US Politics with independent CSA

I think the Union would look to changing the us constitution to ban any states succeeding from the union.
I think the enumerated powers would be expanded too to allow for more power to the federal government and less rights for the states.
Federal government might need to sell land to settlers to raise revenue. i could see new and higher taxes to pay for a large military and more powerful federal government.
I think there would need to be a demilitarized zone at least around Washington D.C. and a shipping route for the union down the Mississippi.
I could see a lot of copperhead being persuaded to leave the union.
The underground railway will still help escaping slaves, not sure who welcome they will be in the Union so they may need to continue their journey to Canada.
I could see abolitionists turning to other moral causes like banning alcohol, and maybe drugs and other vices.
There could be a lot of people turning to religion to explain the defeat.
A union with hostile relations with the British empire the Union might be a place where those who rebel against the empire will see support,eg the Irish, the Boers, Indians etc.
Longer term I cannot see the union getting involved in wwi other that selling materials for cash.
American Indians still do badly or worse.
 
OTL's United States wasn't important enough to be part of the European alliance system, so I am every doubtful that any European power would form a long-term alliance with either the the Union or the Confederacy. The European powers didn't really start forming long term alliances until about 1880, and they were typically defense alliances. Any period alliance between the Union or the Confederacy and a European power would almost certainly be a short term alliance for the duration of a specific war, probably in the Caribbean or Central America.

Far different circumstances. OTL the US was isolationist which is not true TTL. An isolationist US with a small military isn't important enough to merit much attention in Europe. An engaged US with a large military is a whole different matter. Post Civil War the US is big enough, rich enough and populous enough to have a large military with or without the South.
 
Far different circumstances. OTL the US was isolationist which is not true TTL. An isolationist US with a small military isn't important enough to merit much attention in Europe. An engaged US with a large military is a whole different matter. Post Civil War the US is big enough, rich enough and populous enough to have a large military with or without the South.

The only long-term period alliance between a European power and a non European power that I am aware of was the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. That didn't start until 1902 and was due to their common interest in the containment of Russia. You make a point that a less interventionist Union might have a more powerful military than on OTL, which could make them a useful alliance partner, but that still won't happen unless both alliance partners share a common interest.
 
The only long-term period alliance between a European power and a non European power that I am aware of was the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. That didn't start until 1902 and was due to their common interest in the containment of Russia. You make a point that a less interventionist Union might have a more powerful military than on OTL, which could make them a useful alliance partner, but that still won't happen unless both alliance partners share a common interest.

True, but if Prussia (For example) and the US are both anti-UK they both have a common interest in making sure it is weakened. If Germany still comes into existence and still is building the HSF, forcing the British into having to look at the USN as well is in its interest and vice-versa.

Also in the late 19th century about the only non-European countries that could arguably be considered Great Powers are Japan and the US and the US was isolationist. Who else is there? Nothing in Latin America, nothing in Africa with maybe China as well as Japan being a Great Power but the Europeans were trying to force concessions on it at the time as their government was weak.
 
True, but if Prussia (For example) and the US are both anti-UK they both have a common interest in making sure it is weakened. If Germany still comes into existence and still is building the HSF, forcing the British into having to look at the USN as well is in its interest and vice-versa.

Also in the late 19th century about the only non-European countries that could arguably be considered Great Powers are Japan and the US and the US was isolationist. Who else is there? Nothing in Latin America, nothing in Africa with maybe China as well as Japan being a Great Power but the Europeans were trying to force concessions on it at the time as their government was weak.

Prussia isn't/wasn't really anti-Britain before the time of Kaiser Wilhelm II though. Their enemies and potential rivals were, in order, Austria, France, and Russia. Each of those powers had territorial or political ambitions which would clash with the ambitions of Prussia or a united Germany. About their only 'reliable' ally on the continent was Italy. Britain was down on Prussia over Poland and the Danish question, but they weren't against Prussia since it was a counterweight to French ambitions and a potential ally against Russia.

Without Wilhelm II's dreams of empire and navy there's no real reason for Prussia to be seen as a natural enemy of the British. Indeed France always looked far, far more likely to square off with Britain over their competing imperial ambitions in Africa and Asia.

If we accept a linear timeline ala TL-191 then sure, courting the US with a united Germany makes a bit of sense. However, a massive army and potential naval ally are also literally next door in Russia who is a) much closer to home and b) already inimicable to British interests. Why court a power 3,000 miles away when you can court one right beside you?
 
Prussia isn't/wasn't really anti-Britain before the time of Kaiser Wilhelm II though. Their enemies and potential rivals were, in order, Austria, France, and Russia. Each of those powers had territorial or political ambitions which would clash with the ambitions of Prussia or a united Germany. About their only 'reliable' ally on the continent was Italy. Britain was down on Prussia over Poland and the Danish question, but they weren't against Prussia since it was a counterweight to French ambitions and a potential ally against Russia.

Without Wilhelm II's dreams of empire and navy there's no real reason for Prussia to be seen as a natural enemy of the British. Indeed France always looked far, far more likely to square off with Britain over their competing imperial ambitions in Africa and Asia.

If we accept a linear timeline ala TL-191 then sure, courting the US with a united Germany makes a bit of sense. However, a massive army and potential naval ally are also literally next door in Russia who is a) much closer to home and b) already inimicable to British interests. Why court a power 3,000 miles away when you can court one right beside you?

Why not court both, particularly if it is cheap? There is nothing preventing the US, Germany/Prussia, and Russia aligning if they all think it is in their interest. Now that alliance can change over time but the US can change alliances if need be. It is big, rich and populous so makes a pretty strong potential ally for almost anyone.
 
Why not court both, particularly if it is cheap? There is nothing preventing the US, Germany/Prussia, and Russia aligning if they all think it is in their interest. Now that alliance can change over time but the US can change alliances if need be. It is big, rich and populous so makes a pretty strong potential ally for almost anyone.

But why court the US at all? Like I've said, Britain and Prussia/Germany are not natural enemies, and Prussia/Germany's real enemies are all quite literally next door to it. An alliance with the US doesn't help that one iota.

It's similar to why you never saw any sort of formal alliance between the US and Russia. No sane government in Washington will spend blood and treasure to allow the Russians to subjugate Poland or control the Black Sea, similarly no tsar is going to spend blood and treasure so the Union can control Maine or Tennessee. Their needs and political strategic realities are wildly different. And neither side has the incentive to bleed so one can accomplish a goal on a different continent.
 
But why court the US at all? Like I've said, Britain and Prussia/Germany are not natural enemies, and Prussia/Germany's real enemies are all quite literally next door to it. An alliance with the US doesn't help that one iota.

It's similar to why you never saw any sort of formal alliance between the US and Russia. No sane government in Washington will spend blood and treasure to allow the Russians to subjugate Poland or control the Black Sea, similarly no tsar is going to spend blood and treasure so the Union can control Maine or Tennessee. Their needs and political strategic realities are wildly different. And neither side has the incentive to bleed so one can accomplish a goal on a different continent.

A defensive alliance makes more sense, which is what I am talking about. That is if GB attacks either Prussia or Russia the US will declare war on GB if GB attacks the US than Prussia or Russia declares war on GB. That would discourage GB from attacking either.
It would also make GB reluctant to intervene when either attacks a 3rd country. If Russia attacked Poland and GB would do nothing than the US wouldn't get involved. If Russia attacked Poland and GB declared war on Russia than the alliance would trigger. The same thing would happen with the US and CS. It would be an advantage to both countries as it would have to give GB at least pause about defending 3rd countries.
 
A defensive alliance makes more sense, which is what I am talking about. That is if GB attacks either Prussia or Russia the US will declare war on GB if GB attacks the US than Prussia or Russia declares war on GB. That would discourage GB from attacking either.
It would also make GB reluctant to intervene when either attacks a 3rd country. If Russia attacked Poland and GB would do nothing than the US wouldn't get involved. If Russia attacked Poland and GB declared war on Russia than the alliance would trigger. The same thing would happen with the US and CS. It would be an advantage to both countries as it would have to give GB at least pause about defending 3rd countries.

That still doesn't make sense. Why would any sane government in Washington want to fight Great Britain (and potentially other powers) so the Russians can subjugate Poland or snip off a bit of Turkey? The same still holds true for Russia and Prussia.

Hell, how do you even sell that to the electorate? We will send our boys to die so Russia can control Poland? That's a terrible policy for domestic consumption. The party that suggested it would be committing political suicide.

The US has no reason to suck itself in to a European conflict in the 19th century, and similarly Prussia and Russia have no incentive (or ability) to intervene on the American continent.
 
That still doesn't make sense. Why would any sane government in Washington want to fight Great Britain (and potentially other powers) so the Russians can subjugate Poland or snip off a bit of Turkey? The same still holds true for Russia and Prussia.

Hell, how do you even sell that to the electorate? We will send our boys to die so Russia can control Poland? That's a terrible policy for domestic consumption. The party that suggested it would be committing political suicide.

The US has no reason to suck itself in to a European conflict in the 19th century, and similarly Prussia and Russia have no incentive (or ability) to intervene on the American continent.

You aren't fighting for Russia to subjugate Poland, you are making it easier for yourself to attack the CSA without as much worry while Russia can attack Poland without as much worry. The chances of GB intervening in either the CSA or Poland goes way down if they think they have to fight the US and Russia (Or the US and Germany for that matter) at the same time if they do.

To put it bluntly, you are aligning because it allows both of you a freer hand in dealing with what you see as a problem without worrying about GB as much. Is GB really willing to fight the US and Russia to save Poland or the CSA? It might if it has to take on one of them, if it has to take on both the odds of them interfering drop.
 
You aren't fighting for Russia to subjugate Poland, you are making it easier for yourself to attack the CSA without as much worry while Russia can attack Poland without as much worry. The chances of GB intervening in either the CSA or Poland goes way down if they think they have to fight the US and Russia (Or the US and Germany for that matter) at the same time if they do.

To put it bluntly, you are aligning because it allows both of you a freer hand in dealing with what you see as a problem without worrying about GB as much. Is GB really willing to fight the US and Russia to save Poland or the CSA? It might if it has to take on one of them, if it has to take on both the odds of them interfering drop.

Not to belabor a point, but the US in Prussia's case is still 3,000 miles away and France/Austria/Russia are next door. Even Russia doesn't have an immediate advantage of a US alliance. This also makes both countries beholden to each other, whether they want it or not, by treaty. That means even if you disagree with a war your 'ally' is fighting you are liable to be drawn into it. It's not a stable or desirable arrangement, and its one of the reasons the League of the Three Emperors fell apart.

This arrangement only hypothetically offers an advantage, and I see no reason the Tsar or King of Prussia would trust an eternally shifting President or Congress to uphold it. Sure the Republicans signed a treaty, but will a Democratic President/Congress honor it?

There's legions of reasons against why either country would want to sign such a treaty.
 
Not to belabor a point, but the US in Prussia's case is still 3,000 miles away and France/Austria/Russia are next door. Even Russia doesn't have an immediate advantage of a US alliance. This also makes both countries beholden to each other, whether they want it or not, by treaty. That means even if you disagree with a war your 'ally' is fighting you are liable to be drawn into it. It's not a stable or desirable arrangement, and its one of the reasons the League of the Three Emperors fell apart.

This arrangement only hypothetically offers an advantage, and I see no reason the Tsar or King of Prussia would trust an eternally shifting President or Congress to uphold it. Sure the Republicans signed a treaty, but will a Democratic President/Congress honor it?

There's legions of reasons against why either country would want to sign such a treaty.

Because they generally do? There are few instances of Republicans or Democrats withdrawing from treaties. If they do you deal with it then, it would be useful in the short run at the very least. If the US withdraws from the treaty you withdraw yourself and you are under no obligation to them.

Having the US keep the RN and British Army busy by attacking Canada and the British Caribean is very damn helpful for Russia/Germany. By the late 19th century early 20th it can keep the British busy in the Pacific as well. Every ship and soldier sent to NA or the Pacific is one not sent to Europe. As far as the US is concerned every British soldier fighting in Europe is one not helping the CSA. It is an alliance that helps both sides.
 
Seriously, if you're only paid with script from the company store and live in company houses and effectively can't leave, how free are you?
Exactly. If there are no Southern Solid South guaranteed conservative seats making up a third of Congress, with a Berlin Wall of seniority ensconcing them in power even when their party does not dominate, and tying the hand of Democrats even if the northern party veers left, the natural allies of conservative Republicans against both progressive wings of both parties and the formation of more populist third parties--can we reasonably assume the Gilded Age would have been as liberal-conservative as it was? Would court justices who first rule that states have no power to regulate the working hours of categories of workers (specifically here, bakers, limited to a ten hour day by a state's law) since the fundamental right of free contract, assumed to be covered in the 10th Amendment, categorically forbids such regulation(the infamous Lochner case), and then when confronted with Congress invoking its power to regulate interstate commerce passing a law imposing heavy taxes on products of child labor crossing state lines, blandly argues that the plain wording of the Constitution granting Congress this power (thus mooting the 10th Amendment, which refers only to reserved powers not granted by the Constitution) can and must be limited by the intent of the legislation (Holmes pointed out in a dissent this was nonsense) which the Court discerned was other than for what they thought was proper commerce legislation--but rather than again cite the purported sacredness of freedom of contract, punted to the claim that the intent of the Federal law was for a purpose reserved to the states...would these justices be allowed to prevail, without the popular majority asserting themselves, either by impeaching the judges, or amending the Constitution, or simply electing new executives and legislators who over time would replace them by more reasonable ones?

I generally think it would not be easy to prove one way or the other how Union politics would react to the CSA going its separate way, on what time scales. It is not a slam dunk the USA moves left, it could in fact become more reactionary. But these positions you take seem on the whole to serve a very conservative narrative, and I think without the heavy thumb of Southern white supremacist reaction on the Union, we cannot reasonably extrapolate from OTL too linearly. Reaction might come in many forms for different reasons, but we cannot just assume that the courts and conventional political wisdom were as they were just because it was the only reasonable way to be in this age.
 
The US has no reason to suck itself in to a European conflict in the 19th century, and similarly Prussia and Russia have no incentive (or ability) to intervene on the American continent.
true... unless...
if the CSA has an alliance with France and the UK (basically, the TL-191 TL), then the US has every reason to side with Germany... or anyone big enough to sideline France and the UK... also assuming that the US maintains a grudge against the CSA for a long time and still wants to conquer it in the future...
 
true... unless...
if the CSA has an alliance with France and the UK (basically, the TL-191 TL), then the US has every reason to side with Germany... or anyone big enough to sideline France and the UK... also assuming that the US maintains a grudge against the CSA for a long time and still wants to conquer it in the future...
Can we really assume Britain and/or France would want too much to do with the CSA? On the other hand, would the CSA want to risk a European alliance?
 
Can we really assume Britain and/or France would want too much to do with the CSA? On the other hand, would the CSA want to risk a European alliance?
nope, you can't really assume anything. As I noted earlier in this thread, the POD is a pretty broad one, and the paths that history could take branch out far and wide. The CSA might want to risk an alliance with France and the UK to keep itself safe from the USA. Or it might not, if hostilities between the CSA and USA abate. The USA might hold a long grudge against the CSA, or it might not. We could write out a dozen scenarios easily that this ATL history could go...
 
true... unless...
if the CSA has an alliance with France and the UK (basically, the TL-191 TL), then the US has every reason to side with Germany... or anyone big enough to sideline France and the UK... also assuming that the US maintains a grudge against the CSA for a long time and still wants to conquer it in the future...

My assumption was that the UK helped the CSA during the war. If not, it changes my opinion. If the UK stayed out of it then the US has no real reason for an alliance.
 
true... unless...
if the CSA has an alliance with France and the UK (basically, the TL-191 TL), then the US has every reason to side with Germany... or anyone big enough to sideline France and the UK... also assuming that the US maintains a grudge against the CSA for a long time and still wants to conquer it in the future...

It doesn't even have to be if the USA still holds a grudge or harbor a desire to reabsorb the CSA, it could be just if the CSA is still sniffing around NMT/AZT/COT or even just stuff in the Pacific that threatens US interests...
 
I think the Union would look to changing the us constitution to ban any states succeeding from the union.
I think the enumerated powers would be expanded too to allow for more power to the federal government and less rights for the states.
Federal government might need to sell land to settlers to raise revenue. i could see new and higher taxes to pay for a large military and more powerful federal government.
I agree to all of this!

Of course here we have the stipulation that first the Civil War starts, more or less as OTL, then a Trent War situation develops and the Union comes to terms much earlier than its OTL victory, leaving the CSA unconquered. There is no development of the manner in which the Trent War happens, what each side accomplishes and loses, but if Britain is in a position to demand the USA recognize CSA independence, then clearly they aren't hurting too badly. I would think in these circumstances Canada is forfeit, at least temporarily, though it has long been my position in many scenarios that the USA, even if overall winning pretty well, would at least consider trading any Canadian conquests back for considerations elsewhere. This may come into play below. But the OP seems to assume the Union is in a pretty abject condition, and if we assume Upper Canada is in hand or anyway cut off from British help, say via a prior strike into Lower Canada severing all communications, then for the US to come to terms promising to leave CSA alone it has to be even worse off on other fronts. We just don't know the OP having left all that murky.

But the point is, with the USA capitulating, we don't know what condition it is in territorially. I don't think CSA is going to want anything north of the Border states, but perhaps counting Missouri as such--Missouri, if held in full, almost cuts the USA in half. Perhaps the upshot is a drastic rearrangement, with the USA laying claim to everything north of the Great Lakes and suffering some reversals in the Northwest (that region left to languish--it has some self defense ability but the British might be able to overwhelm it and take at the peace table all of OTL Washington for instance, so a highly unsettled situation exists of overlapping claims, the USA securing the Great Lakes region and thus claiming the plains west into the Rockies all the way to the Arctic Ocean, while the British holding an expanded BC claim the mountains and leave unclear just what their attitude is toward US holding Upper Canada; Quebec either spun off as an allied republic or incorporated as a state again with claims far north of its OTL then contemporary borders, the Maritimes remain British--all this versus the CSA demanding and getting all of Missouri but probably with few if any gains on the CSA's western bounds--I don't think the British will support these, certainly not if the USA does trade back at least some BNA holdings, and even distracted in a two front fight for her life and facing blockade, can spare enough manpower dispatched westward to parry CSA moves into New Mexico Territory and pro-secession insurgencies in California, which can also, particularly with help from Deseret, assist Union forces and NMT militia recruits on the Texas fronts. Post war I assume the US still has its western holdings north of Arkansas and Texas, pretty much perhaps with some border rearrangement; CSA does not have Pacific access and never will. East of Missouri, perhaps CSA with British reinforcement can drive Union forces out of Tennessee and Kentucky--bearing in mind they have to repress the mountaineer settlers who have zero interest in slavery. British aid would be most useful and forthcoming (aside from bogging down US forces in the Maritimes/New England front) on the Chesapeake, so I defy conventional wisdom and figure Maryland is forfeit to CSA as well--which means of course Washington DC is no longer a viable capital for the USA (it might be for CSA, but i suspect Richmond is as far north as they will want it and might be set up farther south--in NC, SC, Georgia or all the way back to Montgomery AL) and is ceded and presumably reincorporated into CSA MD; I have been put on notice Delaware was not much of a slave state, but even so I think in the context of a British championed CSA war victory the Confederacy gets it.
So the borders are much as I envisioned in other threads with the assumption there is no war at all, except the status of Upper and Lower Canada is very unclear, as is that of the territory that OTL became Washington State--I do not believe the British could spare the Pacific forces necessary to invest all of California, even if they hold key parts of it the state goes back to USA at the peace table and much the same for Oregon.

The exact borders in a Trent War situation, and salient to this thread too the nature of US political leadership, are very much up in the air. I can't visualize Lincoln capitulating as early as OP assumes so presumably he is out--and I think Hannibal Hamlin would fight doggedly too and manage, with the help of Lincoln's surviving circle, to keep the Union in the war longer. So, the leadership is very different than OTL one way or another. Similarly borders are very fluid. I presume the British would seek to reinforce Virginia in the lower Chesapeake and with naval force assisting push hard against DC, making it too hot to hold. OTOH, the Union has the opportunity to raise subversion in western Virginia, and the east of Tennessee and the mountains generally; at the peace table the CSA might have to agree to lose a deep salient just as the Union might need to surrender Missouri--or maybe not, it depends on how secessionist Missourians would be. Canada as noted is a huge question mark; a successful Britain might be able to insist on getting all of it back but perhaps only in return for giving back any territories in the Pacific Northwest and/or New England they might have seized. Note that in other threads where I assume no war at all, of course the US/British NA border is sacred, while I dismiss the possibility that the US could get West Virginia in any form--it is legally impossible for the US to talk peace with the CSA while openly aiding subversion against one of her key states! War opens up everything; a sanguine champion of the CSA/British alliance might have the Union cut in two and forced to submit to what amounts to British rule. (I think Britain's ability to sustain a long hard costly American war is undermined by domestic opposition; with no war this factor can be disregarded completely, with a hard nasty war it might lead to domestic revolution and the end of the UK).

This is my best guess at visualizing what a war as OP mentions would result in.
I think there would need to be a demilitarized zone at least around Washington D.C. and a shipping route for the union down the Mississippi.
Obviously if the CSA is able to seize or be granted Maryland, then Washington as noted is a dead duck and the USA has no access to the Chesapeake whatsoever, it becomes a CSA lake.
Similarly with the Mississippi--just as I claim that for the CSA getting Pacific access, "want" and "have" are quite different, so for the Union wherever the CSA is on both sides of the Mississippi, that's Confederate. Sure, historically there were different arrangements but those were hashed out when the Mississippi valley was mostly Native American inhabited; by the 1860s it clearly is a river under the control of whoever lives alongside it. Any Union trade to the Gulf is a matter of whatever the CSA wants to allow. I believe this would be true even in a "go in peace" scenario, and clearly must be if the British are in a position to demand the USA to capitulate. Maybe some later crisis or opportunity will allow the USA to gain this boon, but note that even if granted on paper as a practical matter the Confederates can nullify it any time anyway.

So here I disagree very strongly and in any CSA ATL, unless one wants to stipulate one where Arkansas and Louisiana somehow stay in the Union, which makes no sense at all. Maybe Arkansas, but Louisiana is clearly destined to be a charter member Confederate state. With the British backing them, forget it!

To be sure the value of the lower river as a transport artery is enhanced by US trade goods; it is not in the interest of either power to close the border to trade, unless one or both is bound and determined to fight again real soon.
I could see a lot of copperhead being persuaded to leave the union.
I don't follow that very well; at best you'd have to unpack it a bit. There were many different forms of opposition to Lincoln's policy after all. Some "copperheads" would be Northern Democrats who feel that the Union is better off forgetting all about slavery or the consequences of trying to abolish it; others are people with a mix of sympathies for the South or particular Southerners and/or economic interests in them. Certainly one consequence of Britain joining the CSA side is to make the whole mess of the war more unambiguously a matter of USA patriotism and anyone who opposed the Union regime is under some suspicion beyond OTL--but on the other hand the other side clearly won. I think while there will be some cloud over the anti-Unionist political position in the North, on the whole it will survive as legitimate opposition. Indeed particular individuals who committed open and shut instances of treason might be exiled--or more likely, if caught, executed. By due process of law, and anyone who was not caught and tried and punished during the war seems likely to get off after it. Perhaps being so unpopular they decide to leave on their own--"persuaded" as you say, but this is a matter of exemplary punishment and/or shunning and persecution of egregious examples, not a wholesale purge I think. Some people will be less rather than more comfortable as time passes and consequences unfold, and these will leave...but meanwhile others in the South will up stakes and move north too; they might be met at the border with some suspicion but I believe not a few will have or claim pro-Unionist credentials and these will be welcomed in.
The underground railway will still help escaping slaves, not sure who welcome they will be in the Union so they may need to continue their journey to Canada.
I think so, and also share your ambiguity. The abolitionists will be fewer, most of their penumbra of fair weather friends at first drifting off thinking "well, now that's settled we don't need to worry about those poor black folks, our hands are washed of it." However factions who wave the bloody shirt of British perfidy and Southern treason will at least tactically want to claim the mantle of some kind of abolitionism.

Before the secession, abolitionists were a domestic subversive movement in some views, causing needless unrest. Some people will now blame them for the manifest harm to the union they will hold could have been prevented if they had just minded their own business, and the hostility might be quite violent. Now they are subversive in the sense of tending to promote war with a dangerous foreign nation probably entangled with other dangerous foes. But to some Americans picking those very fights will become a proposed identity for the USA.

As a practical matter, slaves will continue to flee the South. It has been suggested on other threads that the CSA will hardly sustain slavery forever. But if the solutions of gradual emancipation fashionable to people who find the horror of ongoing slavery unthinkable and therefore of course necessarily irrational and unlikely one way or the other were terribly practical probably slavery would not have been such an unsolvable dilemma for the USA OTL! In any case, whether chattel slavery in the familiar form can be modernized and continued, or some mutated collective form develops, or in fact the slaves are emancipated gradually, I expect Southern society will depend on them and their descendants being kept in some subordinate position, there to take falls and blows and suffer shortfalls and do hard work so white people can minimize their having to suffer any of these things, and however the problem of forcing this service out of them is solved, there will be terror and gross plain injustice. Since these things have remained true to some extent here in the USA OTL I am pretty confident they will be in the ATL too, but an international border now separates most AA exploitation from direct observation and formally speaking absolves the Northern people of responsibility--or authority to do anything--just as this distance exists between the CSA and Britain.

But whether legally slave, government owned forced laborer, lower caste free person with rights such as they are recognized at all subordinated to any white person who moves among them, or whatever, these people will be resisting this programmed fate in various ways, and will try to get out as one of these paths. Conceivably some economic, political and social juncture might arise where the South's rulers decide the day of forced AA labor has passed and now suddenly they want to be rid of them, and open the gates and let them exit wherever they like, but I doubt it will ever work like that.

Slaves, or whatever insulting and painful status they are accorded as the CSA progresses, will probably be trying to escape against the will of the white ruled society, and a certain number will manage to accomplish the trick. Landward the only available borders are into Mexico, and into the USA. Both countries will be under some pressure to return these fugitives to their custody, but now no one outside the CSA has any actual legal mandate to do so; it is a question of diplomatic expedience and nothing more. That being so the question remains one of vexing political importance.

Note that from the CSA's point of view it matters little whether a fugitive is allowed to settle on US soil or if they are gathered up as fast as they arrive and shown to other borders, placed on ships bound for Liberia or straight to Great Britain--the CSA interest is that the fugitives are returned specifically to them, and any nation that does something else is denying the Confederates what the founding generation at least calls their property. I might suggest then that in conjunction with the abolitionist voice of conscience whispering in the larger public's ear, insofar as the USA does anything other than remand them back to CSA custody, they settle on instead letting the fugitives take up residence in the USA and become citizens. That way, while not annoying the Confederates any more than if they did something else to pass the hot potato along, the USA gains the benefit of immigrants already proficient in a version of English, probably in some way or another competent to do useful work of a modern kind. And in addition to that, if their welcome in the Union is warm enough, citizens who have a strong motive to oppose in particular CSA expansion or invasions of the USA! (Also if the British alliance continues to be a thing benefitting CSA, these African Americans will probably have some reliable animus against the British Empire as well). So overall either the US policy will be to remand them back to CSA custody, or increasingly to let them settle in the USA--especially remembering that Britain is stipulated to have sided with the CSA and thus passing fugitives on to Canada, or their trusting their chances on the high seas in transit to anywhere, or that CSA raider ships might not descend on them to recapture them on whatever shores they might find some apparent safety, are all in some awkward doubt due to Britain's complicity. Of course the CSA is in no position to demand anything of the British or any British subjects anything no strong interest in Britain will agree to; the purported Trent War alliance might be very temporary--but that does leave the CSA alone with the USA.

In this context I think abolitionism as such remains salient and survives; amid much controversy. US policy may vacillate between appeasing CSA demands for repatriation and refusal to do so; in the conciliatory periods abolitionists will be out of style and perhaps criminalized; certainly some hard core abolitionists will break the law and in a systematic, planned manner, whenever the law insists they must turn over a fugitive who reached their arms and was given their protection and help.

I could see abolitionists turning to other moral causes like banning alcohol, and maybe drugs and other vices.
Certainly such crusades will be undertaken and there is a natural linkage of all to each; the Prohibition party was a perennial third party for a very long time in US politics. Feminism is historically intertwined with abolitionism in US history as well. The anti-drug stuff, focused on booze, is likely, but it will not be a matter of people who just want to make trouble and preach having to find a new hobby! There remains plenty of abolition work to be done in this ATL and there is no reason to get off that hobbyhorse if one conceives of these movements as that. Each strand of radical reformism will be itself, its own identity and movement, but much intertwined with the others to be sure.

Don't forget the radical labor movement! In an ATL with the USA and CSA separated abolitionism will remain part of the package of left wing standard causes.
There could be a lot of people turning to religion to explain the defeat.
I think that would be very odd. It's not like a meteor wiped out the Midwest. The slavocrats committed gross treason then the corrupt rulers of the British Empire, the Enemy of Mankind in the Irish phrase, teamed up with them to sucker punch the Union. The mysterious will of God is hardly needed to make sense of things here; rather the presumption would tend to be that this is a case of the Devil having dominion over the world and the Union, particularly if it avoids too much dishonorable compromise, can be glibly assumed to be on God's side. The passionately religious we will always have and their roles in the USA can be strong...but I see no reason for this entirely manmade catastrophe to disrupt the general alternation between secularism and Great Awakenings that cyclicly rock the American mind.

It might do something to sustain rather than inspire the kind of religiosity such abolitionists as Harriet Beecher Stowe expressed, but most likely her to the modern reader remarkable steeping in Christianity as lens is simply a matter of her place and time. Indeed passion as strong as religion might be needed to stand fast as an abolitionist, particularly one who proposes to venture into the heart of darkness and invade the CSA (as stealthy agents I mean here, not en masse) to steal more human "property" than is capable of liberating itself successfully; the penalty for losing points in that game is death after all. Probably with some kind of torture first.

But this leads me to again wonder about the trajectory of radical labor in general. The thread focuses on politics in the Union but we have to wonder what is going on south of the Mason-Dixon line too. It is my belief that if the secessionist fire eaters are rewarded with success in their rash enterprise, they will ride high in the South and double down, distorting all decisions to favor their peculiar position. One possible outcome of this is a failure of liberal cooption of the large part of the working class--it goes without saying that about a third or more of that class is in fact African American and in lieu of the usual divide and rule on subtle lines of class status, with the most potentially effective potential working class leaders being lured into "middle class" respectability, the gross division of humanity will serve instead, with lower echelon type "whites" both bribed by the flatteries and privileges of white supremacy and as terrified of the perhaps inevitable day of judgement when the slaves get loose at last--as their archetype Jefferson said, "I tremble for my country when I reflect God is just." This form of white guilt might serve to enable all sorts of barbaric solutions to the basic problem of how to get useful labor out of a group with practically zero hopes and nothing to lose.

I think it is possible though that in their arrogance and losing the habit of effective conciliation of working class interests, a lot of white people might themselves suffer serious alienation, and to at least some of them, the racist scales over their eyes blinding them to the shared humanity of the bound class might erode away and the prospect of an interracial radical alliance open anew. This alliance has no pretense of being gentle, gradual, or legal; having "no rights a white man is bound to respect" any whites linking their cause to the slaves are declaring war on all of Southern society, much as Huck Finn reasons out that if he will not turn Jim over to the authorities as a fugitive slave he must be damned to hell, and he resolves to make the most of it.

The possibility of Red Revolution in the most luridly violent and stark form overtaking the CSA seems like it might be a real one to me!
A union with hostile relations with the British empire the Union might be a place where those who rebel against the empire will see support,eg the Irish, the Boers, Indians etc.
To an extent this was true OTL as things were; Anglophobia did not become a rare thing until the USA plainly surpassed the British Empire in the cours of WWII and many a decision or attitude during that war is blamed on lingering Anglophobia, despite the clear tendency of the USA and Britain to converge and support one another from the end of the Civil War era on. Like so many things we are discussing here it does not do to pretend the USA, or Britain, or CSA, is just one person with one settled policy in mind; each nation is layered with many classes and with people on more or less the same "level" of society often living very diversely from each other and with even individuals in much the same position both vertically and horizontally still splitting into opposite camps. The American view of what Britain is and stands for takes another heavy blow here to be sure.

A lot depends on how the British behave down the line. Backing the CSA diplomatically was bad enough for the British left OTL; getting in and out of a Trent War quickly and with some glorious victories to point to (whether or not there are also ignominious defeats!) will tend in the short run to bolster the right in Britain, much as Thatcher's conduct of the Falklands war was quite effective in quelling leftist credibility in her day. Glory, honor for the fallen, and success will cover the sordid fact that the great champion of emancipation Britannia has chosen to rule the waves on behalf of the slavers of the South, for ongoing profit of the textile mills and to undermine the beacon of republican liberty across the Atlantic many a Briton hoped perhaps to emigrate to--to an extent. Unlike my own preferred scenario for CSA probable survival in which the Union leadership waffles and temporizes and decides to let them go with no war, however, here the Union did throw down the gauntlet to the secessionists and fight--only to be ganged up on and beaten. To be sure if the Union strategies and policies parallel those of OTL closely, the narrative that the Yankees care no more for the slaves than their southern cousins do will have more credibility, but I suspect if the Union is confronted with an Anglo-Confederate alliance desperate expedience will light a fire under the commanders and they will in fact act to mobilize slaves against their masters; some form of Emancipation Proclamation, perhaps less underwhelming in its wording or boldness of application, will quite possibly emerge much earlier, and troops of color will probably be wearing the Union uniform before the leadership calls it quits. So on the left, if any of this happens and possibly if it does not, America--meaning the USA--will take on a brighter coloring and the perfidy of the ruling classes be the more tainted with guilt.

Will Britain persist in the OTL liberal course, or be turned to a starker class struggle? Meanwhile will British foreign policy cling to the CSA alliance, or drop it after the peace of 1862 or '63? If the regime, suitably purged by falling governments, repudiates the close alliance with the Confederacy, it is possible that the bad blood dividing USA and UK will be diluted over time and the positive attractions of two English speaking liberal regimes both in the forefront of world capitalism will draw at least their dominant elites together much as OTL, leaving the waving of bloody shirts for a bunch of dissidents out of power. All this bodes ill for the CSA of course, especially as it can't be more than a few decades at most before "King Cotton" is well dethroned, by alternative sources, by soil exhaustion, by such disasters as the boll weevil plague, and if the CSA has not diversified its portfolio considerably in the profitable years--and the feckless nature of secessionist leadership especially in matters of pragmatic business suggests to me it would be optimistic for anyone to hope they will--the rug will be pulled out from under rather brutally.

Longer term I cannot see the union getting involved in wwi other that selling materials for cash.
That would depend on how both CSA and British holdings north of the USA develop. If the two former US federal republics are tense, on a plain collision course, each building up force levels to credibly threaten the others...the standard trope of each joining one side with the other the other of a world (well, North Atlantic centered world) system building to world war seems likely indeed. As noted by others, the purpose of an alliance is to tie down one's likely foe or their best allies on another front, rather than as some seem to think coming to the direct aid of the other.

But supposing the CSA develops as a pariah nation, a stagnant hellhole of backwardness and barbaric institutions, with all manner of fire eating rhetoric but little credible force to back it up. The USA must I think be more military, maintain a higher level than was the case OTL. Isolationism as OTL might be an option, mainly if the USA is in fact aligned to Britain. I think the USA in the immediate wake of the humiliations of 1862 would among other things cultivate an alliance with Mexico and cultivate her development--so nothing analogous to the Zimmermann note (or the incursions of Pancho Villa on the southwest border to give the former more credibility) would be likely to happen, but perhaps as OTL similar factors draw the reduced USA in to weigh in decisively on cinching victory for whatever side they join; if the CSA seems manageable they will be left to stew--joining the other side as an ally might be a death sentence for the regime and the OP wants to see it survive, so presumably they have enough brains to stay put, either support the winning side themselves or just sit tight as irrelevant neutrals similar to the status of Latin American nations, even the largest, OTL.

Again declaring one possibility as definite and the others mathematically excluded seems going way beyond what we can decree without gaming out a picked scenario in detail.
American Indians still do badly or worse.

Elsewhere I have been contrarian about the standard CW trope that the Native peoples were somehow in the CSA's pocket. Some might have been but other tribes I think were not. Whereas if a split between North and South becomes permanent, the Indians are in a negotiating position, and the Union has more to offer I think--vast northern and western territories as yet unsettled by Anglos for instance. Also I think a counter narrative to the OTL predominant European supremacism has more scope in the North than in the South. I think it is at least possible Native peoples, or anyway various tribes that lay their bet down on supporting the Union, can do a lot better than OTL.
 
Because they generally do? There are few instances of Republicans or Democrats withdrawing from treaties. If they do you deal with it then, it would be useful in the short run at the very least. If the US withdraws from the treaty you withdraw yourself and you are under no obligation to them.

Having the US keep the RN and British Army busy by attacking Canada and the British Caribean is very damn helpful for Russia/Germany. By the late 19th century early 20th it can keep the British busy in the Pacific as well. Every ship and soldier sent to NA or the Pacific is one not sent to Europe. As far as the US is concerned every British soldier fighting in Europe is one not helping the CSA. It is an alliance that helps both sides.

Again, no it isn't. The reasons against any of the three mentioned powers signing a treaty in the 19th century are legion. Even signing one on the 20th century would require it to be because the CSA has gotten in bed with foreign powers that pose a direct threat to the US. Absent that, no one in Washington, Berlin or St. Petersburg is going to consent to such a treaty.

Also, I can't understand your fixation that it has to be against the British. If it was France sure, since that makes sense for Prussia and to an extent Russia, but Britain is only a concern for Russia and not Prussia.

true... unless...
if the CSA has an alliance with France and the UK (basically, the TL-191 TL), then the US has every reason to side with Germany... or anyone big enough to sideline France and the UK... also assuming that the US maintains a grudge against the CSA for a long time and still wants to conquer it in the future...

I'm not an enormous fan of assuming the TL-191 model (if simply because that's too close to butterfly slaughtering IMO) but also because Britain in the age of military alliances held out until 1904 to sign an alliance with France. Foreign policy wise there just doesn't seem to be a reason for them to sign a treaty with the CSA, and the CSA at least would be far more comfortable pursuing one with the Second French Empire due to overlapping interests in Mexico and the Caribbean.

Even assuming a long standing grudge with the CSA on the part of the US is hard for me unless their interests bounce off each other in the future. It's possible, but it takes some doing.
 
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