One final thing on policy downstream of southern demographics: there’s probably an increase in tolerance of female homosexuality and FtM transgender people. If there’s a shortage of marriageable white men, you’re going to see a significant amount of FF households. This is in addition to probable increased tolerance of polygamy whether formal or informal. There would probably also be a temporary reversal of age gaps in marriage.
Evidence from Paraguay suggests a rise in female educational attainment and labor force participation. On the other hand there also seems to be an increase in out of wedlock births. All three of these effects continue passed the point where gender ratios have returned to normal.
In terms of the strength of effects, I think support for women’s suffrage > female labor force participation > age gap > women’s educational attainment > FF households > out of wedlock births > tolerance of polygamy
Ehhhhh... I don't see this as a permanent change but as a temporary oddity, similar to how the supposed legalization of polygamy in Paraguay hasn't resulted in Paraguay being a bastion of poly relationships or Queer rights. I could see young girls marrying with old men because they are the only ones that aren't mangled physically or psychologically due to the war, and indeed greater female liberation. An amusing potential trope would be: "my grand-grandaunt lived with her girlfriend her entire life but it was just because there weren't any good men in the South after the war, you see? ...Oh my God, they were roommates."
The question is this: a lot of America's reactionary attitudes are directly the result of America's racist shadow. If that racism is considerably less potent, could America abolish the death penalty, push abortion, and implement other ideas on the same time scale as European countries did with little push back? Or even if America is less hostile to black people, there would still be conservatism on other social issues?
So in a more destructive civil war, would the TTL Republicans be more willing to embrace black civil rights in terms of trying to build a more cohesive national identity to prevent the violence of the TTL Civil War from coming back?
The removal of a large mass of Black workers from the body politic and the placement of the South, with all its Senate and House seats, under the rule of a reactionary elite of landowners did pull the nation significantly to the right and prevented progress in many realms. At the end of the day, Southern planters shared the economic and political concerns of other landowning classes throughout the world, and this oversized influenced held the US back in many regards. This can only result in a more progressive, so to speak European, US - but much down the line.
And... I'm sorry, but have you read the TL? Because Republicans being willing to embrace civil rights and the use of force to defend them is, like, the whole point. It's what I've been building to all this time.
American slang term derived from Italian and popular in mob movies that means 'understand?' or 'I understand' depending in the context
en.wiktionary.org
It just struck me as something weird to say. Or type, as it were.
Oh nice! That’s good to know then atleast.
Might I also ask what happened to these gentlemen?
- Benjamin Tillman
- Alcibiades DeBlanc
- Isham G. Harris
- Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar
- And Richard Coke
Nice stuff!
Good stuff.
So freaking based. I approve. 👍👍
Thanks for your comments
Tillman: He's been mentioned before, and while it's true that him dying is conceivable I think I'll use him later.
DeBlanc: Since he had served as a State legislator before the war, he's not eligible for a pardon and he's effectively disenfranchised. But given how he rose only to the rank of colonel and was never a rebel leader he probably got away with no penalties. I'll also use him later.
Harris: Having been a Confederate Governor he'd face execution if caught, so his OTL exile has just become permanent.
Lamar: Probably exiled. Having been a Fire-Eater and a secessionist, plus most likely a supporter of the Junta, there wouldn't be any way he'd get a pardon. But he isn't prominent enough to be executed, so probably exiled.
Coke: As a delegate to the secession convention, he'd also be disenfranchised, but given how he did not occupy any high office during the war he probably could get a pardon.
Take into account that political disenfranchisement for these men is permanent. The pardon only would shield them from confiscation or prosecution. Most importantly, if someone who received a pardon engages in further treason, their penalties are higher. In other words, if any of those who did get a pardon then become terrorists, they will get the noose.
If you have any questions about Brazil or its relationship with Argentina in the late 19th century feel totally free to ask me. I'm not a historian by any means, but I do think I have some good knowledge
That's very kind, thank you.
My intent wasn't to make the comparison, but I realize now that I did, and I'm sorry.
That's alright, let's just move on.
While that's completely fair, and I don't want nor expect your focus on Reconstruction to be derailed (I swear I wasn't trying to do that, it was just my stream of consciousness), I do think that it's something you're gonna have to focus on. The Transcontinental Railroad bill/law, along with the homestead act, was an extremely important piece of legislation, and railroads were extraordinarily important for the American economy overall, and even more so for the Great Plains and West/Mountain West. If you were doing a post-WW2 America timeline, you couldn't not talk at least a little about the rising importance of cars, the increasing investment in county, state, and federal highways, and, of course, the Interstate Highway System (assuming Eisenhower still gets elected and all that). As for tipping, my understanding is that tipping (at least for wait staff and the like, no idea for positions like Porters) rose to prominence in the 1920s or 1930s, so you're both right and wrong.
I mean, yeah, of course I'll have to discuss railroads, but only from the broad picture. Like I'll talk about how the expansion of rail changes the dynamics of the economy in the mountainous South or the Reconstruction regimes' desire to expand Southern railroads. I just won't talk about specific lines or companies, much less get into the inner politics of every company as you did with the Pullmans.
Maybe, but I think it's worth noting that a formal essay is a far cry from a "popular history book." While certainly not creative writing per se, a good, engaging non-fiction book still has a certain prose, and some sort of narrative. I haven't had/taken the time to read some of the American Civil War history books you've been drawing from and (doing a quite good job of!) imitating, but if this is like them, I think it's fair to say that they also have a narrative, or an arc. A Civil War book that starts in the late antebellum, setting the stage, then has the war's many scenes and acts, from comedy to tragedy, which is another way of saying that we go over what happened and why, or our (/the author's) best guess of why, and how that affected what happened next. I can certainly try to do that, but I know enough about railroads to know that there are holes so big in my knowledge that you could make a double-track tunnel out of them, it's extremely hard for me to keep a narrow focus, and I honestly get more satisfaction from sharing what I know and seeing someone else use that new information in whatever they were writing. I reserve the right to change my mind, however.
Of course, if you ever do decide to write anything I'd be glad to see you share it. If it doesn't go against anything I've written or my future plans, I'd threadmark it and make it canon.
Anti-Mormons had a number of complaints (including Mormons slaughtering non-Mormon settlers), but the polygamy was the big one. The idea of a man taking multiple wives was entirely against the institution of marriage in their eyes. For reference, imagine a religious movement in the 1840s or beyond fully endorsing gay marriage.
If anything, attempts at polygamy by Confederate veterans may be pushed back against more virulently. I could see not just laws, but a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of two individuals (While this idea is far too meme-y for this timeline, I’ve seen a joke premise in which gay marriage is accidentally legalized in the 1870s due to such an amendment, though only ruled legal in the 1970s).
Maybe not an amendment but I could see such a thing being included in future civil rights bills.
Momentum has an entrenchment all on its own. If my African American countrymen have unrestricted suffrage and ability to enter state and federal bureaucracy for a period of say, ten years with at least semi-concentred support from the federal government, it'll be a lot tougher to de-integrate especially considering that white terrorists will be slapped down by not just the feds but also the black communities of the South
the entrenchment of a black political class is critical to Reconstruction, as by giving them real power they have the ability to defend themselves without the federal government
Exactly! Let's remember that it took the Southern reactionaries almost 30 years to truly destroy Jim Crow and the changes brought by Reconstruction. A much stronger Black community and more interventionist Federal government will mean that, even with the tide receding eventually, things will never get too bad and Black rights will remain.
My opinion? No. At the height of Radical Republican power, the Radical Republicans pushed the ultra-moralist Comstock Laws, banning abortion, birth control, and anything “obscene” and censoring the mail. The first ban on Chinese immigration, the one that restricted women, was also branded as a “moralist” reform. Prohibition gained traction post-Civil War with the earliest supporters as Radical Republicans. The most influential anti-racists of the day, including Frederick Douglass, were notorious social conservatives. Charles Sumner pushed the Christian Amendment, an attempt to revise the Constitution to officially acknowledge God and Christ.
These reforms are certainly possible, but they’d take a lot of political capital and sympathetic people in government, which the Republicans, even if they were willing, wouldn’t be able to afford after Reconstruction. Reformist city liberals, possibly in the form of a Labor Party or something similar to the New Deal Coalition, may be able to push these reforms, however.
Yeah, a lot of people tend to forget that just because Republicans were progressive in regards to slavery and race relationships (comparatively), it doesn't mean they were all around progressive in all areas. At its core, Radical Republicanism was a form of "political puritanism" that identified several evils in society and believed that the government had a role in ending those evils and enforcing good morals. There's a reason why most Republican constituencies tended to support all kind of reform movements, not just abolitionism - they were in favor of temperance, nativism, women's rights, etc. They also had a fundamentally religious viewpoint. Slavery was bad because it was a sin, and as such it should be destroyed. But there were other sins Republicans saw in society, which they also believed they should destroy. Ultimately, Radical Republicanism will run its course and we'll see new Reform movements more interested in something closer to our view of progressivism.
This has probably been discussed already, but...I am really curious what an Episode of Checkmate Lincolnites from Atun-Shei Films would look like in this Timeline.
Well, for Starters, it probably wouldn't be called Checkmate Lincolnites. Personally, I would say that instead of the show being mostly about debunking the 'Lost Cause' Myth, Billy Yank and Johnny Reb would have a much more equal dialogue where they both correct misconceptions the other voices about both sides of the Civil War. Johnny is still espousing a more positive view of the South, but falls often into some traps similar to OTL and has to be pulled back into facts by Billy. However, while he is pro-South, he is much more openly and explicity Anti-Slavery and ESPECIALLY Anti-Planter Class than his OTL counterpart.
Basically, he's a (caricature of a) Breckinridge-ite, falling a bit for the Myth of him as the Hero of the Southern Poor who was never all that in favor of Slavery to begin with.
ITTL, they might actually much more openly agree on certain issues to an extent, like the Military Junta Coup...which Johnny of course LOATHES even more then he hates the Yankees, calling it 'the blackest of treacheries' and other such things and going off about the Planter class screwing the rest of the South over for the sake of their racism and greed.
I really think this could make for an interesting Omake. I might write an Episode of it on the Sequel, if I am allowed to.
Yeah, I think you're basically spot on. I could see episodes like "Was Breckinridge a GOOD Confederate?" where Johnny insists that Breckinridge was not in favor of war crimes and tried to stop them, and Billy points out that many awful war crimes took place under Breckinridge, that he never did much to stop them, and that even those who'd later join the Junta were not punished by him (i.e. ITTL Jackson massacred Black soldiers at Harpers Ferry yet was never punished in any way). Another topic would be "Was the October Coup supported by the people of the Confederacy?" where Johnny tries to portray it as a movement from the elite than most Southerners resented only to have Billy point out that he coup was initially popular, especially among the soldiers.
Please if you want to write something, do it! I believe anyone being inspired by this to create something themselves is the highest compliment possible! I'd say, however, that it'd be more fitting to post it here, since it'd presumably deal with the war (Atun-Shei, the real one, doesn't seem terribly interested in Reconstruction).
Disregarding the obvious well-over-a-century-worth of butterflies, I totally would agree with you on this.
No, Atun-Shei is an universal constant that trascends time and butterflies.
