What If The United States Never Had A Civil War

Exactly what the title says. I figure this is a different question than what is normally asked about the Civil War.

There's obviously two different options to speculate about.

Option A) The United States is able to prevent any and all secession from occurring. CSA never comes into existence.

Option B) CSA is able to peacefully secede from the Union.

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I'm actually quite curious as to what the members of this forum think about either of the two possibilities, and effects this would have on the world.

Beyond the obvious things, like people living who would have died or certain states avoiding economic damage.

So yeah.
 
The American Civil War is one of those horses that have been beaten to the grave and back on this forum. You might be better off perusing the forum's search function.
 
Quite interesting,
regarding option A, what would happen to those in the
south that thought that the federal government where
encroaching on their rights? As I understand it it was
on major reason that they seceeded, and the slavery
issue what about that?
Option B, would the federals really let them go
peacefully?
 
I'm sure the Civil War has been beaten into the ground, Saya.

As for searching, well, even if this particular question has been asked . . . The forums search function doesn't work for me. I always get an error page when I try to use it.

Though I'm not particularly interested in "What if the South won?" or "What if the Union did better?"

My only concern is simply "What if it never happened?"
 
Option B is very unlikely. You would need a President as weak as Buchanan and a Congress willing to go along. Nations very seldom voluntarily devolve chunks of their own land without a fight.

Stipulating some lasting compromise between the contesting parties re the slavery issue (hard to imagine) the US government is likely to stay far less Wahington-centric. The absence of the post-war amendments to the Constitution would tend to keep the balance of power more in the hands of the states, rather than the central government.
 
In order to avoid secession and civil war, you need to have a POD big enough and early enough to completely alter the the two diametrically opposite paths that the country was on. I don't think that the elimination of say the events surrounding Bleeding Kansas, or the Supreme Court's decision in the Dred Scott case, or electing someone other than Buchanan in 56 or Lincoln in 60 is going to change the country enough to completely avoid secession and/or a war, these events just may delay the inevitable clash of the two regions. The challenge in my mind is to come up with as late of a POD as possible to change the the culture, economics, and beliefs of either or both the North and the South to make them similar enough that secession is not even an issue.

For instance, in the 1830s, cotton wasn't quite the King it would become by the 1850s, and states like Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas were still somewhat sparcely populated. In Virginia, which always was the most populous southern state (by a wide margin), the climate and soils were not really condusive to growing cotton and so slavery there was in a decline. In OTL, many Virginia planters and slaveowners generally either sold off their slaves usually to planters in the Deep South, or migrated with their slaves to these more virgin areas of the Deep South and set up their plantations there. As such, the cycle was continued and slavery continued to become more entrenched and more intertwined in the southern economy. However, if Virginia had just a bit more of a progressive government in the early 1830s, it could have passed a law requiring gradual emancipation of all slaves in the state, with recompense to the slaveowners. While this would not have stopped the sale of slaves down to the Deep South or prevented many Virginians from migrating out of the state, it would have slowed it. Then with Virginia leading the way, states like Maryland, Delaware, and Kentucky might follow over the next few years and emancipate their slaves. At that point the power held by the southern states is broken forever, and it is difficult to see where states like Texas, Arkansas and Florida are admitted to the Union without some type of preconditions. Then over the 1840s and 1850s, while the deep south may still be completely mired in slavery, the region would be isolated from the great majority of the country, especially as other states like Tenn and North Carolina and Missouri emancipate their slaves. At some point, states like South Carolina could be isolated, threatened, etc. and forced (without war or secession) to give up slavery. Eventually, slavery is completely abolished in the country without war or secession.
 

Xen

Banned
In order to avoid secession and civil war, you need to have a POD big enough and early enough to completely alter the the two diametrically opposite paths that the country was on. I don't think that the elimination of say the events surrounding Bleeding Kansas, or the Supreme Court's decision in the Dred Scott case, or electing someone other than Buchanan in 56 or Lincoln in 60 is going to change the country enough to completely avoid secession and/or a war, these events just may delay the inevitable clash of the two regions. The challenge in my mind is to come up with as late of a POD as possible to change the the culture, economics, and beliefs of either or both the North and the South to make them similar enough that secession is not even an issue.

For instance, in the 1830s, cotton wasn't quite the King it would become by the 1850s, and states like Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas were still somewhat sparcely populated. In Virginia, which always was the most populous southern state (by a wide margin), the climate and soils were not really condusive to growing cotton and so slavery there was in a decline. In OTL, many Virginia planters and slaveowners generally either sold off their slaves usually to planters in the Deep South, or migrated with their slaves to these more virgin areas of the Deep South and set up their plantations there. As such, the cycle was continued and slavery continued to become more entrenched and more intertwined in the southern economy. However, if Virginia had just a bit more of a progressive government in the early 1830s, it could have passed a law requiring gradual emancipation of all slaves in the state, with recompense to the slaveowners. While this would not have stopped the sale of slaves down to the Deep South or prevented many Virginians from migrating out of the state, it would have slowed it. Then with Virginia leading the way, states like Maryland, Delaware, and Kentucky might follow over the next few years and emancipate their slaves. At that point the power held by the southern states is broken forever, and it is difficult to see where states like Texas, Arkansas and Florida are admitted to the Union without some type of preconditions. Then over the 1840s and 1850s, while the deep south may still be completely mired in slavery, the region would be isolated from the great majority of the country, especially as other states like Tenn and North Carolina and Missouri emancipate their slaves. At some point, states like South Carolina could be isolated, threatened, etc. and forced (without war or secession) to give up slavery. Eventually, slavery is completely abolished in the country without war or secession.


Sounds like your suggesting eliminating Nat Turners Rebellion, without it, Virginia would likely have abolished slavery, and probably would have been copied by the upper south such as Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina.

Another POD would be to do away with Eli Whitney and have the cotton gin not make an appearance until say the 1830s or 1840s, at which time slavery is more likely either completely dead or simply not worth reviving.
 

Sachyriel

Banned
I'd like to point out that an even earlier POD with some freed slaves getting their hands on weaponry and starting a few successful rebellions (or at least successful for a small period) might be helpful in getting slavery off the books.

....can I get a "Black Power" fist pump up in here?
 
Sounds like your suggesting eliminating Nat Turners Rebellion, without it, Virginia would likely have abolished slavery, and probably would have been copied by the upper south such as Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina.

Another POD would be to do away with Eli Whitney and have the cotton gin not make an appearance until say the 1830s or 1840s, at which time slavery is more likely either completely dead or simply not worth reviving.

As it happens, I have a rough TL going -- based on this thread -- where there's no slave trade clause in the Constitution, the cotton gin isn't invented until 1808, and the institution is boxed in to the southeast between Maryland and South Carolina, with (the state of) Louisiana as well. This, obviously, does away with the spread of slavery as a major issue.

(Incidentally, as to manumission following -- I think I agreed Maryland and Delaware, under these circumstances, would do it, and Louisiana probably would have to as well, and we all saw South Carolina and Georgia hanging on to the practice for as long as possible.)
 
Another POD would be to do away with Eli Whitney and have the cotton gin not make an appearance until say the 1830s or 1840s, at which time slavery is more likely either completely dead or simply not worth reviving.

Actually this may go in the opposite direction. Before the Cotton Gin was invented some slave owners were experimenting with wheat in the Old Northwest (they were also growing sugar in South on the coast but I doubt this would have caught on in the US). Wheat is a labor intensive crop so without the economic boom in the cotton industry, causing every slave owner to grow cotton, slavery may take a more prominent role in wheat production and we would see constitutional conventions to remove the law banning slavery in what would become the states of Illinois and Indiana. This could be the start of a War of Northern Secession later down the line.

Anyways with no American Civil War California would be partitioned into three states. It was sent to congress but it was too busy dealing with the threat of the Southern states seceding to vote on it.
 
Another POD would be to do away with Eli Whitney and have the cotton gin not make an appearance until say the 1830s or 1840s, at which time slavery is more likely either completely dead or simply not worth reviving.

That is probably the best scenario to prevent the war. At the same time, it hampers the textile industry in the northern states and could lead to a general slow-down of the industrial/technological revolution on both sides of the Atlantic.
 
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