Is the US destined to go to war with an Independent CSA

Classic. I haven't laughed so hard in these forums for a long, long time. Not because I agree with MAlexMatt, but I recently watched Planes, Trains and Automobiles. This reminds of the scene where Steve Martin goes ballistic at the rental car counter. Just a balls out classic rant. Good show, chap.

As for the argument at hand. The disenfranchisement will be more subtle than Snake contends. But it was already occurring to some degree (of course make no mistake about it occurred in spades in the North as well). The art of vote buying has a long a glorious history in this country that continues to this day.

In the antebellum South it worked a by having the wealthy plantation owners loan money, land (in the form of unneeded acreage) or labor (in the form of slaves) to the poorer farmers that neighbored the plantation. Given that banks were scarce in the South these wealthy aristocrats were the only available source of borrowable capital. Also given that immigrants moved far less into the South they were also some of the only sources of extra labor that might be needed during a particularly good harvest. In exchange the small farm holders were expected to defer to the leadership of those who held the land and the wealth. This meant voting to maintain the current system and support the plantation system.

It's one of the reasons why slave owners were so over represented in the governments of the slave states and in the secession conventions.

If you'd like I could site some sources, probably by tomorrow some time. I know John Majewski's A House Dividing: Economic Development in Virginia and Pennsylvania Before the Civil War touches upon this. Other authors may do so as well.

Benjamin

I apologize for any misperception that it would be blatant in either statement or action. Rather, the idea is a virtual given in at least some of the Confederate States and it would be carried out through superficially neutral laws that in practice amount to anything but ala Jim Crow laws.
 
I apologize for any misperception that it would be blatant in either statement or action. Rather, the idea is a virtual given in at least some of the Confederate States and it would be carried out through superficially neutral laws that in practice amount to anything but ala Jim Crow laws.

No apology necessary as it may have been my mistake.

It interesting that you mentioned the Jim Crow laws. I was thinking a similar thing. Much is made by neo-Confederates that the first Jim Crow laws were passed by Northern states, this off course ignores the multitude of Black Codes that already existed in the South (no I'm not overlooking the extremely racist laws enacted in the Midwest during the mid-19th century but they aren't pertinent to this particular conversation), but many of these came about due to pressures from recent white immigrants who wanted to limit the political power of blacks. Limiting the political power of blacks gave the Irish, Germans and Italians more power and higher wages due to less competition.

If slavery if retained those whites in power will have a different set of people competing for political power. As birth rates were generally higher on family held farms (someone needs to do the grunt work if you don't own a bunch of slaves), there is the very real possibility that the poor whites will soon have enough votes to over turn the status quo. So what do you if you're one of those aristocrats who fears the rise of the unwashed masses? Everything you can to limit their political power.

In the Confederacy the black codes will be joined by alternate "Jim Crow" laws designed to keep the poor whites in their place. Poll Taxes, literacy tests, out of the way polling locations and increased gun control will be some of the many tricks used to disenfranchise the less wealthy.

Overall, I think we're in general agreement.

Benjamin
 
I am going to go with those who argue that the CSA would quickly degenerate into a third world nuisance state. It would starve all commerce in order to maintain a very large army, which in a very quick time would become politicly unstable. Cotton is murder on the soil, so its main resource would rapidly deplete.

By 1880 the place would be just a very large Bolivia.

Plus there is the fact that they do have a large servile population, and that would also cause periodic revolts.

So in quick order you would have
1) huge taxation
2) intense social stratification
3) intense militarism
4) annihilation of any form of middle class due to the first three reasons
5) tremendous white emigration of younger sons of the aristocracy and the white yomenry

I would even expect new civil wars to break out every time there was a close election or any kind of constitutional dispute.

Then there is the issue of all that British and French debt they took on. I can see the French trying to re colonize the place like they did in Mexico. The north would be too weak to try and stop it.

The place would be a mess.
 
I am going to go with those who argue that the CSA would quickly degenerate into a third world nuisance state. It would starve all commerce in order to maintain a very large army, which in a very quick time would become politicly unstable. Cotton is murder on the soil, so its main resource would rapidly deplete.

By 1880 the place would be just a very large Bolivia.

Plus there is the fact that they do have a large servile population, and that would also cause periodic revolts.

So in quick order you would have
1) huge taxation
2) intense social stratification
3) intense militarism
4) annihilation of any form of middle class due to the first three reasons
5) tremendous white emigration of younger sons of the aristocracy and the white yomenry

I would even expect new civil wars to break out every time there was a close election or any kind of constitutional dispute.

Then there is the issue of all that British and French debt they took on. I can see the French trying to re colonize the place like they did in Mexico. The north would be too weak to try and stop it.

The place would be a mess.

You probably wouldn't have high taxation but what is worse near hyperinflation.
 

NothingNow

Banned
1) I am not so sure of that. We have Republicans today swearing by the legitimacy of Bush v. Gore, despite the fact that the US Constitution gives ZERO role to the Federal Judiciary in Presidential Elections (They would, after all, being giving themselves a role in who determined their replacements. And they did).
2000 wasn't anywhere near as blatantly stolen.


2) The latter. Based on US history in the South, and other predominantly rural areas like the Rockies, Mid-West, and South-West, you get a "tyranny of the locals" in terms of local authority (towns, county seats) having little oversight by weak state governments, who were often too busy/concerned with enforcing their own rights vis-a-vis Washington. Throw in corruption at all levels, and...
The whole system falls apart into a giant mess.


3) Big reason why the Southern rail network was such a God awful mess was because it was built to support the planter system. Sometimes whole cities were by-passed, while the biggest plantations were not.
Well, yeah.
 
No apology necessary as it may have been my mistake.

It interesting that you mentioned the Jim Crow laws. I was thinking a similar thing. Much is made by neo-Confederates that the first Jim Crow laws were passed by Northern states, this off course ignores the multitude of Black Codes that already existed in the South (no I'm not overlooking the extremely racist laws enacted in the Midwest during the mid-19th century but they aren't pertinent to this particular conversation), but many of these came about due to pressures from recent white immigrants who wanted to limit the political power of blacks. Limiting the political power of blacks gave the Irish, Germans and Italians more power and higher wages due to less competition.

If slavery if retained those whites in power will have a different set of people competing for political power. As birth rates were generally higher on family held farms (someone needs to do the grunt work if you don't own a bunch of slaves), there is the very real possibility that the poor whites will soon have enough votes to over turn the status quo. So what do you if you're one of those aristocrats who fears the rise of the unwashed masses? Everything you can to limit their political power.

In the Confederacy the black codes will be joined by alternate "Jim Crow" laws designed to keep the poor whites in their place. Poll Taxes, literacy tests, out of the way polling locations and increased gun control will be some of the many tricks used to disenfranchise the less wealthy.

Overall, I think we're in general agreement.

Benjamin

We are, yes. Ironically in an independent CSA the populist/democratic poor whites may be even *more* racist than their OTL counterparts, as slaves will have certain things due to being valuable property of their masters that poor whites won't have, such as slaveowner protection in case of things like famines or breakdowns in law and order. And *that* left a huge amount of resentment in poor/middle class Southerners in the old order and was one problem of building the post-slavery order.
 

Spengler

Banned
We are, yes. Ironically in an independent CSA the populist/democratic poor whites may be even *more* racist than their OTL counterparts, as slaves will have certain things due to being valuable property of their masters that poor whites won't have, such as slaveowner protection in case of things like famines or breakdowns in law and order. And *that* left a huge amount of resentment in poor/middle class Southerners in the old order and was one problem of building the post-slavery order.
Are you suggesting that a "free soiler" like party could arise in a hypothetical independent CSA?
 
I think the issue of poorer white resentments in the south would be the source of some of the worst upheavals in my scenario. The white south would be totally militarized partly for social control, partly for anti north anti mexico independence.

Stable military societies are rare and weird. They do exist. we have the examples of the Kims in DPRK, Profirio Diaz through most of the last half of the 19th Century, the Vargas regime in Brazil. But most military governments are rife with coups and counter coups. Bolivia being the worst example.

Very quickly we might have seen some poor white guy with military competence establishing a regime of the poor whites to face their grievances. I don't believe this scenario would be at all pretty. Expulsion or genocide against blacks, and a Bolshevik economic regime are both equally likely, and might even happen together.

A southern victory would be at best an unmitigated disaster.
 
Are you suggesting that a "free soiler" like party could arise in a hypothetical independent CSA?

No. Just.....no. It would never arise and if by some miracle it did rise its odds of lasting five years are as great as the odds of Jesus descending from Heaven and leading the population of Jerusalem in a rendition of Thriller. Southern poor white resentment would be less free soil and more on the lines of the Ku Klux Klan. Ironically, too, the planters have every reason to oppose that kind of thing as it's a menace to their own wealth.
 
2000 wasn't anywhere near as blatantly stolen.

True. And with Gore's numbnuts political advisors screwing everything up while W had James A. Baker III having his side running like a well-oiled machine...:mad: The public was left with the perception of "faults on both sides" and "everyone had some blame"... and politics is always about perception.
 
While I can't right at the minute go through my library to find the precise cites, there is plenty of documentary evidence that a large number of CSA politicians and "gentry" wanted to reintroduce property qualifications for the franchise. Do note that at the time of the CW the UK still had a restricted (male) franchise. The presence of the black slave class would give disenfranchised white men somebody to always be above and, at least in theory, tamp down resentment about not having the vote.

Between 1800 and the CW, restrictions on blacks had gradually gotten MORE severe in most of the slave states. Formal restrictions on literacy for slaves, and several states had ordinances that required freed slaves to leave the state within a specified (and short) period of time. I can easily see an independent CSA outlawing manumission, and possibly expelling all blacks who were free - and "if you don't leave within x days,you will be enslaved". For a model see the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 - leave, convert, or die....

The vision that the political thinkers (and I use that word advisedly) of the south had was for a hierarchical agricultural society "ruled" by the best elements with 2nd class whites who knew their place and slavery, uncontaminated by capitalism and "Yankee greed" and factories etc. States rights and localism would prevail, with minimal (if any) central coordination or direction in almost any area. This was a vision not only disconnected from the world of 1860, but a plan for disaster in the next few decades.

The south in 1860 was suffering from the "resource curse" economists talk about, that allows a country to live off a natural resource and not diversify or industrialize. This has tremendous social implications. And, unfortunately for the CSA, their resources of cotton & tobacco, unlike oil, diamonds, etc can be (and were) easily sourced elsewhere.

After a few decades of this cesspit getting deeper and smellier, IMHO the USA would be interested only in getting their hands on such contiguous territory as had economic or strategic value, and making sure that the CSA never became a portal for a hostile power to get on North American soil - let most of it simmer in 3rd world existence...
 
Unless I'm wrong the Confederate Constitution states that slavery cannot be abolished in the CSA by any "FEDERAL DECREE". Due to this I've always figured that eventually slavery would be abolished state by state according to their own government whenever slavery no longer seemed necessary within their boarders. I also think that the states of the CSA would get economic pressure from British merchants who may not be happy about slavery. This would then provide an incentive for some slave states to abolish it sooner as a means to get more foreign business to come to their ports instead of the states next to them. If that could become the case I figure that the last states to hold slaves would be SC and GA.

One ATL that I've thought of involves this situation and Georgia and the Carolinas refuse to abolish slavery even after every other CS state has. Then when the federal government pressures then with the excuse that it would raise foreign approval they then secede from the CSA themselves. Due to their small size though their economies crumble within a few years and then try to renter the CSA but some of the population decides to fight this and various riots become a problem in those states for years to come even after reunification.

What do you think that the USA would do if faced with this occurring beneath their boarder?
 
Unless I'm wrong the Confederate Constitution states that slavery cannot be abolished in the CSA by any "FEDERAL DECREE". Due to this I've always figured that eventually slavery would be abolished state by state according to their own government whenever slavery no longer seemed necessary within their borders. I also think that the states of the CSA would get economic pressure from British merchants who may not be happy about slavery. This would then provide an incentive for some slave states to abolish it sooner as a means to get more foreign business to come to their ports instead of the states next to them. If that could become the case I figure that the last states to hold slaves would be SC and GA.

One ATL that I've thought of involves this situation and Georgia and the Carolinas refuse to abolish slavery even after every other CS state has. Then when the federal government pressures then with the excuse that it would raise foreign approval they then secede from the CSA themselves. Due to their small size though their economies crumble within a few years and then try to renter the CSA but some of the population decides to fight this and various riots become a problem in those states for years to come even after reunification.

What do you think that the USA would do if faced with this occurring beneath their border?

Alabama and Mississippi would have to be included in this, along with Louisiana, Florida, and Texas. They were the most "diehard" slave-holding states. Not North Carolina though. I could see them abolishing slavery one day. The trouble is Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina are just enough to make for a third world country.

Its the border states (Kentucky, Tennessee, even Arkansas, Virginia and North Carolina) who could see themselves floating back into the Union in these circumstances.
 
Unless I'm wrong the Confederate Constitution states that slavery cannot be abolished in the CSA by any "FEDERAL DECREE". Due to this I've always figured that eventually slavery would be abolished state by state according to their own government whenever slavery no longer seemed necessary within their boarders. I also think that the states of the CSA would get economic pressure from British merchants who may not be happy about slavery. This would then provide an incentive for some slave states to abolish it sooner as a means to get more foreign business to come to their ports instead of the states next to them. If that could become the case I figure that the last states to hold slaves would be SC and GA.

The restrictions placed on those states that would illegalize slavery ammounted to slavery still being in place though and so it doesnt matter if it is "illegal" you are still going to have a bad reputation in the rest of the world.
 
The post-war CSA would be an...interesting place to say the least. In the immediate aftermath of the war you would see an influx of British and French investment which would stimulate the economy for the next few years. There would also be a very large industrial drive. The drive would come for one simple reason, the fact that the South will have to build a very large arms industry very quickly. Cannon foundries, arms factories, shipyards for a (albeit small) navy. The South's leaders weren't exactly stupid. It will be a case of expand or die. The Union may be defeated diplomatically in some cases, but militarily they will be far from finished.

This would leave the planters with a good hold on power for ten to fifteen years, but the fact that the industry would be forced to expand would mean that most likely by 1890 you have some competition coming from either foreign powers or internally developed competition.

Now understandably for various reasons they will not be able to keep up after 1915 and I give all semblance of internal stability till about 1920 until things begin to irrevocably collapse. This will be the low point for the South and by 1960 it won't even be a functioning country (maybe not even one country anymore).
 

NothingNow

Banned

Sure, in the northern portion anyway, but as the soil got degraded they'd have to move elsewhere, or switch to different Crops. Following the war, there's a good chance Florida's ports would be devastated enough that Cotton farming would be impractical anyway.

As it is, The Soil's terrible for it in much of the state (being much too sandy,) and Sugar's a much better crop for the Muck down south. Sugar's easily mechanized too (it's part of how the Cubans got to be so successful,) but well, the Everglades were Seminole Territory. You just didn't go there.

Florida was mostly a Meat and Salt provider during the ACW besides blockade running. I figure trade with the rest of the world ought to be a bit more valuable in such a case.

Not to mention the whole issue of the Royal Navy being right next door.
 
The restrictions placed on those states that would illegalize slavery ammounted to slavery still being in place though and so it doesnt matter if it is "illegal" you are still going to have a bad reputation in the rest of the world.


Exactly, due to the Dredd Scott Decision there will be no Free States.
 
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