Succession, but no Civil War

...Hard to say. Obviously you need to get rid of Lincoln somehow, but without him the impetus for seccession goes right out the window. And a lot of the other southern states only left because Lincoln called up their militias to put down SC with force...

So I really don't know. :eek: Robertp6165, where are you?
 
How well did the South know Lincoln? Implausible as it actually is, might they figure that if they don't provoke him he might not have an excuse to attack?
 
What if the South seceeded, but there was no attack on Fort Sumter and no Civil War. How would that change things?

...Hard to say. Obviously you need to get rid of Lincoln somehow, but without him the impetus for seccession goes right out the window. And a lot of the other southern states only left because Lincoln called up their militias to put down SC with force...

So I really don't know. :eek: Robertp6165, where are you?

How well did the South know Lincoln? Implausible as it actually is, might they figure that if they don't provoke him he might not have an excuse to attack?

As far as whether it could be done, I think its possible. Public opinion in the North, prior to the attack on Fort Sumter, was heading in the "let the erring sisters go" direction. There was a strong feeling that it was wrong and undemocratic to maintain the Union by force. With no attack on Sumter, or other similar incident, Lincoln would have had a difficult time mustering support for a war aimed at forcing the South back into the Union.

Assuming that Lincoln is not able to force a war, here are a few ideas as to how things MIGHT go. I don't pretend they are the only way they might go.

--The obvious result is two countries instead of one...a Confederacy consisting of the seven States of the Deep South, and the Union.

--The Union possibly passes some amendment to its Constitution to prevent future secessions. There may, or may not, be future secessions from the Confederacy...Texas seceding has become almost a cliche in CSA wins timelines, and might happen in this case too. Other than Texas, however, it is difficult to imagine other States leaving the Confederacy, as the Confederate Constitution was designed pretty well to prevent any issue arising which might cause something like that.

--Relations between the CSA and the USA are likely to be good most of the time...the South will export cotton to Northern mills, and buy Northern goods (as well as goods of Britain, France, and other exporting nations). About the only point of potential conflict would be a dispute over the Western Territories. But by seceding, the South effectively gave up any claim it had on the territories, and Confederate politicians knew that. It's unlikely to occur. So is Confederate aggression in Latin America...while it is true that the acquisition of Latin American territory for the expansion of slavery was promoted by many of the fireaters in the antebellum South, this was because the new territory was thought necessary to form new slave states to redress the growing imbalance in the U.S. Congress. That pressure won't exist in the independent Confederacy.

--Assuming World War I and II still happen, which is a major if, the Confederacy probably either remains neutral or fights with the Allies, alongside the Union. If that happens, manpower demands may force the Confederacy to call up its black population. This could be the mechanism by which blacks are finally granted full citizenship within the Confederacy.

--The abolitionist movement in the North probably loses a lot of support...there will be a feeling among the population that "they've gone now, its not our problem anymore." The most radical of the abolitionists will continue to rant about slavery in the South, but they will be increasingly marginalized as time goes on. This, too, will serve to improve relations between the Confederacy and the Union.

--The South likely will not abandon slavery until economic conditions (the double whammy of the collapse of the cotton markets in the late 1890s, followed by the boll weevil invasion of the early 1900s) force it do do so. Slavery might survive into the 1920s. Segregation and Jim Crow probably won't arise in the Confederacy, and the kind of hatred which bred the Ku Klux Klan and the lynchings of the late 19th and early 20th centuries probably won't exist there, either. But that is not to say everything will be rosy for freed blacks. In all likelihood, they will undergo an extended period of peonage before they are finally granted citizenship. Even then it may be a limited form of citizenship, and blacks might well be second class citizens even today. Or, the views of Jefferson Davis, Judah Benjamin, and others like them may prevail, and the former slaves would be given full citizenship after a short period of peonage during which they were educated and trained in the duties of citizenship. As stated above, if the demands of a major war force the Confederacy to call up its black population for military service, this could be a mechanism by which the blacks get full citizenship, as indeed it was in the United States in OTL.

--The South continues its slow but steady progress toward industrialization. The Confederacy was already, at the time of secession, the fourth most industrialized nation in the world, behind, Britain, France, and the United States (a fact which is often forgotten when the Confederacy is compared with the United States), and it's industrial capacity had doubled in the decade prior to 1860. This will continue, and will accellerate when the hold of King Cotton on the economy is broken in the early years of the 20th century. By 2008, the Confederacy will have a mixed economy and will be recognized as a major industrial power...not nearly at the level of the United States, but comparable to the more economically powerful European countries.
 
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