Independent CSA turns into a military dictatorship late 1800s, most likely general to be dictator?

Having a military dictatorship via coup in confederacy in the 1890s sounds as implausible as a military coup in Japan that replaces the emperor with a general as head of state, it just seems totally contrary to the culture that the militarys officers would have been indoctrinated in.
 

RousseauX

Donor
Having a military dictatorship via coup in confederacy in the 1890s sounds as implausible as a military coup in Japan that replaces the emperor with a general as head of state, it just seems totally contrary to the culture that the militarys officers would have been indoctrinated in.
Japan had a military officer who was effective head of state for centuries.

And this is forgotten now: but read "embracing defeat" by John W. Dower: there was a period of time immediately after the war when the Japanese people were willing to accept getting rid of the emperor simply because the trauma of losing the war and the real struggle to survive day-to-day in the aftermath for the average Japanese made them rather apathetic about the monarchy for a few years.

You guys are throwing out national character and constitutionalism as a kind of unchangeable constant.

Personal as well as national characteristics change under duress all the time. And then in hindsight we go back and say "well democratic tradition was never that deep blah blah blah".

This is basically the explanation for how the Second Reich turned from a quasi-parliamentary monarchy into a democratic republic into a mass murdering totalitarian regime in the space of around 25 years.

Even if you look at the US you had several points when the constitution could have being broken irreparably: the 1860s under Lincoln and 1930s under FDR comes to mind.

Remember all those people who said no way America could elect Trump, under sufficient stress constitutionalism and democratic institutions break.
 
However these coups are not exactly sustainable and would probably last as long as it took to restore order and bring in a new civilian government that would legitimise their actions.
Eh depends on circumstance. If the fire-eater support base (the slave-ocrats) get upitty the coupists could close ranks in response, although that would be a little difficult as iirc there was a significant overlap between the slave-ocrats and the CSA's officer corps (though I suppose a short civil war could also cement military rule).
 

RousseauX

Donor
But control of the franchise is in the hands of state authorities, not the central government. Any constitutional amendment needs eight of the eleven states to support it, and the states control who gets to vote for that amendment. You've cited the cases of South American dictatorships: did any of them have federal constitutions like the Confederacy?
This is a good point: but federalism could be broken under the right circumstances, let's go through it below

The mechanics for this coup seem almost impossible. The moment that the general starts moving regular troops off the frontier towards Richmond, it's going to be clear what's happening. As a result, the president and Congress will flee and call on the state militia to suppress the insurrection.

First, you don't need too many regular troops to mount a coup: the upper-bound for necessary troops is probably 1000. Coups of the central government generally require you to control the nerve center of the state which amounts to maybe 1 or 2 square miles. You could do this without moving too many troops.

Second of all, I think the only real state that actually matters in the immediate aftermath of the coup is Virginia because it takes too long for other state militias to reach the capital before the junta could make some sort of deal with enough state governments to stabilize a government in the aftermath.

Before you call ASBish the state governors would ever accept this, imagine a scenario for instance: that state governments are going bankrupt and congress is unwilling, or unable, to bail them out.

Those state governments are teetering on the brink of unable to pay for very essential government functions (like the troops or police keeping literal angry mobs from lynching them) and there has already being either actual insurrections or the very real threat of insurrections by either poor whites, blacks or both. The coupsters comes in and essentially agrees to bail out the governments and use federal troops to crush any potential insurrections. Oh and of course, I am the best person to defend ourselves from a potential northern invasion you are all afraid of because (*insert US saber rattling crisis here) because i whipped the damnyankees in the last war.

There would be some kind of concession or promise to "have elections" and lip service of "of course state's rights!", but those would be lip service to overcome doubts. Oh and at least some state governors are old war-buddies of the coup leader (let's just say it's James Longstreet leading it). And there would be at least a significant part of congress (though not a majority) which supports him.

Under such circumstances, can you really tell me with 95%+ certainly that most state governments would not at least passively accept the coup? I mean I don't think it's a guarantee or anything but I think it's perfectly plausible that the coup lasts.

What's more likely than this very centralised anti-political move is that you get radical, locally-organised movements campaigning for their states to do more to alleviate the situation and standing candidates for election: a grassroots rather than a top-down phenomenon fits the Confederacy much better.
There's nothing about this which is exclusive with a coup. Our general would not have came out of now where but probably already being on the political scene for years now. There might have already being popular movements to get him in power (somehow) before the coup.

The mode I'm using for this coup is what in Europe is known as Bonapartism, Caesarism and later on: Boulangism. It's premise is a popular military strongman who is the hero of the masses but who undercuts parliamentary (or congressional) politics and democratic norms while claiming the mantle of popular sovereignty.

One can entirely see James Longstreet carrying out a coup and then winning the next election afterwards if he "fixes" the economy as a champion of the white working class and small farmers against a segment of the planter elite.

On the long run the popularity he has with the average poor white in the Confederacy will be the hammer he uses to destroy the power of state governments to stop him from doing whatever he wants to do.

The long-run fate of the Confederate army might be something similar to the military in imperial Japan or Ataturk's Turkey: a state-within-a-state with special privileges but under the nominal rule of the civilian government.

But they also had 80+ years of constitutionalism under the US, plus several centuries of constitutionalism under the British, on which to build. Was a US dictator particularly likely c.1800?
No, I would say that's because there was no great national crisis which called for it: the two points when the US might have had a dictator was the civil war and the great deperssion. During both periods you had presidents who bent the constitutions and had the potential to establish some kind of authoratarian rule.

And the magnitude of the crisis here is greater than any of which the US has ever faced (even more so than 1861 and 1929), an economic collapse in late 1800s CSA would be accompanied by fears of northern invasion and/or slave uprisings. Not to mention of course the "infection" of the minds of poor whites by ideas like Socialism flowing in from Europe and the north....

So you have a weaker constitutional tradition and a stronger crisis putting stress on the system than anything which happened to the USA otl, does the system break for sure? No, but can the system of limited central government break? Yes definitely.

Note I don't use the term" democratic institution" here: because the Confederacy even before the coup would not have being particularly democratic: even for poor whites: thus undercutting its resilience even further. One can entirely see Longstreet making the CSA more democratic in some ways like expanding the Franchise to consolidate his power.
They'd be a class traitor immediately, by the sounds of things, if they're both deposing the 'planter elites in Congress' and 'fighting the state government for control of the country'. There really aren't any elites for them left to be fighting by that stage. I can't see any Confederate generals- most of whom, let's not forget, chose state over country in 1861- going against their states, their class and their country in the way you suggest.

That's assuming that the prohibition against Congress appropriating money 'for any internal improvement intended to facilitate commerce' lasts until the late 1800s, of course. It would be much easier to get around it by the states funding railways, Congress making donations for 'essential military railroads', or constitutional amendment when the proviso proves to be impractical.
This entire scenario is predicated on the Confederate government being composed of inflexible, dogmatic morons who are seen as out of touch with modern reality.
 
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First, you don't need too many regular troops to mount a coup: the upper-bound for necessary troops is probably 1000. Coups of the central government generally require you to control the nerve center of the state which amounts to maybe 1 or 2 square miles. You could do this without moving too many troops.
You'd almost certainly need a thousand troops. In terms of militia, in 1900, there were five companies of the 70th Regiment, two of the Richmond Light Infantry Blues, and a battery of artillery in Richmond itself, with a strength in the region of 450 rank and file infantry. These are just the troops in Richmond, not the whole of the Virginia militia. When you consider that these troops will be on the defensive, fighting in the streets, 1,000 seems a low estimate.

Unfortunately, it's not entirely clear where these troops are meant to come from. The Confederacy is aiming for a 15,000-strong regular military (assuming it can afford one, that is). However, it has a 3,500 mile coast and (without West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas and New Mexico) a 2,275 mile inland border. After deploying troops to the coast, troops internally to protect against slave uprisings, and retaining sufficient troops to protect against the Union (who, of course, can move troops via rail from one area of the front to another), 1,000 troops is an exceptionally high number of soldiers to be able to collect, as well as to despatch by train to Richmond without anybody suspecting a coup.

Second of all, I think the only real state that actually matters in the immediate aftermath of the coup is Virginia because it takes too long for other state militias to reach the capital before the junta could make some sort of deal with enough state governments to stabilize a government in the aftermath.
The coup have to negotiate specific deals with 11 state capitals; the president and congress have to call on 11 state capitals to adhere to the constitution. Which is quicker?

Before you call ASBish the state governors would ever accept this, imagine a scenario for instance: that state governments are going bankrupt and congress is unwilling, or unable, to bail them out.
... so they repudiate the debt, as they've done before.

there has already being either actual insurrections or the very real threat of insurrections by either poor whites, blacks or both. The coupsters comes in and essentially agrees to bail out the governments and use federal troops to crush any potential insurrections.
Using federal troops to crush insurrections is the existing president's job. Why isn't he doing it already? Furthermore, the poor whites are the people who have been trying to put this general in power. The general is saying to governors 'Hey, I know I just violently removed the head of state, but if you side with me in my act of treason I'll gun down my own supporters who are causing you trouble': Nobody's going to fall for it. It seems like you're now making things up as you go along.

Under such circumstances, can you really tell me with 95%+ certainly that most state governments would not at least passively accept the coup?
Yes. You're suggesting that a general who has 'probably already being on the political scene for years now' and where there have been 'popular movements to get him in power (somehow) before the coup' with the express purpose of trampling over state prerogatives deposes a legitimately elected president, and the state governments simply passively accept it. It's nonsense. The governors who belong to the same party as the president will be determined to vindicate the constitution, and the governors who don't will want to keep him in place because it'll mean a landside at the next election. At the best, the opposing governors will wait to see who wins, as the loyal governors send troops to Richmond to retake the city.

The mode I'm using for this coup is what in Europe is known as Bonapartism, Caesarism and later on: Boulangism. It's premise is a popular military strongman who is the hero of the masses but who undercuts parliamentary (or congressional) politics and democratic norms while claiming the mantle of popular sovereignty.
Again, these are all highly centralised systems: Roman citizens had to be physically present in Rome to vote, and France was notorious for its lack of local self-government. Is there an actual model for this coup in a system where the central government only has those powers which are specifically delegated to it?

One can entirely see James Longstreet carrying out a coup and then winning the next election afterwards if he "fixes" the economy as a champion of the white working class and small farmers against a segment of the planter elite. On the long run the popularity he has with the average poor white in the Confederacy will be the hammer he uses to destroy the power of state governments to stop him from doing whatever he wants to do.
I can't. Longstreet's father owned a cotton plantation; when his father died Longstreet (aged 12) moved in with his uncle, a vehement States Rights activist; when the Civil War broke out Longstreet left the US army to fight with Alabama because he believed in States Rights. I can't see him either carrying out a coup or completely betraying the class from which he claim, neither of which he did historically- no matter how many accusations of 'carpetbagging' were levelled at him.

No, I would say that's because there was no great national crisis which called for it: the two points when the US might have had a dictator was the civil war and the great deperssion. During both periods you had presidents who bent the constitutions and had the potential to establish some kind of authoratarian rule.
This is basically nonsense: even during these two periods the US was far more wedded to legitimacy than were most of its peers. Lincoln's response to the Supreme Court objecting to his suspension of habeas corpus wasn't even Jackson's 'let him enforce it': he had the representative institution of Congress pass the proper legislation and used his powers in a temporary and limited way.

Note I don't use the term" democratic institution" here: because the Confederacy even before the coup would not have being particularly democratic: even for poor whites: thus undercutting its resilience even further
What you're failing to understand is the distinction between 'democracy' and 'constitutionalism'. In constitutionalist states, such as Britain and the US, there is sufficient commitment to the way that the system works that large changes can be made without overturning the system in this way. That's why Britain and the US don't have coups. I understand that people want to show how bad they think slavery is, but there are better ways to do it than by being dishonest about Confederate constitutionalism.

This entire scenario is predicated on the Confederate government being composed of inflexible, dogmatic morons who are seen as out of touch with modern reality.
And that's why it doesn't work: you'd be better seeing them as real people instead of strawmen.
 
Yes. You're suggesting that a general who has 'probably already being on the political scene for years now' and where there have been 'popular movements to get him in power (somehow) before the coup' with the express purpose of trampling over state prerogatives deposes a legitimately elected president, and the state governments simply passively accept it. It's nonsense. The governors who belong to the same party as the president will be determined to vindicate the constitution, and the governors who don't will want to keep him in place because it'll mean a landside at the next election. At the best, the opposing governors will wait to see who wins, as the loyal governors send troops to Richmond to retake the city.

So then, if a military coup won’t work with the States as competent polities, then we need to comrpomise the states. Either we go for. a series of state crises with the final one being the military coup or we somehow delegitimise all of the state governments while legitimising the Federal government.

Let’s begin by saying that the CSA government would be legitimised by it’s ‘winning ’of the war. If the CSA government is both enterprising and petty enough, it may make comment about how the states actively tried to thwart the Richmond government through refusal to send soldiers and refusal to pay funds. This in itself isn’t enough to provide the conditions for a coup but it’s a start. Then, we’ll want a crisis from a failed government in one of the states. I believe it’d be better if it was a young state one without a long history of governance, maybe Kansas if the CSA get’s a chunk of that. Or failing that you need a smallish size and less populated state. Maybe Arkansas goes bankrupt from their bond/bank failures or Alabama from a property bubble and there are bank-runs and riots in the street, or a slave revolt takes hold in Mississippi that overwhelms the state government’s ability to control (with slaves supplied by the US?) The point is to create an enduring crisis that the state in question cannot resolve itself thus weakening the local government’s legitimacy - sort of Bleeding Kansas on a larger scale. It’s useful in our goal to have this crisis endure for months if not years - the state in question refusing federal aid as an intrusion against states rights even as the increasingly failing state government is hopeless in their sitution. Eventually, riding to the rescue comes the Richmond government, who resolves the situation and restores order. But, and I want to stress this, this crisis has led to a complete failure in the population’s faith in the government and a functional collapse in it’s efficacy. Could be the unrest has scattered the state legislature, maybe the governship is vacant or else the governor is somehow seen as complicent or negligent - it doesn’t matter exactly. Suffice to say the Federal Congress reluctantly determines the state has lost the functional capacity to govern itself and so grants itself the power to establish a temporary ‘provisional government’ to restore order. This is the clincher. Because we’ve now got a state government (I’m thinking along the lines of US military governors) which while nominally ‘provisional’ is taking its orders from the Executive in Richmond.

Once it’s been done to one state it can be done to another.

A somewhat power hungry executive, one that rose through Richmond’s ranks not a state house’s, sees how smoothly the reestablishment of order in the collapsed state has gone, and looks to another state that is showing similar unrest. Virtuously, it tries to nip it in the bud the unrest (or else it spins the crisis further for cynical advantage), but no matter, this state too is deemed to have failed its function as a State and for the good of the state’s citizens a second provisional government is established. This one has protests but the mollificartion of the population by the oration of a great Civil war hero who stresses the necessity and temporality of the move encourages the citizens, many of whom are in no mood to revolt against a second government. In politics, there is nothing so permanent as a temporary measure.

This continues until the remaining states are increasingly hostile to the clear takeover by Richmond, though not Virginia, whose bureaucrats still run the apparatus and ensure Virignian independence is protected even as Virginian bureaucracy turns octopus with tentacles deep into the other states. (Could be that a few start to casually remark how curious it is that the military governors are personal allies of this one general) One of the last proper democratic states finally pushes against Richmond forcefully. Maybe they aggresively revive the idea to move the Capital to a created territory further south - maybe Atlanta - and disrupt this Virginian-sourced expansion of control. But by now it’s too late, the military, powerful and centralised post Civil War, is in step with Richmond. A purge is conducted of this state’s politicians, by which either a anti-Richmond conspiracy is fabricated or evidence of treason is manufactured - the rebellious Governor is arrested, with parts of the state assembly as well. Maybe there’s a firefight between the State militia and the CSA Army, which was never a fair fight. The the CSA pushes propaganda-e with the popular general leading the policing. A Posse Comitatus Act was never adopted in the CSA and so with military as ‘law enforcement’, the state is woefully outmatched. Newspapers under watchful military eyes print the story of corrupt state officials and of virtuous federal soldiers. Another provisional government is established. And so on it goes until the states are majority provisional governments those few that remain have no hope against a centralising CSA.

Then all you need is for a General to prorogue the democracy at the top in Richmond. (It can even work to spin the increasing power of the government in Richmond as a tyranny which the military is saving the states from - almost Caesar-esque) You might almost, in this post coup d’etat era, make the military something like in Modern Egypt as a quasi-branch of government ready to defend the people from the tyranny of government - Now that’s something I could see happening in America.

But there’s a lot fanciful in this account, least not the capacity to do so as quickly as a few decades post the Civil War, and I expect some worthwhile holes to be punched in it.
 
It's an interesting suggestion, but it falls apart at this point:
this crisis has led to a complete failure in the population’s faith in the government and a functional collapse in it’s efficacy. - it doesn’t matter exactly. Suffice to say the Federal Congress reluctantly determines the state has lost the functional capacity to govern itself and so grants itself the power to establish a temporary ‘provisional government’ to restore order.
The process for restructuring a state constitution via convention is well-established even before the American Civil War:
Louisiana: 1845, 1852
Georgia: 1787, 1798
Virginia: 1830, 1851
South Carolina: 1778, 1790
Mississippi: 1832
Tennessee: 1835

In reality, the Confederate government's involvement would be limited to maintaining order (which is perfectly legal, given that it has the constitutional duty to suppress insurrections) and, if required, supervising the convention. The exact legality of the latter action is debateable, and I suspect it'd require legislation. If Congress did grant the Confederate government the ability to supervise a convention, however, I suspect they'd pass a measure granting the power only for the individual state in question, and include a sunset provision to ensure that it didn't become the semi-permanent occupation you propose. Remember that the default position of these legislators is to give as little power to the central government as required: that's why them taking the radical centralising step you suggest is where the proposal falls apart.

Could be the unrest has scattered the state legislature, maybe the governship is vacant or else the governor is somehow seen as complicent or negligent
State constitutions have lines of succession for this very reason, and the Confederacy will work with the most senior person available.

This is the clincher. Because we’ve now got a state government (I’m thinking along the lines of US military governors) which while nominally ‘provisional’ is taking its orders from the Executive in Richmond.
The reason that the US used military governors during Reconstruction is because they were in the aftermath of a Civil War and faced guerrilla warfare from a hostile population. In the case of the Confederacy, a more likely appointment is a talented lawyer or politician who is there specifically to facilitate the drafting of a constitution. They're more likely to work with the legal governor pro tempore, of course, than supplanting them completely. If there's also a military commander to deal with insurrection, they'll continue to report to the president via the standard channels of communication.
 
Given the fear the planter class will have both of northern liberals seeking to stir slaves and of poor whites embracing populism, authoritarianism of some sort will be inevitable. With a near constant string of war scares with the US, the military will be the Confederacy's dominant institution.

I don't necessarily see a personal dictatorship. The outward functioning of a constitutional government will continue, but there will a creeping atmosphere of repression against dissent that will be as much the initiative of the states as the central government. Imagine a Virginian secret police.

Then again, given the right sequence of events, the Confederate leadership might decide that the model of Cincinnatus was appropriate for Washington's time, but to answer the northern, modernist threat to their liberties, the south needs a Sulla.
 
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