Well, simply having a pissed off and likely antagonistic United States is a big reason to stick together. Plus, victory alone will give the Confederates a lot of national pride along with their national heroes like Lee and probably A.S. Johnston. I don't subscribe to the idea of the CSA collapsing like some people do. If the original colonies managed to stay together a form a nation, then the CSA can definitely do it.
Wrapped in Flames: The Great American War and Beyond
- Thread starter EnglishCanuck
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Hard to say really. The woes which beset the Confederacy historically are lessened somewhat here, but at the same time the government in Richmond is attempting to steer the war effort rather than have the individual states try and argue their needs are greater than all the others. Historically, despite the 'states rights' attitude, Davis administration ended up employing some 70,000 employees* and centralized significant power in Richmond.
Possibly this is because all governments have a tendency to centralize, but I think that after the war the Confederate government will have factions who want to centralize more, like the Federalists of OTL, and factions who will oppose a larger government. It's hard to say who would ultimately win that fight, but the strain of maintaining a larger army, creating a professional navy, and managing the national economy during a war is going to force some aspect of centralization in Richmond whether they want it or not.
Personally I lean towards the government in Richmond becoming more powerful over time rather than the reverse. Soldiers will want more funds for the army, sailors will want more funds for the army, men like Trenholm will want the government to subsidize some projects, the need to man and maintain forts and frontier posts, the reasons to concentrate more power in the federal government rather than the states are legion. But It could decentralize, though I don't think Jefferson Davis is the man to let that happen. Maybe Robert Toombs...
The CSA has some hurdles, but I don't think it is inherently more likely to collapse as a nation than the 13 Colonies were when they formed the United States. One thing is that there are powerful men and interests who want to preserve states rights (men like Robert Toombs, Alexander Stephens, Joseph Brown, Zebulon Vance, Louis Wigfall, William P. Miles, ect) while there are others who would seek a stronger executive in the mold of Davis. How the war shapes up will really determine how the government shapes up. However, I think Davis was moving towards a stronger central government anyways.
Yeah I agree. I also think that, the way the South wins the Civil War determines also how much longer slavery exists. For example, I feel like if they win after a McClellan victory in 1864, leading to a negotiated peace, then I think that slavery probably wouldn't last too much longer since irreparable damage has been done to the institution at that point. However, if they win earlier and the war is shorter, then slavery could perhaps last a bit longer. A CSA winning in a Trent War scenario would have slavery last a bit longer than an 1864 victory I think. Hope that all made sense.
As a counterpoint, if the CSA is convinced that that taking steps to end slavery or not will determine if the British make a separate peace while the US is still powerful enough to crush the confederates, a fairly even Trent war would lead to them at least making a timetable to end that institution.
Yes, but how do you convince them that they need the British to win? Remember that OTL they thought they could force the British and the French to support them by withholding cotton exports. They believe they're a lot more powerful than they really are. Right now, if the British threatened to make a separate peace if they didn't promise to abolish slavery, they would refuse, because they think they can still win the war even without the British.
They did so OTL. In March of 1865 the CSA began a program of freeing and arming to slaves to fight the Yankees. Unfortunately it was a case of too little too late.
I disagree. British intervention was something the CSA craved. Now that they have it, they're not going to be too keen on losing it. They're definitely stronger than OTL, but they're not stupid. Keeping the Brits around will be a top priority if it looks like they might leave.
In OTL it was an act of desperation, promising to end slavery for British support is different. I think.
I wonder what would of happened had the Trent Affair not even happened? Would Mason and Slidell have made much difference?
Sure, but it shows that to the Confederates, independence was ultimately more important than keeping slaves.
I mean, they did end up making it to Europe.... and no, they didn't accomplish much.
I imagine the Trent Affair had an impact on how they were received?
In OTL the only slaves freed were ones that would fight. Slavery itself would in theory remain. ITTL the slavers are in a much better place and, i think, unlikely to promise the British to end their peculiar institution to win the war. Unless they hoped to just call it another name like jim crow?
RodentRevolution
Banned
Yes, that their names were heard of in the chancelleries of Europe at all. If Wilkes has possessed the sense to leave well enough alone the likelihood is that they would have been impolitely ignored. The civil war in the United States was a political hot potato that Britain and France wanted to leave well alone. An assault on sovereignty on the other hand was something that could not be ignored.
I think sadly I find your analysis the more convincing. The South had quite extraordinary hubris even for an age when such hubris was almost an obligation among the ruling classes of nations and would be nations. That combined with the fact that the British here have been drawn into the fight for reasons of their own and that preserving slavery was the defining cause of the war for the South pretty much means they will do what they can to hold on to it.
Mind you the post war situation will see them come under increasing international pressure without the protection of the United States. Another question though is the fate of those slaves held legally within the Union at this time, when slavery was abolished within the rebel states the clock was set ticking for its abolition within all states but here it may remain uncomfortably long in the border states. A very ugly outcome but all too possible a one in this scenario.
Supposedly only because Robert E Lee threatened to quit if Jefferson Davis started drafting 14 year olds. The whole arming the slave things was Lee's idea. Though I'm not so sure that if they did manage a victory that the CSA would actually free their black soldiers.
That is false. It was not Lee's idea. He did support it, but the idea initially came from General Patrick Cleburne. And they had to free the slaves after, unless they wanted a huge slave revolt on their hands. Again, they weren't stupid.
Thanks, I wasn't exactly sure.
A nation founded on the sanctity of slavery freeing slaves. That is evidence of exactly how desperate the Confederacy was in 1865
And, I might add, what they truly wanted. Sure, they wanted their slaves, but they'd give them up in order to have independence.
Had the Trent Affair not taken place, Mason and Slidell would have received little comment at all. As it was Mason was essentially irrelevant in Britain, while Slidell accomplished more because he had pre-existing connections in France. His daughter was married to Baron d'Erlanger, which netted influence in the banking houses of France, while knowing Lucien Arman allowed him to secure contracts for warships, though IIRC none were delivered before wars end.
Wilkes showed a stunning lack of sense (one echoed by the entire country for a time) which pretty much ensured a rupture would take place if not handled tactfully. By itself, the Civil War was not a major cause of concern to Europe, but if the US did feel like intruding on European issues the European powers were pretty much obligated to respond. And in this instance the US would have been largely powerless to stop a united European intervention.
My reading is that even with British pressure, the South here, as yet unhumbled, will have zero reason to even consider compromising on their peculiar institution. With the war only two years old for the CSA, and one year for the British, neither party have a vested interest in pushing the issue one way or another.
However, I have also read that the British felt that if the South was independent, the liberal order of Europe could put pressure on them to enlighten them into freeing their slaves. They felt that this was why the tsar had emancipated the serfs, and they felt that this would lead to the emancipation of slaves in the Americas. The idea was an independent South, free of the sectionalism of the North would be more open to this. An unlikely thing, but you can see why they thought that.
Independence without slavery wasn't an option for the Confederate elite. There is a reason they only considered arming slaves when Grant was knocking on the doors of Richmond in March 1865 as the nation fell apart around them. The Cleburne proposal was roughly shot down in 1864, and there wasn't any broad based support for arming black troops as it would "contravene the principals for which we fight" according to one officer. As it was, even this vote barely passed, the House voted 40-37 and the Senate 9-8 and it is unlikely the measure would have passed if not for Lee's personal intervention. Even then it still had firm opposition, Robert Toombs writing: "In my opinion, the worst calamity that could befall us would be to gain our independence by the valor of our slaves, instead of our own… The day the army of Virginia allows a negro regiment to enter their lines as soldiers, they will be degraded, ruined, and disgraced. But if you put our negroes and white men into the army together, you must and will put them on an equality; they must be under the same code, the same pay, allowances and clothing… Therefore, it is a surrender of the entire slavery question."
Making matters worse I think, is that this measure did not stipulate whether the slaves would be freed if they served. Ultimately it was decided freedom would be to the masters on whether after their term of service the slaves would go free or not.