Is Another War Between USA and CSA Inevitable?

Would there be another war between USA and CSA?

  • Yes, it is inevitable.

    Votes: 60 20.7%
  • It's not inevitable, but it's very likely

    Votes: 172 59.3%
  • It's not impossible, but it could happen.

    Votes: 49 16.9%
  • It's so unlikely to happen as to basically be impossible.

    Votes: 9 3.1%

  • Total voters
    290
Longer than four years.

EDIT: Pithy response already taken. However, had the Confederates not been rash, aggressive and injudicious, they could have fought out the battle of slave vs. free for many, many years to come. The whole point of the United States political system is to restrain and delay action: using levers of power (e.g. the Supreme Court) could have thwarted any attempt to abolish slavery for decades if not altogether. Instead, provoked by a threat that Lincoln's own words show wasn't there, the Confederacy threw the dice and lost. Had they won, their opinion of the fighting qualities of the Union would not have improved.

But the big point being missed here is that it doesn't even have to be up to the Confederacy to start another war. If domestic opinion in the North goes the right way, the South might become the most pacifist nation on earth and still have a war forced upon it.


Certainly.

Most likely over territories in the west. I could certainly see an US that decides that they don't want the CSA to have access to the Pacific.

But then again, I could see a US that wouldn't really care if the CSA tried to get access to the Pacific.

Could go either way.

I voted possible but unlikely in the poll.
 
A Union general believed the Union would win the war. Amazing.

How about the first Confederate Secretary of State, Robert Toombs. Trying to discourage Jefferson Davis from attacking Ft. Sumter, Toombs said "Mr. President, at this time it is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North. You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountain to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal."

The 'moderate' Davis and the rest of Confederate Cabinet was in no mood to listen to reason.

"No man can tell where the war this day commenced will end, but I will prophesy that the flag which now flaunts the breeze here will float over the dome of the old Capitol at Washington before the first of May. Let them try southern chivalry and test the extent of southern resources, and it may float eventually over Faneuil Hall itself." - Confederate Secretary of War Leroy P. Walker, April 12, 1861
 
Even more important is this section.

What cause what excuse do disunionists give us for breaking up the best Government on which the sun of heaven ever shed its rays They are dissatisfied with the result of the Presidential election Did they never get beaten before Are we to resort to the sword when we get defeated at the ballot box I understand it that the voice of the people expressed in the mode appointed by the Constitution must command the obedience of every citizen They assume on the election of a particular candidate that their rights are not safe in the Union What evidence do they present of this I defy any man to show any act on which it is based What act has been omitted to be done I appeal to these assembled thousands that so far as the constitutional rights of slaveholders are concerned nothing has been done and nothing omitted of which they can complain.

Sensible people do NOT commit treason merely because their party lost an election!
 
Even leaving out the T word - sensible people do not launch wars simply because of a presidential election.

That's simply too extreme, and too dangerous if it goes (pardon the pun) south, to be undertaken by the kind of calm and diplomatic people that it would take to handle post-war diplomacy.

Even if at some point the original crowd is voted out, they're going to set the tone - and the initial moves.
 
Last edited:
Top