What if the CSA survived?
- Thread starter Wr1t3r
- Start date
I feel like people forget about the western front of the Civil War too, it's not as flashy and glamorized as the east, but still somewhat important
When I mean west I mean like... the Western USA I forget there was a "Western Theater" of the Civil War, shits confusing
The Westers front is usually regarded as the Grant/Sherman/Thomas vs the Johnston and Hood, and essentially the Mississippi theatre as a whole.
You don't really hear much about the area West of Mississippi, such as Arkansaw, or Texas. Like, I don't know anything there other than trying to take Arizona and southern California failed spectacularly, after the Confederate army got ambushed in a mountain pass, I think? And they never tried again.
Agree on the first point. Disagree on the second point.
Whatever the CSA constitution said about slavery, the economic reality was that plantation slavery went uneconomical by the mid 1880s.
It is no coincidence that the mid 1880s are when Brazilian slaves were freed, Cuba wrapped up its multi generational phased emancipation and Martinique (France's hard core colonial hold out) emancipated its still involuntary and perpertually bound uhmm...."contract workers".
Sure, the some member states of the CSA might try industrial slaves. But.... that would be a pretty fast dead end as well. Whites needed what few industrialized jobs there were. Likewise, industrialization required growing numbers of skilled workers. Difficult to operate slavery in that environment. Ostensible slaves as skilled workers did exist in CSA, Ottomans etc. - but they were small scale and often not truly slaves on the month to month basis.
Confederate society, particularly upper society is going to be dominated by reactionary war veterans. They're not just going to walk away from slavery after fighting an entire glorious war for the cause. The suggestion won't even be entertained while they're the dominant generation. They have to die off massively. Which means the 1890s at the earliest, and likely into the 1900s.
It's possible that practical slavery might fade away while the legal framework and legal slavery remains in place. Basically, slavery would become a minority thing, as more and more slaves are granted freedom. But the Confederacy might still preserve it indefinitely, just have less and less actual slaves.
On the other hand, the institution of Jim Crow and it's forced labour elements suggests that slavery in some form would have a hell of a life span.
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Years ago I read "Slavery by another name" by Douglas Blackmon. He argued slavery lasted until WWII in the South with convict labor. You need a bunch of people for the harvest? The sheriff would arrest a bunch of black people and poor whites for loitering or jaywalking, charge them a fine they can't pay, then lease them out to private citizens to do the dirty work. Or share cropping where people are charged rent, above the minimum to actually live and they fall further into debt.
The South abolished "slavery", but just changed the legal framework. I could see that happening, if the Confederacy survived. They could claim "See we abolished slavery.....but don't look there".
The South abolished "slavery", but just changed the legal framework. I could see that happening, if the Confederacy survived. They could claim "See we abolished slavery.....but don't look there".
I see and recognize your point. I also agree with it. Slavery would likely stay legal until the 1890s on paper with fewer and fewer slaves in practice.
An interesting question would also be: How long will slavery last in the Union following a CSA victory?
Even the most generous CSA victory scenarios would leave Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware and Maryland in the Union. A CSA victory, however, would probably keep West Virginia from being broken away.
The victorious Union quickly freed slaves post war. But, the war time Union was less generous and included alot of fine print exceptions into the Emancipation Order. A defeated Union may well fear border states leaving if Union slavery was outlawed too quickly.
As for Jim Crow and perpetuated de facto slavery in the CSA, I imagine that the CSA would follow the pattern of Brazil, Cuba, Martinique, Yucatan etc. Slaves transition into semi free share croppers. Contract conditions and freedom of movement etc. gradually improve over generations.
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For this to have a chance to occur at least four PoDs have to happen.
1. John Brown's raid fails spectacularly.
Raiders capture free Black RR guard, disarm and beat him and turn him loose in town, (he was killed in OTL). The raiders take hostages. They panic once they realize no ones coming to support the rising, and they hear that the Virginia Militias on the way. They flee across the bridge to their base in Maryland taking the Hostages along.
John Brown holes up at his Maryland farm base. He threatens to execute hostages one by one unless he and his raiders get free passage to Canada. After refusal by the State of Maryland, Brown starts to execute hostages by cutting their throats with a saber, like he did in Kansas.
After multiple bodies get tossed out the front door, the local Maryland posse spontaneously stages a rushed assault on the farm. This results in many raiders, hostages and deputies killed and injured. Brown captured.
Trial held in Maryland courts as the capital charges in Maryland take precedence.
Brown and those identified as killers hung, and the rest sentenced to many years of imprisonment.
Brown's backers identified, arrested and sent to Maryland for trial as accessories to murder.
Trial generates a lot of passion on both sides and outrage in Maryland and Western Virginia.
No Robert E Lee, JEB Stuart, US Marines or Virginia trial.
Western Virginia outraged by the brutal executions of their citizens by Brown. Might not secede from Va.
Maryland outraged by the deaths of local citizens from the Posse as well as the murders.
2. Maryland Secedes
(Ben Butler gets delayed by a week) partially sparked by outrage over the Brown raid.
Maryland Militia blocks RR tracks from Pennsylvania and disarms the guards at the Naval Academy in Annapolis and Forts McHenry and Washington.
US government negotiates a withdrawal from DC and Annapolis, as its impossible to defend with a handful of Marines from the Navy yard and cut off from the North. Government evacuated by sea by the Potomac River to Philadelphia or NY.
3. South moves quickly to occupy Fort Sumter.
Major Anderson's move foiled by SC State militia and his men disarmed.
4. South moves quickly to occupy Fort Pickens.
Lieutenant Adam J. Slemmer and his men fail to hold Fort Barrancas when, around midnight of January 8, 1861, he and his force of 51 soldiers and 30 sailors get surprised and disarmed by a group of local civilians who intend to occupy the fort.
OTL on January 10, 1861 Slemmer destroyed over 20,000 pounds of gunpowder at Fort McRee, spiked the guns at Fort Barrancas and moved to Fort Pickens.
The Union has no base to operate the Blockade from on the Gulf Coast or to use for attacks against ports like New Orleans, Mobile, etc.
Only Fortress Monroe remains in Union hands in the South.
This changes things quite a bit as the South can import goods and stand on the defensive.
5. The South exports cotton instead of hording it as in the OTL. This lets them import more key goods and machinery.
They actually blockaded themselves, thinking it would lead to European intervention.
Economically, even if they win, the South has an unjust system for the vast majority of the population with an economy that's doomed to stagnate at best.
The Souths in a lose-lose worse situation.
1. John Brown's raid fails spectacularly.
Raiders capture free Black RR guard, disarm and beat him and turn him loose in town, (he was killed in OTL). The raiders take hostages. They panic once they realize no ones coming to support the rising, and they hear that the Virginia Militias on the way. They flee across the bridge to their base in Maryland taking the Hostages along.
John Brown holes up at his Maryland farm base. He threatens to execute hostages one by one unless he and his raiders get free passage to Canada. After refusal by the State of Maryland, Brown starts to execute hostages by cutting their throats with a saber, like he did in Kansas.
After multiple bodies get tossed out the front door, the local Maryland posse spontaneously stages a rushed assault on the farm. This results in many raiders, hostages and deputies killed and injured. Brown captured.
Trial held in Maryland courts as the capital charges in Maryland take precedence.
Brown and those identified as killers hung, and the rest sentenced to many years of imprisonment.
Brown's backers identified, arrested and sent to Maryland for trial as accessories to murder.
Trial generates a lot of passion on both sides and outrage in Maryland and Western Virginia.
No Robert E Lee, JEB Stuart, US Marines or Virginia trial.
Western Virginia outraged by the brutal executions of their citizens by Brown. Might not secede from Va.
Maryland outraged by the deaths of local citizens from the Posse as well as the murders.
2. Maryland Secedes
(Ben Butler gets delayed by a week) partially sparked by outrage over the Brown raid.
Maryland Militia blocks RR tracks from Pennsylvania and disarms the guards at the Naval Academy in Annapolis and Forts McHenry and Washington.
US government negotiates a withdrawal from DC and Annapolis, as its impossible to defend with a handful of Marines from the Navy yard and cut off from the North. Government evacuated by sea by the Potomac River to Philadelphia or NY.
3. South moves quickly to occupy Fort Sumter.
Major Anderson's move foiled by SC State militia and his men disarmed.
4. South moves quickly to occupy Fort Pickens.
Lieutenant Adam J. Slemmer and his men fail to hold Fort Barrancas when, around midnight of January 8, 1861, he and his force of 51 soldiers and 30 sailors get surprised and disarmed by a group of local civilians who intend to occupy the fort.
OTL on January 10, 1861 Slemmer destroyed over 20,000 pounds of gunpowder at Fort McRee, spiked the guns at Fort Barrancas and moved to Fort Pickens.
The Union has no base to operate the Blockade from on the Gulf Coast or to use for attacks against ports like New Orleans, Mobile, etc.
Only Fortress Monroe remains in Union hands in the South.
This changes things quite a bit as the South can import goods and stand on the defensive.
5. The South exports cotton instead of hording it as in the OTL. This lets them import more key goods and machinery.
They actually blockaded themselves, thinking it would lead to European intervention.
Economically, even if they win, the South has an unjust system for the vast majority of the population with an economy that's doomed to stagnate at best.
The Souths in a lose-lose worse situation.
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It would probably stay legal a lot longer, regardless of whether there were fewer and fewer slaves in practice. The 1890s would be the earliest you could contemplate something like that. But it could easily endure into the 1900s, even the 1920s.
There's also the actual historical example of Jim Crow which suggests a long perpetuation of slavery. The criminal law was used to implement slavery, to the extent that prisoner labour was close to 20% of Louisiana's state budget even in the early 20th century. Criminalization of black people in the south, in order to procure slave/free labour was incredibly common. The sharecropper debt system of peonage, the actual horrors of Jim Crow weren't that far from slavery. And it did not liberalize gradually.
There was no freedom of movement in Jim Crow. It literally took a massive civil rights movement. Oppressors never voluntarily cease oppression.
James Eastland and John Stennis were still using prisoners and indebted sharecroppers as forced labor on their plantations, well into the 1960s.
I don't know if he wrote about specific individuals to say it happened later, he could have. It's been awhile since I read the book. Legally by WWII it was going away. That's why you see inmates picking up roadside trash, instead of working for "commercial enterprises".
In most places in the South it is still against the law, even though some places have revived the practice.
A son of a wealthy Northeast family was traveling the country and picked up in Florida as a vagrant and forced to work in a tree cutting "gulag". The family sent private investigators after he went missing. Which resulted in a rather large scandal at the time.
Just adding on, MD state militia would also probably seize Ft McHenry, otherwise Baltimore is at risk under its guns.
Good point, I added it and Fort Washington which commanded the Potomac river.
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USA would be less politically polarized, less puritanical and closer to a social democracy. The CSA would be the more recognizable of the two countries to an OTL american given you'd have the inequality/political polarization/post-slavery and segregation related dysfucntions.
Probably still democrats vs republicans for US, just shifted to the economic left with the CSA being democrats and either a conservative party, or if the democrats end up being rightwing some relatively left of center party.
Probably still democrats vs republicans for US, just shifted to the economic left with the CSA being democrats and either a conservative party, or if the democrats end up being rightwing some relatively left of center party.
IIRC two of these cases involved a distant metropole enforcing their dictates and the third was the unpopular edict of a monarchy which got them overthrown. The CSA is not in the same boat as either and unless/until DC or London has them by the economic short hairs they never will be.
Also consider that there were lots of laws against Emancipation that are very unlikely to be repealed given the increasingly limited franchise.