US Politics with independent CSA

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.

To be honest, the easiest way of envisioning a border after is just to assume the 11 seceding states, and if you feel like being generous, the Indian Territory since it was split down the middle for much of the war.

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.

IMO plausibly the only thing that brings peace is going to be (regardless of the scenario) an election of a Democrat in 1864. This is something that I believe way too many people forget. If a Democrat (likely McClellan) is elected on a platform of peace or negotiations, the US will have willingly elected a government which was aiming to bring peace to the war. The Copperheads would, at least from 1865-1868 be seen as vindicated in their opposition to the war. Even in a Trent War scenario they will blame the entrance of the British into the war on Seward and Lincoln for allowing it to happen.'

Sure, by the election of 1868 or later there may be some 'buyer's remorse' when it comes to a treaty, but by and large the nation will have walked into it eyes wide open.

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.

Abolitionism and abolition as a whole, will depend to a large degree on when peace comes. Assuming, for the sake of it, a peace in 1864, then we have two important questions:

1) What is the status of the 13th amendment in the US? Did Lincoln manage to pass it, or is slavery still on the books in Missouri, Maryland, Delaware, and Kentucky? If so, that leaves about 300,000 slaves still toiling away in the Union (remember, the Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves in the Border States, or Tennessee). That will effect both the cause of abolition in the States and how it is seen abroad.

2) Did an electoral loss in 1864 come from a split in the Republican Party? OTL they almost split the vote, but Lincoln managed to keep the party unified. In a loss I can only see a split going worse as the Radicals pursue a more...well radical course and the moderates stick to their free soil guns and use the pre-existing issues of Western expansion and financial reform as their platform.

If any of those two conditions exist, then the cause of abolition will be a somewhat tangled one. Slavery still existing in the North would be a cause of ire to the abolitionists and they may feel compelled to 'clean house' at home before returning their ire to the CSA.

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!

Revolution of some sort is inevitable in the future of the CSA IMO.

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.

Relations with the British, assuming a Trent war, would of course be rather strained. Anglophobia (as you note) was still common in the US up till past WWII. On the flip side there would be lots of people in Britain with Yankeephobia(?) too who would have been glad to seeing the Union knocked down a peg. So grudges, ill considered diplomatic maneuvering and other problems would persist. However, I don't think either side would be looking to go for Round 2 any time in the 1860s or 1870s which may dampen the anger somewhat.

Even drawing on older models, the Revolution and 1812, then post war commerce and the 'common language' issue would probably pull the two nations back into cordial orbits. The trade was large on either side and there was too much money to be made. Diplomacy will continue apace, no matter what and both nations will be having dialogue of some sort.

Much does depend on the war though. Just assuming a Trent War, then you do have a situation where Britain felt compelled to enter the war when it did not want to. Their narrative will be 'the Yankees knew they were going to lose the war so they tried to compensate by invading Canada' while the American narrative will be 'Perfidious Albion was jealous and so entered the war to cut us in twain' or some such depending on the circumstances. Of course, it being a democracy the counter claim will be 'it was all Lincoln and the abolitionists fault' which will be rather compelling in some circles.

The treaty with the British too will matter somewhat. Quite frankly considering who was PM at the time I cannot see the British leaving the war without extracting their 'pound of flesh' from Washington, which will probably cause issues. Whether that is taking large reparations from Washington or something else, I don't know.

However, none of that equals a long standing alliance with the CSA. From all that I have read, at the highest levels of government, no one considered the CSA anything but a mere 'ally of convenience' if war came in 1862. They still viewed themselves as the Great Power and deigned to create lasting alliances until 1904 historically, and I can't see that changing here. The CSA, depending on its development, wouldn't necessarily rate Great Power status, and so would be problematic as an ally. Maybe a regional friend, or more likely a French stooge IMO.

But if its the case where alliance systems develop close to OTL (which I consider unlikely) then sure, an alliance with the CSA would make sense.

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.

It really depends. In the Indian Territory, they adopted some rather tame and generous treaties towards the tribes, even granting the possibility of statehood. Though I sincerely doubt the treaties would have been well honored (and Texas would probably have snipped the pan handle off) and the area opened up for settlement eventually. However, since many of the tribes did participate in the slave economy it would have been an interesting thing to witness.

That being said, the US might try more humane policies in this TL, but by and large the powerful plains tribes like the Sioux and the Comanche really didn't give a damn who led the governments in Washington (or in this case Richmond) and really just wanted to be left alone. They wanted their land to keep, and the US was incapable (or unwilling) to honor the commitments to the treaties they made with the Native peoples.

As a counterpoint, Canada led the somewhat "enlightened" method or organizing the treaty system using the numbered treaties. It still ended in the neglect and almost outright destruction of the Plains Tribes and a major uprising. I think that the two worlds were just too different from each other, and no one in Washington or Ottawa was really interested in understanding things from the tribes point of view. In a Confederate victory scenario, I still think the US would come down hard on the resisting tribes.
 
Out of curiosity, why do you consider it unlikely that alliance systems would develop ITTL?

I consider close to OTL alliances (IE the Central Powers and the Entente) to be unlikely in the extreme in this scenario. As just one notable butterfly, an independent CSA is pretty close to Imperial Mexico, which makes the French withdrawal in 1866 very unlikely, and so the Second Mexican Empire is (for a time) probably going to succeed. This possibly makes Napoleon's rule in France more stable, negating his historic response which led to the Franco-Prussian War historically. Does that mean a war between France and Prussia is unlikely? No, but the collapse of the Second French Empire in 1870 is far from certain, and Napoleon IV may come to the throne peacefully in 1873 when his father dies, negating the need for a war at that time in the first place.

Maybe there's a war later in the 1870s or 1880s, but it might be that Austria joins the French side in that war, feeling like some payback and maybe Prussia loses which butterflies away total German unification.

There's other butterflies just in the 1860s to consider, but it took a lot for the alliances we know from OTL to develop from 1860 onwards. I think some horrific series of mutually entangling alliances is inevitable with the way the Great Powers were bumping into each other the world over, but there's no guarantee France allies with Russia or that Austria ends up in the German orbit, or that Germany necessarily unifies before 1900.

If you involve North America, you could very much see Mexico and the CSA ending up on the same side as Austria.
 
I consider close to OTL alliances (IE the Central Powers and the Entente) to be unlikely in the extreme in this scenario. As just one notable butterfly, an independent CSA is pretty close to Imperial Mexico, which makes the French withdrawal in 1866 very unlikely, and so the Second Mexican Empire is (for a time) probably going to succeed. This possibly makes Napoleon's rule in France more stable, negating his historic response which led to the Franco-Prussian War historically. Does that mean a war between France and Prussia is unlikely? No, but the collapse of the Second French Empire in 1870 is far from certain, and Napoleon IV may come to the throne peacefully in 1873 when his father dies, negating the need for a war at that time in the first place.

Maybe there's a war later in the 1870s or 1880s, but it might be that Austria joins the French side in that war, feeling like some payback and maybe Prussia loses which butterflies away total German unification.

There's other butterflies just in the 1860s to consider, but it took a lot for the alliances we know from OTL to develop from 1860 onwards. I think some horrific series of mutually entangling alliances is inevitable with the way the Great Powers were bumping into each other the world over, but there's no guarantee France allies with Russia or that Austria ends up in the German orbit, or that Germany necessarily unifies before 1900.

If you involve North America, you could very much see Mexico and the CSA ending up on the same side as Austria.

OK, I see what you're saying. You still see some system of mutually entangling alliances, just not the same ones as OTL. I tend to agree, and think that France, CSA, Imperial Mexico and Austria have enough mutual interests that they will likely end up inside with one another, while Prussia/NGC will be opposed to them and the US and Russia will likely be alongside them. The wild card would be Britain, who will want to remain in splendid isolation, but if the US feels sufficiently revanchist in this scenario I think it would push Britain towards France/CSA/Mex/Austria.
 
IMO plausibly the only thing that brings peace is going to be (regardless of the scenario) an election of a Democrat in 1864. This is something that I believe way too many people forget.
What you are forgetting is that for this thread:
Assuming Britain or Britain and France mediate the Civil War in late 1862-early 1863

Indeed with leadership like Lincoln's, I agree OP stipulation is implausible...therefore you must revise the assumptions until the OP becomes plausible, whatever that takes. I think it means we substitute in some unspecified ATL leadership until it makes sense they'd fight for a while but capitulate.

Certainly a less specific OP would allow you to argue your approach is more probable, but that is neither here nor there in this case. As for me I think the easiest CSA survives scenario to justify is one where the leadership in the north whenever the secession crisis breaks (we obviously have to rearrange the scenery a lot so just what triggers secession and just when is up in the air though I bet it has to be a Presidential election involved, which puts it on a bit of a predictable schedule, now we need to pick which year) it just surrenders, as far as letting the seceding states go. In some ways this is more problematic than a war breaking out but it certainly does solve a lot of problems neatly even so--one being we sidestep the whole nerd fight about who can beat whom how; the borders are pretty well settled (except for arguments about which states join the CSA, on the assumption that strong slavery interests dictate leaving the Union and the Union will not stop them, except for Missouri, I figure that means the border states go too, but now I'm told Delaware might not want to go and maybe not Maryland or Kentucky).

Another thing you wanted to correct me on being the borders; aside from the questions of 1) border states, where do they go? 2) Does part or all of Indian Territory voluntarily jump ship to the CSA, me questioning the reasons people assume they do; 3) can the CSA grab territory west of Texas--I say no, not if they want to avoid triggering full on civil war, they are stuck with the state borders! and more weakly this tends to offset the idea they can just make off with Indian Territory too--assuming a non-war solution defines parameters in very definite chunks. In such a case the USA could not get West Virginia either--or anyway the necessary process would be, that while Virginia possibly with the support of other CSA states in state by state aid or via the CSA central authority has a free hand, undistracted by any life or death struggle with the Union, to do its best to suppress the revolt of the western mountaineers, it nevertheless fails and for a sustained period of time west Virginia, possibly surging to absorb other mountain settlements on the CSA side, and named God knows what, Franklin, North VA, whatever, defies full on CSA authority and upholds itself as an independent republic able to defend its borders. After a decent interval the USA might be able to diplomatically get away with offering to absorb this self-liberated mountain republic. Of course this would be an open invitation for the CSA to hold tit for tat they too can conduct all the subversion they can get away with on US soil and it is not a cause for war--the Confederates will maintain the highland VA secession from VA was Union subversion whether the Union put a single dollar into it or not I suppose. But this is why the Union would have to be covert and plausibly deniable about it, because if admitting openly they are doing this it would again be a cause of war. It seemed more likely to me either the mountaineers just recognize they are still screwed and keep quiet, or attempt their rebellion but are successfully crushed, and the borders remain those of the states before secession.

But you should admit, with the OP specifying a two year war, the frontiers are all fluid! There is no broad categorical way to predict where each side would enjoy success and where failure, not fully anyway. The idea that a negotiation would tend to pare all variations back to status quo ante is in the main defensible--but if in the course of the shortened war the Union did indeed double down on aiding the west Virginia rising for instance, the outcome would be this big and quite defensible salient full of people overwhelmingly sick and tired of tidewater rule; if the British strongarming were powerful enough to force the USA to concede the west Virginian territory had to go into the CSA, the CSA/British side must in turn face the fact that trying to force them into submitting to Virginia just gets them an unnecessary nasty second phase war which the CSA-British alliance might be able to win, given US agreement to seriously stay out of it, but would cost a lot for no good reason and get them some sullen insurgent mountaineers for the Virginia authorities to be forever troubled with suppressing. WV might thus be accepted as a CSA state, and then the fact it is a shotgun marriage with WV having nothing in common with the secessionists would at best mean ongoing trouble and strife within the Confederacy; the same problem Virginia would have on a different scale. Best just to let WV go join the USA and focus on stipulations to avoid arming it as the weapon it could otherwise be.

So it goes all around the fronts. Whether a territory could be conquered is a different question from whether it could be held sensibly. I think Canada west of the Maritimes is pretty much a dead duck in terms of being conquered for instance, largely just a matter of time--which to be sure a very short Trent War might not allow for. But trying to incorporate it into the USA might be quite unwise! Britain might be able to get away with trimming northern US frontier territory into British claims--but only territory not yet settled by Anglo-Americans.

But given there are constraints, there is also ample opportunity for the war to result in permanent border shifts. Given this thread is based on the stipulation of a war, one whose conduct is not specified but whose actors and length is, you should acknowledge that and respect attempts to consider it fairly as a thing that has effects. I'd rather be having this conversation about US politics in my preferred "no war" context, but we are not and it has effects.
 
...the US might try more humane policies in this TL, but by and large the powerful plains tribes like the Sioux and the Comanche really didn't give a damn who led the governments in Washington (or in this case Richmond) and really just wanted to be left alone. They wanted their land to keep, and the US was incapable (or unwilling) to honor the commitments to the treaties they made with the Native peoples.

As a counterpoint, Canada led the somewhat "enlightened" method or organizing the treaty system using the numbered treaties. It still ended in the neglect and almost outright destruction of the Plains Tribes and a major uprising. I think that the two worlds were just too different from each other, and no one in Washington or Ottawa was really interested in understanding things from the tribes point of view. In a Confederate victory scenario, I still think the US would come down hard on the resisting tribes.

In a milder and more reasonable and defensible way though, this strikes me as the same sort of conservatism that assumes the "white" vote in the South was permanently, eternally and naturally immiscible with the "black" vote there, that Southern Republicanism and African-American are one and the same and every single "white" southerner bound by genetics or something to only vote Democratic. At least as long as black votes are on the table! That narrative comes dangerously and suspiciously close to outright racism to my view.

Saying that the Anglo authorities of the "white" powers, be they agents of Crown in Parliament or of the democratic American republic, simply cannot and will not give the Native peoples a square deal is farther, safely so I deem, from being racist about it. It is grimly realistic given OTL history.

Nevertheless, both Canadian and US Native policy of OTL were conducted with the knowledge that the natives had nowhere to go, nothing to turn to to protect them from the whims of governments in Washington or Ottawa. They might run across the US-Canada border, mostly going south to north, to seek a less unfair deal, but certainly the great powers would not turn on each other just on behalf of Native interests. There might be some throat clearing and pointed granting of petitions the other would rather not see granted, nothing more.

I suggest that here, the existence of the CSA gives the Indians negotiating leverage.

My assumption is, people are not so dumb and inflexible as they look when it is all going their way and they don't have to compromise. The "inability" is entirely a matter of the "unwillingness" you acknowledge might be the case.

In this case, the USA can use some crack soldiers and that might well seem worth the alienation of really vast tracts of land, which are legally, as far as the conventions of the European powers are concerned, in US Federal hands--not Confederate! There may be reasons why some tribes sided with the South and will do so here, but I'm pretty sure others can make and keep agreements that are reasonable, and the USA can in fact obey its own laws if there is good reason for courts and elected officials to reflect there is something real to lose if they don't. The plains peoples cannot expect to come out of this with no losses and no restrictions, but the USA offering a less stingy, disrespectful deal involving enough land in their recent traditional range (not a thousand miles away in some desert) containing their traditional sacred spots and enough area to pretty well sustain their traditional lives, combined with a bunch of carrot incentives to change that way of life as they might choose to, and a more dignified position in the USA system (as I suggested elsewhere, maybe even dealing them in as voting represented US citizens via their own state-like entity, a discontiguous collective for all Native people) could all be sustainable. I see nothing in the nature of things that forbids it.

Of course it might be that there is no need for such concessions and simply strongarming the Natives as OTL works just fine. I just argue it isn't proven this must happen. Any more than it is proven that the votes of southern African Americans must be suppressed in all plausible TLs.
 
OK, I see what you're saying. You still see some system of mutually entangling alliances, just not the same ones as OTL. I tend to agree, and think that France, CSA, Imperial Mexico and Austria have enough mutual interests that they will likely end up inside with one another, while Prussia/NGC will be opposed to them and the US and Russia will likely be alongside them. The wild card would be Britain, who will want to remain in splendid isolation, but if the US feels sufficiently revanchist in this scenario I think it would push Britain towards France/CSA/Mex/Austria.

Most likely. An Entente Imperial if you will. Britain would be the wildcard, as each alliance would have a member she has either territorial disputes or angry imperial ambitions against. She might play the role of the US OTL and stay out of it until forced to come down one way or another. To quote the PM at the time "We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow."

The alliances which might lead to a war in the 20th century would really depend on how things shook out in the remainder of the 19th century. 50 years is a long time in geopolitics.

What you are forgetting is that for this thread:

Indeed with leadership like Lincoln's, I agree OP stipulation is implausible...therefore you must revise the assumptions until the OP becomes plausible, whatever that takes. I think it means we substitute in some unspecified ATL leadership until it makes sense they'd fight for a while but capitulate.

Fair, but I really do find the war ending before 1864 difficult to swallow as an OP (I can think of a way it could happen, but its one of the unlikely scenarios, like the defence of Atlanta leading to Lincoln losing in 1864). Though that's my opinion.

Another thing you wanted to correct me on being the borders; aside from the questions of 1) border states, where do they go? 2) Does part or all of Indian Territory voluntarily jump ship to the CSA, me questioning the reasons people assume they do; 3) can the CSA grab territory west of Texas--I say no, not if they want to avoid triggering full on civil war, they are stuck with the state borders! and more weakly this tends to offset the idea they can just make off with Indian Territory too--assuming a non-war solution defines parameters in very definite chunks. In such a case the USA could not get West Virginia either--or anyway the necessary process would be, that while Virginia possibly with the support of other CSA states in state by state aid or via the CSA central authority has a free hand, undistracted by any life or death struggle with the Union, to do its best to suppress the revolt of the western mountaineers, it nevertheless fails and for a sustained period of time west Virginia, possibly surging to absorb other mountain settlements on the CSA side, and named God knows what, Franklin, North VA, whatever, defies full on CSA authority and upholds itself as an independent republic able to defend its borders. After a decent interval the USA might be able to diplomatically get away with offering to absorb this self-liberated mountain republic. Of course this would be an open invitation for the CSA to hold tit for tat they too can conduct all the subversion they can get away with on US soil and it is not a cause for war--the Confederates will maintain the highland VA secession from VA was Union subversion whether the Union put a single dollar into it or not I suppose. But this is why the Union would have to be covert and plausibly deniable about it, because if admitting openly they are doing this it would again be a cause of war. It seemed more likely to me either the mountaineers just recognize they are still screwed and keep quiet, or attempt their rebellion but are successfully crushed, and the borders remain those of the states before secession.

I went for the 11 states which voted to secede and the Indian Territory to be generous, as those were the ones the Confederacy would undoubtedly (in my mind) at least control in any reasonable time frame for either this OP and any other. The Indian Territory I usually include since the Confederacy had remarkably far sighted idea of securing treaty rights with the Five Civilized Tribes to get their cooperation, and it would be difficult for the US to unilaterally abrogate those treaties while maintaining that the Tribes had some rights to self government without taking on a fairly large headache.

A fair point on no West Virginia, as in a peacefully seceding scenario they really don't have much in the way of recourse. The same would hold true for Eastern Tennessee too, I would think.

But you should admit, with the OP specifying a two year war, the frontiers are all fluid! There is no broad categorical way to predict where each side would enjoy success and where failure, not fully anyway. The idea that a negotiation would tend to pare all variations back to status quo ante is in the main defensible--but if in the course of the shortened war the Union did indeed double down on aiding the west Virginia rising for instance, the outcome would be this big and quite defensible salient full of people overwhelmingly sick and tired of tidewater rule; if the British strongarming were powerful enough to force the USA to concede the west Virginian territory had to go into the CSA, the CSA/British side must in turn face the fact that trying to force them into submitting to Virginia just gets them an unnecessary nasty second phase war which the CSA-British alliance might be able to win, given US agreement to seriously stay out of it, but would cost a lot for no good reason and get them some sullen insurgent mountaineers for the Virginia authorities to be forever troubled with suppressing. WV might thus be accepted as a CSA state, and then the fact it is a shotgun marriage with WV having nothing in common with the secessionists would at best mean ongoing trouble and strife within the Confederacy; the same problem Virginia would have on a different scale. Best just to let WV go join the USA and focus on stipulations to avoid arming it as the weapon it could otherwise be.

This is true. The final borders are extremely fluid, and likely to change greatly. I tend to place my money on the original states which seceded, purely due to the CSA probably insisting on them as a matter of course. With British support they might be more pressing in their claims to Kentucky, Maryland, Indian Territory and Arizona, and where they might succeed in that is up in the air really. A war with Britain would IMO draw Union resources away from the Western frontiers and allow the Confederates to press their claims in the West easier, but that wouldn't have a meaningful impact on the contest in Kentucky and Maryland.

The frontiers are truly fluid, and though a British alliance might see the CSA pressing claims in West Virginia, I don't think the British would be interested in supporting that claim, and the Confederates might lack the strength to claim it.
 
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.

Forming an alliance is not cheap. An alliance can prevent a war or give you the forces you need to win, but an alliance can also draw you into an unnecessary war that costs far more than you gain. Instead of a small war between Austria and Serbia, alliances pulled many countries into the Great War. Britain gained colonies, but lost over hundreds of thosuands and 40% of their merchant fleet while becoming the biggest debtor in the world. Canada, Australia, India, New Zealand, and South Africa gained nothing but casualties. France also gained a few colonies and Alsace-Lorraine, but lost so many men their army mutinied. Russia lost 2 million men and collapsed into civil war. Italy lost over 400,000 men and gained almost no territory. And that's among the victors.
 
Forming an alliance is not cheap. An alliance can prevent a war or give you the forces you need to win, but an alliance can also draw you into an unnecessary war that costs far more than you gain. Instead of a small war between Austria and Serbia, alliances pulled many countries into the Great War. Britain gained colonies, but lost over hundreds of thosuands and 40% of their merchant fleet while becoming the biggest debtor in the world. Canada, Australia, India, New Zealand, and South Africa gained nothing but casualties. France also gained a few colonies and Alsace-Lorraine, but lost so many men their army mutinied. Russia lost 2 million men and collapsed into civil war. Italy lost over 400,000 men and gained almost no territory. And that's among the victors.

True, but it wouldn't cost too much in cash. The US doesn't need it. The risk is probably worth it. GB is very unlikely to protect the CSA or Poland if it means fighting both the US and Germany or Russia or, worse yet, all three together.
 
True, but it wouldn't cost too much in cash. The US doesn't need it. The risk is probably worth it. GB is very unlikely to protect the CSA or Poland if it means fighting both the US and Germany or Russia or, worse yet, all three together.

So the US could be drawn into an expensive war against the CSA plus another European power or powers at a time not of its choosing in order to facilitate the gains or alleviate the losses of its alliance partner(s)?
 
Revolution of some sort is inevitable in the future of the CSA IMO.

If the Confederacy lasts long enough and the ideology isn't butterflied away, I see the CSA as more likely to go fascist than communist.

Much does depend on the war though. Just assuming a Trent War, then you do have a situation where Britain felt compelled to enter the war when it did not want to. Their narrative will be 'the Yankees knew they were going to lose the war so they tried to compensate by invading Canada' while the American narrative will be 'Perfidious Albion was jealous and so entered the war to cut us in twain' or some such depending on the circumstances. Of course, it being a democracy the counter claim will be 'it was all Lincoln and the abolitionists fault' which will be rather compelling in some circles.

The treaty with the British too will matter somewhat. Quite frankly considering who was PM at the time I cannot see the British leaving the war without extracting their 'pound of flesh' from Washington, which will probably cause issues. Whether that is taking large reparations from Washington or something else, I don't know.

However, none of that equals a long standing alliance with the CSA. From all that I have read, at the highest levels of government, no one considered the CSA anything but a mere 'ally of convenience' if war came in 1862. They still viewed themselves as the Great Power and deigned to create lasting alliances until 1904 historically, and I can't see that changing here. The CSA, depending on its development, wouldn't necessarily rate Great Power status, and so would be problematic as an ally. Maybe a regional friend, or more likely a French stooge IMO.

Something a lot of people miss is that the European powers attempts at long term alliances among themselves did not always last. The League of Three Emperors between Germany, Austria, and Russia lasted from 1873 to 1887 before falling apart due to conflicts between Austria and Russia. In OTL, Germany then went with a Dual Alliance with Austria. Had Germany chosen to Russia instead, history would have gone very differently.

And that Germany-Austria Alliance was the oldest of the Alliances leading to World War I. Italy joined Germany and Austria in 1882. France and Russia didn't ally until 1891. Italy and France allied in 1892. Britiain allied with Japan in 1902. The 1904 Entente Cordiale between Britain and France wasn't even an alliance, nor was the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907.
 
while the American narrative will be 'Perfidious Albion was jealous and so entered the war to cut us in twain' or some such depending on the circumstances
which brings up the question: Did the UK have any interest in seeing the US permanently split in two? That comes up sometimes in these discussions, but I've never seen anything historical backing it up...
 
If the Confederacy lasts long enough and the ideology isn't butterflied away, I see the CSA as more likely to go fascist than communist.

I doubt they'd be a functional democracy by the 1920s if they lasted that long IMO. One way or another it had an underlying ideology which would have seen it shifting towards a totalitarian state of some sort.

Something a lot of people miss is that the European powers attempts at long term alliances among themselves did not always last. The League of Three Emperors between Germany, Austria, and Russia lasted from 1873 to 1887 before falling apart due to conflicts between Austria and Russia. In OTL, Germany then went with a Dual Alliance with Austria. Had Germany chosen to Russia instead, history would have gone very differently.

And that Germany-Austria Alliance was the oldest of the Alliances leading to World War I. Italy joined Germany and Austria in 1882. France and Russia didn't ally until 1891. Italy and France allied in 1892. Britiain allied with Japan in 1902. The 1904 Entente Cordiale between Britain and France wasn't even an alliance, nor was the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907.

This is true. Many of these alliances were ephemeral things, the Italians clearly didn't care much about their 'obligations' to Germany and Austria, and Britain only entered deals with France and Russia thanks to their deteriorating relationship with Germany. Even the Anlgo-Japanese alliance was allowed to lapse as Japanese ambitions limited their ability to cooperate with the European powers and the British made the smart bet of banking on American relations. But even a treaty itself doesn't necessarily deter war, as that's what got the ball rolling in 1914 after all, alliances be damned.

A German-Russian alliance would have been far smarter in the grand scheme, probably one of Bismarck's few mistakes to court Austria more openly rather than seek closer ties with Russia. All the shifting and competing claims were hard to track!

which brings up the question: Did the UK have any interest in seeing the US permanently split in two? That comes up sometimes in these discussions, but I've never seen anything historical backing it up...

There were those in the UK would have been delighted at seeing the US split in two, and there were many people who actively hoped for it. Lord Palmerston himself in private correspondence referred to the US as the "Disunited States of America" and hoped to see the whole country splinter since it would make North American relations much easier with two powers to play off against one another. However, almost no one in the UK was willing to back the CSA with military force. While an independent Confederacy would be nice from a Great Power perspective, they weren't going to spend blood and treasure to get it.
 
There were those in the UK would have been delighted at seeing the US split in two, and there were many people who actively hoped for it. Lord Palmerston himself in private correspondence referred to the US as the "Disunited States of America" and hoped to see the whole country splinter since it would make North American relations much easier with two powers to play off against one another. However, almost no one in the UK was willing to back the CSA with military force. While an independent Confederacy would be nice from a Great Power perspective, they weren't going to spend blood and treasure to get it.
Okay. Would you say that this was the majority view of the UK government, or a minority one? While the UK might not be willing to actually go to war over it... might they be willing to grant the CSA recognition?
 
Okay. Would you say that this was the majority view of the UK government, or a minority one? While the UK might not be willing to actually go to war over it... might they be willing to grant the CSA recognition?

Eh it's hard to say. I can say that so far as I know some of the most influential men in government (Gladstone, Lord John Russell, the Duke of Somerset) were all for recognition, while others were pro-Confederate but less inclined to grant recognition without the evidence that the Confederacy was going to win its own independence. If there was a scenario where the Confederacy inflicted a series of harsh defeats on the North (or if Lincoln had been defeated at the polls in 1864) the British would have been prepared to grant recognition to the Confederacy since, in their eyes, it would now be an established fact.
 
Hmm. You know, it might be interesting if the Union’s relationship with the Confederacy becomes a lot like the US-USSR relationship of OTL. Foreign policy built around opposing it, a “Cold War”. divisions between “hawks” who want another war with the South and the “doves” who want peace, etc.
 
Given a peace treaty in early 1863 with a border fix at summer 1862, the CSA still controls the bulk of the lower Mississippi River and has large chunks of Kentucky and Missouri. They appear more capable then they probably were and had lost New Orleans, western Tennessee, and northernmost Virginia. Oklahoma was almost entirely in pro-Confederate hands and much of the railway system, disparate as it was, was still intact.

An independent Confederacy here likely gets Kentucky, OTL West Virginia, and OTL Oklahoma, but not Missouri and probably with a border territory for northernmost Virginia. Trade will eventually resume but a friendly relationship is unlikely for at least two generations. Look for a US-Germany-Russia alliance against a CSA-UK-FRA alliance
 
US-Germany-Russia is a powerful bloc, even with the US growing more slowly due to reduced trade and heavy military spending, and it can easily make Austria fold like wet tissue paper. Pan-German sentiment was at a zenith in this era, I can easily see Russia eating Austria's eastern territories with Hungarian and Czech buffer states between the two powers as Germany eats the German-dominated bits of Austria, then they just start ferrying Russians through to the Western front, keep some forces ready to defend the Russia-backed Slavic states in the Balkans, and try to keep the North Sea at least a bit open for trade since shipping over Siberia from a theoretical American line to Vladivostok is gonna be a pain. Meanwhile the USA eats the Confederacy for breakfast (it's not like the CSA will actually have industry worth a damn, and the social tensions plus legally enforced outdated social model will make things even worse from an economic and societal level), and everything important in Canada is within easy reach of the USA, which will cocntrol the waterways in, like, 2 weeks of brief brown-water conflict, and then will just flood Canada with...hmm, even a rump USA probably has something like 3-4 times the population of even a more heavily invested-in Canada does on a good day, even if we say the USA has had less immigration (unlikely, they still will be growing industrially thanks to their reliable new trade partners in central and Eastern Europe, and there will be a push to settle west as OTL so the food output is going to be rising as well so the economic conditions encouraging immigration are there), so the war there will probably last 2-3 years at an absolute maximum. Canada falls in a couple of months with sporadic resistance lasting to the end of the war at least, CSA takes 2-3 years if they have managed to get some British-backed industry and put up a fight.

Meanwhile in Europe, Austria folds fairly quickly due to Russian numbers, Prussian quality, and nationalist sentiment wrecking national and unit cohesion (IMO a hostile united Germany is an existential threat to the Habsburg empire unless either friendly or under the Habsburg banner for this very reason), then France has to hope that the UK can support them with Canada falling, the US chewing up the Confederacy, and Russo-German forces flooding the Franco-German front.

It's not going to be easy for the *Entente.

Thoughts?
 
Given a peace treaty in early 1863 with a border fix at summer 1862, the CSA still controls the bulk of the lower Mississippi River and has large chunks of Kentucky and Missouri. They appear more capable then they probably were and had lost New Orleans, western Tennessee, and northernmost Virginia. Oklahoma was almost entirely in pro-Confederate hands and much of the railway system, disparate as it was, was still intact.

An independent Confederacy here likely gets Kentucky, OTL West Virginia, and OTL Oklahoma, but not Missouri and probably with a border territory for northernmost Virginia. Trade will eventually resume but a friendly relationship is unlikely for at least two generations. Look for a US-Germany-Russia alliance against a CSA-UK-FRA alliance

Your scenario gives no reason for why there would a peace treaty 1863, let alone why it would involve a border fix at summer of 1862. Unless the Union negotiators are complete incompetents, they would negotiate based on the actual occupation of territory, not ephemeral Confederate claims from the year before. And if the Union negotiators were that incompetent, the US Congress wouldn't ratify the treaty.

How do you justify the Confederacy getting West Virginia? They did not control West Virginia in summer on 1862 -Robert E Lee, arguably the Confederacy's best general, had been forced to withdraw from West Virginia in summer of 1861.

How do you justify the Confederacy getting Kentucky? The 1862 Confederate Heartland Offensive started well for the Confederates, with Braxton Bragg and Kirby Smith stealing a march on Buell. While Buell belatedly pursued, the Confederates overran several small Union garrisons of green men. Smith later claimed they had "virtual possession of the whole of Kentucky east of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, except within the limits of Covington and Louisville." But that "virtual' possession never became actual possession.

Bragg brought 20,000 extra rifles for the Kentuckians he expected to flock to his cause, but they didn't. Confederate General Heth, with about 12,000 troops, reached the Cincinnati area on September 10. He was facing 22,000 Union regulars and about 50,000 militia from Ohio and Indiana. Scouts that Heth sent out reported that the Union forces had "an ideal defensive position" and Heth retreated on the 11th. A Confederate force under Van Dorn didn't even make it to Kentucky, losing a battle in Corinth, Mississippi on October 3 & 4, and then retreating. By September 25, Bragg had given up on any chance of beating Buell to Louisville and concluded that without 50,000 reinforcements he would have to abandon Kentucky. On October 4, in the early afternoon, the Confederates attempted to install a puppet government in Frankfort, Kentucky, but Union troops would force the Confederates to abandon Frankfort before nightfall. Buell caught up with the retreating Confederates on October 8 near Perryville. While this was tactical win for the Confederates. Outnumbered at least 2-to-1, with many sick and wounded, and low on ammunition, Bragg retreated.

Even if Bragg's assessment wasn't optomisitic, where does the Confederacy find the additional 50,000 troops and 30,000 rifles and ammunition they need to keep Kentucky? Where do they get the supplies to to feed them? Alternatively, where does the Confederacy get a general good enough to make up for not having those 50,000 armed men.
 
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