WI: California Secedes With the South in 1860

What if California is heavily controlled by Democrats in the 1860s and secedes with the southern states in 1860?

They would likely not contribute much to the war effort. Just like the rest of the Confederacy, they'd be fighting for basic survival, and they'd be very disconnected from the bulk of Confederate lands. I doubt it would take a true invasion into the state to bring it back into the Union. It might just collapse on its own when Richmond does.

Your question begs another though. How did California swing to the Democrat side in the first place by 1860? What provoked this in the first place?
 
Your question begs another though. How did California swing to the Democrat side in the first place by 1860? What provoked this in the first place?

Iirc it was mostly Democrat during the 1850s, until the Democrats split into Douglas and Buchanan factions. Had they remained united, they would easily have carried CA (and OR) in 1860.

That said, however, CA is unlikely to join the Confederacy. It doesn't have slavery, and it is separated from the South by a broad stretch of thinly populated territories. Even if it tried to secede, it would probably soon fall to the Union.
 

frlmerrin

Banned
The premise in the OP. (that California might join the Confederacy) is very unlikely given then Californian attitudes to blacks (i.e. exclusion) and chattel slavery in the South. It would require a fairly major POD. Secession by the southern part of the state is a bit more credible and a successful coup led by Johnson in the SF and Sacramento area is considerably more credible.

Having said the above about the improbability of the scenario. If California were to join the Confederacy at the start of the war then:

(a) California is remote from most of the USA making it easily defensible.
(b) If the Confederacy have California then they have Confederate Arizona too (baring strategic brilliance by the Union or strategic ineptitude by the Confederacy). The Confederacy is a true continental nation stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
(c) The US mint and Treasury in SF become the property of the Confederacy. The taxes on the gold produced in the Californian mines flows into the Confederate treasury and unlike OTL does not flow into the Union treasury. Thus the Confederacy would be much stronger financially and the Union much weaker.
(d) With relatively modest military expeditions the Californians could gain control of the silver mines of Nevada and Arizona further weakening the Union financially and strengthening the Confederacy.
(e) The Confederacy now has the China trade.
(f) The Confederacy might gain the US Pacific squadron.
(g) If Confederate California has some sort of a navy it can take the entire USA whaling fleet in winter quarters (Sea of Cortez) dealing a massive blow to the Union.
 
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This seems like an extremely unlikely scenario for all of California joining with the Confederacy. However, southern California seceding from California to join the Confederacy is certainly possible, as there was considerable pro-Confederate sentiment in the LA Area, not to mention there were the Californios who were still bitter about their fall in status following the Mexican American War.

Albert Sidney Johnson remaining in the area to create a secession of pro-Confederate So-Cal could create a bleeding Kansas scenario in the midst of the Civil War. San Francisco and no-Cal were staunchly pro-Union though, and has the greater population of California, so the rest of the US could see fewer gold reserves, but California at the time isn't big enough for it to have a substantial impact on the ultimate outcome of the Civil War.
 
The Terry-Broderick duel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broderick–Terry_duel had completely discredited the pro-southern "Chivalry" in California. In the 1860 election, only 28.4 percent of Californians voted for Breckinridge, compared to 31.7 percent for Douglas and 32.3 percent for Lincoln. http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1860.txt Not even all Breckinridge voters were secessionists, and the Douglas voters certainly weren't: "The day following the news of the firing on Fort Sumter, May 8th, the state committee of the Douglas Democrats met and resolved 'that the people of California in the past have been most anxious for peace throughout the land * * * at the same time they are, above all things, for the Union, the country, and the flag; against all assailants." http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC51423886&id=iUQOAAAAIAAJ&pg=RA25-PA209

In the September 1861 election for governor, again the Breckinridge Democrats (represented by John McConnell) got only 27.96 percent of the vote compared to Republican Leland Stanford's 46.41 percent and Union Democrat John Conness's 25.63 percent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_gubernatorial_election,_1861

There was a pro-southern group in California that dreamed of establishing a Pacific Coast Republic, but they were definitely a minority. Asking "What if California is heavily controlled by Democrats in the 1860s and secedes with the southern states in 1860?" shows a misunderstanding. The governor in 1860-61 *was* a Democrat, John G. Downey--he had even supported the Lecompton Constitution--but there is no way he would go along with disunionism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Downey
 

TFSmith121

Banned
California was a free state

California was a free state; free states didn't secede over the election of a presidential candidate whose platform included preventing the spread of slavery into the territories.

Best,
 
There might be a chance of some Chivalry strongholds trying to secede (if those were a thing), but all of California wouldn't secede without some POD's a decade or more back. It would be interesting to see an miniature Californian Civil War, with Pro-Union Californians fighting a mostly isolated front against the Pro-Confederate outpost.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Somewhat less than 20 "Southron" sympathizers

Somewhat less than 20 "Southron" sympathizers left California for the rebellion in 1861, AS Johnston included; almost 16,000 long-service enlistments in the US forces were credited to California from 1861-65, and thousands more served in the organized militia.

This amounted to eight full regiments of infantry, two full regiments of cavalry, and a battalion each of cavalry and infantry; in addition, five companies of cavalry were mustered in California but went east and filled up a Massachusetts regiment, and another eight companies of infantry were raised in California for the 1st Washington Volunteer Infantry Regiment; the California adjutant general estimated that increased the number of Californians in active service with the US forces in 1861-65 to more than 17,000.

That doesn't include those who volunteered for the regulars in 1861 and afterwards, much less the 3,000 men of the state's organized militia.

It will be a short war.;)

Best,
 
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TFSmith121

Banned
LOL...

The Californian Civil War: 6pm 26 January 1861 - 8:35am 27 January 1861.

LOL...

Put it this way, there's a reason Johnston et al headed east.:rolleyes:

And the above doesn't include, for example, the regulars (Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Revenue Marine) stationed in California in 1861 that stayed on the Pacific slope during the war; the entire 9th Infantry and five batteries of the 5th Artillery, for example.

When the regular garrison in a given state outnumbers the "rebels" willing to risk their necks by (presumably) 100 to 1, it's probably a safe bet who wins...

Best,
 
the first major change will have to be making California a Slave State then.

Best chance of doing that is with a divergence more than a decade earlier: delay the California Gold Rush by a good few years, preferably at least 5. That makes for a chance to organise California - or more likely, just southern California - as a slaveholding territory. Once you get the influx of free-soilers who come with the gold rush, forget that idea.

Of course, such a PoD butterflies the Compromise of 1850 and thus the ACW As We Know It, but that's at least the best chance of getting something at least close to the ACW with at least the possibility of (southern) Californian secession.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Albert Sidney Johnson remaining in the area to create a secession of pro-Confederate So-Cal could create a bleeding Kansas scenario in the midst of the Civil War.

You'd have to make Albert Sidney Johnston a very different sort of person, then. When he was approached about doing something like that, he very soundly refused, considering it entirely dishonorable.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Rather difficult, considering the terms of the

the first major change will have to be making California a Slave State then.

Rather difficult, considering the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

The only people enslaved in California were the indigenous, and even that was essentially de facto than de jure.

As was said, to do so otherwise requires enough changes you may as well call it fantasy.

Best,
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Especially considering the obvious disparity

You'd have to make Albert Sidney Johnston a very different sort of person, then. When he was approached about doing something like that, he very soundly refused, considering it entirely dishonorable.

Especially considering the obvious disparity in the correlation of forces...

20,000 vs 20 was not chance; historical reality is a pretty reliable guide to the loyalties of the population.

Best,
 
To make *part* of California a slave state, you could have the Missouri Compromise line extended to the Pacific Ocean, as Secretary of State Buchanan advocated in 1847. Next to the Calhoun doctrine that the Constitution carried slavery into *all* the territories, this was the most pro-Southern possible resolution of the territorial issue. Even southerners who agreed with Calhoun in theory would accept Missouri Compromise extension in practice, because hardly anyone thought that slavery had much chance of going into territories north of 36°30′. As to whether it might go into the portion of the Mexican Cession south of that line, there were more doubts; but even if it would not take root there, there was still the *precedent* extension would set. At that time most people thought that eventually the US would annex additional territory in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean; and extension would set the precedent that all such territory would be slave territory.

For that reason, while extension might pass the Senate, it would have a very hard time in the House, where the North had a majority. You might say that sufficient pressure and patronage would persuade enough northern Democratic "doughfaces" to vote for it to get it through the House, as with Kansas-Nebraska in 1854. But one difference is that there were a lot more northern Whigs (and fewer Democrats) in the House in 1848 than there were in 1854. Anyway, after the Gold Rush and the influx of a mostly northern population into California, the cause of partititon was probably doomed--the predominant sentiment in California was for it to be one state, and without slavery. Even most southerners recognized in 1850 that California was probably lost; what they wanted was to get as much compensation for it as possible.

There was a movement in California in 1859 to detach the southern counties from the state and make them a "Territory of Colorado." This has often been seen simply as a pro-slavery move, because any such territory would be slave territory under the *Dred Scott* decision (and the idea of division was backed by the pro-Southern "Chivalry" wing of the state Democratic party) but the Hispanic southern Californian politicians who promoted the idea were probably less interested in introducing slavery than in augmenting their own political power and not having to pay state taxes, from which they felt they were getting very little benefit. There was of course little chance that the US House of Representatives, controlled by Republicans by this time, would assent to such a division...
 
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