The Union also had an actual vibrant economy that was booming. The CSA had a stagnant economy that was shrinking by the year, both due to massive inflation and Yankee raids. That makes them totally different circumstances. It is like saying because a healthy 22 year old can easily manage a 15 mile hike in a day an 88 year old can.
What happens to American Expansion after a CSA victory?
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The Union also had an actual vibrant economy that was booming. The CSA had a stagnant economy that was shrinking by the year, both due to massive inflation and Yankee raids. That makes them totally different circumstances. It is like saying because a healthy 22 year old can easily manage a 15 mile hike in a day an 88 year old can.
History Learner
Banned
You're attempting to conflate two different things and misrepresent what I said; total collections over the course of the war are irrelevant when I specifically speak of Tax Reforms made in 1863/4:
Such as? It wasn't an Industrial economy, indeed, far from it; it's backbone was agricultural goods and said goods were often the result of slave labor.
Blatantly false on its entirety. Up until 1864, the Confederate heartland was almost entirely untouched and it wasn't until late 1862/early 1863 the conflict really expanded outside the periphery. The factories of Selma, Richmond, etc were far removed from engagements until the very end of the war, same for the fields of Georgia or South Carolina.
I'm highly amused at the notion that somehow the Confederacy's railroads, plantations, etc will somehow continue to be destroyed in peace and somehow they'll never think to repair them or build new ones. We're all well aware of the "Dumb Hick" stereotype of Southerners, but this is definitely taking it to a new level.
This would come as a hell of shock to the French, the English and the Confederates:
Okay, this seems to be born out of a misunderstanding of how the finances work; most bonds were on a thirty year basis and the Greyback being, well, backed by cotton meant they could use Graybacks to purchase cotton to pay off debt. Basically, you're misunderstanding how a backed currency operates.
As noted above, this is false as shown by the Cotton backed bonds. Further, inflation was relatively contained until late 1863 and was thereafter halted in 1864 by currency reform; peace would pretty much solve the issue of inflation on its own in the long run:
It might well be a shock to them, so? Markets are irrational at times such as the 1929 stock market , the 1990s internet boom and the 1990s 2000s housing market. It happens all the time.You're attempting to conflate two different things and misrepresent what I said; total collections over the course of the war are irrelevant when I specifically speak of Tax Reforms made in 1863/4:
They were maxed out at 10% as in that is what they got in 1864, it never got higher than that. Ten percent of the revenue was taxes, in highly inflated currency, That $100 million was worth maybe $10 million 1860.
such as railroads, timber mills, some light industry , buildings. Much of this was destroyed during the war in the South.
The CSA lost virtually the entire Mississippi River sans Vicksburg by late 1862 and the US was doing raids into Mississippi and Alabama by 1863. Tennessee was heavily raided. New Orleans was taken in 1862 as was Nashville and a good part of Tennessee conquered that year. Texas was almost totally cut off from the rest of the Confederacy with the loss of Vicksburg in 1863.
There were food riots every year in many Confederate cities in winter due to poor food production which was the result of Yankee raiding and a dilapidated , overworked rail net. Inflation was rampant and it was harder and harder to get anything.
They won't continue to be destroyed but they won't have the money to repair them. They will want to repair them, but they won't have the cash to actually do so. It is poverty not stupidity that will stop them.
This would come as a hell of shock to the French, the English and the Confederates:
Okay, this seems to be born out of a misunderstanding of how the finances work; most bonds were on a thirty year basis and the Greyback being, well, backed by cotton meant they could use Graybacks to purchase cotton to pay off debt. Basically, you're misunderstanding how a backed currency operates.
As noted above, this is false as shown by the Cotton backed bonds. Further, inflation was relatively contained until late 1863 and was thereafter halted in 1864 by currency reform; peace would pretty much solve the issue of inflation on its own in the long run:
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Bonds are indeed paid off over a 30 year period but the CSA government can't seize all the cotton and it needs some of it to pay its own expenses like the large army it will need after the war. The problem the CSA is going to face is that most of its money will be used to pay off the back debt and to pay the army.
Printing more greybacks would inflate the currency even more and the whole point of cotton backed currency is that the holder can demand the cotton by turning it in. If the bills are backed by 100 bales of cotton the owner can turn them in for that amount of cotton. It works the same way gold did. You were always able to turn bills back into gold when gold back currency was used. If there are too many out there and people lose faith in them and there is a run on the currency you are SOL.
By that chart prices went up by a factor of 10 by Vicksburg and by 70 or so overall.
Union Greenbacks are easier to take when the prospect of the Union's existence after the war are not in doubt. Much like Germany in WWII, the Confederacy's continued loss of territory ate directly into their economy to the point that barter became ever-more common. A world with a victorious CSA sees many of the currency trends changed too, their economic fortunes are almost certainly tied directly to the size of the country after the treaty is signed.
Personally I think the CSA becomes a prime candidate for an early developer of synthetic chemistry and artificial petroleum along with a very effective recycling program (for reasons of national security), maybe kick-starting or even accelerating the field by 20-30 years in the process. Scientists like George Washington Carver may never get an iota of credit in their lifetime but they might save the CSA long enough to make them economically 'viable' (or economically viable!) into the 20th century. Refer to algal oil, carbon fiber, or offal petroleum for more specific examples.
Union Greenbacks are easier to take when the prospect of the Union's existence after the war are not in doubt. Much like Germany in WWII, the Confederacy's continued loss of territory ate directly into their economy to the point that barter became ever-more common. A world with a victorious CSA sees many of the currency trends changed too, their economic fortunes are almost certainly tied directly to the size of the country after the treaty is signed.
Personally I think the CSA becomes a prime candidate for an early developer of synthetic chemistry and artificial petroleum along with a very effective recycling program (for reasons of national security), maybe kick-starting or even accelerating the field by 20-30 years in the process. Scientists like George Washington Carver may never get an iota of credit in their lifetime but they might save the CSA long enough to make them economically 'viable' (or economically viable!) into the 20th century. Refer to algal oil, carbon fiber, or offal petroleum for more specific potential examples.
Personally I think the CSA becomes a prime candidate for an early developer of synthetic chemistry and artificial petroleum along with a very effective recycling program (for reasons of national security), maybe kick-starting or even accelerating the field by 20-30 years in the process. Scientists like George Washington Carver may never get an iota of credit in their lifetime but they might save the CSA long enough to make them economically 'viable' (or economically viable!) into the 20th century. Refer to algal oil, carbon fiber, or offal petroleum for more specific examples.
Union Greenbacks are easier to take when the prospect of the Union's existence after the war are not in doubt. Much like Germany in WWII, the Confederacy's continued loss of territory ate directly into their economy to the point that barter became ever-more common. A world with a victorious CSA sees many of the currency trends changed too, their economic fortunes are almost certainly tied directly to the size of the country after the treaty is signed.
Personally I think the CSA becomes a prime candidate for an early developer of synthetic chemistry and artificial petroleum along with a very effective recycling program (for reasons of national security), maybe kick-starting or even accelerating the field by 20-30 years in the process. Scientists like George Washington Carver may never get an iota of credit in their lifetime but they might save the CSA long enough to make them economically 'viable' (or economically viable!) into the 20th century. Refer to algal oil, carbon fiber, or offal petroleum for more specific potential examples.
Early 1863 with a growing Union presence saw the letters from George Wright and J.R. West already written, but Juarez looks to be on the ropes by this point and one could argue that Santiago Vidaurri holds more power in Nuevo Leon and Coahuila that either Mexican government. Tamaulipas was becoming inportant enough to the CSA by this time as to render a distinct military sub-district of the Rio Grande and a treaty for trade and renumeration for (Union) stolen goods and deserters by March of 1863. With a large enough Confederate presence the future of the area is uncertain if there is a CSA victorious enough to be at a negotiating table early enough in the year, and especially with Chihuahua becoming a focus of the Juarez government while still trading with the CSA the future of the frontier states of Mexico becomes somewhat plastic and very uncertain IMO. One interesting possibility is that Juarez accepts Maximilian's offer and they both work to start slowly limiting 'Yanqui'/Southern and European influence in the country. Maximilian may still be killed here either in 1867 or the early 1870s once France falls, on the other hand he might survive and start pushing into Central America as Mexico did in OTL but with more success. Who succeeds him at that point could be very interesting, especially if Mexico grows geographically and economically...
Mid-1862 was an interesting time for the CSA prospects, but she still had a claim to Arizona as well as peninsular Virginia and could still push for a plebiscite in Maryland (both mainland and peninsular) at any potential peace conference. West Virginia was still largely in CSA hands outside of the counties along the Ohio River and the Kanawha River Valley. Some of the Confederate-held territory is strategically valuable to the Union, especially in the northern part of the neophyte state, this would become an area of negotiation and the CSA will get something in exchange if a peace treaty is wrought. I think the CSA under those circumstances gains Arizona territory in exchange for the West Virginia panhandle, loss of any claim to Delmarva, and probably keeps the Ohio River as a border. These are also the days of Spanish civil conflict, and Cuban landowners seemed to sympathize somewhat with Richmond, but Madrid and Havana seem to share a distaste for Washington. I think Spain would be pragmatic enough to potentially sell a (rebellious) Cuba to the (perhaps very friendly) CSA to spite Washington and get out at a profit if no other choice remained.
Early 1862 has Sibley holding the southern parts of Arizona and New Mexico from roughly the Havasu Dam on the California border all the way back to Texas. At one brief time they even controlled New Mexico with a presence in southernmost Colorado, Sibley himself wrote of potential thrusts into SoCal, Colorado, etc. And prior to 5 March 1862 the French had not yet intervened in Mexico so directly as to put troops on the ground as much as agreed to do so via the Convention of London. A successful Confederacy might be able to diplomatically play Spain, the UK, and France off of each other to her benefit, especially if Juarez still retreats to northwestern Mexico with the rest of the country in Maximilian in charge of the rest of Mexico. Maximilian's rumored sterility or bastard child (or that of Carlotta) become of even greater interest here as the inheritance of the Empire might lead to other deals being made. Mexico will also eye its former provinces in Central America, it actually moved on Guatemala in 1870 only to withdraw later. A CSA in any position to do so will probably try to satellite or annex parts of Central America if only to prevent others from doing so.
Without Glorieta Pass there is still the band of troops under Sibley mobile and very much present in Confederate Arizona ar war's end. As above, the listed areas are largely from Confederate sources, and certain states of Mexico were more friendly to CSA overtures when their fortunes were in better stead. Given the prospect of dealing with French/British intervention I think it *might* be enough to get a few to leave under the wrong circumstances, though without Sonora and Chihuahua the map looks rather strange very quickly.
FillyofDelphi
Banned
The Greenback wasn't being used to service forgein debt: they weren't legal tender for paying interest on bonds by the terms of those securities (One of the reasons it was easier to market those bonds). This guranteed that the US service of its debts would be in bullion-backed notes, which alone added the perception that they'd be able to keep good forgein credit long term by being able to float it's obligations in specie long enough to pay down the principal in the same if that's what it took to maintain it. The Confederate cotton currency had no such gurantee.
History Learner
Banned
Most Confederate debt was domestic and, as the Cotton-backed bonds show, foreigners were more than happy to accept those over bullion. It also wasn't until late in 1862 that the Confederacy lost the ability to completely finance the war by itself.
And I'd expect militarism against the Union to be popular in the Confederacy. They already considered themselves better than the "mongrel" Yankees and gaining independence would only fuel Confederate feelings of racial superiority towards the Union. Based on their attempted invasions during the Civil War, the Confederacy clearly believed that all of the slaveholding states were theirs by right, as well as the major mineral producing territories and a route for a transcontinental railroad. Unless the Confederacy produces a general who makes Robert E Lee look like Gideon Pillow, they won't be getting any of these. At best, the Confederacy will lose West Virginia and major sections of Arkansas and Tennessee. This will breed Confederate feelings of revanchism, which Confederate politicians will probably play up to distract from the Confederacy's internal problems.
And there's one territorial dispute that will probably lead to a second Union-Confederate war- the fate of the lower Mississippi River. The Union is wildly unlikely to accept Confederate control of the mouth of the Mississippi, while the Confederacy is wildly unlikely to accept being cut in two.
The Confederates did collect $118 million in taxes in 1864, but all property, not just slaves was taxed at 5%. And all gold, silver, and jewelry was taxed at 10%. And all shares or interest in banks and business were taxed at 5%. And all monies in any form were taxed at 5%. And all business profits were taxed at 10%, or 25% if these profits were over 25%. And these taxes were raised by 50% in June of 1864.
But that was in wartime, when the fate of the Confederacy was at stake. Those rates would not be tolerated in peacetime. The amount the post-war Confederacy collects from direct taxation will probably be a lot closer to the $17 million they collected in 1863 than the $118 million they collected in 1864.
Also, the Confederate debt in 1864 was not "readily serviceable". In that year, servicing the national debt cost over $400 million dollars, more than the cost of the war and the cost of running the Confederate government combined.
The Grayback being backed by cotton meant that the Confederate government would have to obtain cotton to pay off it's debts. And the most Graybacks were to be paid off between 6 months and 2 years after a peace treaty was signed ending the war,
As noted above, this is false as shown by the Cotton backed bonds. Further, inflation was relatively contained until late 1863 and was thereafter halted in 1864 by currency reform; peace would pretty much solve the issue of inflation on its own in the long run:
In mid-1862, the Confederate inflation rate was over 100%. In mid-1863, the Confederate inflation rate was over 500%. I would not call that "relatively contained".
The 1864 currency reform did not erase the economic damage that had already occurred and it did not halt Confederate inflation.
History Learner
Banned
And this refutes what I said how? The value of property holdings in the slave system in 1860 was $3 Billion; at 5% alone on that, it amounts to $150 Million.
"Our economy is in danger so we'll just do nothing."
Most of the debt was domestically held and Confederate banks were more than willing to accept the Grayback as legal tender; the end of the conflict would also improve tax collections as well as reduce inflationary pressures. Finally, where in the world are you getting that $400 Million figure from?
And the Confederate had years of cotton stored up; see the Red River Campaign for example. Do you have a source that claims said loans were supposed to be paid back in less than two years? Doesn't match with most of what I've seen.
I do, because that's just playing with statistics as my earlier chart shows with regards to yours; presenting it as percentages makes it look more ominous than it actually was and ignores how easily it was later corrected.
Your own chart shows inflation went from 700% to 50% as a result of the Currency Reform.
Alcsentre Calanice
Gone Fishin'
Interestingly enough, the US itself had experienced an inflation during the Revolutionary War ("not worth a continental") and had to deal with an important national debt. Still, it managed to stabilize its currency and to recover economically. Why shouldn't the under-industrialized, but still very wealthy South be able to do the same? The social order of the South was truly repugnant, but that doesn't mean we should underestimate the Confederates' abilities in financial matters.
If we say that the CSA wins independence and keeps it, without being too devastated by the war... Both will try to expand.
The Confederates may try to expand into Mexico with military means.
They likely have good relations with Spain and that a couple decades down the line they could buy their territories in the Caribbean.
They might buy the Danish West Indies too, and invade Hispaniola.
Expansion of the USA is possible but will be much harder, if they expand at all it'll just be in the Pacific, and it won't be as big as what they did OTL.
The Confederates may try to expand into Mexico with military means.
They likely have good relations with Spain and that a couple decades down the line they could buy their territories in the Caribbean.
They might buy the Danish West Indies too, and invade Hispaniola.
Expansion of the USA is possible but will be much harder, if they expand at all it'll just be in the Pacific, and it won't be as big as what they did OTL.
FillyofDelphi
Banned
Alaska cost pocket change, talks had been going on since before the war started, and you can be sure as he'll the Americans aren't going to want those Lobsterbacks to get their greedy mits on it if they were perceived as having basically bailed out John Reb (Likely a popular belief). Hawai'i depends on if they develop a strong Pacific interest, or instead double down on the Atlantic and Carribean
I agree about their western ambitions. But the CSA's capacity to project power outside its own borders was tested twice during the war and found wanting both times. A grab at New Mexico would be the essence of folly. I can see a few New Orleans exporters and land speculators building a mining corporation and lobbying the Confederate government to lay claim to the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico. I can't see a voting majority in the Confederate Congress supporting that little adventure. There would never be such an invasion.
Nah. These are vested businessmen and honor-bound bourbon plantation owner running the Confederacy, not a load of staggering drunkards whooping it up at the Pensacola swap meet.
I'm definitely assuming that a victorious South gets control of New Orleans (and Vicksburg and Natchez and Memphis) again. This is not an endorsement not of Southron jingoism so much as Northern exhaustion. Occupation might be leveraged for better peace terms, but there just wouldn't be an appetite for sustaining an open-ended hostile occupation after the surrender of the Army of the Potomac to the Graycoats. Almost certainly any peace terms would include access to the Gulf of Mexico for the Missouri-Mississippi-Ohio basin. It is the perfect win-win for the landlocked farmers and the cash-strapped Rebs. But had the South won so decisively that they didn't need to open up the Port of New Orleans, then that'd just become yet one more "push" factor moving the North toward building their rail system that could overcome the Appy Mountains.
As I noted upthread, a loss to the South would turbocharge the North's sense of manifest destiny. They'd be eager to finish the Transcontinental to prevent a western secesh and to keep the Confederates from having any insane thoughts about New Mexico.
There would be, guaranteed, a lingering military hostility on both sides. But there would also be level headed politicians pushing for a sustainable peace because of all the profits that amicable trade could provide. A victorious South automatically would mean a signed peace treaty. And the very fact that a peace treaty had been signed following, say, 2-3 years of mortifying bloodshed would mean that a generation would pass before anyone forgot the lesson that a continent-wide war was a godawful bloody mess. West Europeans with far deeper running historical feuds (and LOT less commercial interdependence and linguo-cultural familiarity) lasted 40 years between their 1871 lesson and their 1914 amnesia.
Anticipating war is pretty darn sexy for allohistorical speculation, but there would be simply too many structural impediments against war for it to be likely before the 20th century. And after 1900, the North would enjoy too lopsided an industrial advantage for the South to dare risk it. The closest European equivalent would be the economic relationship between Germany and Poland.
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You raise an important point. Assertions of Southern economic power based on dollar values of its trade volume are calculated in hyper-inflated dollars. The South was, indeed, quite a wealthy section of the county. But its wealth was in land and export potential, not in manufacturing heft, which was the source of the economic "value added" power behind King Cotton. Cotton accounted for ~70% of the export profits of the United State, antebellum. It's the main reason that Lincoln had to try & stop the South from splitting. But we can't be blinded by that over simplification. The South was economically productive, but ultimately cash-poor. Southern newspapers in the 1850s (especially the more belligerent ones that ended up pressing for secession) constantly lamented the "colonial" relationship between Southern productivity and Northern capital. Bitching about bankers is an old tradition.
Giving up the political union with the bankers upon whom they depended for extracting their wealth from their land was NOT going to increase their profit margins. Lacking an industrial base that could add true monetary value to their principal export crop meant that, whether the South turned to British, French, Yankee, or Dutch bankers for their operating capital, they were going to only intensify their debt problems. In the history of mankind, only one nation has managed to turn a single raw export economy into true technological and economic power--Wakanda. Everyone else discovered that political power requires industrialization. But I just don't think the South was going to industrialize.
Why not? Are we all lazy down here? Well, I am. But for the rest of Dixie, we have to look at the culture of chivalry and honor that drove the South to war. The political elites rested their sense of moral and social superiority to the uncouth North on their anti-industrial, anti-urban, anti-development mindset. Building up industry was culturally antithetical to the notion of Southern superiority. And had these chivalrous bastards actually won the War of Northern Aggression, they'd be historically validated, and soically celebrated, and politically entrenched for two generations. Rejecting economic development was the soul of Southron elite's pride.
And thus they'd be a nation in decay from independence on. They might wake up eventually to Smithian imperatives, but not until they were the Ottomans of the Americas. The Yankees did us a big old favor by kicking our asses in the Civil War. I'm tempted to argue that we've all become Republicans today out of sheer gratitude.
How does the South prevent itself from being very badly devastated by war? It had a 1/3 of the population of the North, 1/10 of industrial production of the North and around 1/2(slaves +Unionists) against it. So how exactly are they going to prevent coming out of it a wreck , win or lose?
If they try to expand into Mexico they get stomped. The French were forced to leave, it would go no better for the Confederates. If it goes bad enough say hello to the Great Revanchivist War which the US will win. Spain was not willing to sell Cuba to the US , it would be no more willing to sell to the CSA. The US was offering real currency while the CSA had nothing but greybacks.
The Dutch would never sell to the CSA, the Netherlands were opposed to slavery and wouldn't sell to a slaver empire if it would sell at all. Somehow there is this fantasy that countries that never were eager to sell their colonies before couldn't wait to sell them to a near bankrupt slaver empire known as the CSA.
The US expanded little after the ACW. Outside of Alaska and some Pacific Islands there wasn't much else. Alaska is huge but it is mostly wasteland and even more so in the 19th century.