The theme song of the CSA?

frlmerrin

Banned
The Federal Government gets a proportion of the gold, the rest goes to the mine owners in California which may not even be part of the USA anymore. It is still far far less capital than is needed or which was available antibellum and is in the wrong place and in the wrong hands.
 
You seem here to be restating your position in greater detail rather than offering any justification for it. I also note that the USA’s population in this scenario will be several millions smaller than it was in OTL as it just lost at least nine million people. Depending on how the Confederacy gained its independence and sundry butterflies the USA’s population in 1865 in this scenario is between 21 and 23 million, between two and two and a half times that of the CSA in the same scenario but now only slightly more than two thirds of the size of the British population. So we can see the USA no longer has a ‘large’ population just a bigger one than the CSA. I should add that I don’t think population is that an important factor in industrialisation, Belgium which industrialised before the USA OTL had a modest population.

An important point you do raise is the relative richness of some parts of the population compared to the richness of people in similar livelihoods in Europe. The most important of these were the industrial workers and similar. It was after all the availability of good wages and the prospect of a better life that drove Irish immigration to the USA rather than any ideas about liberty. The continuous waves of immigration constantly replenished the labour pool but the constant demands of new industry sought to empty it. If as in this scenario there is a lack of capital to invest in new industry then there will be an excess of available labour. The rate of immigration however will lag this local phenomena for several years and in the end there will be a very large pool of unemployed, starving migrant labour which will of course drive wages down. All that needs to happen in order for this to happen is that investment in new industry falters and as I have already demonstrated in this thread there are at least two was this can happen in this scenario, the USA defaults or even defers payment on its war bonds or foreign capital begins to flow to the news CSA which has far greater infrastructure and industrial needs and unlike the USA can offer a better return on capital.



The USA’s in OTL was enormous and still being paid off at the start of WWI. It was bigger than that of the CSA, this is no surprise they spent much more on materiel of war than the CSA did. It will also be much harder to pay off due to the loss of the revenue producing CSA.


2) Why? During the whole ACW the North didn't have slumping imports nor decling duty revenue and it wasn't collecting much in duties from the South.
What will the merchants used to pay for the imports? Who can afford to buy them? The revenue producing south has gone.





See above.






That is a very interesting explanation of your view point without much in the way of a justification. I think you are wrong. There are almost no credible scenarios for CSA independence in which the CSA manages to achieve independence by its own merits. I can think of only two:




1)The CSA wins its independence by continued feats of arms on the battlefield early in the war and gains European recognition. In which case sin some scenarios they end up with Arizona and in some they don’t. In which case all I have said above is valid.



2)The CSA wins its independence after a long and gruelling defensive war of attrition peace in the Union election year of 1864 or God forbid 1868. By this stage both USA and to an even greater extent the CSA are economic basket cases and nothing I have said above is valid.



The other way the CSA can gain its independence is via a European intervention primarily a war with Britain arising out of the blockade or with the French over Mexico in 1864. In which case the CSA gets Arizona in most scenarios, California becomes independent, splits or ends up as part of French Mexico in many scenarios and in some BNA starts grabbing choice bits of the borderlands. In which case everything I have said above is valid but things are even worse that I have described for the Union.
To put this into context however, if we performed a thousand historical simulations, in around 750 of them the USA holds on to the CSA, in 160 of them a contemporaneous Union war with Britain (sometimes France as well) gives rise to an independent CSA, in 30 a war similar war with France gives the CSA independence, in 50 the CSA wins by a sustained feat of arms early in the war and in just 10 scenarios does the CSA win independence through a war of attrition.









For at least 10-15 years after the war the South was at best a net wash for the North if not a net loss for it. The reconstruction costs were enormous which it would NOT pay if the South was independent. There would be little or no net effect on Northern income or industrialization.​

2/3 the population of GB is still a large population, GB was hardly an scarcely populated desert! The US already had higher wages than GB and still would attract a lot of immigrants.​

1) That is Twilight Zone as the President of the US controls the army and neither Lincoln nor Hamlin would have given up while they were president which leaves 2. BTW even an 1862 victory will wind up with the US controlling AZ as the CSA can not possibly hold it. One Union regiment was more than enough for occupation troops and the CSA can not dream of sending as many men or supplies as the Union can.​

2) The US was hardly an economic basket case in 1864, on the contrary it had a booming economy. US GDP SOARED during the ACW.​

3) Neither England nor France would intervene in the ACW. Palmerston was dead set against it and Napoleon III flat out refused to even think about intervening unless GB did so first. Even if the do it would merely to break the blockade not put boots on the ground to give the CSA Arizona. If the French put boots on the ground for some bizarre reason and take AZ it will become part of Mexico not the CSA. CA wouldn't become independent in either case. Nobody outside the US claimed it and there was no significant separatist movement in CA.​

4) You're wrong, by far the most likely scenario is Sherman doesn't take Atlanta and Little Mac wins in 1862 and screws everything up.​
 
If this is an 1862 CS victory we are talking about, the CSA held half of Tennessee at the time. The parts the Union held, West Tennessee and Middle Tennessee, both secessionist regions were pretty much Mosby's Confederacy on a larger scale.

Add to it if the CSA holds Kentucky, then the Union situation in West Tennessee has become far more interesting. If the Union decides to hold on to those parts of Tennessee after a peace treaty, the likes of Nathan Bedford Forrest and Jack Hinson is going to make life interesting for the Union there.

Even in an 1864 scenario the sitation in Tennessee was identical, guerilla violence pretty much defined the landscape, Memphis and Nashville were hotbeds of Confederate spies and saboteur work.


In either scenario Tennesseeans are going to swing further and further into the Confederate camp because they will have had their "state's rights" trampled on and the opinions of the secessionists in the state will be validated in the eyes of the public.

And also, if the CSA is able to win the war in a position of stregnth, with the French support to the south in Mexico, it is all the more likely for them to gain Arizona.

Lincoln won't give up while president, that is clear from everything he did or said during his entire presidency. So you are looking at 1864.

Bedford Forrest was NOT God and if he is there alone with little support from the CSA he is going to be eventually chased down and killed. In any case he will be at worst a running sore. Guerrilla warfare is nothing new and is hardly an instant win. Most guerrilla wars have lost.

If the French take AZ they give it to their puppet in Mexico not the CSA. Giving AZ to Mexico helps solidify Max's rule in Mexico, giving it to the CSA gives them squat.
 
The Federal Government gets a proportion of the gold, the rest goes to the mine owners in California which may not even be part of the USA anymore. It is still far far less capital than is needed or which was available antibellum and is in the wrong place and in the wrong hands.

The chances of CA going independent were around zero. There was no significant independence movement in CA.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
The chances of CA going independent were around zero. There was no significant independence movement in CA.

There were some minor secessionist rumblings in the southern part of the state. A group of secessionists approached Albert Sidney Johnston, then in command of the army in the region as he had not yet left for the Confederacy, and asked him to assist in bringing about the secession of California (he said no). Governor Downey himself appears to have been somewhat shaky in his support of the Union, and there were a few secessionist militia units formed during early 1861, IIRC.

This is not to say that there was any realistic possibility of California seceding in 1861. But it certainly was not as in line with the Union cause as, say Massachusetts or Michigan. And in the long run, butterflies could cause unforeseeable changes...
 
Lincoln won't give up while president, that is clear from everything he did or said during his entire presidency. So you are looking at 1864.

Bedford Forrest was NOT God and if he is there alone with little support from the CSA he is going to be eventually chased down and killed. In any case he will be at worst a running sore. Guerrilla warfare is nothing new and is hardly an instant win. Most guerrilla wars have lost.

If the French take AZ they give it to their puppet in Mexico not the CSA. Giving AZ to Mexico helps solidify Max's rule in Mexico, giving it to the CSA gives them squat.

Lincoln being placed into a precarious situation with Britain and France breathing down his neck to let the CSA become independent, I don't think he was foolish enough to drag the US into a 3-front war.

Forrest made due with less in OTL! The Union still didn't kill him, Grant and Sherman couldn't kill him. In your scenario, he and guys like Jack Hinson and Champ Fergusson are going to take a James-Younger route in the Union and as I said, it will be Mosby's Confederacy ramped up to a much more large and violent scale.

The CSA will get AZ if they have French support when they themselves are in a position of stregnth when gaining independence. Because the CSA will have strong foreign backing.
 
Lincoln being placed into a precarious situation with Britain and France breathing down his neck to let the CSA become independent, I don't think he was foolish enough to drag the US into a 3-front war.

Forrest made due with less in OTL! The Union still didn't kill him, Grant and Sherman couldn't kill him. In your scenario, he and guys like Jack Hinson and Champ Fergusson are going to take a James-Younger route in the Union and as I said, it will be Mosby's Confederacy ramped up to a much more large and violent scale.

The CSA will get AZ if they have French support when they themselves are in a position of stregnth when gaining independence. Because the CSA will have strong foreign backing.
Foreign support will be lukewarm at best

Yes they might be willing to intervene on behalf of the CSA to make it independent, but once CS independence is assured they aren't going to go to war over every bit of land the CS claims, it simply isn't in France's interests to spend millions of francs on a war just because the CSA is being stubborn over some desert in the middle of nowhere

Will the benefits of the CSA controlling Arizona be worth to France the millions of Francs even a short victorious war against the USA will cost?

If no then France may just tell the CSA to stop being stubborn over some worthless desert

After all what does France get out of a Confederate Arizona, or Kentucky, or Oklahoma, or Tennessee or what have you that it does not already get out of an independent CSA?
 
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Anaxagoras

Banned
The CSA will get AZ if they have French support when they themselves are in a position of stregnth when gaining independence. Because the CSA will have strong foreign backing.

Why does EVERY SINGLE CS Victory discussion on this board turn into a silly discussion about freaking Arizona?!?!
 
Why does EVERY SINGLE CS Victory discussion on this board turn into a silly discussion about freaking Arizona?!?!

It's a place with a majority secessionist population, several small towns were there who sent troops to the Confederate army. And eventually silver and copper were found in the regions that were once Confederate Arizona.
 
It's a place with a majority secessionist population, several small towns were there who sent troops to the Confederate army. And eventually silver and copper were found in the regions that were once Confederate Arizona.

And the population of Madison, Wisconsin! One Union regiment could control the entire territory.
 

frlmerrin

Banned
The chances of CA going independent were around zero. There was no significant independence movement in CA.

This is simply wrong.

At the time of the Trent Affair the population of California was around 410,000 (interpolating from earlier and later census data). More than half of this population is not native born around 211,000. Of the non-native born, the Chinese, South Americans, Mexicanos, Californios and Australian emancipists all have very good reasons to hate the Union and the power structure in California. Even the white Europeans such as the Germans and British have felt the effect of the Vigillance committees and for the most part hate the Union

There were also a small number of 'untaxed' and hence unenumerated indians, thesize of this population normally being estimated as between 50 - 61,000 a few years later it was much smaller due to the coastal epidemics, loss of fertility due to the spread of VD due to rape as a means of control by the settler population, starvation due to ethnic clensing by non-indian settlement and of course a number of small genocidal wars conducted by by the settlers, California Millitia and to a lesser extent Federal Army. Clearly these people hate the Union.

Of those that are native born significant numbers supported the Union but it should be noted that recruiting for the California Militia was slow throughout the Civil War. A considerable number wanted nothing to do with the Civil War and there was support for the CSA as well especially in the south of the state. Thus of the 199,00 native born you are looking at a maximum of half being strong Union supporters, of which around 30% are women which leaves 70,000 and approximately half of which are of military age 35,000. This is slighly greater than the number that served in the California or coastal Militias during the ACW. So few in a population of 410,000+

In the event of a European intervention in California the only key cities to hold are San Francisco and Sacramento. Everywhere else is pretty small. Both cities are accessible by water and it would be trivial for either France or Britain to take both of them. There are no significant coast defences at this time. The other key site is Fort Yuma which can also be taken by water and control of which effectively isolates the south of the state from routes east.

There was strong support for the CSA early in the war especially in the south of the State and the Union Government of California needed to move large numbers of its military assets there to suppress Confederate sentiments. The law was not observed by those doing the suppression. There were also severla Confederate Militias and clubs early in the war and a few persons even made thier way east to fight for the CSA.

The south of the state also had a separatist movement which was active in the time leading up to the ACW.

In conclusion California is easy pickings for an interventionist foreign power and it would be easy to install a pro-Independence government or perhaps even a Confederate one that would have the support of a significant part of the population. In the event of a home grown Confederate victory in which the CSA retains Arizona (I really must find out how to spell this apology to any natives) there is a significant chance of the south of the state either becoming independent or siding with the CSA.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
In conclusion California is easy pickings for an interventionist foreign power and it would be easy to install a pro-Independence government or perhaps even a Confederate one that would have the support of a significant part of the population. In the event of a home grown Confederate victory in which the CSA retains Arizona (I really must find out how to spell this apology to any natives) there is a significant chance of the south of the state either becoming independent or siding with the CSA.

You raise good points in your post. I don't think there's much likelihood of separatist trouble during the war itself, since conditions would allow the Union army to maintain order by martial law if necessary (barring foreign intervention). But in the aftermath of a Confederate victory, I think it's pretty likely that we'd see a pro-independence political faction emerge in California.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
It should also be pointed out that William Gwin, one of the two California senators during the secession winter, was an advocate of California leaving the Union and forming an independent Pacific Republic.
 
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