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

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:

Or the SOuth, not wanting another bloodbath that they suffered in far more than the North might change their behavior based on the new circumstances.

One thing to play fast and loose with the rules when you have friends in high place ie governors, Senators, President(?).

Now that the North is a larger, more powerful nation who might send punitive raids instead of legal, easily ignored complaints...
 
?? 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...

The problems with this are twofold: one, a cotton combine wasn't invented until the 1940s in the OTL USA, and a CSA will be far more backwards scientifically. Two, the CSA jerry-rigged its constitution to make slavery's abolition impossible so it's stuck with its own success in building a home for agrarian slavery. Actually there's also a third: planters as a general rule were antipathetic to technology and like most slave societies a great deal of cheap manpower limited the necessity for and application of machinery. The CSA is doomed on its own system, it only works if it completely and revolutionarily alters the nature of that system.

Or the SOuth, not wanting another bloodbath that they suffered in far more than the North might change their behavior based on the new circumstances.

One thing to play fast and loose with the rules when you have friends in high place ie governors, Senators, President(?).

Now that the North is a larger, more powerful nation who might send punitive raids instead of legal, easily ignored complaints...

The same parts of the South willing to use firebombings and murders as weapons to prop up a segregation system that was clearly on the outs? I'm not exactly convinced this is what's going to happen.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
?? 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...

Absolutely correct. Slavery existed because it was profitable, in fact the most profitable economic sector in the US. The share cropping system that replaced slavery (and was much more exploitative) survived until mechanisation in the 1960's. There is no reason to suppose that an independent CSA would not continue and expand slavery for another century post-independence.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
BTW? The problem with the South's "vast wealth" was that THEY COULDN'T SPEND IT outside of the South. The greatest intrinsic "wealth" was slaves, which were not a tradable item overseas.:rolleyes: Nor could the South spare them. Once the boll weevil shows up, adios to all that wealth.:D

Cotton and tobacco etc. were.

As to the Boll Weevil, that's hardly relevant to the 19th century is it? By the time of the Weevil the CSA is the worlds largest oil producer.
 
Cotton and tobacco etc. were.

As to the Boll Weevil, that's hardly relevant to the 19th century is it? By the time of the Weevil the CSA is the worlds largest oil producer.

If simply possessing resources were all it took between them Brazil and Russia would be ruling the planet right now.
 
And I've read that those commissioners did that because they favored the South...

I imagine that charge was certainly levelled at them, definitely after war broke out, but how true at the time it was I don't know

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Cotton and tobacco etc. were.

As to the Boll Weevil, that's hardly relevant to the 19th century is it? By the time of the Weevil the CSA is the worlds largest oil producer.

Having the resources to be incredibly powerful does not equal power if that where the case Mexico would be one of the most powerful nations on earth and Russia would have won the cold war.
 
One thing to play fast and loose with the rules when you have friends in high place ie governors, Senators, President(?).

Now that the North is a larger, more powerful nation who might send punitive raids instead of legal, easily ignored complaints...

If the CSA leadership was that logical, they'd never have fired on Ft. Sumter.
 
I have doubts about the CSA going fascist, depending on the victory the country would be much more state-centric and comparatively much less centralized than it's Northern neighbor.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
By some measures I think it was, but it doesn't create wealth the way industrialization does, kind of like oil works now I think.

The rate of return on slaves was around 10% (first google hit at EH.com, which I'll use rather than papers and books. However, this agrees with Evan's 1962 paper, and the later work of Fogel and Engerman). For comparison the rate of return on Northern railroads was about 5% (not to be confused with the "social rate of return").
 

Perkeo

Banned
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.

Even if the age of rich agricutural countries was not quite over YET, histroy tells that it was about to end and countries with a similar economic structure as the CSA, e.g. Brazil became third world countries no later than two generations after the War beteen the States.

IMO the CSA would struggle to change their economic structure when agriculure and slavery no longer proved to be uneconomic. After all, defense of an economic system that is based on slavery and agriculture is the main reason why they seceeded in the first place. Flexibility on your country's founding myth is a lot to ask.
 
Nations that break off from other nations tend to get into life and death struggles alot. Germany and France. Serbia and Kosovo. India and Pakistan. Yaddayadda.

that's a horrible thought:eek::eek:. Imagine an independent CSA with nuclear Missiles locked in a MAD scenario with the U.S.
 
Even if the age of rich agricutural countries was not quite over YET, histroy tells that it was about to end and countries with a similar economic structure as the CSA, e.g. Brazil became third world countries no later than two generations after the War beteen the States.

IMO the CSA would struggle to change their economic structure when agriculure and slavery no longer proved to be uneconomic. After all, defense of an economic system that is based on slavery and agriculture is the main reason why they seceeded in the first place. Flexibility on your country's founding myth is a lot to ask.

Bah! You don't change it. THe Plantation is still the heart of DIxie.

Doesn't mean you don't industrialize. Or have white unions that fight against having slaves complete against them.

You just don't discuss how much more of the economy the industry is than the Plantation.

THis type of nostalgia for the farm is actually fairly widespread in OTL.
 
Bah! You don't change it. THe Plantation is still the heart of DIxie.

Doesn't mean you don't industrialize. Or have white unions that fight against having slaves complete against them.

You just don't discuss how much more of the economy the industry is than the Plantation.

THis type of nostalgia for the farm is actually fairly widespread in OTL.

Well of course but where would the money to industrialize come from? The CSA would be near bankruptcy at the first chance the war had to end and few people would want to invest in the not very populated country constantly on the verge of civil war.
 
Bah! You don't change it. THe Plantation is still the heart of DIxie.

Doesn't mean you don't industrialize. Or have white unions that fight against having slaves complete against them.

You just don't discuss how much more of the economy the industry is than the Plantation.

THis type of nostalgia for the farm is actually fairly widespread in OTL.

How? Why? The CSA is deliberately anti-industrial, this will not be a mere economic matter but integrated into the very ideology and legitimacy of the state. The Planters who monopolized power feared industrialism would collapse their unilateral control of what would now be Confederate politics. If the only proper pre-war centers of industry are Nashville and Richmond in a society overwhelmingly agrarian and with a huge slave population it can't simply up and get rid of bar either completely expelling them all or alternately having to cube a circle and emancipate them........

The CSA set a political system as unworkable as South Vietnam without a USA to prop it up.
 

Perkeo

Banned
How? Why? The CSA is deliberately anti-industrial, this will not be a mere economic matter but integrated into the very ideology and legitimacy of the state. The Planters who monopolized power feared industrialism would collapse their unilateral control of what would now be Confederate politics. If the only proper pre-war centers of industry are Nashville and Richmond in a society overwhelmingly agrarian and with a huge slave population it can't simply up and get rid of bar either completely expelling them all or alternately having to cube a circle and emancipate them........

I agree. If the Planters had been willing to coexist with an industrial sector and accept the abolition of slavery in the long term, why did they secede in the first place?

The CSA set a political system as unworkable as South Vietnam without a USA to prop it up.

That is more or less also my conclusion.
 
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