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

Nothing is destined. The similarities and common roots of both the US and CS imply that they could get along after a fact. There are three nations inhabiting the North American continent and for all the conflicts in their shared past they get along fairly well

The idea of a continued conflict between the US and CS rests more with the chauvinistic view that United States is the end all and be all and anyone not wanting to be part of it is to be vilified.

No, it relies on the reality that the CSA would be hideously unstable and that if US towns on the border are getting raided by CS cavalry or "slave catchers" then there will be casus belli. The best case scenario in this kind of split is North Korea/South Korea with the Union as South Korea and the CSA as North Korea, dictatorial, isolationist, but a dystopian basketcase that doesn't bring problems elsewhere.

The CSA, rooted in holding one third of its population slaves for the benefit of a minority of the other two thirds, is built on a fundamentally unsound principle and the reality of their co-existence would be akin to India and Pakistan more than the USA and Canada. The idea that the CSA would last as a stable democracy tends to rely on fundamentally blinkered views of what the CSA actually was, though it could be for some time a stable dictatorship.
 
And Snake's point about "slave catchers" is a good one. I can easily imagine some overly-enthusiastic slave-patrol people chasing escaped slaves into Union territory and getting into gunfights with the locals. Things mushroom from there.
 
And Snake's point about "slave catchers" is a good one. I can easily imagine some overly-enthusiastic slave-patrol people chasing escaped slaves into Union territory and getting into gunfights with the locals. Things mushroom from there.

Especially if the territory is a former Union slave state the CSA already claimed as territory it wished to annex. Then things would really be bad as this would intersect with not only CS institutions but with claims on US territory, which no self-respecting government would ever permit.....:eek:
 

MAlexMatt

Banned
The CSA, rooted in holding one third of its population slaves for the benefit of a minority of the other two thirds, is built on a fundamentally unsound principle

And yet the Romans built an empire of a thousand years on that principle.

I think what this view of the CSA is ultimately based on is a confusion of morality with reality. Because CSA was built on a morally bankrupt conception of society, it must have been politically and economically bankrupt, too. Because a CSA desperate for life in the last few years of a war for survival did some terrible things, it must be in the very DNA of Confederate governance to do those things.

The reality is inherently more complicated.
 
Since over time the CSA would become both economically and militarily inferior to the United States, I see no reason why they'd wish to reacquire what would amount to a 3rd World country.
 
And yet the Romans built an empire of a thousand years on that principle.

I think what this view of the CSA is ultimately based on is a confusion of morality with reality. Because CSA was built on a morally bankrupt conception of society, it must have been politically and economically bankrupt, too. Because a CSA desperate for life in the last few years of a war for survival did some terrible things, it must be in the very DNA of Confederate governance to do those things.

The reality is inherently more complicated.

I think that the Romans did that in a time when slavery had no economically superior alternatives and when they were the largest, strongest empire in their vicinity. Rome is a very misleading guide to what a 19th-20th Century Confederacy would be. The CSA was never pretending to be democratic in its high tide, it was a state of, by, and for the planter class, and this was underscored by the 20 Slave Law. And far more so by the government's backlash to the backlash against that law. Such a dictatorship would actually be far more stable than an attempt to cube a circle by building "democracy" on a huge slave population and oligarchic politics, and would be paradoxically more "democratic" as the CS Army is the only institution transcending all states and classes in the new nation, just as the Continental Army was in the USA, but in a situation where its politics have no means to go lighter and softer.

The paradox in a CS military dictatorship is that it's actually the most politically workable situation because it *is* the core of CS nationalism and *would* transcend problems of class and regionalism. The dictatorship would build the CSA out of Jefferson Davis's foundation and like other dictatorships in similar situations IOTL will avoid aggressive foreign policies endangering its monopoly on power. This doesn't predestine war, it if anything staves it off for at least two generations, when the CSA will seem as much a geopolitical fixture as the USSR was in the 1980s.

Since over time the CSA would become both economically and militarily inferior to the United States, I see no reason why they'd wish to reacquire what would amount to a 3rd World country.

I do: Confederate collapse meaning border raids of a relatively large-scale and lethal sort and fear that its collapse means direct European intervention in what was once US territory, as well as reviving Revanchist claims.
 

iddt3

Donor
And yet the Romans built an empire of a thousand years on that principle.

I think what this view of the CSA is ultimately based on is a confusion of morality with reality. Because CSA was built on a morally bankrupt conception of society, it must have been politically and economically bankrupt, too. Because a CSA desperate for life in the last few years of a war for survival did some terrible things, it must be in the very DNA of Confederate governance to do those things.

The reality is inherently more complicated.
Roman Slavery was not Southern Slavery, don't conflate the two. Roman slavery wasn't racialy based, and often the best and brightest slaves were manumated. For educated persons from poorer areas it could even be a career path. Southern slavery on the other hand is built on the brutal dehumanization of a different race of peoples, combined with the marginalization of poor whites to the benefit of a ruling planter class.
 
Most of what you have posted is reasonable. However we keep on seeing TL's and maps in which CSA an USA both expand into Spanish America. Why don't we get rid of all those clichés in which the CSA acquires part or all of Mexico, Cuba...
 
I think war between the CSA and USA does not have to happen.
Lot depends how damaged the USA is by the war.
if more states tried to seceded form the union this could start another conflict.
 
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IMO, the CSA won't last either way, because it is simply too backward: A country whose economy was based on agriculture and slavery, created way after the dawn of the industrial age and in the decade when even Czarist Russia abolished serfship...

The US might not even need a war to accomplish reunification. They just have to wait for the economic collapse of the CSA and then either have them creeping back into the Union or leave them as a third world neighbor.

CSA was the richer part of America before the civil war due to it is exports of cotton and tobacco, etc to Europe.
Industry in the north was not efficient and was protected by tariff from European competition.
Slavery would end in the CSA when it it was not long economical viable.
The CSA with tariffs on trade with Europe could have be a viable country.
 
CSA was the richer part of America before the civil war due to it is exports of cotton and tobacco, etc to Europe.
Industry in the north was not efficient and was protected by tariff from European competition.
Slavery would end in the CSA when it it was not long economical viable.
The CSA with tariffs on trade with Europe could have be a viable country.

Slavery would not end when it was no longer viable any more than the USSR ended Communism in the 1970s when it was clearly falling behind the West. Slavery was not just an economic system, it was enfolded into the ideology of the Confederate state.
 
Since over time the CSA would become both economically and militarily inferior to the United States, I see no reason why they'd wish to reacquire what would amount to a 3rd World country.

The 19th Century was the heyday of conquering economically and military inferior nations. I would have thought you were familiar with the concept of imperialism. ;)
 
Most of what you have posted is reasonable. However we keep on seeing TL's and maps in which CSA an USA both expand into Spanish America. Why don't we get rid of all those clichés in which the CSA acquires part or all of Mexico, Cuba...

After some discussion with AHP, my "steampunk TL" featuring an independent Confederacy that later collapses and is reabsorbed by the U.S. has the Confederacy acquiring parts of Mexico in a devil's deal with Maximillian to defeat the Juaristas, but an attempt to expand into Cuba gets severely jacked by the Spanish.
 
Since over time the CSA would become both economically and militarily inferior to the United States, I see no reason why they'd wish to reacquire what would amount to a 3rd World country.

By that standard, Germany would never have reunited and South Korea would not be collecting a tax to fund the inevitable uber-expenses of rebuilding North Korea after reunification.

And then there's sheer pride at making the efforts of those who broke off part of the United States for their own selfish reasons all for naught.
 
And Snake's point about "slave catchers" is a good one. I can easily imagine some overly-enthusiastic slave-patrol people chasing escaped slaves into Union territory and getting into gunfights with the locals. Things mushroom from there.

Alternatively, abolitionists and USCT veterans might raid across the border to free slaves and things escalate. There's also the risk of nasty guerilla war on both sides of the border.
 
CSA was the richer part of America before the civil war due to it is exports of cotton and tobacco, etc to Europe.

The south had higher personal wealth due to the skyrocketing price of slaves, but the rest of the country was more prosperous. The CSA economy and infrastructure were severely damaged by the war and that damage was largely self-inflicted.

Industry in the north was not efficient and was protected by tariff from European competition.

The 1860 Census shows it was more efficient than southern industry. In OTL, the blockade actually helped protect fledgling CSA industry, but the end of the war will make it hard for CSA industry to compete with foreign manufactures.

Slavery would end in the CSA when it it was not long economical viable.

In OTL, mechanical cotton picking became practical in 1943 and widespread sometime in the 1950s.
 
After some discussion with AHP, my "steampunk TL" featuring an independent Confederacy that later collapses and is reabsorbed by the U.S. has the Confederacy acquiring parts of Mexico in a devil's deal with Maximillian to defeat the Juaristas, but an attempt to expand into Cuba gets severely jacked by the Spanish.

That sounds vastly more credible and interesting than the average independent CSA timeline.
 
...all their customers are going to be giving them an increasingly hard time about slavery.

Worse, from the Confederate point of view, is that all their customers would be giving them an increasingly hard time about prices, just because they can.

"Dear Confederate States: We are again reducing the price we are willing to pay for cotton. We know you need our support and that you haven't got any other economy to fall back on. Furthermore, you need our capital investment to even dream about industrialization on a meaningful scale. Welcome to eternal dependency. Sincerely, your British and French leash-holders."
 
Slavery would not end when it was no longer viable any more than the USSR ended Communism in the 1970s when it was clearly falling behind the West. Slavery was not just an economic system, it was enfolded into the ideology of the Confederate state.

?? if they can't make a living at it, then slavery will end. It might not be a sudden end, but if the economic tide turns against slavery being profitable, then plantation style slavery will go away. I suppose they might keep 'house slaves' around for a while. I'd think that mechanization more than anything else would put an end to plantation slavery... sooner or later, someone in the south will invest in machinery, and start making higher profits than his neighbors...
 
I'd think that mechanization more than anything else would put an end to plantation slavery..

The one piece of mechanization that might have such an effect would be the cotton combine, and a working example was not developed until 1942. That's a long time to wait for salvation via technology.
 
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