Largest Possible Confederacy?

I didn't know that slavery was legal in Nebraska. I thought the whole purpose of the Kansas-Nebraska Act was for the former to be slave and the latter, free. So that's something I learnt today.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
The collapsing economy would be whatever passed for one in the "CSA"

Since the Civil War, the Southern US has always been poor.

There's a reason why.


Given the collapse of Southern cotton's place in the world market due to what historically began being produced in India, Egypt, etc., that's not going to change.


The other staple plantation crops before thre war - tobacco and rice - are not uniquely situated; both were grown elsewhere in the world in the Nineteenth Century, quite successfully.


In terms of climate and capital, the southern US was not particularly well suited to wheats and cereals, which were the cash crops for much of the Midewest, Great Plains, and points west in the Nineteenth Century; while beef, outside of Texas, is not going to be a big export, and that industry will depend on the development of refrigeration for railways and (for export) shipping. The same holds true for fresh fruits and vegetables as commodities.


The southern US is not particularly well-provided with mineral resources that can be extracted economically in the Nineteenth Century, other than oil in Texas, and the development of that industry depends on capital and technology from elsewhere; in addition, Pennsylvania, the Midwest, the Plains, and the Far West. And markets have to develop for POL, as well.

Spindletop didn't occur until 1901, and for very real economic and market reasons.


So they question is - along with how a CSA even survives as an independent nation, which no one ever can provide convincingly - what in the world is such a "nation" going to live off economically in the Nineteenth Century?


Again, Margaret Mitchell called it - the only commodities the South had in abundance were "cotton, and slaves, and arrogance..."


Best
 
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I'm currently working on a timeline that would create natural circumstances for a CSA that would include Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Nevada. The POD is the French and Indian War. This will take me a long time to construct, but I can appreciate threads like this because it keeps the creative juices flowing.
 
Kentucky is possible, but only if the Union government alienates the state rather than the Confederate one.

West Virginia is the most likely of the lot given that only a small section of it was actually in favor of secession from the whole state. In its entirety it might be harder, but I can certainly see West Virginia being reduced to a rump, with at least half if not more being retro-ceded to Virginia.

Missouri isn't all that plausible. Neither is Kansas or Arizona.

This is assuming a POD after 1861.
 
Since the southern states were reasonably strong in pre-civil war US, at least compared with their power during and after the war, could we not see a constitutional change to make the entire Union into a Confederacy during the pre-1861-years? What governmental changes would be made?
 
Since the southern states were reasonably strong in pre-civil war US, at least compared with their power during and after the war, could we not see a constitutional change to make the entire Union into a Confederacy during the pre-1861-years? What governmental changes would be made?

No, not likely to happen. Such constitutional change would require more political power than the 11 states that seceded, plus Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland & Delaware (the other slave states) had. It certainly wasn't enough strength to push through the systemic changes that you're talking about.
 
I'm currently working on a timeline that would create natural circumstances for a CSA that would include Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Nevada. The POD is the French and Indian War. This will take me a long time to construct, but I can appreciate threads like this because it keeps the creative juices flowing.

Interesting, and doable w/a POD in the late 1750s. You do realize though, that several the states you listed will likely exist neither in name nor with boundaries resembling OTL (or even that the USA comes into existence as it did in OTL) w/a POD in the late 1750s, right?.
 
No, not likely to happen. Such constitutional change would require more political power than the 11 states that seceded, plus Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland & Delaware (the other slave states) had. It certainly wasn't enough strength to push through the systemic changes that you're talking about.
It was said in another thread a few months ago that there was some willingness to diminish federal power in many other states than these, before the Civil War.

If so, it could be many small changes on the federal level that add up to a vastly diminished federal authority, and give the states more independent power, without actually changing the basic skeletal framework.
 
Interesting, and doable w/a POD in the late 1750s. You do realize though, that several the states you listed will likely exist neither in name nor with boundaries resembling OTL (or even that the USA comes into existence as it did in OTL) w/a POD in the late 1750s, right?.

Oh absolutely. I've got interesting plans for our British friends. ;)
 

frlmerrin

Banned
So they question is - along with how a CSA even survives as an independent nation, which no one ever can provide convincingly - what in the world is such a "nation" going to live off economically in the Nineteenth Century?

God how often does one have to answer this silly question?

So assuming a European intervention, Californian freedom and a large Confederacy as described in my post above.

Cotton
Cotton brokerage (as the USA will be an independent nation it will be unprofitable for the Southern merchants to sell it via the exchange in NYC)
Trans-Atlantic shipping (as they won't want or need to trans-ship through NYC anymore)
Cotton textile trades (an ideal use of slave labour)
Coastal shipping and probably across the Gulf of Mexico
Fisheries (the coast of the CSA will be 3 to 4 times longer than that of the USA)
Riverine shipping including fees for transhipments of USA goods to the sea via the Mississippi
Molasses
Refined sugar
Tobacco
Finished cigarettes and cigars
Ground nuts
Beef (sell north to the USA as in OTL and south to the British Colonies both export trades) and internally this would be a very cheap way to feed slaves
Hogs
Iron ore mining
Coal mining
Iron and steel production and processing
Some hardwood logging
Sulphur mining (pre-Frasch process)
Sulphuric acid production
Copper mining
Copper processing
Hemp cultivation, textile and rope production
Paraffin production
Wolfram (Tungsten mining)
Lead mining
Zinc extraction
Silver mining
Bauxite mining and aliminium processing
Petroleum processing
Railways
Hydro-power
Ship building (coastal to start with then oceanic)
Armaments
Possibly importing other agricultural crops suitable for slave cultivation - tea, coffee, cocoa and rubber are the obvious ones
Holidays in the sun waited on by slaves for rich northerners
&c

The USA on the other hand has serious problems, massive war debts and possibly an indemnity to pay off. Only one major export earner - grain. Loss of two of the main streams of government funding import tariffs (because the USA's merchants have little money to buy imports) and Californian gold. The third stream government bonds is going to be seriously reduced too as the will have trouble paying off war bonds.

The CSA has debt problems too but has the wherewithall to get out of them.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Other than the fact there was never going to be:

a) a European war on the behalf of the CSA;
b) an independent California; and
c) a CSA any larger than it was in 1861, which rapidly grew smaller (West Virginia in 1862 and Tennessee in 1863).

You're in the land of the extraterrestial chiroptera.
 
And somehow despite having an iron production dwarfed by Pennsylvania alone (over half the total iron produced in the US in 1860, with Ohio and New Jersey in 2nd and 3rd place respectively), the CSA is listed as having iron to live off and the wherewithal to get out of its financial problems - but the USA isn't.

That's not just ASB. That's just inflating the CSA's production and deflating the USA's to levels that just don't stand even rudimentary scrutiny.

Even with an independent California, even with every slave state leaving the Union, even if the European powers guarantee the existence of an independent CSA - that still leaves the richer part of the country as the "rump" USA and the CSA with industrial power that compares to oh, Italy - probably less.
 
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It was said in another thread a few months ago that there was some willingness to diminish federal power in many other states than these, before the Civil War.

Sure there was, but there wasn't broad support for altering the Constitution in order to protect slavery.

If so, it could be many small changes on the federal level that add up to a vastly diminished federal authority, and give the states more independent power, without actually changing the basic skeletal framework.

Yes, Congress tossed around several proposals in a panicked last ditch effort to keep the Union together. A Constitutional Amendment prohibiting Congress from ever banning or interfering with slavery (state domestic institutions) was even sent to the states in 1861. - quite possible, as was the case in OTL. However, you're still talking about "vast" Constitutional changes, changes which will indeed change the "basic skeletal framework" upon which the Union is built (as the Corwin Amendment shows). The answer to your earlier question, could we not see a constitutional change to make the entire Union into a Confederacy during the pre-1861-years? remains No, not likely to happen.
 
I think the pro union sentiment of west virginia is overstated. The vote to secede from Virginia was as jerryrigged as several of the votes to secede from the union were in various confederate states. The fact is most people didn't care, the proconfedrates were away from the voting booths in the ANV, and the very strongly unionist Wheeling part got to infuence the vote to their favor. In a way, Wheeling is the St. Louis to West Virginia.
 
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