Mexico Following CSA Victory

[Max Sinister]

For what would they want access to the Pacific? For a navy? AFAIK the US navy was always supreme, so they should better build up a fleet in the Gulf. For building a colonial Pacific empire? For making trade? My informations are from GWTW, but didn't the Southerners tend to leave trade to the Yankees, as something beneath their dignity?

 

[ljofa]

I think the CSA would want access to the Pacific to be able to rival the North - Southern secession wouldn't just be about declaring independence, there would be a three-way race for supremacy in North America - USA, CSA and Canada. A continental railroad running through the CSA could generate megabucks, particularly if the CSA could take over the copper and silver mines in Sonora.

There are also strategic considerations - the CSA want New Mexico and yet most scenarios don't end up giving New Mexico to the CSA. It would make tactical sense to get a hold of the Mexican territories to be able to mount a successful invasion should the need arise with maybe, just maybe an invasion of California as a long, long, long-term ambition.

A victorious CSA in the 2nd American Revolution or whatever a conflict would end up being known by would need to industrialise and diversify its economy. Being dependent on cotton exports would be disasterous.

Of course, the CSA could go north; butterfly off "CSA buys Alaska" - I dare ya!

 

[Max Sinister]

"Being dependent on cotton exports would be disasterous."

Absolutely true. But at that time it was a good way to make lots of money. And that's why they won't change it that fast. Some far-thinking people would suggest it, but most people wouldn't care. Why build up factories and such if you can plant some cotton, sell it for a good price and buy all the stuff you like? It'd be like today in the gulf states with oil. Once the times change, they're in deep shit.

The CSA has much less people than the US, and much less industry and such, and in the long run, the relation will change even more in the US' favor. So the CSA would have all hands full to be prepared against the US.

 

[Faeelin]

Being dependent on cotton exports would be disasterous.

Sorta like how the nations of Latin America, recognizing that being dependent on cash crops, diversified, right?

 

[ljofa]

Except that in the 1860's the American cotton industry was already on shaky ground. The CSA decided to voluntary suspend exports of cotton to Europe in the hope that Britain and France would rush to the rescue as it was (incorrectly) assumed that the British and French economies would be devastated. However, India and Egypt were able to pick up the slack and the CSA were left high and dry.

A victorious CSA would be forced to recognise that the world had changed, King Cotton was dead and either switch to growing tobacco which hadn't really gained universal appeal as yet or industrialise. Texan oil plus the birth of the automobile industry would give the CSA the necessary leg-up it would need.

 

[Tyr]

The CSA isn't going empire building.
It'd be lucky if it doesn't fall apart or at least loose A LOT of land.

 

[Stone-wall34]

Dear Ninebucks

WHAT!!!! Any allience between Britain and the French is just one of convenience.

 

[stevep]

Except that in the 1860's the American cotton industry was already on shaky ground. The CSA decided to voluntary suspend exports of cotton to Europe in the hope that Britain and France would rush to the rescue as it was (incorrectly) assumed that the British and French economies would be devastated. However, India and Egypt were able to pick up the slack and the CSA were left high and dry.

A victorious CSA would be forced to recognise that the world had changed, King Cotton was dead and either switch to growing tobacco which hadn't really gained universal appeal as yet or industrialise. Texan oil plus the birth of the automobile industry would give the CSA the necessary leg-up it would need.

Plus, depending on the exact TL but they have just fought a war for their independence. For much of that time they would be hamstrung by the lack of locally produced equipment, military and otherwise and the fact that a superior northern navy can cut their trade off. This would give a big incentive to make at least some investment in certain industries. Especially if there's an embittered north scowling and promising revenge. The highly decentralised nature of the CSA might be a barrier here but the shock of the war could change that or you might see some states try and go it alone in industrial development and others start to follow as those states begin to make money from it.

Steve

 

[stevep]

WHAT!!!! Any allience between Britain and the French is just one of convenience.

Stonewall

The relevant parts of that sentence are "Any alliance" & "is just one of convenience." The section in the middle is relatively irrelevant.

Steve

 

[DuQuense]

Except that in the 1860's the American cotton industry was already on shaky ground. The CSA decided to voluntary suspend exports of cotton to Europe in the hope that Britain and France would rush to the rescue as it was (incorrectly) assumed that the British and French economies would be devastated. However, India and Egypt were able to pick up the slack and the CSA were left high and dry.

A victorious CSA would be forced to recognise that the world had changed, King Cotton was dead and either switch to growing tobacco which hadn't really gained universal appeal as yet or industrialise. Texan oil plus the birth of the automobile industry would give the CSA the necessary leg-up it would need.

Post ACW is the days of King Cotton, the great Cotton Barons were in the 1880's~1890's, and based on Share-cropping, not on slavery.

 

[Nekromans]

WHAT!!!! Any allience between Britain and the French is just one of convenience.

ANY alliance is just out of convenience, if you look at it that way. NATO was convenient for anti-communists. The Entente was convenient for Anglo-Franco-Russian relations. Marriage is convenient for both sides.

 

[Norman]

I have a couple of thoughts and a couple of questions:

First, I do believe an earlier 'CSA' is more feasible than the 1860 attempt, a lot of the things that drove the Union apart just hadn't happened, and the Republicans just weren't as focussed.

Second, the Agrarian South really had no common interests with the West (Beyond East Texas), the economy of the West had a different basis, and the Western Economy was more closely linked with Northern industrialization than the Southern agrarian / cotton / slave based Economy.

So what do a bunch of Episcopalian Anglo planters have in common with the Catholic Mestizo culture of Mexico?

Also does the South really have the ability or the resources to pursue a war some 1800 miles away from its center? Remember, this is a decentralized country that requires governors to call up troops, would North Carolina call up troops to conquer a couple of northern states in Mexico?

 

[Faeelin]

A victorious CSA would be forced to recognise that the world had changed, King Cotton was dead and either switch to growing tobacco which hadn't really gained universal appeal as yet or industrialise. Texan oil plus the birth of the automobile industry would give the CSA the necessary leg-up it would need.

1) Why would the South invest in the extensive internal improvements the north did that made automobiles viable?

2) Again, few nations relient on a major crop for export managed to industrialize successfuly, even after the crop's value declined.

Why does the CSA?

 

[Max Sinister]

Good points, Norbert.

 

[Fatstalin]

1) Why would the South invest in the extensive internal improvements the north did that made automobiles viable?

2) Again, few nations relient on a major crop for export managed to industrialize successfuly, even after the crop's value declined.

Why does the CSA?

Actually, I do believe that the Confederates, in order to meet the demands of the on-going war effort during the OTL Civil War, did industrialize to a rather significant extent (although still nowhere near the development of the North). And, perhaps if a well-liked predacessor of Jefferson Davis with the goal of mass-industrialization in mind was to gain power, you could see a moderately industrial economy emerging in the South by the beginning of the 20th Century.

Second, the Agrarian South really had no common interests with the West (Beyond East Texas), the economy of the West had a different basis, and the Western Economy was more closely linked with Northern industrialization than the Southern agrarian / cotton / slave based Economy.

I'd have to agree. In reality, it seems more likely that the CSA would expand south into the Caribbean. Decaying colonies and insignificant states such as Cuba, the Dominician Republic, Central American Republics could easily become prey to Southern ambitions. Of course, the question would be how would the South come to satisfy such ambitions.

If the CSA comes into existence in 1852~1853,, Probably in '53 as a result of the '52 elections, the question becomes what States, make the CSA.

An earlier Civil War seems rather implausible. Without such catalysts as "Bleeding Kansas," Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, the Republican Party/large Free Soil Movement, and a more vocal, more organized abolitionist movement (although certainly the call for abolition was significant during the later 1830's into the 1840's), there isn't really a large enough spark to blow the whole powder keg.

Now, maybe you could go out on a limb and say the South seceeded as a result of the Tariff of Abominations/Nullification Crisis or the successful inclusion of the Wilmot Proviso into the budget, or maybe even a radicial aftermath brought about by the failure of the Compromise of 1850, but the premise would certainly have to be well developed.

 

[HueyLong]

The Rebels of 1860 will have no reason to deny Cotton is King if they win their independece, especially if they get foreign intervention to win.

The Panic of 1857 increased King Cotton's prestige. Any intervention during the ACW would show his strength. Any problems afterwards could be blamed on the war itself, not in any failure on the part of King Cotton.

The CSA would not industrialise, not with the huge amounts of capital it poured into slaves and land, and not considering their very low urban population and their near paraltic labor market.

 

[Jared]

Sorta like how the nations of Latin America, recognizing that being dependent on cash crops, diversified, right?

Well, I've never really figured why people think that the CSA should be compared to Latin American states. It has quite a different cultural tradition. A closer one would be Australia in the nineteenth century, which was also hugely dependent on primary production (wool, and to a lesser degree wheat)... and yet which survived the transition when the prices for those commodities collapsed. I don't think that an independent CSA would be the arsenal of democracy, but I don't think that it'd turn into a banana republic either.

 

[Faeelin]

Well, I've never really figured why people think that the CSA should be compared to Latin American states. It has quite a different cultural tradition. A closer one would be Australia in the nineteenth century, which was also hugely dependent on primary production (wool, and to a lesser degree wheat)... and yet which survived the transition when the prices for those commodities collapsed. I don't think that an independent CSA would be the arsenal of democracy, but I don't think that it'd turn into a banana republic either.

Why Australia?

I don't see many comparisons between that land of hope and glory and a nation based on slave labor, but I could be persuaded otherwise.

 

[JHPier]

The French intervened in Mexico on the side of the party that just lost their civil war. Without being propped up by French bayonets Maximilian's side would lose again. With being propped up by French bayonets the French are in for a second Algeria. Mexico at this time was a decentralized country where provincial governors had their own armies and were at times more powerful than whoever was president in Mexico City, and where provinces fought their own civil wars without interference from the central government.
This made the country fairly easy to defeat but hard to conquer.

Selling further bits of the country after 1848 was political suicide for any Mexican government. When Santa Ana agreed to the Gadsden Purchase his 30-year political career came to an abrupt end and he ended his days in exile.

 

[Norman]

Let me propose an even earlier breakup, not over slavery, but over the admission of Texas in 1845. We know that Great Britain opposed the annexation, what if there was a US president that determined to oppose the Union and the Southern states decided to secede, form a different nation and admit Texas in response to Northern timidity over the admission of Texas?

Since the breakup is about Texas, the rest of the union might actually be reluctant to oppose the establishment of a Southern Nation and after some token resistance, the South is permitted to go its way.

This POD would also create a potential for war with Mexico in 1848, that could end in the annexation of even more Mexican lands.