The U.S. after a successful Confederate secession?

At first, the North will think it's about eight different levels of fucked. However, this means things look a hell of a lot different. Let's say the war ends in, I don't know, 1863, and the reason the South wins is that the British helped them under the guise of "we'll free the slaves of you help us secede pretty please with a beneficial trade agreement on top." So the British help - and surprise surprise, the South kind of forgets about freeing the slaves, and the British kind of forget about the trade agreement, so the Confederacy and the U.K. start giving each other the stink-eye from overseas while the Union is about as pissed off at the Brits as can be - fighting three wars with varying outcomes will do that.

So the Union regroups. It moves its capital, finally settling on the shores of Chicago after the Great Chicago Fire, essentially splitting the city into a federal district and the Illinois section. (My expected POD would be that the Baltimore Plot succeeds, Lincoln isn't there to prevent anything from Maryland joining the South to the British interfering, Hamlin fucks everything up, and D.C. ends up in Confederate hands.) The Union passes a few amendments to the Constitution, one called the Lincoln amendment that defines presidential succession and includes everything from protection of the President-elect to succession from Election Day to the day of leaving office, and furthermore it makes the President's term start on the same day as Congress' terms just to prevent a long period of the President-elect waiting around to be shot at before taking office. So the Lincoln amendment is number 13 and it's a handful.

Next up is an amendment banning secession, possibly putting in a really difficult escape clause. Next up slavery is outlawed, because Kentucky, Missouri and WV have slaves and the Union really fucking hates slavery. Next up is the equal protection amendment applying to the states, because this makes the former slaves citizens as kind of a "look at how much better we treat our blacks here, you dirty Southern assholes" measure - even if the Union is decidedly racist, it's hard to see blacks being looked at as that different from any other ethnic group after a while, given that there's about to be a fuckton of immigration anyway and ethnic strife is as old as humanity, let alone America, so the end of the stick black folks get is shitty but not as shitty as OTL and they share that burden with Irish folks, Jews, Asians, and maybe even Italians. Finally the Voting Rights amendment. And since it's about to become necessary, the income tax amendment.

The USA's saving grace is the Industrial Revolution. The already largely urban North will be rife with industry seekers and possibly even defectors from the South. Escaped slaves will seek out jobs in factories, and when industry reaches the South, all of a sudden slave owners are going to go bankrupt with these now useless human assets - unless they turn their plantations into "company towns" and take a cut of the slaves' wages as their own. Like all of them. So slavery finds a way to survive in the South, but the biggest expense becomes security and finding ways to keep slaves from defecting.

So with business booming, gradually things get better in the North, to the point that union organizers and the government are actively reducing the work week from "every waking hour" to 60 or so hours a week. So leisure activities take hold in the North and trickle into the South. One little wrinkle - a Georgia man dies playing football, and the legislature passes a bill outlawing the sport in the state. The man's mother writes to the governor and asks him to veto the bill, saying how much her son loved the game. Unmoved by the love for a "damn Yankee game," the governor signs the bill, and other Southern legislatures follow suit until the Richmond government finally outlaws it and other "blood sports." (OTL the governor actually vetoed the bill.) As such, Southerners continue to play illegal sports, which become associated with alcohol and gambling, things the religious leaders speak against and state legislatures resoundingly outlaw.

The ban lasts until the Depression sets in, with Confederate president Richard Russell Jr. famously quipping, "I could go for a cold beer and a good clean game of football." Confederate state legislatures remain divided on alcohol and all but Louisiana prohibits gambling going forward, but the only state that continues the sport prohibition is the notoriously conservative Arkansas, a state that President Russell decries as "a theocracy." Meanwhile, relations between the Union and Confederacy begin to warm as the sides suffer through the Depression and begin to implement similar economic reforms. The two nations still fail to see eye-to-eye politically or socially, as most Southern blacks are still enslaved whereas most Northern blacks are treated equally under the law (money permitting, of course.) Also the North has a fully functional Labor party that has established itself as one of the two major parties against the Federal party, seen as the party of business; however, the South is ruled by a single party, the Democrats, and most seats in the Richmond government are uncontested.

Both nations grow in territory, as the Union grabs land in western Canada, Alaska, the Pacific, and parts of the Caribbean while the Confederacy dives into the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America. Gains from Spain probably go to the Union (it was an NY newspaper that ropes the US into war with Spain) while gains from Britain or France probably go to the Confederacy. The South dives into northern Mexico, eventually claiming a big chunk (excluding Baja California.) The Confederacy ends up in Central America as well, but the first big joint project between the two nations is the Panama Canal, which ends up somehow property of the USA, the CSA and Panama all at once until it's returned to Panama at a significantly later date than OTL.

So goon into WWII, the nations that were once bitter enemies have become friends, the slavery economic model is gradually phased out, and in need of manpower for the War, the South offers citizenship to blacks who enlist and take combat roles. (If nothing else, the South gets roped in by Hitler being an unclassifiably huge dipshit and declaring war on both the USA and CSA.)
 
Self determination basically meant slavery as the US Federal Government did almost nothing in the 1850's.

And with Lincoln they feared this would change, and that the more populous north could dictate to them. So they seceded.

It was a conservative revolution.
 
And with Lincoln they feared this would change, and that the more populous north could dictate to them. So they seceded.

It was a conservative revolution.

So in the end it was slavery, including for the individual soldier. Figure 1900 before outlawing slavery is seriously considered.
 
High irony scenario.

Patrick Cleburne proposed black CSA troops in 1863. Divergence: he gets his wish and gets to command them.

If he can make the difference and Chickamauga and force a major Union defeat, especially with a quick followup threatening (Or taking?) Nashville, it would be enough to influence the 1864 election. A follow up victory putting Nashville in CSA hands with boots on the ground in KY and potentially SE MO could be really interesting.

Also the lack of cotton and tobacco might kickstart a wave of synthetic technologies in the Union, while the South would focus on recycling (by necessity) with some interesting results.

California and perhaps Nevada and Oregon/Washington could form a bloc of potentially seceeding states in the future as well.
 
So goon into WWII, the nations that were once bitter enemies have become friends, the slavery economic model is gradually phased out, and in need of manpower for the War, the South offers citizenship to blacks who enlist and take combat roles. (If nothing else, the South gets roped in by Hitler being an unclassifiably huge dipshit and declaring war on both the USA and CSA.)

Butterflies from an independent CSA change global politics starting in the 1860s; it's really, really unlikely a guy named Hitler ever takes control of Germany with such an early PoD.

I really, really think the situation of an independent Confederacy is unstable. If America loses the South they'd try to channel weapons and money to slave rebellions, especially if as others have said they became more liberal than OTL; if a rebellion got far enough I could see the freedmen setting up a new state and then asking for annexation by the US. If Britain is a supporter of the Confederacy ITTL the populace won't take kindly to supporting a nation trying to reconquer former slaves.

This is not the only possible or even very likely scenario, but I think people assume that the South winning the Civil War means they'll stay independent and/or whole which is absolutely not guaranteed.
 
Butterflies from an independent CSA change global politics starting in the 1860s; it's really, really unlikely a guy named Hitler ever takes control of Germany with such an early PoD.

I really, really think the situation of an independent Confederacy is unstable. If America loses the South they'd try to channel weapons and money to slave rebellions, especially if as others have said they became more liberal than OTL; if a rebellion got far enough I could see the freedmen setting up a new state and then asking for annexation by the US. If Britain is a supporter of the Confederacy ITTL the populace won't take kindly to supporting a nation trying to reconquer former slaves.

This is not the only possible or even very likely scenario, but I think people assume that the South winning the Civil War means they'll stay independent and/or whole which is absolutely not guaranteed.

There will be a huge rebuilding project in the Americas after a successful Southern secession, which would be predicated entirely on foreign intervention. And yes, things could look very different in Europe, including butterflying away Hitler or even Franz Ferdinand being assassinated, and it could end up making the British Empire the dominant aggressive force in terms of keeping its empire.

The big thing that keeps the future of the Confederacy in question is the Industrial Revolution. If the South handles that well, it will probably remain independent; if it tries to get by on an antiquated system or can't handle the slavery adjustment, it could fall into utter disarray, which itself doesn't mean that it all absorbs back into the USA. Realistically if the Confederacy fails, it probably splinters, with some areas being returned to the Union and others trying to strike out on their own (possibly a black-dominated nation.)

Also, if Japan starts making war-like overtures at the USA, and the CSA gets roped into it in any way whatsoever (Hitler declaring war is one possibility; another nation trying to settle an old score is another) then the two nations becoming allies forged in war is a very strong possibility.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
To put this into perspective, losing the Army of the Potomac in a TPK (not merely a loss) wouldn't even be a permanent setback. It's the loss of 25% of their deployed manpower and more importantly their best men. All it would take is 3 years of licking wounds, recruiting, training and it could be replaced.
I'm pretty sure the Union isn't just going to sit there for three years...

The British commented DC was turned into a veritable fortress that could withstand the harshest bombardment of siege guns.
Did they? When?
They certainly didn't approve of them early on:

Edward Osborne Hewett, Royal Engineers (Veteran of the Crimea, former commanding engineer in the West Indies, and assistant instructor at the Royal Military Academy):

“These works are not particularly well placed, nor is the design of much good. Many are too small to be of any real service, and although manned by some 80,000 men, I believe good troops would very shortly force them. The Confederates are not, however, good enough for this… several portions of their lines could be taken not only by good infantry, but by a sudden dash of _well mounted cavalry_. However, there is good excuse for this for a great portion of the works were hurriedly thrown up by civilians- I could not help pointing this out to the chief of the staff, and at last he acknowledged I was right especially after I had ridden one of his own cavalry man’s horses (I think the worst saddle for any real riding) clear over the ditch, and parapet charged in amongst his men who were absolutely aghast at the idea of cavalry charging even the slightest obstacle.”



What you have to remember, when considering the scale of the Washington Forts, is how spread out they were. At the Seige of Sevastopol the Russians had several hundred guns on a perimeter of perhaps 2-3 miles; the Washington forts had maybe twice as many, but spread out over thirty-five miles and hence six to ten times less dense.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
That precedent was already set, I think that the public would want an amendment to make sure it never happened again. With that amendment it wouldn't.

Certainly it wouldn't, and if the goal is to prevent future secession, it's the logical step. I'm just thinking about the more practical concerns for a politician in the post-war years. The war has just been lost: the union has been divided. Exactly the thing that a lot of politicians have just spent the last few years telling everyone should not be allowed to happen. Morever, the thing that they have tried to prevent by throwing countless lives into the meat grinder of war-- only to fail.

The very implication that secession was legal - that this war may not have been 100% justified - would surely be extremely dangerous for those politicians? The anti-war minority will already be crowing about the "needless war". I just don't see a lot of politicians willing to open that door, because if nothing else, they want to avoid the charge of having fought and lost a war to prevent a thing (secession) that was only made illegal after that war...

For those reasons, I suspect that they would not want to go with an anti-secession amendment, on the grounds that their entire position (and quite possibly their continued careers in politics) rest on the basic assumption that secession is illegal already. Never mind that it happened anyway despite their efforts; that's one thing. Saying that those efforts (and their terrible cost in lives) were in fact unlawful... that would probably wreck a lot of political careers.
 
Did they? When?
They certainly didn't approve of them early on:

Edward Osborne Hewett, Royal Engineers (Veteran of the Crimea, former commanding engineer in the West Indies, and assistant instructor at the Royal Military Academy):

According to TvTropes the British thought in September 1862 DC was a fortress. Granted, that's not the best place to learn history, but the textbooks I know of only talk about field battles and Wikipedia is silent on the issue, so I scrounge the rest of my information from... possibly less than reliable sources.
 
Certainly it wouldn't, and if the goal is to prevent future secession, it's the logical step. I'm just thinking about the more practical concerns for a politician in the post-war years. The war has just been lost: the union has been divided. Exactly the thing that a lot of politicians have just spent the last few years telling everyone should not be allowed to happen. Morever, the thing that they have tried to prevent by throwing countless lives into the meat grinder of war-- only to fail.

The very implication that secession was legal - that this war may not have been 100% justified - would surely be extremely dangerous for those politicians? The anti-war minority will already be crowing about the "needless war". I just don't see a lot of politicians willing to open that door, because if nothing else, they want to avoid the charge of having fought and lost a war to prevent a thing (secession) that was only made illegal after that war...

For those reasons, I suspect that they would not want to go with an anti-secession amendment, on the grounds that their entire position (and quite possibly their continued careers in politics) rest on the basic assumption that secession is illegal already. Never mind that it happened anyway despite their efforts; that's one thing. Saying that those efforts (and their terrible cost in lives) were in fact unlawful... that would probably wreck a lot of political careers.

On the contrary I think the public upswell would demand such an amendment. The argument I would make is "Certainly secession was always illegal but this makes it crystal clear and banning state militias prevents any state from even trying to do so."
 
There will be a huge rebuilding project in the Americas after a successful Southern secession, which would be predicated entirely on foreign intervention. And yes, things could look very different in Europe, including butterflying away Hitler or even Franz Ferdinand being assassinated, and it could end up making the British Empire the dominant aggressive force in terms of keeping its empire.

The big thing that keeps the future of the Confederacy in question is the Industrial Revolution. If the South handles that well, it will probably remain independent; if it tries to get by on an antiquated system or can't handle the slavery adjustment, it could fall into utter disarray, which itself doesn't mean that it all absorbs back into the USA. Realistically if the Confederacy fails, it probably splinters, with some areas being returned to the Union and others trying to strike out on their own (possibly a black-dominated nation.)

Also, if Japan starts making war-like overtures at the USA, and the CSA gets roped into it in any way whatsoever (Hitler declaring war is one possibility; another nation trying to settle an old score is another) then the two nations becoming allies forged in war is a very strong possibility.

Yeah, the whole nature of a free Confederacy depends on which Europeans support it and how much they do so.

If the South fails to industrialize, it's gonna have a bad time. If it succeeds, it's still going to be weaker than the North but not overwhelmingly so. Maybe it falls into the British sphere of influence?

An interesting TL could see the South break free, fall under British quasi-rule, then get US support and together with them wage war on a wanked British Empire, ultimate showdown-style
 

Saphroneth

Banned
According to TvTropes the British thought in September 1862 DC was a fortress. Granted, that's not the best place to learn history, but the textbooks I know of only talk about field battles and Wikipedia is silent on the issue, so I scrounge the rest of my information from... possibly less than reliable sources.

It was a fortress. The Brits with actual military experience just thought it wasn't a very good one. Indeed, post Gettysburg the Union's military men felt it was highly vulnerable to ironclad attack.
 
It was a fortress. The Brits with actual military experience just thought it wasn't a very good one. Indeed, post Gettysburg the Union's military men felt it was highly vulnerable to ironclad attack.

there is a very well established finished thread (in finished timelines) on the strengths of Washington DC

so perhaps before reinventing the wheel (by any or all of us) a quick at that might be in order

https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...-sealion-the-capture-of-washington-d-c.68277/
 
On the contrary I think the public upswell would demand such an amendment. The argument I would make is "Certainly secession was always illegal but this makes it crystal clear and banning state militias prevents any state from even trying to do so."

James Dunnigan, back in 1991, in his book "Shooting Blanks" made an interesting case that in part the Civil War was a military coup attempt by state militias against the national government

There were other factors of course but he does make a good case. Its long out of print but it should be available on Amazon. My copy is dates from when it came out
 
People who say that the confederates were doomed from the start are ignorant about how warfare works. Many, many, many (I can't stress how often this has happened) times the underdog has beat the more powerful actor by simply playing the game smarter or in a new way. History is made not just by technologies or social currents, but by great individuals of talent or skill or intelligence. Every once in awhile a Napoleon or a Khalid or a Belisarius or etc comes around and knocks all the pieces off of the board. R.L Lee was an exceptional general but not of this calibre, if the Confederates had someone of greater skill or had invented a new tactic (For example I think defence in depth could have caused decisive levels of attrition to the Union) or the Union's jingoism causes France or the UK to get involved they could have easily won the war. A country can only support so much defeat and casualties until a breaking point is reached. This is what Clausewitz talked about in 'On War', you break the enemy's political will.

I think if the Confederates won it would have caused a balkanization of the former US. Not only would the Union have a difficult time holding down rebellious states, you would see a strong assortment of political consequences that would break the cohesion and unity within the Union. The CSA would also probably balkanize, inevitably there wouldn't be much to keep Texas involved. However it's highly likely that within the new states you would see customs unions or free trade.
 
Angry and confused, but armed to the teeth. Economically there's going to be some issues with the money supply until the 1870s as prices get sorted out (but there were similar problems OTL) and energy is going to be poured into settling the West, there will be a larger army, and there will be an era of Bad Feelings on the political scene as the Democrats work to undermine the Republicans work to move their platform to a national one rather than a war one.

You can bet your britches we will have some different presidents.
 
Angry and confused, but armed to the teeth. Economically there's going to be some issues with the money supply until the 1870s as prices get sorted out (but there were similar problems OTL) and energy is going to be poured into settling the West, there will be a larger army, and there will be an era of Bad Feelings on the political scene as the Democrats work to undermine the Republicans work to move their platform to a national one rather than a war one.

You can bet your britches we will have some different presidents.

lucky for the Union, the Black Hills of North Dakota and what would be for a time the worlds most productive gold mine, are in its territory and pumping out product by 1880 (plus we get one of my favorite tv shows ever out of it, but I digress)
 
lucky for the Union, the Black Hills of North Dakota and what would be for a time the worlds most productive gold mine, are in its territory and pumping out product by 1880 (plus we get one of my favorite tv shows ever out of it, but I digress)

In this situation one feels really bad for the Sioux...
 
In this situation one feels really bad for the Sioux...

yeah, no matter what they were going down. Demographics and Buffalo hunting are going to crush them even if the US Army is less effective. As by the 1870s the tactical succes of attacking Indian villages during winter was well known, the Army is unlikely to be less effective.
 
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