Or they could rub it in and call themselves Best Virginia
Radical Republicans go ahead with "State Suicide" theory- what does the new Southern map look like?
- Thread starter Byz
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Deleted member 109224
Tennessee stays in the union, and the slave-heavy bits of Kentucky and Tennessee west of the Tennessee River proceed to secede and join the Confederacy. Rump TN and KY proceed to be Appalachia-dominated.
Northern Virginia is carved off from the rest of Virginia and land is redistributed from planters to war veterans.
Northern Alabama is lopped onto rump-Tennessee, making that state even more pro-Republican.
Florida's panhandle is given to Alabama to make FL blacker, but isn't enough to undermine AL's black majority I think.
Meanwhile LA, MS, and SC are black-majority. Rump Alabama is also black majority now.
Northern Virginia is carved off from the rest of Virginia and land is redistributed from planters to war veterans.
Northern Alabama is lopped onto rump-Tennessee, making that state even more pro-Republican.
Florida's panhandle is given to Alabama to make FL blacker, but isn't enough to undermine AL's black majority I think.
Meanwhile LA, MS, and SC are black-majority. Rump Alabama is also black majority now.
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raharris1973
Gone Fishin'
You know that with superiority in guns and money and organization and literacy and practical political experience, minorities can rule over majorities, and probably will, without constant federal countervailing effort. IE, South Africa.
If the war got even nastier, perhaps.
Suppose that, very shortly after Fort Pillow, Forrest is captured, and he and some of his men are tried and hanged. (Justifiable, IMVHO, even if you give him and his men the rights of soldiers.)
The confederates take revenge for the executions by murdering some POW's. Things go down hill from there. Then some rebels manage to assassinate Lincoln...
Suppose that, very shortly after Fort Pillow, Forrest is captured, and he and some of his men are tried and hanged. (Justifiable, IMVHO, even if you give him and his men the rights of soldiers.)
The confederates take revenge for the executions by murdering some POW's. Things go down hill from there. Then some rebels manage to assassinate Lincoln...
Hardest part about drawing new states is the "good" and "bad" regions of the South aren't sufficiently contiguous.
Better radical solution would have been to dispossess and deport anyone who voted in favor of secession at the state conventions.
Better radical solution would have been to dispossess and deport anyone who voted in favor of secession at the state conventions.
[ map shows Great Salt And Ashes Desert, south of the Kentucky border and east of the Pecos... ]
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Brazil was a popular destination. Jeff Davis was hoping to make it to Cuba. Judah Benjamin settled in England.
Doesn't matter where they go. They just can't stay here.
State Suicide was about as radical as theory ever got IOTL. I don't think there was any support for the idea of deporting southerners in a genocide, even from the most hardcore radical Republicans. And I don't really see a way it could come about when Southerners were still viewed as Americans, albeit traitorous ones.
EDIT: Closest it could get is an incredibly strict reconstruction causes many southerners to flee to Brazil or Cuba or elsewhere voluntarily. These will be overwhelmingly drawn from the old planter class and not make a giant difference in demographics, though, I would say.
EDIT: Closest it could get is an incredibly strict reconstruction causes many southerners to flee to Brazil or Cuba or elsewhere voluntarily. These will be overwhelmingly drawn from the old planter class and not make a giant difference in demographics, though, I would say.
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I really don't see this happening, as even many former abolitionists and Republicans may fear it would create a "slippery slope" whereby the federal government could then break up northern states if they wanted to. And as a matter of practicality, Southern resistance to Reconstruction would be even greater than in OTL - making enforcement of other post-Civil War measures that much more difficult.
I had an idle thought where Confederates fleeing the country somehow flood into Nicaragua and basically reestablish William Walker's dream as a CSA successor state but a massive influx of Confederate partisans into Cuba could create an interesting melding of cultures and some sort of horribly dark Taiwan parallel.
raharris1973
Gone Fishin'
You can't get exile to happen unless it's on pain of imprisonment or death if you don't self-deport, which the government wasn't willing to do.
raharris1973
Gone Fishin'
You have no history of internal exile for collective groups of US citizens either - the US had no internal passport system, so you can't pick a territory and say, 'only there can you live.'
raharris1973
Gone Fishin'
If you did the nastiest leadership purge you could of people based on being Confederate politicians, pro-secession convention voters and CSA officers and somehow those people all left the country I honestly don't know the effects. Maybe you would wreck Lost Causer nostalgia and greatly change southern politics, but you would probably still end up with white populist majorities in new governments filling out rank and file of local Republicans and Democrats enforcing both segregation and disenfranchisement of freedmen.
Perhaps the departure/exile of Confederate leadership leads to parties similar to the Readjuster Party being formed across the South, as southern elites are explicitly rejected.
I can't help but feel white supremacy would still eventually be reestablished in any majority white southern state, though.
Yes, that's the problem. Where? Liberia? The West? Liberian Exile would put them towards another racial fight with both Americo-Liberians and the Africans themselves. The West would just make them more states. Other countries wouldn't unconditionally take in America's problems, so there is nowhere to exile them to.
Nevermind the "government-sanctioned ethnic cleansing" thing if used en masse...
DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT MY OPINION ON THE MATTER OF RECONSTRUCTION. THIS IS A MAP OF ALTERNATE HISTORY.
Here is a quick map of Radical Republican-esque reconstruction that I made on the fly. Beige is Southern White Unionists, Blue/Gray cross is "Area targeted by Northern Settlement", darker blue indicating territory status, Orange is the "Black States", Gray is the remaining Southern White states. Ignore the west, non CSA states are OTL borders.
States/Territories:
I: West Texas
II: Rio Grande
III: East Texas
IV: Oklahoma/Indian Territory
V: Arkansas
VI: Louisiana
VII: Mississippi
VIII: Tennessee
IX: Liberty
X: Savannah
XI: Dixie
XII: Alabama
XIII: Carolina
XIV: Chesapeake
XV: East Virginia
XVI: West Virginia
XVII: Florida
Points of Interest:
1. West Texas and Rio Grande split off as territories for settlement, with Unionist Whites/Germans/Hispanics comprising the bulk of the small population.
2. A RadRep government will brush up against formerly pro-CSA tribes, and would likely open up Oklahoma to settlement early and with a vengeance. After all, the US had no qualms against committing atrocities against other tribes in this era...
3. South Florida would be split off as a Territory, and was very unpopulated at this time IIRC.
4. Richmond is an African-American city now, ironic for the former Confederate capital.
5. T H I C C West Virginia.
Here is a quick map of Radical Republican-esque reconstruction that I made on the fly. Beige is Southern White Unionists, Blue/Gray cross is "Area targeted by Northern Settlement", darker blue indicating territory status, Orange is the "Black States", Gray is the remaining Southern White states. Ignore the west, non CSA states are OTL borders.
States/Territories:
I: West Texas
II: Rio Grande
III: East Texas
IV: Oklahoma/Indian Territory
V: Arkansas
VI: Louisiana
VII: Mississippi
VIII: Tennessee
IX: Liberty
X: Savannah
XI: Dixie
XII: Alabama
XIII: Carolina
XIV: Chesapeake
XV: East Virginia
XVI: West Virginia
XVII: Florida
Points of Interest:
1. West Texas and Rio Grande split off as territories for settlement, with Unionist Whites/Germans/Hispanics comprising the bulk of the small population.
2. A RadRep government will brush up against formerly pro-CSA tribes, and would likely open up Oklahoma to settlement early and with a vengeance. After all, the US had no qualms against committing atrocities against other tribes in this era...
3. South Florida would be split off as a Territory, and was very unpopulated at this time IIRC.
4. Richmond is an African-American city now, ironic for the former Confederate capital.
5. T H I C C West Virginia.