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What if, instead of the the historical strategy of having slave states secede from the US and then attack federal installations, the fire-eaters instead tried to organize a military coup to take over the federal government?

I realize this would probably fail, but the other strategy, though more legal, failed too. I'm not sure if the coup would have had a smaller chance of success.

Plus if they were really serious about expanding slavery, this would be the way to do it.

I realize they would have to get many senior officers from the Upper South who would IOTL have been horrified at the idea on board, but suppose they got ahold of some handwavium, say Scott goes senile early and gets on-board, and it actually works?

After all, a quite similar coup against the Brazilian federal government in 1889 actually worked, and it had low odds of success, though since it came after emancipation it came too late to save slavery in Brazil.
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