WI: All Border States Join the Confederacy in 1861

Greenville

Banned
What if in 1861 all of the southern border states of Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, and Maryland secede with the Confederacy before they can be occupied by Union forces? Washington D.C. is also evacuated in the process.
 

B-29_Bomber

Banned
It's a WI, besides, while Delaware is rather implausible, Maryland is quite doable.

Oh, it's not impossible and that's why the Union moved troops there to prevent it OTL. The Union can not afford to lose Maryland and by extension DC with the loss of prestige and legitimacy.

If Maryland votes to secede the Union will merely declare it illegitimate and occupy the state in short order.

Besides, just losing Kentucky and Missouri is more than enough to bolster the Confederate cause due to the delay of capturing the Mississippi River Valley at least by the simple fact of needing to conquer more of it.

It'd probably delay it's full capture until late 1863 or even the beginning of 1864.
 

Deleted member 9338

Maryland and Delaware are an ASB proposition. The rail lines in Maryland and industry in Delaware are to important to the North. Southern Pennsylvania and Philadelphia had southern ties but were going to stay in the Union.
 
Taking Missouri and Kentucky puts southern Illinois and even southern Indiana in play. Moreover it means Kansas is more isolated and while it might not go Confederate the threat of attack would be of interest. Arizona and New Mexico would likely go Confederate and if Maryland is I Southern hands then the UK and France might declare for the Confederacy.
 
What if in 1861 all of the southern border states of Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, and Maryland secede with the Confederacy before they can be occupied by Union forces? Washington D.C. is also evacuated in the process.

Why would this happen?

The Maryland legislature voted unanimously that it did not have power to declare secession, and 53-13 against calling a convention that would have the power.

Missouri had a "Constitutional convention", which voted 98-1 against secession. Also, Missouri's only major city, St. Louis, had a strong Unionist majority (in 1858, the only Republican Representative from a slave state was elected there).

Delaware never even considered secession, nor did Kentucky.

Besides this is the fact that the Upper South (Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia) all rejected immediate secession in December 1860 and January 1861. (Virginia is considered Upper South, but it was actually a Border State, since northwest Virginia bordered on Pennsylvania and Ohio. When push came to shove, those northwestern areas repudiated the state government which declared secession.)
 
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