Second ACW

[Kongzilla]

I've always been interested in a second American civil war. So I was just wondering what would be the most realistic scenario where there is conflict in the good ol' US of A.

I was thinking maybe the Civil Rights movement ends in violence with a shooting or something. Or would the Great Depression be even more likely. What do you think.

 

[Lalli]

Perhaps Great Depression is more likely way to start second civil war. Civil rights movement hardly has capacity start war.

 

[Kongzilla]

Perhaps Great Depression is more likely way to start second civil war. Civil rights movement hardly has capacity start war.

True, there would need to be a lot more than just OTL's civil rights movements going on obviously.

 

[colleen1227]

I agree that the Great Depression would be a likelier POD for a ACW 2. Like the first, you would need the threat of economic changes threatening a section of the country to force them to think that secession was necessary. In the first ACW it wasn't the abolitionist movement that threatened the South but, the perceived Northern economic dominance that Lincoln's election that made the South succeed. Slavery was an after thought to raise moral for the war. So you would need FDR trying to institute more radical socialism to force some States to succeed. Likely the more industrial North would not want such changes as the business owners would have viewed it as a threat.

 

[Sanderford]

General Smedley Butler, U.S.M.C. and one of the few Americans to receive the Medal of Honor twice, claims he was approached by a certain Gerald P. MacGuire, who informed him that a cabal of Wall Street tycoons wanted him to lead a massive army of some 500,000 disgruntled veterans to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt and establish a fascist state under their control. This was known as the Business Plot. Butler said he refused in no uncertain terms, and promised to lead the opposing forces if they tried to put their plans into action. Contemporary media dismissed it as a fantasy and a hoax, but historians have since agreed that something was most likely under consideration, thought opinions vary as to whether or not anything concrete was in the works.

If it was, then perhaps the Business Plot could be a potential POD for a second U.S. Civil War?

 

[Blackfox5]

I've always been interested in a second American civil war. So I was just wondering what would be the most realistic scenario where there is conflict in the good ol' US of A.

I was thinking maybe the Civil Rights movement ends in violence with a shooting or something. Or would the Great Depression be even more likely. What do you think.

After the end of slavery, there isn't any obvious constitutional issue that could create a large scale civil war. You would need the Federal government to collapse. Once there is a power vacumn, it's possible a civil war could happen. Unfortunately, it is very hard to see how the Federal government could collapse.

It is not a realistic scenario in the 20th Century unless you really, really put the screw on and change lots of things so that one bad thing after another happens.

The best time for such things to happen is during the Great Depression. During the Civil Rights Area, at best you may get large scale riots and a few domestic terrorist groups that take a decade or so to squash. Nothing that could really be elevated to a civil war.

 

[OnlyAlb]

General Smedley Butler, U.S.M.C. and one of the few Americans to receive the Medal of Honor Twice, claims he was approached by a certain Gerald P. MacGuire, who informed him that a cabal of Wall Street tycoons wanted him to lead a massive army of some 500,000 disgruntled veterans to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt and establish a fascist state under their control. This was known as the Business Plot. Butler said he refused in no uncertain terms, and promised to lead the opposing forces if they tried to put their plans into action. Contemporary media dismissed it as a fantasy and a hoax, but historians have since agreed that something was most likely under consideration, thought opinions vary as to whether or not anything concrete was in the works.

If it was, then perhaps the Business Plot could be a potential POD for a second U.S. Civil War?

I've seen a documentary on this. A lot of rich business men wanted this as they thought FDR would take their money from them.

 

[Kongzilla]

Even if outright civil war is impossible can there be civil unrest to the extreme. Maybe militias and terrorist organizations fighting it out. The Government just losing control in general.