What If: The North Secedes in the ACW.

Kaptin Kurk

Banned
The problem with this, is that from 1776 and beyond, the North is ascendant and the South isn't. Yes, the war of 1812 is about the best PoD you can get, but it's not like New England seseccion was stopped by a single coin toss alone.

Beyond that, why do people and interest who percivie they are getting stronger suddenly blow up the world? The closest thing I could imagine is if, somehow, The U.S. acquired the Carribbean and perputated slavery after the 1832 British Abolition of Slavery Act.

How that could happen, I don't know. But short of new, prime (not south western) slave terrirotiry and thus eventually states being acquired, I don't see a northern secession.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
A Second Mexican War (like Stephen Douglas apparently planned) might do it. I could see Yankees (and even Midlanders) getting mighty upset over spilling American blood and treasure to expand slavery.
 

President Sam Houston

When the first census was taken in 1790, the population of slave states and the population of free states was almost equal. And even with New York growing like crazy from 1790 onwards, the populations of free and slave states continued to be very similar at the 1800 census. However, after 1800, the populations of the North and the Old Northwest greatly outpaced that of the slave states, and then by the 1850s when immigration exploded, the populations and political power of the two regions were not even close.

So I would propose as a possible POD, the removal of the 3/5th compromise, and allow the slave states to count every slave as a full person for purposes of congressional representation. This change alone would give the slave states much more political clout by increasing the number of representatives in Congress and giving slave states more electors for presidential elections.

Now this change alone might not be enough, but if another POD was a faster and more aggressive settling of the deep south by slavers in the early 19th century, this could help lead to a group of Northern States to secede by the late 1830s.

For instance, by 1820, a larger and more politically aligned Congressional delegation from slave states, could push for and obtain slavery rights throughout the territories of the old Louisiana Purchase. Thereafter, a politically divided Northern and Midwestern free states could easily lose out to aggressive fugitive slave laws, and other laws that could lead to de jure slavery in free states.

By the early 1830s, abolitionists in New England could be very powerful throughout the legislatures of the New England states but have very little political power in Washington. In fact Washington is thoroughly controlled by the slave states, and even with a growing population in northern free states, their political power and influence won't get any better soon.

The New England states and a few other Northern states watch helplessly as Iowa is admitted to the Union as a slave state in 1837. Soon thereafter, the New England states along with New York, Ohio, and Michigan are drawing up articles of secession.
 
Umbric Man

Umbric Man

I like that scenario, but I would say the north would never allow it north of 36'30''. More than likely you get a South that manages to get ALL of New Mexico Territory to be pro-southern, the *border states definitively in the Southern camp, and SoCal being split off as the proposed Colorado Territory.
 

Kaptin Kurk

Banned
Umbric Man said:
I like that scenario, but I would say the north would never allow it north of 36'30''. More than likely you get a South that manages to get ALL of New Mexico Territory to be pro-southern, the *border states definitively in the Southern camp, and SoCal being split off as the proposed Colorado Territory.
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Which basically requires, the slavery issue aside, the North to be pro and low tarrif, and anti-immigrant. So, what are we suggestings, global warming 1840?
 

Rich Rostrom

Aranfan said:
So there's the POD. Simply find a way to butterfly the three way split the Democrats suffered...
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First: the Democrats only split two ways in 1860. The majority of the Party supported Stephen Douglas. A largely (but not exclusively) Southern faction bolted the Party and nominated John Breckinridge.

The third candidate running against Lincoln was John Bell of Tennessee, who was not a Democrat. Bell and his supporters were all former Whigs. They too were mostly but not exclusively southern; northern Whigs nearly all became Republicans, but southern Whigs had nowhere to go. In 1856, they moved into the American ("Know-Nothing") Party, along with some northern Whigs (such as Presidential candidate Millard Fillmore). By 1860 that game was over, and the ex-Whigs ginned up a new label: "Constitutional Union" - hoping that somehow enough voters would prefer Bell and the CU to head off secession.

Second: the Democrat split was not due to random circumstances, and would not be affected by "butterflies". A "butterfly effect" applies to events which are highly contingent on easily changed or trivial circumstances. For instance, death or life for any front-line soldier in a major war, or the gender of a child.
 

Elfwine

Southern democrats being unhappy Douglas wasn't willing to perform fellatio.

More to the point, wasn't pro-slavery.
 

Kalan

Wolfpaw said:
As for what would constitute "the North," you'd get New England and most of New York (but not NYC and it's CT/NJ environs), maybe Michigan and even Wisconsin. Anti-slavery is not a big enough issue outside of Yankeedom to drag IL/IN/OH into the "Northern" camp, ditto PA and NJ.
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I am not so sure about that after all both Pensylvania and Ohio passed Personal liberty laws nullifiying [1] the fugitive Slave act and garanting any slaves freedom. If New England and secedes because of southern attempts to introduce slavery there then both Ohio and Pensylvania will know that their own personal liberty laws will fall soon and would most likely leave the union as well.

[1] By taking advantage of a Supreme court ruling stating that while states were not allowed to actively counter federal law they were not forced to enforce it either. So escaped slaves could not be held in state prisons, tried before state courts or arrested by state police.
 

Tripwire

Kalan said:
I am not so sure about that after all both Pensylvania and Ohio passed Personal liberty laws nullifiying [1] the fugitive Slave act and garanting any slaves freedom. If New England and secedes because of southern attempts to introduce slavery there then both Ohio and Pensylvania will know that their own personal liberty laws will fall soon and would most likely leave the union as well.

[1] By taking advantage of a Supreme court ruling stating that while states were not allowed to actively counter federal law they were not forced to enforce it either. So escaped slaves could not be held in state prisons, tried before state courts or arrested by state police.
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Trying to turn free-states into slave-states would be a pretty huge overstep by the south, and would require a radically different timeline. Making new western territories into slave-states across the board would be much more plausible.
 

Kalan

Sucrose said:
Trying to turn free-states into slave-states would be a pretty huge overstep by the south, and would require a radically different timeline. Making new western territories into slave-states across the board would be much more plausible.
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I'm aware ot that. But I also don't think that creating more slave states will trigger any secession.

I was responding to the claim that only New England would seccede, because only they cared enough about slavery. Should there ever be a politic that causes New England to secced the rest of the free states would soon follow.
 
Aranfan

Aranfan

Elfwine said:
I'm afraid to ask how much more you could get than that without my fellatio joke being reality.
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Well, looking at the Wiki, it seems that the Southern Democrats wanted to pass a Slave Code for the territories, which would force territorial legislatures to support slavery even if they didn't want to.

And that Douglas wasn't in favor of such a slave code, preferring the Freeport Doctrine, which seems to basically reject Dred Scott.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Kalan said:
I am not so sure about that after all both Pensylvania and Ohio passed Personal liberty laws nullifiying [1] the fugitive Slave act and garanting any slaves freedom. If New England and secedes because of southern attempts to introduce slavery there then both Ohio and Pensylvania will know that their own personal liberty laws will fall soon and would most likely leave the union as well.
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I do not doubt that there will be serious resistance in Ohio and Pennsylvania, but I am dubious as to whether their legislatures/populaces would go for secession over slavery. Philadelphia at this time was a bedrock of Southern sympathy, to say nothing of the southern third of Ohio. I will reiterate that, outside of Yankeedom, slavery is not a big enough issue to force secession in the North. If the South-dominated Union really screws the pooch in the lead up to secession, or if they try and turn Ohio and PA into military zones, then maybe OH and PA will secede.

If, on the other hand, some "Great Crusade Against Slave Power" types invade OH and PA (much as the Confederates invaded Kentucky), then I think we can count on Pennsylvania and Ohio as being firmly in the Union camp, though with a good deal of guerrilla warfare between Wide Awakes and Young Hickories.
 
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