How socially conservative would a surviving Confederacy be?

If the CSA had won the American Civil War and, thus, survived, how socially conservative would they be? Even today, the South is known for being more religious and socially conservative than most of the USA. So, in surviving CSA, would divorce, contraception, abortion and gay sex, still, be illegal, today?
 
If the CSA had won the American Civil War and, thus, survived, how socially conservative would they be? Even today, the South is known for being more religious and socially conservative than most of the USA. So, in surviving CSA, would divorce, contraception, abortion and gay sex, still, be illegal, today?

I think it would depend on the next 160 years of history and what the South experienced. But remember, the South is also the birthplace of Rock, Jazz, Country (which wasn't always socially conservative) and folk.

The CSA would not have the lost cause mythology and less of a regional us vs them attitudes, meaning much of what made the otl old South conservative might not be as strong. This would mean class and race tensions which could create a simular culture, or eventually flip and create a bit of a cultural revolution.

The affects of Southern music, cuisine, and literature being seen as "forgein" could also have some interesting knock off effects on Northern and other cultures. Do an ATL "Beatles" start playing "Confederate music" and how is it seen?

Basically, there are too many variables for and easy answer. How hostile is the rest of the world, especially the USA, to the CSA and for how long? How rich is the CSA? How long do they hold onto slavery and what are race relations like? How easily does, say an ATL "Elvis" (among others) have combineing black and white cultural influences?

The answer is "whatever you decide and can sell" but these are the things to think about.
 
Basically there are too many variables for and easy answer. How hostile is the rest of the world, especially the USA, to the CSA and for how long? How rich is the CSA? How long do they hold onto slavery and what are race relations like? How easily does, say an ATL "Elvis" (among others) have combineing black and white cultural influences?

The answer is "whatever you decide and can sell" but these are the things to think about.

I'm sure that the foreign relations of the Confederation would initally be very bad, initially, especially with the Union. It's hard to say when relations would get better.
The Confederation would not be very rich, as for a good while, it would continue depending on slave plantations and would not industralize.
Those conditions would, IMO, prevent social liberalism from rising in the Confederation for a good while. How long those conditions last is hard to say.
 
Outside of revolution/civil war, it is going to be hard for progressive movements to do that well.
The Confederate constitution literally enshrined not only the right to own slaves, but also specified the legal inability of the Confederate congress to remove the "peculiar institution".

That, outright territorial ambitions aimed at perpetuating slavery and the further entrenching of the Southern aristocracy is a sort of perfect mix for promoting reactionary politics.
 
It is hard to say when 150 years is quiet long time so it is hard to predict how independent CSA would develope. In OTL Civil War era South was socially very conservative and ruled by landowning elite which supported slavery. It is even unsure that CSA can survive to this day. But if anything radical not happen CSA will be socially very conservative. Altough it would had abolished slavery after 1900 and segregation on 2000's it would be racially very conservative. Racism would be very notable thing and there would be deep division between poor and rich people. I would expect the country being religiously very conservative. Women rights hardly are very great and it is possible that there is not much women on work life or politics. Homosexual sex might still be crime. I would assume that abortion is totally illegal or at least strongly discouraged.
 
Not much more than now. It's still the same people after all.

History still would be very different which would affect to people's thinking and culture. Independent CSA would be quiet different compared to Deep South as part of United States.
 
The political philosophy of most of the upper class in the south was based on a vision of an agricultural based "squirocracy" where benevolent landowners had slaves tended the land, and a sprinkling of yeoman farmers or tenant (white) farmers. There was a significant movement that, after the war, property qualifications would be reintroduced for the franchise (as was true in the UK at that time still) so that only those "with public not private interest" would vote to prevent plebian democracy of self interest. The educational system in the south in 1860, and for a very long time after the war, was centered on education beyond basic literacy with private tutors or private (pay) schools to educate an upper crust and a limited number of universities (southern politicians fought hard against land grant schools before and after the war) and this was for whites, forget educating blacks.

On the religious side, Catholics were tolerated only in the pockets where they were a significant presence (think Louisiana), and Jews while not absent were a small minority. Given the preferences for any immigrants, both Catholics and Jews as well as Southern and Eastern Europeans are unlikely to end up in a CSA in significant numbers.

Would there still be slavery in the CSA in 2019, almost certainly not. Would there still be apartheid or a severe Jim Crow, almost certainly. Same sex marriage, legal abortion (the wealthy will always have clandestine access), readily available birth control for unmarried women, bikinis on Florida beaches - nope. Because of a long history of slavery (no matter whether it ends in 1900 or 1950), and the subsequent enforcement of apartheid/Jim Crow in the face of a sizable black minority and the more open USA along a long border (and radio and TV that leaks across), the CSA will of necessity have developed a strong police system backed by laws, which can suppress a gay pride movement as well as it can suppress a black movement against restrictions.
 
The political philosophy of most of the upper class in the south was based on a vision of an agricultural based "squirocracy" where benevolent landowners had slaves tended the land, and a sprinkling of yeoman farmers or tenant (white) farmers. There was a significant movement that, after the war, property qualifications would be reintroduced for the franchise (as was true in the UK at that time still) so that only those "with public not private interest" would vote to prevent plebian democracy of self interest. The educational system in the south in 1860, and for a very long time after the war, was centered on education beyond basic literacy with private tutors or private (pay) schools to educate an upper crust and a limited number of universities (southern politicians fought hard against land grant schools before and after the war) and this was for whites, forget educating blacks.

On the religious side, Catholics were tolerated only in the pockets where they were a significant presence (think Louisiana), and Jews while not absent were a small minority. Given the preferences for any immigrants, both Catholics and Jews as well as Southern and Eastern Europeans are unlikely to end up in a CSA in significant numbers.

Would there still be slavery in the CSA in 2019, almost certainly not. Would there still be apartheid or a severe Jim Crow, almost certainly. Same sex marriage, legal abortion (the wealthy will always have clandestine access), readily available birth control for unmarried women, bikinis on Florida beaches - nope. Because of a long history of slavery (no matter whether it ends in 1900 or 1950), and the subsequent enforcement of apartheid/Jim Crow in the face of a sizable black minority and the more open USA along a long border (and radio and TV that leaks across), the CSA will of necessity have developed a strong police system backed by laws, which can suppress a gay pride movement as well as it can suppress a black movement against restrictions.

Characterizing the largest city in the country by margins of 400-500% as a simple pocket, is quite a limited use, no? Also, it does not seem there was large anti Jewish sentiment in the southern states, considering the life of Judah Benjamin and the prominent Jewish communities in Charleston and New Orleans, that exceeded any other Jewish community in the country. The CS, like any political conglomeration of humans is a complex entity and cannot be characterized so simply.

It should be remembered regarding the moral laws, that pushed for prohibition and moral reform, originated in northern states among moralistic Protestant factions. Southern states however, must contend with the reality of New Orleans existing as a political entity of huge dominance, who is renowned for its acceptance of prostitution and many other peculiar attitudes that to northern reformists, were intolerable. There too, even among certain fire-eaters, was publications and intellectuals who favored types of economic reforms in southern states, such as James DeBow, who envisioned an industrial south free from northern trade dominance. Such ideas would still exist.

It is important regardless, to not characterize the southern states in a CS as mimicking the policy of later southern movements, both left and right.
 
Last edited:
What would be the CSA is, overall, generally conservative but there has been and still is an undercurrent of populism that on certain positions is quite left-leaning by US standards.
 
Would there still be slavery in the CSA in 2019, almost certainly not. Would there still be apartheid or a severe Jim Crow, almost certainly. Same sex marriage, legal abortion (the wealthy will always have clandestine access), readily available birth control for unmarried women, bikinis on Florida beaches - nope. Because of a long history of slavery (no matter whether it ends in 1900 or 1950), and the subsequent enforcement of apartheid/Jim Crow in the face of a sizable black minority and the more open USA along a long border (and radio and TV that leaks across), the CSA will of necessity have developed a strong police system backed by laws, which can suppress a gay pride movement as well as it can suppress a black movement against restrictions.

I don’t know if we can assume this. A CSA that wins the war does not have its economy suddenly dislocated like in OTL and the dominant social class remains in control. IIRC, the south was not originally all that socially conservative (the Puritans were mostly in the north) but gradually evolved to become the evangelical stronghold it is now. In TL with a victorious CSA perhaps that does not happen.

There is also of course the possibility that it faces violent upheaval which leads to constitutional reform or even a whole new regime.

Ultimately 150 years is so long that it’s hard to really know where things go.
 
Characterizing the largest city in the country by margins of 400-500% as a simple pocket, is quite a limited use, no? Also, it does not seem there was large anti Jewish sentiment in the southern states, considering the life of Benjamin Judah and the prominent Jewish communities in Charleston and New Orleans, that exceeded any other Jewish community in the country. The CS, like any political conglomeration of humans is a complex entity and cannot be characterized so simply.
The Confederate Battle Flag was actually designed the way it was based in large part on the feedback of a Jewish Southerner, who sent a letter to the creator of the flag saying he liked his initial design (based on the South Carolina Sovereignty flag with an upright cross) but felt that the symbol of a particular religion should not be the symbol of a nation.

And yeah, people shouldn't assume that an independent CSA would reflect the reactionary movements that gripped the South after the fallout of the war. High society people were not the cartoonishly prudish and xenophobic people some seem to imagine them to have been. Also, I can't see birth control being as forbidden as suggested either, especially if slavery lasts much longer. If anything, contraceptives and perhaps even abortion could gain widespread acceptance given that this would be a country founded on institutional racism wherein pseudo-scientific excuses were made for such, namely phrenology. And I don't think the CSA is going to stay out of the eugenics craze of the early 1900's.
 
While Judah Benjamin did rise high, he was a non-observant Jew who married a non-Jew and his daughter was raised Christian. Furthermore if you see the invective directed against him in the Confederate Congress and various newspapers "acceptance" is really not the situation.
 
Confederacy is the term used in relation to the CSA.

The Confederation is fairly liberal, not to mention Liberal. Although it's scary to think Andrew Scheer might actually win the next election.
 
While Judah Benjamin did rise high, he was a non-observant Jew who married a non-Jew and his daughter was raised Christian. Furthermore if you see the invective directed against him in the Confederate Congress and various newspapers "acceptance" is really not the situation.

In your opinion, insults given to politicians depict a level of societal intolerance? It should be remembered, that Judah Benjamin was a politician and received invective in the same manner as likened politicians in the CS.

On the other point, why is it the case that you attempt to nullify his experience by way of his observance and marriage choice? Rise high is quite an understatement to say the least... In Islamic Iberia, the Muslim regimes are often seen as tolerant of Jewish peoples and culture, yet nowhere in the Islamic world or in Iberia, was a Jewish person so high in a government institution to be a person who was dictating legal conduct or deciding legal cases. Rather, in Islamic Iberia, there was massacres, exceptional taxes and difficulties for Jewish peoples that transcended stigma. In comparison to mostly any and all states that have existed, the CS was benevolent to the Jewish experience.

Do also note, we speak of legal and civic precedences. Not upon a sort of general stigma or what have you.
 
Last edited:
Very socially conservative compared to the union or even OTL US until the 1970s or 1980s when *Jim Crow breaks and the CSA has it's *1960s a decade or two late and veers sharpy to the (identity politics-focusd) left.

Going by 1) the more WASP composition of the population 2) higher nonwhite population(black/spanish) than the US 3) even more identity-focused politics expect alot of realistic CSAs to be more on the ah SJW side of things than OTL US.
 
While Judah Benjamin did rise high, he was a non-observant Jew who married a non-Jew and his daughter was raised Christian. Furthermore if you see the invective directed against him in the Confederate Congress and various newspapers "acceptance" is really not the situation.

How much of that invective was anti-Semitic in nature, rather than just typical political mudslinging?
 
It is important regardless, to not characterize the southern states in a CS as mimicking the policy of later southern movements, both left and right.

This is true, it is very likely to be more socially conservative (Although not a SURE thing), particularly in racial issues, but what form it takes is highly unpredictable.
 
I think the CSA would be more left-wing than the OTL American South for two major reasons.

1) A larger African-American (or African-Confederate) population. There would likely be no great migration to places such as New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, etc. The former slaves would continue to reside in the Confederacy and would naturally lean left-wing in opposition to the white, right-wing aristocracy.

2) No "lost cause." The resentful south and the destruction of the war contributed to a less educated, more radicalized, and backwards populace in the former Confederacy. If the Confederacy wins an early victory (ala TL-191), then the Confederacy would be relatively in tact. Also, if the Confederacy moves to industrialization post-slavery (which it must do to survive), you'll have a non-plantation upper class rise up and greater numbers of white-collar workers.
 
Top