In the course of the Secession Crisis of 1861, there was much discussion, and some legislative progress towards, various arrangements that would have given the seceding states a great deal of freedom in the handling of their domestic affairs in exchange for the continued collection, for the sake of the Federal Government, of tariffs in Southern ports. In our time line none of these proposals survived the onset of hostilities. However, if one of them had been adopted, the result would have been the conversion of the Southern states into "autonomous regions" that, while self-governing, would be part of a "customs union" with the United States.