Plausibility check: continual independent CSA

RousseauX

Donor
Let's say the CSA gets a quick victory in 1861-62, bad leadership, bad luck, the USA rolls snake eyes over and over again for a year or so and the CSA goes independent. Maybe Washington DC falls before it gets fortified, or maybe a bunch of defeats destroys political will in the north long enough so that a peace is signed.

How likely would it be that the USA domestic political system would, at least for a couple of generations, basically go "good riddance to bad rubbish" and "we never wanted the slavocrats in the union anyway". Maybe some elements of the north are actually secretly relieved that they don't have to deal with freed African-Americans. There's also the advantage that once the southern agarian states are out it's much easier to enact industrialization policies like tariffs favorable to the Republican party's core constituency in the great industrial cities of the Mid-Atlantic and upper Midwest.

So by the early 1900s (when the boll weevil hit the south and their economy tanks when their cotton crop are destroyed) comes around, the USA -could- launch a war to retake the south, they simply decide it's not worth it. Casualties would be high, it would be costly to occupy, and besides: why take over a devastated economically unproductive region with lots of racial problems?

Maybe a few upper southern states secede from the CSA and rejoin the union, or maybe some kind of Confederate nationalism has developed by this point and that's not politically possible for their state governments: let's assume the latter.

Can this happen? What does domestic politics in the US look like?
 
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Philip

Donor
Maybe some elements of the north are actually secretly relieved that they don't have to deal with freed African-Americans.

Why would it be secret ITTL? It wasn't a secret IOTL.

So by the 1880s-90s (when the boll weevil hit the south and their economy tanks when their cotton crop are destroyed) comes around,

How is the economy of USA at this time? If it is doing well, there may be a mass migration.

they simply decide it's not worth it.

Given the opportunity, I find it hard to believe that USA will not attempt to secure the mouth of the Mississippi. They might not try to take the entire CSA, but some parts can't be ignored.
 

RousseauX

Donor
Why would it be secret ITTL? It wasn't a secret IOTL.
point taken
How is the economy of USA at this time? If it is doing well, there may be a mass migration.
I was thinking the same thing, but the PoD the era before when there were a lot of north-south railroad links which only popped up in the early 1900s and they might not exist if CSA/USA are 2 different countries.

So there would be some refugees from the upper south like Virginia or Missouri, but it's pretty hard to walk to the USA if you live in Georgia. Especially when a significant part of the population are not permitted to travel.


Given the opportunity, I find it hard to believe that USA will not attempt to secure the mouth of the Mississippi. They might not try to take the entire CSA, but some parts can't be ignored.
A protectorate of New Orleans would be interesting, but I can't help but think as long as the CSA government exists the USA can't reliably hold it.
 
I've been of the opinion for some time that to have a an independent southern confederation that lasts for more than a few decades you have to have the rest of the USA fracture.

Here are the reasons:

1. American nationalism was real thing and it really was tied into a sea-to-sea continental empire. Canada was protected by the British, in the nineteenth century the most powerful empire in world history, or otherwise it would have been absorbed. Path dependence protects the independence of Canada now. The Americans would have tried again to conquer the southern states.

2. In an era where military power was a direct function of manpower plus industry, the northern states were ridiculously more powerful than the southern states, and the CSA lasting past 1863 was really due to massive screw ups on the part of Lincoln and his generals (plus the CSA defense was more than competent). Once the USA tried again to conquer the southern states they wold succeed.

3. To get a CSA victory you have to make the USA more dysfunctional, probably to the point where the whole thing just collapses.

4. Once the precedent is set that a state can leave the USA, even if the federal government and the other states try to use force to prevent it, there is nothing to stop other states and entire regions from leaving what has been demonstrated to be a failed system anytime they have a quarrel with the federal government. New York City, Utah, and California are all good candidates to try this as soon as the CSA wins.

So I've thought that the numerous alternative histories where you have an intact USA, to boot one that is not a dictatorship and does not try to conquer Canada, and an intact CSA existing side by side for decades to be absurdly implausible.
 

RousseauX

Donor
1. American nationalism was real thing and it really was tied into a sea-to-sea continental empire. Canada was protected by the British, in the nineteenth century the most powerful empire in world history, or otherwise it would have been absorbed. Path dependence protects the independence of Canada now. The Americans would have tried again to conquer the southern states.
American nationalist attitudes towards the south was not immutable:

1) Sea-to-shining-Sea was always about westwards expansion, not the south

2) American imperialist expansionism, even at its heights in the 1840s-1850s was never a national consensus. But rather a subject of debate. Abraham Lincoln himself was a strong opponent of the Mexican War for instance. In the 1860s, secretary Seward believed in letting the south go and replacing them with Canada. One can see the anti-expansionist camp winning, especially if expansionism carries heavier costs than fighting Mexico and American Indians.

3) Political culture and national objectives change with time: attitude towards lost territories does not have to be revanchist: as an extreme example you can see Germans giving up completely its claims on anything east of the Oder-Neisse line, in their minds as well as in treaties.

2. In an era where military power was a direct function of manpower plus industry, the northern states were ridiculously more powerful than the southern states, and the CSA lasting past 1863 was really due to massive screw ups on the part of Lincoln and his generals (plus the CSA defense was more than competent). Once the USA tried again to conquer the southern states they wold succeed.
The USA today can easily conquer Mexico if they choose to, but they don't because there's limited benefit for doing so, and massive costs for doing so.

3. To get a CSA victory you have to make the USA more dysfunctional, probably to the point where the whole thing just collapses.
Or just a brief collapse of political will at a key moment.

If two rational wargamers takes over the heads of Lincoln and Jefferson in 1861 sure, the north will win. But in actuality political leaders and national mood are not rational, you can see a plausible scenario where a series of military disasters followed by UK/French intervention producing a collapse of northern morale for a few months, long enough for a peace treaty to be signed. Even if the north would win if they fight on.

4. Once the precedent is set that a state can leave the USA, even if the federal government and the other states try to use force to prevent it, there is nothing to stop other states and entire regions from leaving what has been demonstrated to be a failed system anytime they have a quarrel with the federal government. New York City, Utah, and California are all good candidates to try this as soon as the CSA wins.

So I've thought that the numerous alternative histories where you have an intact USA, to boot one that is not a dictatorship and does not try to conquer Canada, and an intact CSA existing side by side for decades to be absurdly implausible.
This is a good point, but I suspect the damage would have being done already if the CSA gets independence in 1862 or so. Plus, I don't think the USA would go to war with the CSA over this unless there was some real and immediate threat of further secession and a war against the CSA is seen as a way to stave it off. It's quite possible the USA does well enough that no serious secession attempt is made for 50 years so, long enough for the CSA secession to be seen as a one-time thing and a constitutional amendment passed against secession.
 
The USA will want to maintain control over the Mississippi river and Caribbean for national security purposes. If the CSA maintains de jure independence, it will end up as another country in the region under the Yankee thumb. The Cotton Kingdom will be a banana republic like any other that the US occupied.

However, this is a very different thing than straight-up reconquering the south.

Things like annexing Virginia, Tennessee, a slice of Arkansas, west Texas, and getting military transit rights to the Mississippi seem more likely. Promoting political instability within the CSA (slave revolts, state secession movements, etc) also seems plausible.
 
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probably more liberal in general, likely more industrialized, and the republicans become the single dominant party over rump democrats and populists. maybe the progressives or socialists become the new opposition parties in the future.
 

RousseauX

Donor
probably more liberal in general, likely more industrialized, and the republicans become the single dominant party over rump democrats and populists. maybe the progressives or socialists become the new opposition parties in the future.
I pretty much agree with Turtledove, without the Democrats there would have being a Republican party as the party of capital and a Socialist party as the party of labor
 
I pretty much agree with Turtledove, without the Democrats there would have being a Republican party as the party of capital and a Socialist party as the party of labor

the question is if the socialist party are more genuinely revolutionary (OTL) or go down a path of reformist social-democracy like they do in TL-191
 

RousseauX

Donor
the question is if the socialist party are more genuinely revolutionary (OTL) or go down a path of reformist social-democracy like they do in TL-191
it's also going to be interesting how the geographical distribution hashes out

otl The Democratic coalition by the 1890s was the Democratic prairie midwest+south vs Republican upper midwest+northeast

really interesting thinking about how a Republican vs Socialist electoral battle goes: the republicans can't count on winning the industrial states like otl
 
it's also going to be interesting how the geographical distribution hashes out

otl The Democratic coalition by the 1890s was the Democratic prairie midwest+south vs Republican upper midwest+northeast

really interesting thinking about how a Republican vs Socialist electoral battle goes: the republicans can't count on winning the industrial states like otl

actually, debs best states in 1912 were in the midwest. i'd argue big cities and the midwest would be the socialist centers.
 
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