Southern states want to quit CSA -- what happens?

I've been sketching a TL where the CSA gains independence but doesn't do awfully well in its inaugural decade(s), leading to some of the states formerly holding high concentrations of Unionist sentiment wanting to quit the whole project.

We know from the proposed Constitution of the CSA that states anticipated the possibility of future attempts at secession (art. 1, sec. 8, cl. 15 retains the right of the federal CSA government to "call forth the militia … to suppress insurrections," which one could assume would include insurrections stemming from secession), and that, regardless of the legalities involved, it would not be a major leap to imagine the CSA, founded as it was in part on the principle that states should be able to walk away from the national government, facing secession issues of its own.

How might the USA react? What conditions might be imposed on those wishing to Confedexit prior to readmittance into the Union? How much does U.S. leadership & timing matter (i.e. 1880s vs 1870s vs almost-immediate-postwar)?

I'm mostly looking to use this TL to explore how some of the constitutional quirks of the CSA might have exacerbated the geopolitical and economic shortcomings inherent in the effort had independence actually been won, but I'm interested in gaining a sense of how plausible the ending is.
 

Pax

Banned
I've been sketching a TL where the CSA gains independence but doesn't do awfully well in its inaugural decade(s), leading to some of the states formerly holding high concentrations of Unionist sentiment wanting to quit the whole project.

We know from the proposed Constitution of the CSA that states anticipated the possibility of future attempts at secession (art. 1, sec. 8, cl. 15 retains the right of the federal CSA government to "call forth the militia … to suppress insurrections," which one could assume would include insurrections stemming from secession), and that, regardless of the legalities involved, it would not be a major leap to imagine the CSA, founded as it was in part on the principle that states should be able to walk away from the national government, facing secession issues of its own.

How might the USA react? What conditions might be imposed on those wishing to Confedexit prior to readmittance into the Union? How much does U.S. leadership & timing matter (i.e. 1880s vs 1870s vs almost-immediate-postwar)?

I'm mostly looking to use this TL to explore how some of the constitutional quirks of the CSA might have exacerbated the geopolitical and economic shortcomings inherent in the effort had independence actually been won, but I'm interested in gaining a sense of how plausible the ending is.

I'm writing a TL where some states have seceded from an independent South, though it isn't pro-Union sentiment in the Upper South that starts it. In my timeline a bad boll weevil leads to a major depression in the South and the rise to power of a populist force that attempts to get rid of slavery, which pisses the Deep South off causing them to secede and form a white supremacist government against the Confederacy.
 
I'm writing a TL where some states have seceded from an independent South, though it isn't pro-Union sentiment in the Upper South that starts it. In my timeline a bad boll weevil leads to a major depression in the South and the rise to power of a populist force that attempts to get rid of slavery, which pisses the Deep South off causing them to secede and form a white supremacist government against the Confederacy.

Found it -- really interesting premise. I subbed. There really are a number of sort of built-in quirks and deficiencies in the proposed Constitution that are interesting to consider, whether states' ability to remove certain federal appointees, limits on how / when bills can be considered far beyond the U.S. Constitution, a sort of "Question Time" mechanism where Cabinet secretaries could be summoned to the floor of the House, and most of all IMO the powers given to the states to regulate certain aspects of interstate commerce on their own. And the Senate could theoretically limit an individual state delegation's voting power, so long as representation remained equal … the potential for shenanigans seems endless.
 
I'm writing a TL where some states have seceded from an independent South, though it isn't pro-Union sentiment in the Upper South that starts it. In my timeline a bad boll weevil leads to a major depression in the South and the rise to power of a populist force that attempts to get rid of slavery, which pisses the Deep South off causing them to secede and form a white supremacist government against the Confederacy.
Sounds crazy, so how will the white supremacists out do the other white supremacists?
 
they'd probably be subjected to at least an attempted violent suppression. the Confederacy was for states' rights so long as that right was to own human beings as property and that's about it, and iirc even specifically outlawed the very secessionism that they used to try and fail to break off from the Union. it'd be just another criminal act in a long history of such in an inherently criminal entity.
 
they'd probably be subjected to at least an attempted violent suppression. the Confederacy was for states' rights so long as that right was to own human beings as property and that's about it, and iirc even specifically outlawed the very secessionism that they used to try and fail to break off from the Union. it'd be just another criminal act in a long history of such in an inherently criminal entity.

Yeah, I'm generally of the opinion that the whole project of the CSA would have been an epic disaster both for the reasons oft-discussed here (international pariah status as a slaveowning nation, lack of industrial base, etc. etc.) and the, just, fundamental flaws with the governing institutions they were trying to build. That latter point isn't one I see discussed here quite as often. What happens when two or more river-bordered CSA states get into a trade war b/c their own constitution lets them, or when CSA states start rejecting federal judges ad nauseam as a protest of the central government, in turn provoking limits on their Senators' power on the Senate floor? The whole thing would descend into a bunch of disjointed states throwing legislative and litigative tomatoes at each other while the world looked on in horror at the CSA's insistence of the maintenance of its despicable "peculiar institution."

What I'm still interested in, though, is what happens when 10-20 years in, a state or cluster of states throws its arms up at the whole mess and says "enough!?" Depending on the POD that yields a CSA in the first place, West Virginia potentially remains in the CSA -- but it was, historically, obviously not wild about the Confederacy. Tennessee was filled with hotbeds of pro-Union sentiment, of course, and there were pro-Unionists all over the South. Of course, I'd presume that the North would love the public relations victory of severing a flailing CSA; the question is how they do it. Are the former states welcomed back in, no questions asked? Are they fused together somehow to limit former CSA states' representation in the U.S. Senate? Is there a reconstruction period? What does it all look like?
 

SsgtC

Banned
What I'm still interested in, though, is what happens when 10-20 years in, a state or cluster of states throws its arms up at the whole mess and says "enough!?" Depending on the POD that yields a CSA in the first place, West Virginia potentially remains in the CSA -- but it was, historically, obviously not wild about the Confederacy. Tennessee was filled with hotbeds of pro-Union sentiment, of course, and there were pro-Unionists all over the South. Of course, I'd presume that the North would love the public relations victory of severing a flailing CSA; the question is how they do it. Are the former states welcomed back in, no questions asked? Are they fused together somehow to limit former CSA states' representation in the U.S. Senate? Is there a reconstruction period? What does it all look like?
I think they're welcomed back with open arms. With probably some conditions. A new state Constitution that the Federal Government has to approve. Immediate end to slavery. A 2/3 majority of the state population has to swear an oath of loyalty. And likely some form of war reparations, though nothing too onerous. Just enough to claim a moral high ground but not so much that it scares off other states thinking about rejoining the Union
 
See: Sam Houston

Yep, or this guy, who I've been interested in centering the TL around -- basically a whole TL on an anti-CSA pol who gets elevated to the CS Senate by a legislature that's fed up with the way things are going and uses trickery to gum up the works and set the stage for re-secession and return to the USA.
 
I have always though that Texas would eventually leave the Confederacy. They may want to take parts of New Mexico and all of Oklahoma with them. If they do get the CSA Arizona Territory then they may want to negotiate with Mexico for access to the sea by way of the Colorado River. There are groups of pro Union supporters and groups that remember when Texas was their own country. Sam Houston would be key to returning to the Union. If he is not involved, then in my opinion, it is a toss up between returning to the Union and a independent nation.

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Colorado River Basin.gif


"During the American Civil War, most of what is now the U.S. state of Oklahoma was designated as the Indian Territory. It served as an unorganized region that had been set aside specifically for Native American tribes and was occupied mostly by tribes which had been removed from their ancestral lands in the Southeastern United States following the Indian Removal Act of 1830. As part of the Trans-Mississippi Theater, the Indian Territory was the scene of numerous skirmishes and seven officially recognized battles[1] involving both Native American units allied with the Confederate States of America and Native Americans loyal to the United States government, as well as other Union and Confederate troops.

A total of 7,860 Native Americans participated in the Confederate Army, as both officers and enlisted men;[2] most came from the Five Civilized Tribes: the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole nations.[3] The Union organized several regiments of the Indian Home Guard to serve in the Indian Territory and occasionally in adjacent areas of Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas.[4]"
 
I have always though that Texas would eventually leave the Confederacy. They may want to take parts of New Mexico and all of Oklahoma with them. If they do get the CSA Arizona Territory then they may want to negotiate with Mexico for access to the sea by way of the Colorado River. There are groups of pro Union supporters and groups that remember when Texas was their own country. Sam Houston would be key to returning to the Union. If he is not involved, then in my opinion, it is a toss up between returning to the Union and a independent nation.

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Houston is dead by 1863, so the CSA needs to gain independence fairly early in the war for him to have an impact -- not impossible, but maybe a bit of a stretch. Still, it's very plausible that precipitating economic and political events push Texas to want to quit the CSA fairly early on; given the proposed Confederate Constitution's provisions enabling groups of states to enter into treaties regulating commerce on the rivers, maybe Louisiana / Tennessee / etc. decide they want to gang up on Texas to prevent it from becoming too much of an economic behemoth and make use of that flexibility. I'm just convinced that the CSA would've descended into low-level trade wars between the individual states.

To put a slightly finer point on @Aqua817's post, there's really no reason not to believe that all of these scenarios could have come to pass at some point or other -- Tennessee / WVa exiting to rejoin the Union, Texas exiting to pursue independence w/a slightly better-constructed central government, the upper South and deep South coming to blows …
 

Pax

Banned
Sounds crazy, so how will the white supremacists out do the other white supremacists?

To be fair, in my TL Cleburne wants to free the slaves and modernize the Confederacy. Also, at least he isn't publicly lynching blacks for arbitrary reasons.
 
it was already a banana republic (or rather, cotton republic) so that's not too unbelievable in any scenario
Plus you have to remember that the CSA did have secessionist movements within its borders OTL. Georgia, North Carolina and Texas almost counterseceded from the CSA to defend their own borders, with Georgia threatening to secede from the CSA and fight both! What you could have happen is have a stereotypical "late CSA victory" scenario that devolves into a free for all as the CSA disintegrates harder than the United Provinces of Central America. Either way, I guarantee that every little republic would loose slavery by 1900.
 
it was already a banana republic (or rather, cotton republic) so that's not too unbelievable in any scenario

Hell, continued degradation seems far more likely than them actually succeeding at fixing their internal issues.
 
To be fair, in my TL Cleburne wants to free the slaves and modernize the Confederacy. Also, at least he isn't publicly lynching blacks for arbitrary reasons.
How do you deal with votes and Blacks? Not about letting them vote of course, as I doubt that would happen easily, but how many they counted for when it came to Congress and presidential elections. Before the Civil War the 3/5 Compromise gave swarms of extra Representstives to the South, and after the war and when Reconstruction was canceled, they got a full 5/5ths from them.
 
Hell, continued degradation seems far more likely than them actually succeeding at fixing their internal issues.

I just can't envision a plausible scenario where the CSA lasts more than 20 years with each of its states intact. It's hard enough imagining them even getting to keep all of their states in whatever negotiated agreement they'd have reached with the North to obtain independence, but assuming they pulled it off somehow, it'd have cracked up pretty quickly.
 

SsgtC

Banned
Plus you have to remember that the CSA did have secessionist movements within its borders OTL. Georgia, North Carolina and Texas almost counterseceded from the CSA to defend their own borders, with Georgia threatening to secede from the CSA and fight both! What you could have happen is have a stereotypical "late CSA victory" scenario that devolves into a free for all as the CSA disintegrates harder than the United Provinces of Central America. Either way, I guarantee that every little republic would loose slavery by 1900.
Agreed. And most would likely reintegrate back into the Union at some point. My guess is Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina are the first three to rejoin, followed by Missouri and Arkansas. With Texas going independent and the Deep South holding out within the CSA.
 
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