If the Confederacy Wins the Civil War, Does the United States Move Its Capital?

If the Confederacy Loses the Civil War, Does the United States Move Its Capital?

  • Yes

    Votes: 57 51.8%
  • No

    Votes: 53 48.2%

  • Total voters
    110
But how would the second war start? With what motivation?

Given the profound sense of manifest destiny in the South, through trigger might be takeover of Cuba, northwestern Mexico, Panama, or some other territory altogether. The CSA will also certainly have international allies, but if the 1893 depression is felt disproportionately in the US and a government at that time felt foreign wars were the best distraction from local problems...
 
Never mistake the lack of political desire with the inability to do something militarily.

True, the US was physically capable of beating its enemies, both in Vietnam and in the US Civil War. On the other hand, resources aren't effective unless used, and if the will to use them isn't there, they're not going to be of much use in a conflict.
 
Do the CSA & USA get along after the time has passed or do they hate each other.

Both are plausible depending on the POD. Answer the first question and you answer the second.
 
But how would the second war start? With what motivation?
I think good, old fashioned imperialism. If the CSA has gone from the Union, you have all the makings for a Spanish-American War; only not against Spain and with a far bigger payoff than Cuba (which has all sorts of butterflies right there). The same jingoism that talked us into war in Cuba, with all the real and imagined atrocities to put down (and real and imagined markets to open up) would have no trouble talking us into a "splendid little war" with the CSA.
 

jahenders

Banned
If the Union loses the Civil War, would the United States move its capital from Washington City to some other place?

As always, it depends on the definition of losing. However, except in the most extremely unlikely cases, the Union will still be the stronger, will continue to get stronger, and can defend Washington. The Union will continue expanding and industrializing while the South deals with its debt, losses, and other challenges.

It's possible that the South collapses or that some event leads to an ACW2 rematch.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
However, except in the most extremely unlikely cases, the Union will still be the stronger, will continue to get stronger, and can defend Washington. The Union will continue expanding and industrializing while the South deals with its debt, losses, and other challenges.
Given how much debt the Union had OTL, a quick end to the Civil War (1862) could see the South in a relatively good position.
See, most of the foreign exchange brought in by the US OTL pre-war was from the South (the cotton and stuff). That's a pretty hefty potential revenue stream for the South, while the North wouldn't really have much of one. (Grain is about it, but then again they now need to buy cotton from the South to feed their textile industries.)

It gets worse if Maryland joined the CSA. That leaves the US literally unable to defend Washington because Washington isn't in their country any more.
 
Given how much debt the Union had OTL, a quick end to the Civil War (1862) could see the South in a relatively good position.
See, most of the foreign exchange brought in by the US OTL pre-war was from the South (the cotton and stuff). That's a pretty hefty potential revenue stream for the South, while the North wouldn't really have much of one. (Grain is about it, but then again they now need to buy cotton from the South to feed their textile industries.)

It gets worse if Maryland joined the CSA. That leaves the US literally unable to defend Washington because Washington isn't in their country any more.

western Maryland is a completely different culture from eastern Maryland ... small family farmers vs the big plantations left over from the colonial period. Baltimore is where the two cultures meet

look at election results for the 1856 and 1860 election, and for that matter, accounts of both of Lee's invasions north

Maryland only joins the Confederacy if the North lacks the political will to keep it from happening, otherwise at best the South gets only the Eastern Shore region

eastern Maryland is militarily indefensible from the north, even if a fleet hostile to the US is in Chesapeake Bay
 

Asami

Banned
To be honest, the South is going to suffer from the whole "slave freedom" issue; particularly once you get into the area of boll weevils destroying the heart of their economy...
 

Asami

Banned
So yeah; the eventual boll weevil infestation, if the Confederate States retains the institution of slavery into the 1890s-early 20th century, would be devastating to their economy. Even if slavery by this time has been abolished because surprise, economics doesn't favor slave-holding societies in the modern capitalist system; the South's main industry is about to get skull-fucked by Mother Nature; which is a serious problem.

Moving onwards, there's also the consideration that the South's claimed reasons for secession wasn't 100% the "retaining of the peculiar institution"; both contemporaries and neo-Confederates insist it was mostly a state's rights issue, rather than a matter of slavery. But the realism of the situation showed that the CSA couldn't survive without a continuity of some power of the national government -- the CSA would have eventually consolidated into something esque to the USA, or disintegrated due to the centrifuge of the states not wanting to take orders from Richmond.

There's also the fact that eventually, blacks who can read and speak, will eventually start spreading leftist ideologies like communism amongst the literally oppressed masses, and ferment a socialist revolution against the Confederate government; which can only be suppressed violently, further alienating the C.S. from the international community if they start massacring innocents; or slaves... which would be a problem anyway as by 1900, most civilizations find slavery kind of abhorrent...

But in the immediate, I don't think the US would move the capital away, unless it was a dire circumstance.
 
So yeah; the eventual boll weevil infestation, if the Confederate States retains the institution of slavery into the 1890s-early 20th century, would be devastating to their economy. Even if slavery by this time has been abolished because surprise, economics doesn't favor slave-holding societies in the modern capitalist system; the South's main industry is about to get skull-fucked by Mother Nature; which is a serious problem.

Moving onwards, there's also the consideration that the South's claimed reasons for secession wasn't 100% the "retaining of the peculiar institution"; both contemporaries and neo-Confederates insist it was mostly a state's rights issue, rather than a matter of slavery. But the realism of the situation showed that the CSA couldn't survive without a continuity of some power of the national government -- the CSA would have eventually consolidated into something esque to the USA, or disintegrated due to the centrifuge of the states not wanting to take orders from Richmond.

There's also the fact that eventually, blacks who can read and speak, will eventually start spreading leftist ideologies like communism amongst the literally oppressed masses, and ferment a socialist revolution against the Confederate government; which can only be suppressed violently, further alienating the C.S. from the international community if they start massacring innocents; or slaves... which would be a problem anyway as by 1900, most civilizations find slavery kind of abhorrent...

But in the immediate, I don't think the US would move the capital away, unless it was a dire circumstance.

The thing is you don't need cotton for slavery to survive down south. The boll weevil will do little except change what jobs are done by slaves. They can't pick cotton? They plant something else or mine or do something else. In OTL slaves were used in factories, as carpenters, wheelwrights and blacksmiths, doctor's assistants and more.

The oppressed masses will ignore anything coming from Black people. Blacks can't ferment socialist revolution or anything else if they are ignored and they would be. Not talking about the fact that they would almost certainly be arrested or lynched soon after they tried it.
 
The thing is you don't need cotton for slavery to survive down south. The boll weevil will do little except change what jobs are done by slaves. They can't pick cotton? They plant something else or mine or do something else. In OTL slaves were used in factories, as carpenters, wheelwrights and blacksmiths, doctor's assistants and more.

The oppressed masses will ignore anything coming from Black people. Blacks can't ferment socialist revolution or anything else if they are ignored and they would be. Not talking about the fact that they would almost certainly be arrested or lynched soon after they tried it.

It's pretty hard to plug your ears and go "la-la-la I can't hear you" when you're bleeding out from a gutshot.
 
It's pretty hard to plug your ears and go "la-la-la I can't hear you" when you're bleeding out from a gutshot.

Shot by whom? The Blacks have no access to guns and the Poor Whites won't listen to Blacks because they are Black. If anything socialism would be associated with Blacks and "vile abolitionists" and be less popular than otherwise. Nothing would make socialism more unpopular than it being associated that way.
 

Asami

Banned
Blacks would eventually gain access to guns. Either by stealing from their masters, funding by foreign countries, or acquisition of weapons by their own willpower. And who cares if the poor whites don't care, the blacks will still rise up; and they have a population majority in several states over whites, particularly states like South Carolina.

The system of slavery is absolutely impossible to sustain forever; it will eventually breakdown in an era of progressivism, enlightenment, and anti-slavery. By 1885, the only two civilized nations with the peculiar institution would be Brazil and the CSA; and they're going to be pariah states because of it.
 
Blacks would eventually gain access to guns. Either by stealing from their masters, funding by foreign countries, or acquisition of weapons by their own willpower. And who cares if the poor whites don't care, the blacks will still rise up; and they have a population majority in several states over whites, particularly states like South Carolina.

The system of slavery is absolutely impossible to sustain forever; it will eventually breakdown in an era of progressivism, enlightenment, and anti-slavery. By 1885, the only two civilized nations with the peculiar institution would be Brazil and the CSA; and they're going to be pariah states because of it.

While I definitely agree that the breakdown of the slave system is inevitable, I would say it's hard to see Brazil and the CSA being pariah states. Brazil held on to slavery longer than the US in OTL and the world didn't cut her off, in fact she went through a real boom in the 1880s in spite of slavery! The CSA could conceivably do the same and not face being shunned by the world.

However, the nature of the CSA makes it impossible to sign something like Lei Aurea.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Part of the reason I remain ambivalent about the chances of the CSA (rather than declaring it impossible for them to reform or otherwise improve) is that they only lasted four years. It'd be like judging the USA by the terms of unratified Articles of Confederation, states having serious territorial disputes which they nearly get violent over, and a federal government so lacking in control that it can't disperse a mob outside the building.
 
Blacks would eventually gain access to guns. Either by stealing from their masters, funding by foreign countries, or acquisition of weapons by their own willpower. And who cares if the poor whites don't care, the blacks will still rise up; and they have a population majority in several states over whites, particularly states like South Carolina.

The system of slavery is absolutely impossible to sustain forever; it will eventually breakdown in an era of progressivism, enlightenment, and anti-slavery. By 1885, the only two civilized nations with the peculiar institution would be Brazil and the CSA; and they're going to be pariah states because of it.

North Korea, Nazi Germany, Stalinist Soviet Union to name but a few examples have proven that a modern state can indeed institute and continue slave labor for a very long time. For that matter South Africa, Rhodesia, and the United States (particularly in the South) were able to create conditions that were short of slavery, but not by much. So I am not convinced that Slavery would ever have collapsed under its own weight and contradictions.

It would take strong external pressure to end slavery in the Confederacy. Not only were most of the White population convinced of its 'rightness" but there is also the fact that huge sums of money were tied up in it. All of which vanished when the South lost the war. All that money going away is very much a part of the desperate attempt by the Confederacy to risk all in secession.
 
Part of the reason I remain ambivalent about the chances of the CSA (rather than declaring it impossible for them to reform or otherwise improve) is that they only lasted four years. It'd be like judging the USA by the terms of unratified Articles of Confederation, states having serious territorial disputes which they nearly get violent over, and a federal government so lacking in control that it can't disperse a mob outside the building.

For me, the amount of centralisation which the CSA went through during the war, including the large numbers of taxes levied (even on cotton growers) suggests that they would be capable of undertaking reform. As does, in a different way, the historical fact that slaveowners attitudes to things like industrialisation changed dramaticaly whenever there was a drop in cotton or tobacco prices. Which is not to deny the severe problems the CSA faces, but to point out that it's hardly a given that they would try stay just as they were in 1860, either.
 
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