Would the Confederate States government need to be reformed had it won independence?

Would the Confederate States government need to be reformed had they won the American Civil War?

  • Yes

    Votes: 96 91.4%
  • No

    Votes: 9 8.6%

  • Total voters
    105
One of the reasons why many people say the Confederate States of America would not last for long had it earned it's independence was because of slavery. In short, in a world that was slowly industrializing, the Confederate States would've suffered economically due to it's reliance of slaves.

However, in my opinion, slavery would not be the only thing to threaten the Confederate States.

One of the things that would hurt the Confederacy in the long run is that it is a Confederacy, meaning that there is a weak central authority. Even during the Civil War, this was a problem. During said war, states could refuse use of their militia to the Confederate government and sometimes did if they felt the men were needed for defense at home. The constitution also severely restricted the government’s ability to raise money, which led to bread riots in Richmond and other locations in the South.

The Constitution deliberately weakened the federal government and gave the states more power than the US Constitution did. This is stated in the preamble with the following line: "We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character",

For example, the Confederate government could not levy protective tariffs; direct and capitation taxes and taxes on exports were restricted. The ability to make internal improvements was limited to matters regarding ports and harbors, lighthouses, and dredging rivers. The government of the Confederacy could not overrule the decisions of state courts.

In essence, the Articles of Confederation mess, which almost destroyed the United States of America in it's infancy, was going to have a sequel of sorts in the South.

But this is merely my opinion.

Would the Confederate States of America need to be reformed so that the federal government had more power if the CSA was going to last as a independent nation and what would be the repercussions of any attempted reformation?
 
Would the Confederate States of America need to be reformed so that the federal government had more power if the CSA was going to last as a independent nation and what would be the repercussions of any attempted reformation?
The simple fact is that reform was absolutely essential for the CSA to survive; the problem is that such reform would be impossible given the circumstances.
This article nicely discusses the problems the south faced in creating a new nation. The very nature of States Rights ideology made waging a successful war all but impossible; governors would hoard essential supplies for their own use and refuse to send troops to the Confederate Armies.
 
Besides of course abolishing slavery I think
two other changes would have had to be made:

1- The President was given a single 6-year
term; he could not run for re-election. This
meant not only that the Confederacy would
have been saddled for too long a time with
an incompetent leader; it also meant the
President was a lame- duck from almost
the moment he was sworn in. I think the CSA would have to adopt what the U.S.
IOTL now has: two four year terms @ the
most, with the President able to stand for
re-election @ the end of the first.
2- No Supreme Court. One simply would have had to be established. Lord knows IOTL
I've disagreed with many Supreme Court
decisions, but I still think it's benefits out-
weigh its drawbacks(for one thing, as Nathan
Bernacki pointed out above, since there was
no body to overrule the decisions of State
courts, the result would have been a virtual
pleothra of differing interpretations of federal
CSA law & legal chaos)
 
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Besides of course abolishing slavery...
Unfortunately the Confederate Constitution makes any attempt at abolishing slavery illegal.
Here's an article I'm quoting to answer these points:
1- The President was given a single 6-year
term; he could not run for re-election. This
meant not only that the Confederacy would
have been saddled for too long a time with
an incompetent leader; it also meant the
President was a lame- duck from almost
the moment he was sworn in. I think the CSA would have to adopt what the U.S.
IOTL now has: two four year terms @ the
most, with the President able to stand for
re-election @ the end of the first.
The idea here was to insulate the President from political pressures and supposedly remove temptations of power and abuse. (uh-huh:rolleyes:)
2- No Supreme Court. One simply would have had to be established. Lord knows IOTL
I've disagreed with many Supreme Court
decisions, but I still think it's benefits out-
weigh its drawbacks(for one thing, as Nathan
Bernacki pointed out above, since there was
no body to overrule the decisions of State
courts, the result would have been a virtual
pleothra of differing interpretations of federal
CSA law & legal chaos)
From the above article: "In one significant respect, however, the Confederacy failed to establish a powerful national government. Debates over jurisdiction ultimately prevented the Congress from establishing a Supreme Court, though state courts generally went along with the measures adopted by Congress and the Davis administration."
 
Even while tackling the problems already mentioned, the Confederacy would also have to pull back from it's total war footing and the martial law and military necessity that have ruled it for so long and revert to it's peacetime norms of... what exactly? The hollowed traditions of 1860? Creating a peaceful regime while defining what peace is in the first place is not my idea of a fun exercise.
 
Even while tackling the problems already mentioned, the Confederacy would also have to pull back from it's total war footing and the martial law and military necessity that have ruled it for so long and revert to it's peacetime norms of... what exactly? The hollowed traditions of 1860? Creating a peaceful regime while defining what peace is in the first place is not my idea of a fun exercise.
From this article:
"The reckoning with Confederate slaves was even more direct and consequential. At the birth of the republic Thomas Jefferson had warned that slavery destroyed slaves’ love of country and made them allies of any foreign power that sanctioned their emancipation. Slavery, he predicted, turned slaves into enemies and nurtured traitors at the American breast. Secessionists seemed heedless of the dangers. They gave no thought to what slaves would do, discounted entirely the matter of slaves’ allegiance. But moving decisively to grasp the opening history offered, slaves made their loyalty and allegiance count and created a significant problem of treason in the Confederacy."

The problem here is that with slavery existing, the CSA would have to operate on some sort of war footing to keep slave revolts from happening; this would be made worse by Northern abolitionists supporting new John Brown wannabes. Even if the Federal Government tried to suppress such activities, they would still be happening to some degree.

Even if by some miracle the CSA achieved recognition and independence, the Confederacy would simply be too unstable to keep going for any length of time.
 
One of the things that would hurt the Confederacy in the long run is that it is a Confederacy, meaning that there is a weak central authority. Even during the Civil War, this was a problem. During said war, states could refuse use of their militia to the Confederate government and sometimes did if they felt the men were needed for defense at home. The constitution also severely restricted the government’s ability to raise money, which led to bread riots in Richmond and other locations in the South.

The Confederacy had the most centralized government in American history, up until the New Deal.
 
At the birth of the republic Thomas Jefferson had warned that slavery destroyed slaves’ love of country and made them allies of any foreign power that sanctioned their emancipation. Slavery, he predicted, turned slaves into enemies and nurtured traitors at the American breast.

Ha! Now tell that to a Jefferson fan in the CSA government.
 
....which provoked a lot of anti-government protests in many areas of the CSA; States like Georgia and North Carolina openly defied Richmond.
... because of adopted war measures and draconian military enforcement, which allowed for the justification of and practical implimentation of the methods for doing so. Try sustaining those in peacetime.
The problem is with over 35% of their population being considered property and only 1.2 million white male voters, the CSA has to be on a quasi-war footing to keep slaves under control. Not only that but the CSA would have to keep military forces on their border with the USA to deter attack and prevent runaways crossing the border.
Another factor is that with cotton being hard on the soil, the CSA has to expand in order to gain fresh soil for cotton planting. I would expect an independent CSA to sponsor "filibusters" to try to take over territories in Central America for that purpose.
Ha! Now tell that to a Jefferson fan in the CSA government.
Yeah, they didn't listen and regretted it.
 
In short, in a world that was slowly industrializing, the Confederate States would've suffered economically due to it's reliance of slaves.

The South was industrializing and often preferred to use slaves in manufacturing, since they could not go on strike.

The constitution also severely restricted the government’s ability to raise money, which led to bread riots in Richmond and other locations in the South

The Bread Riots were not due to the Confederate government's inability to raise money. They happened due to insufficient infrastructure and too many farmers planting cash crops instead of food crops.

The Constitution deliberately weakened the federal government and gave the states more power than the US Constitution did. This is stated in the preamble with the following line: "We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character",

"We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent federal government..." The Confederate Constitution kept the Supremacy Clause, the Commerce Clause, the Neccessary and Proper Clause, and the ability to suspend habeus corpus.

For example, the Confederate government could not levy protective tariffs; direct and capitation taxes and taxes on exports were restricted.

There were no real limits on direct and capitation taxes. Taxes on exports were not restricted and were a source of revenue not available to the Union. What needed reform was the Confederates preferred methods of raising revenue - public debt and inflation.

The ability to make internal improvements was limited to matters regarding ports and harbors, lighthouses, and dredging rivers.

Which the Confederate government belatedly dodged by saying that voting money to the railroads was a defense measure.

The government of the Confederacy could not overrule the decisions of state courts.

Where does the Confederate Constitution say that?
 

Maoistic

Banned
The Confederacy would have to if it wanted to remain alive and not suffer a slave rebellion/revolution. Slavery had become unsustainable in the face of an industrial Union and an industrial Northern Europe that realised the efficiency of wage exploitation. Add to this that the European Scramble for Africa was taking away the Confederacy's source of slaves and that the rhetoric of the Civil War was that it was waged to abolish slavery, and it wasn't a matter of if, but when slavery was going to be abolished. If the Confederacy did this and still managed to survive, I doubt it would have industrialised as well as the North. It would be closer to Mexico than the Union.
 
Other than the fact that slavery was enshrined almost in stone to the CSA Constitution, it seems that a few of the questions that the USA ironed out regarding federal vs state and the nature of the judiciary would have to be answered all over again in the CSA. So a reform may not he totally necessary; amendments may solve some of the big problems such as a 6-year lame duck as President (same as the 12th Amendment solved the bizarre VP situation in the USA) and slavery may technically be legal but just rarely practiced once industrialization kicks in full-swing (it's not an economically efficient model post-Industrial Revolution and industrialists loved money more than they loved owning people) but the issue wit the judiciary may end up being a problem for the CSA if no firm system of federal courts is ironed out.

I wonder when the spirit of states saying "fuck this shit, I'm out" ends if the CSA gains independence. The USA seceded from Britain and the CSA seceded from the USA. In 80 years or so, does Texas take Arkansas and Louisiana and form the Texan States of America, and if they do, do they succeed?
 
In short, in a world that was slowly industrializing, the Confederate States would've suffered economically due to it's reliance of slaves.

Slavery had become unsustainable in the face of an industrial Union and an industrial Northern Europe that realised the efficiency of wage exploitation.

it's not an economically efficient model post-Industrial Revolution and industrialists loved money more than they loved owning people

Wait, I'm confused -- why couldn't they just put their slaves to work doing low-skill work in factories instead of low-skill work on plantations?

Add to this that the European Scramble for Africa was taking away the Confederacy's source of slaves

IIRC, importation was a rather minor source of new slaves by the 1860s.
 
Wait, I'm confused -- why couldn't they just put their slaves to work doing low-skill work in factories instead of low-skill work on plantations?

They could and probably would, but the model would require housing them, feeding them, clothing them, and providing care for their babies. It's much cheaper to simply pay a wage and have them fuck off at the end of the day, especially considering how dirt-poor the wages were at the time.
 
The problem is with over 35% of their population being considered property and only 1.2 million white male voters, the CSA has to be on a quasi-war footing to keep slaves under control.
From before US even existed, up to 1860, southern Colonies and then Southern States controlled their slaves without martial law.

The South was industrializing and often preferred to use slaves in manufacturing, since they could not go on strike.
Yes. Victorious CSA would be among ten most industrialised countries in the world at the time.
Wait, I'm confused -- why couldn't they just put their slaves to work doing low-skill work in factories instead of low-skill work on plantations?
They could and they did. Old myth regarding CSA refuse to die despite being debunked repeatedly.

They could and probably would, but the model would require housing them, feeding them, clothing them, and providing care for their babies. It's much cheaper to simply pay a wage and have them fuck off at the end of the day, especially considering how dirt-poor the wages were at the time.
So? All those things would come out of workers wages anyway. If there is need to pay wages, owners or renters will spend the money on those things.
 
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