WI: Non-Violent CSA Secession?

What if, instead of the attack on Fort Sumter and subsequent call to arms during the immediate lead up to the first battles of the Civil War, the CSA leadership instead calls for massive passive resistance against the Union as a means of secession. (I.E. print CSA dollars, stop paying Federal Taxes, continue to seeks trade with foreign powers, etc)

Is this plausible? What effect could such a plan have?
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
It's very contrary to the Southern way of doing things, to say the least. If they do not push out federal authorities, their effort at nationhood would appear to the world to be a joke. Printers producing Confederate money could be arrested by federal marshals; if the Southerners don't resist, aren't they tacitly acknowledging that the United States still has authority over them?
 
What if, instead of the attack on Fort Sumter and subsequent call to arms during the immediate lead up to the first battles of the Civil War, the CSA leadership instead calls for massive passive resistance against the Union as a means of secession. (I.E. print CSA dollars, stop paying Federal Taxes, continue to seeks trade with foreign powers, etc)

Is this plausible? What effect could such a plan have?

Lincoln orders troops in and retakes the south in 6 months.
 
I think the best the South could hope for was to make the North strike first.

Attacking Fort Sumter was a mistake as it made the Confederacy to appear the aggressor.
 
It's very contrary to the Southern way of doing things, to say the least. If they do not push out federal authorities, their effort at nationhood would appear to the world to be a joke. Printers producing Confederate money could be arrested by federal marshals; if the Southerners don't resist, aren't they tacitly acknowledging that the United States still has authority over them?

This can't be overstated. The southern confederacy is either sovereign or it isn't. If it isn't, and it doesn't aggressively assert its sovereignty, the whole thing collapses internally.

IOTL southern society crossed the rubicon at fort Sumter. Before then there was still a chance the whole thing could have come to nothing.
 
What if CSA doesn't attack Fort Summers, but otherwise upholds its sovereignty with force: expels federal authorities, guard its borders, enact tariffs on northern goods, etc.
Does everything short of actively waging war on the North.
Is there a chance that North just accepts facts on the ground after seeing that South isn't gonna just give up?
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Is there a chance that North just accepts facts on the ground after seeing that South isn't gonna just give up?

Not with Lincoln at the helm. You'd need a POD before Lincoln's nomination, or at least his election, which obviously introduces a whole host of butterflies into the TL.
 
What if CSA doesn't attack Fort Summers, but otherwise upholds its sovereignty with force: expels federal authorities, guard its borders, enact tariffs on northern goods, etc.
Does everything short of actively waging war on the North.
Is there a chance that North just accepts facts on the ground after seeing that South isn't gonna just give up?

In that scenario I don't even think they would need the Union to do so.
With the South not being the perceived aggressor in this scenario, it might make European Intervention on the side of Dixie far more plausible if they could hold out for a year or two
 
We should keep in mind, though, that this CSA might be a good deal smaller. If Lincoln isn't calling for troops, then secession will be a lot weaker in a place like Tennessee, which actually voted down secession prior to that. The Upper South in general wasn't all too in favour of it until Fort Sumter.

Of course, not joining the CSA won't solve the issue of slavery in those states or in the US as a whole, it merely delays it for longer. Letting the CSA get away establishes a precedent for secession, which leaders in Tennessee and other states would gladly go for if they felt their rights were threatened (and the Confederacy will gladly accept them). Maybe the secession of the states which didn't initially secede might end up starting the Civil War, just delayed a couple years.
 
What if, instead of the attack on Fort Sumter and subsequent call to arms during the immediate lead up to the first battles of the Civil War, the CSA leadership instead calls for massive passive resistance against the Union as a means of secession. (I.E. print CSA dollars, stop paying Federal Taxes, continue to seeks trade with foreign powers, etc)

Is this plausible? What effect could such a plan have?


If they believe that passive resistance will be sufficient, why bother seceding at all?
 
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