The U.S. after a successful Confederate secession?

In the event that the South breaks away (and stays away) what would the rump United States look like, culturally, economically and politically?
 
Like shit, probably.

Alright, this isn't just gonna be a SHITpost. Let's take a deep look into this.

Alright, it would literally look like shit, but first we have to understand what shit looks like. So, what we're looking at is a USA that just lost its most major source of cotton to fuel their factories: the South. This unquestionably results in a catastrophic economic depression in the North, and due to the absence of tariffs (most likely, since they hated tariffs) in the South, quite possibly an economic boom down there in contrast. Not trying to go Turtledovey here, but the South would be besties with Britain and France until they tell the South to get rid of slavery; they either continue being friends if the South drops slavery, or they drop the South for the North if they refuse to let it go, and the South likely turns to a new ally: Germany.

This is just the gist of it: North is fucked, South is doing great.
 
It's not like the North can farm wheat and... oh they DO have farms! There is plenty of "unsettled" (read: Indian) land to take that is agriculturally fertile. Also, even in the states themselves, not the territories, only around 30% of their sustainable farmland is being used. And other stuff can grow there too. New England used to be a shipping hub 3 decades before, it can be again. And let's be honest, the South can't not trade with the North. Britain can only take so much cotton since they had Egypt too. All of that has to go somewhere and the Northerners can offer higher prices since they don't have to buy coal to ship the damn stuff.
 
I'd imagine the North being much more on the socially left than the OTL US, with most of the major conservative populations would still live in the south, being part of the CSA.
Like shit, probably.

Alright, this isn't just gonna be a SHITpost. Let's take a deep look into this.

Alright, it would literally look like shit, but first we have to understand what shit looks like. So, what we're looking at is a USA that just lost its most major source of cotton to fuel their factories: the South. This unquestionably results in a catastrophic economic depression in the North, and due to the absence of tariffs (most likely, since they hated tariffs) in the South, quite possibly an economic boom down there in contrast. Not trying to go Turtledovey here, but the South would be besties with Britain and France until they tell the South to get rid of slavery; they either continue being friends if the South drops slavery, or they drop the South for the North if they refuse to let it go, and the South likely turns to a new ally: Germany.

This is just the gist of it: North is fucked, South is doing great.
Au contraire, the south is a lot more rural and a lot more reliant on the North than the north is the south.
There is a lot more to manufacture than cotton.
 
Last edited:
I'd imagine the North being much more on the socially left than the OTL US, with most of the major conservative populations would still live in the south, beinh part of the CSA.

That's a disaster. The only problem with (traditional pre-internet) conservatives is global warming denial, which is admittedly a bad thing, but at least it's not socialist.
 
Who is going to buy all those longhorns from Texas (5 million head in a decade on the Chisolm trail). There aren't refrigerator ships (or railcars for that matter) until the late 1880s, so shipping them to Europe isn't an option and it is too far away from Texas to the North (or Canada) to bring in harvested ice on a commercially practical scale.

Thus the reason they were driven overland, shipped live by railcar to Chicago, and butchered there. Again not really a practical option by ship.
 
I'd imagine the North being much more on the socially left than the OTL US, with most of the major conservative populations would still live in the south, beinh part of the CSA.

Au contraire, the south is a lot more rural and a lot more reliant on the North than the north is the south.
There is a lot more to manufacture than cotton.

Why would it be dependent on the North? It was constantly egging on the North for the ability to buy shit that wasn't from the North, which would show a significant degree of independence from the North, and furthermore, the Confederacy was (somewhat) stable without the North during their 4 years of independence and that was during a damn war!
 
It's not like the North can farm wheat and... oh they DO have farms! There is plenty of "unsettled" (read: Indian) land to take that is agriculturally fertile. Also, even in the states themselves, not the territories, only around 30% of their sustainable farmland is being used. And other stuff can grow there too. New England used to be a shipping hub 3 decades before, it can be again. And let's be honest, the South can't not trade with the North. Britain can only take so much cotton since they had Egypt too. All of that has to go somewhere and the Northerners can offer higher prices since they don't have to buy coal to ship the damn stuff.

Oh, I fully understand the North's large quantity of farmland, Alex. I also understand that the North had an even larger amount of farmland than the South had. My point was, "Who's going to want to buy products created by that one pariah state over in North America? I sure as hell won't" says every single country besides the Union's potential allies in this world.

Furthermore, I understand your realpolitik approach to the "North-South trade". The problem is, I just think the North and South would hate each other so goddamn much they wouldn't even make attempts to trade with each other, as they would attempt to trade with other agricultural/industrial nations to fuel their own economies.
 
Oh, I fully understand the North's large quantity of farmland, Alex. I also understand that the North had an even larger amount of farmland than the South had. My point was, "Who's going to want to buy products created by that one pariah state over in North America? I sure as hell won't" says every single country besides the Union's potential allies in this world.

Furthermore, I understand your realpolitik approach to the "North-South trade". The problem is, I just think the North and South would hate each other so goddamn much they wouldn't even make attempts to trade with each other, as they would attempt to trade with other agricultural/industrial nations to fuel their own economies.

Which nation is the pariah state? Confederacy (which presumably still has slavery) or the Union. What is your reasoning here?
 
The Union will likely be alienated by the British and French due to the two country's support of the Confederacy, and when you're alienated by mid-19th century Britain and France, you're pretty much alienated by the whole damn world. Thus, pariah state.
 
Oh, I fully understand the North's large quantity of farmland, Alex. I also understand that the North had an even larger amount of farmland than the South had. My point was, "Who's going to want to buy products created by that one pariah state over in North America? I sure as hell won't" says every single country besides the Union's potential allies in this world.

Eh, for an insular type economy, you only need to get a little bit of export. See the South needed to sell their cotton to buy stuff from the rest of the world or the North (and the North kept price gouging them, that's why they were complaining). If you look at France in the 1700s or Italy you can see that an economy get on fine with very little export. Anyways, for buying a product, it's not about who produced (pariah state that annoyed the British or a prestigious country) but how good the steam turbine/ steel beam/ gear/ clock/ glass/ textile/ toy is. So really it is not "how much are we liked" so much as "can we produce something better than anyone else"

Furthermore, I understand your realpolitik approach to the "North-South trade". The problem is, I just think the North and South would hate each other so goddamn much they wouldn't even make attempts to trade with each other, as they would attempt to trade with other agricultural/industrial nations to fuel their own economies.

As I said, Egypt was starting to grow cotton. The South's options would be to sell 30% of their pre-war levels (and no more otherwise the market gets saturated), or sell some to Europe and some to the Northern and get a better price. To go for hatred rather than money would not just hurt the North, it would be self defeating in the long run
 
The Union will likely be alienated by the British and French due to the two country's support of the Confederacy, and when you're alienated by mid-19th century Britain and France, you're pretty much alienated by the whole damn world. Thus, pariah state.

Actually the British (for some reason I can't understand given that it's the 1800s) absolutely hated slavery. Their question in 1862 was "do we hate the North or slavery more?" Even if they allied with the south, they wouldn't like them and see them as nothing more than pawns of a bigger game.
 
The Union will likely be alienated by the British and French due to the two country's support of the Confederacy, and when you're alienated by mid-19th century Britain and France, you're pretty much alienated by the whole damn world. Thus, pariah state.

the various Germans, the Italians, the Russians, and for that matter the Dutch probably would find that a fascinating theory

For that matter we have posters on this board who have posted countless pages on how after such a conflict the Anglo-Americans would be best trading partners again in no time, while those who find that questionable still point out that both the British and Union have things each other wants. History does show that within a few months of the War of 1812 trade had resumed to pre war levels and grew continually after that.

There is also the fact that during the Civil War there were protests in Britain regarding a perceived pro Confederate stance by the government, and the destination overwhelming for immigrants was the coastal cities of the Northeast until World War II (and air conditioning as well as large scale immigration from Mexico made the Southwest desirable as a place to live).

So you are going to have to make a pretty convincing case I think to justify your position
 
There is also the fact that during the Civil War there were protests in Britain regarding a perceived pro Confederate stance by the government

The Trent incident hit the papers and made a good portion of the city public in a "smash the North or make them apologize" mood, slavery be damned.
 
Eh, for an insular type economy, you only need to get a little bit of export. See the South needed to sell their cotton to buy stuff from the rest of the world or the North (and the North kept price gouging them, that's why they were complaining). If you look at France in the 1700s or Italy you can see that an economy get on fine with very little export. Anyways, for buying a product, it's not about who produced (pariah state that annoyed the British or a prestigious country) but how good the steam turbine/ steel beam/ gear/ clock/ glass/ textile/ toy is. So really it is not "how much are we liked" so much as "can we produce something better than anyone else"



As I said, Egypt was starting to grow cotton. The South's options would be to sell 30% of their pre-war levels (and no more otherwise the market gets saturated), or sell some to Europe and some to the Northern and get a better price. To go for hatred rather than money would not just hurt the North, it would be self defeating in the long run

I can't list them all right now, but Southern politicians had many reasons to be stupid enough to dislike the North too much to want to trade with the North, and vice versa. And I understand the Italian economy thing, but the North is no autarky.

Also, calling 1700s France's economy good is a good joke in my opinion, if you know what I'm saying.
 
The Trent incident hit the papers and made a good portion of the city public in a "smash the North or make them apologize" mood, slavery be damned.

sure... for a couple of weeks. Similar things happened in the Union. Public opinion is fickle

But the nascient organized labor in the Midlands didn't see it that way
 
the various Germans, the Italians, the Russians, and for that matter the Dutch probably would find that a fascinating theory

For that matter we have posters on this board who have posted countless pages on how after such a conflict the Anglo-Americans would be best trading partners again in no time, while those who find that questionable still point out that both the British and Union have things each other wants. History does show that within a few months of the War of 1812 trade had resumed to pre war levels and grew continually after that.

There is also the fact that during the Civil War there were protests in Britain regarding a perceived pro Confederate stance by the government, and the destination overwhelming for immigrants was the coastal cities of the Northeast until World War II (and air conditioning as well as large scale immigration from Mexico made the Southwest desirable as a place to live).

So you are going to have to make a pretty convincing case I think to justify your position

So you're calling the Germans, Italians, Russians, and Dutch in the 1850s and 1860s powerful countries? This isn't the 1870s. Russia has been raped by England and France in the Crimean War, the Dutch just got screwed over after the Napoleonic Wars, and the Germans and Italians are still trying to unite into their respective countries. They sound REALLY powerful to me, compared to the English and French.
 
Also, calling 1700s France's economy good is a good joke in my opinion, if you know what I'm saying.

If they never went into the 7 years war and the America Revolution, they would be fairly peachy in their autarky. Not a world economy, but a relatively comfortable status quo.
 
The British were basically the best Great Power, but Russia wasn't that much worse off than France to be honest. On a per capita basis maybe, but not as an aggregate
 
Top