Party Systems of the USA and Independent CSA?

[Anaxagoras]

My hypothesis for a southern victory. Lee is elected overwhelmingly in 1867 as a kind of George Washington who holds together pro and antidavis factions.

I still see no reason to suppose Lee would run for President.

 

[Æsir]

I still see no reason to suppose Lee would run for President.

I think part of the idea that Lee might run for President is from his idolization of Washington; like Washington, people reason, he would feel it his duty to serve if called upon and more directly would want to consciously imitate Washington.

 

[Anaxagoras]

I think part of the idea that Lee might run for President is from his idolization of Washington; like Washington, people reason, he would feel it his duty to serve if called upon and more directly would want to consciously imitate Washington.

But Washington had been a politician before his war, serving in the Virginia House of Burgesses and the Continental Congress. Lee had never spent a day outside the army in his whole professional life and his correspondence shows remarkably little interest in politics.

 

[Æsir]

But Washington had been a politician before his war, serving in the Virginia House of Burgesses and the Continental Congress. Lee had never spent a day outside the army in his whole professional life and his correspondence shows remarkably little interest in politics.

Fair enough. I really don't know enough about Lee to say, but I think that idea, be it correct or incorrect, has been mentioned here before as a reasoning for Lee running.

 

[Fiver]

My hypothesis for a southern victory. Lee is elected overwhelmingly in 1867 as a kind of George Washington who holds together pro and antidavis factions.

That's the standard CSA independence cliche, but it is far from certain. Unlike Washington, Lee had no previous political career and no real interest in politics. There are easily a dozen men with actual political careers and established political machines that would also want the CSA Presidency. In 1867 Lee is not as popular as the cliche assumes, he hadn't been deified by the Lost Cause yet.

Lee did about as well as could be expected in OTL. If the Confederacy does gain independence, its going to require military triumphs by men that are not Robert E Lee. Many of those men will also aspire to political careers; Lee will not stand alone as a military leader like Washington did.

Lee will be seen as part of the pro-Davis faction, which means Lee will have to carry the baggage of every Davis blunder and the centralization of power under the Davis administration. Lee will probably be falsely accused of being an abolitionist, which will further hurt his election chances.

 

[othyrsyde]

Alternatively, the CSA, all nominally Democrats might become a single-party autocratic state. A lot of decentralization got pitched out the window by the Confederacy during the ACW. For most Confederate politicians, States Rights were anything but sacrosanct. The Border Ruffians, the LeCompton Constitution, the Fugitive Slave Law, the Dred Scott decision - all blatant violations of States Rights and all enthusiastically supported by much of the South. The Davis administration dictated rates to railroads and required blockade runners to carry government cargoes free of charge. Workers were drafted to keep them from striking and to get better rates out of industries. Civilian firearms were confiscated. Half-a-million dollars in goods was impressed by the Confederate government. Internal passports were required in certain areas. The CS government declared that any debts owed to Union citizens were now owed to the Confederate government. Emory Thomas points out that by 1863, more government workers were employed by Richmond than by Washington DC. Men who actually believed in States Rights like Brown of Georgia and Vance of North Carolina were generally seen as obstructionists, not hailed for their dedication.

This to me is the most likely and least explored aspect of the CSA. Latin American politics might also be a better analogy, with a slavocracy conservative movement being challenged by a more liberal minded urban elite that grows as time passes. And these differences would likely be settled in a true civil war given the autocratic nature of the Confederacy. And the growth of socialism might not be a for gone conclusion with class becoming a far more pressing issue with the lack of 'Southern nationalism' that is the legacy of OTL ACW.

I actually considered writing this TL out just to piss off this one idiot on here who presented some idealic version of the CSA. Fortunately, he was banned.

 

[Emperor Julian]

I imagine that the CSA has a good chance of descending into a full-on race war.

 

[ColeMercury]

That's the standard CSA independence cliche, but it is far from certain. Unlike Washington, Lee had no previous political career and no real interest in politics. There are easily a dozen men with actual political careers and established political machines that would also want the CSA Presidency. In 1867 Lee is not as popular as the cliche assumes, he hadn't been deified by the Lost Cause yet.

Robert E Lee is the 19th-century David Petraeus.

 

[Rush Tarquin]

So what sort of coalitions of interests will be backing each party in the medium to long term? In the North, without the political block of the South, will we have a party of Labor, immigrants, Catholics, populists, small farmers, the West, and the big cities on the one hand and a party of abolitionists, Big Capital, nativists, WASPs, black voters, and New England on the other? Where would anti-corruption movements, the suffragettes, anti-Mormonism, and temperance movements tend to fit? Which side would military servicemen tend to support?