaves, as ever, with the modern innovation of sweatshops.
In 1995, two major scandals made headlines, one at home, the other offshore. On August 2, police raided an El Monte, California apartment complex in which 72 undocumented Thai immigrants were kept in forced bondage behind razor wire and a chain link fence. They'd been there for up to 17 years sewing clothes for some of the nation's top manufacturers and retailers.

They were housed in crowded, squalid quarters. Armed guards imposed discipline, pressuring and intimidating them to work every day, around 84 hours a week for 70 cents an hour. Workers were forced to work, eat, sleep, and live in captivity. No unmonitored phone calls or uncensored letters were allowed, and everything bought came only from their captors at highly inflated prices. Seven operators were arrested and later convicted of conspiracy, kidnapping, involuntary servitude, smuggling, and harboring illegal immigrants.
Shit like that.

http://www.spnyc.org/fairfoodnyc/pdf/oxfam2006report.pdf
Indeed. It would take something like very strong trade unions building walls against CSA cotton and textiles to make CSA slavery uneconomical. Wharfies and longshoremen refusing to unload ships bringing in CSA cargo , teamsters refusing to handle CSA cargo, textile workers refusing to make garments out of CSA textiles and nobody losing their jobs over it. That sort of thing.
But why would they do that?
 
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Arkansas south of the Arkansas Valley and west of the Mississippi and Louisiana west of the Missisisippi Valley remained in Confederate hands until the end of the War and would likely have become part of an independent Texas rather than be reincorporated into the Union. The Union would very likely be left with only the Mississippi River Corridor to New Orleans as part of a peace settlement.

There are certainly large areas of those states not occupied by Union troops, but then again operations in the west were not a priority in 1864. However, in a situation where stalemate in the east leads to a peace negotiation, Union strategy changes from focusing on the east to focusing on the west to get the best deal in any peace conference.

In other words, the front lines IOTL 1864 won't necessarily be the front lines at the end of any completed peace negotiations in 1865 or 1866. President McClellan after all won't be initiating peace negotiations immediately. He intends to try to win the war first.

That means while enough forces are kept in Virginia and Georgia to hold Confederate forces there, reinforcements are sent to the west to expand union control in those states already in partial union hands. Besides troops, more competent generals will likely be sent as well. You may get General George Thomas instead of Nathanial Banks.

You could very well be right that significant portions of Lousiana and Arkansas might remain in rebel hands. However, I think there will be much more Union control there than just a thin corridor to New Orleans. How much control is something reasonable people can disagree over.
 
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