What if...?

[DMB]

...The South had been allowed to secede and there had been no American Civil War?

I was wondering about this in response to this thread. (http://www.talkrational.org/showthread.php?t=7065).

Of course, I imagine that the red state/blue state split won't happen. I can't help wondering, though, if it wouldn't be a good thing if it did. Of course, Blue-state-land wouldn't be quite the superpower that the USA had been, and red-state-land certainly wouldn't be, but once people got used to it, would that be a bad thing?

From there it was a short step to imagining a peaceful secession of the Confederation. What would the subsequent history of the USA and the Confederation have been like? For starters, I doubt that slavery would have been able to survive for a hell of a lot longer.

Any ideas from anyone?

[premjan]

Hitler might have won?

[Lucretius III]

Harry Turtledove has written some novels on a similar theme (I haven't read them myself but my brother is a big fan of his )

http://www.sfsite.com/~silverag/greatwar.html

[Lucretius III]

Hitler might have won?

Actually without American forces at the end of WW1 (late though they were to arrive :)) then it may have ended in a stalemate thus leading to no sense of loss or territorial ambitions in Germany that created the background to WW2.

[DMB]

Harry Turtledove has written some novels on a similar theme (I haven't read them myself but my brother is a big fan of his )

http://www.sfsite.com/~silverag/greatwar.html

They appear to be about an alternative history where the South won the war. I was more interested in what would have happened if there had been peaceful succession. Presumably the USA and the Confederation ought to have been able to get along as well as the united USA and Canada.

[Lucretius III]

As I say I haven't read them myself but there is a USA and a CSA in them so both appear to still exist in his alternate world

[Sarpedon]

I don't think that the CSA could have survived. It would have broken up over every petty dispute. The only thing that kept it united was the war.

The question is whether the Union would have survived.

[Berthold]

Since many states of the USA are as large and prosperous as nation states elsewhere, surely a patchwork map would have been sustainable. One would expect interesting cultural diversity.

[premjan]

Cultural diversity takes a long time to form, there isn't enough in the US to justify separate nation-states. There is barely enough to separate Canada from the USA.

[Berthold]

That's now because the USA have become big, are pretty homogeneous*, and their media culture is dominant in the anglophone world and elsewhere.

*I'm sure the resident Americans will dissent about this!

[premjan]

There are regional variations. If your theory was true, Canada and the USA should vary a lot more.

[dancer_rnb]

There are regional variations. If your theory was true, Canada and the USA should vary a lot more.

I suspect there was more variation in the past. People are much more mobile now.
Also we have much more of a common culture.

[Rilx]

Confederation - as a slave state - had probably stayed a technologically retarded exporter of agricultural products and labor force. CSA had began to resemble Mexico. In any case, in the beginning of 1900s there had been a revolution. Either like Mexican revolution, or a communist revolution.

[Rathpig]

Confederation - as a slave state - had probably stayed a technologically retarded exporter of agricultural products and labor force. CSA had began to resemble Mexico. In any case, in the beginning of 1900s there had been a revolution. Either like Mexican revolution, or a communist revolution.

This is a good point because the issues surrounding the Civil War was not slavery per se, but the necessary expansion of slavery into the western territories. The Southern plantation class had to have this expansion because they needed the new land. Without expansion, this was a dead economic model. The Old South was worn out through poor agricultural practices. The CSA was dependent on industrial importation which required increasing exportation of agricultural products.

The South didn't secede to preserve the Old South, so allowing the South to secede without allowing the Confederacy to expand west would have lead to war anyway. Allowing the Confederacy to have unlimited western slave states would have probably lead to continuous civilian border war in the Midwest which begin before the Civil War anyway and would at some point become a civil war again anyway. With a decade of uninhibited Southern expansion and California would have become a slave state through the legislative process as more pro-slavery politicians were elected. At this point technology and financing would have made the South, assuming they remained a single nation, impossible to defeat in a Civil War. If the South had not remained a single nation, then numerous slave-holding nations would have resulted and the U.S. as we know it would look like the Balkans.


This is a very complex issue because it depends on several aspects of the situation being different from the actual history and avoiding war on every one of these issues. Something as simple as ammonium-nitrate fertilizer would have avoided both the secession and the war. In many ways the war was not inevitable, but a culmination of minor events which at any point could have been different.

The U.S. Civil War began with the 3/5ths Compromise and has not really ended even today.

[DMB]

Don't you think that slavery would have eventually died out anyway?

[Rathpig]

Don't you think that slavery would have eventually died out anyway?

Without a doubt, slavery would have faded. The South in 1850 had more Abolition Societies than the North. The problem with slavery simply fading is that the question of "what next" always plagued the issue. "What next" plagued Lincoln.

Slavery in 1860 was already a rapidly dying institution, but the slaves themselves represented a huge amount of capital that the owners where not going to simply relinquish. The problems with conversion to wage labor is still reflected in suppressed wages in the region. This is where all the expansion issues really became the catalyst for war. Rather than let slavery die with the overworked land, the owners were going to march as far west as possible.

[BWE]

http://slapnose.com/images/blog/1104/1104_usofcanada_320x277.jpg

[Dlx2]

If the South had not remained a single nation, then numerous slave-holding nations would have resulted and the U.S. as we know it would look like the Balkans.

Or would have been steamrolled by Mexico.

[Rathpig]

If the South had not remained a single nation, then numerous slave-holding nations would have resulted and the U.S. as we know it would look like the Balkans.

Or would have been steamrolled by Mexico.

I doubt this. Mexico was fought and defeated largely by the same people who would have populated these nation states. If you look at the Mexican War muster rolls, which was circa 1848, the U.S. used volunteer troops and officers from Southern states. This was due to proximity and willingness to fight as much as anything.

1861-1867 is the French intervention period. If these same areas of the then U.S. had sided with the French instead of fighting a Civil War, Mexico may have been split and held for decades. Mexico as we know it may not even exist today. If these areas were nation states they would have sided with France without a doubt, and you can rest assured Mexico as we know it today would not exist.

Something else to consider would have been the large European mercenary armies these nation states may have employed to protect against each other and clear the native populations. Mexico is really a non-issue from 1848 well into the 20th century.

[cape_royds]

There might have been several secessions in both the Union and the Confederacy, leading as has been said, to Balkanization and a series of wars fought over the half a continent of available land.

The prolonged instability would certainly have messed up the future development of Canada, and perhaps have made Mexico's history even more tumultuous.

One problem not considered is that with a politically disunited America the Monroe Doctrine would have failed. The powers in Europe would have become involved in support of some of the new republics emerging in America, most of which would have been looking for support against their rivals. Perhaps Britain would have worked to minimize that tendency, but all bets would have been off.

Some of the South American countries may have become somewhat better off, if only because they would have become relatively more attractive as destinations for capital and emigrants.

In Europe itself, the population pressure in the late 19th cent. might have been worse because the possibilities for emigration to a peaceful and rapidly developing America may have been limited by all the political instability.

[Jet Black]

the ReUnited States.

[Berthold]

the ReUnited States.
Uh... Have a look at the Spanish World?

[Zygote]

I can't imagine that the consequences of an unfought Civil War would have been harder on the North or South than the actual war and its aftermath.

Nearly 150 years later, deep resentment of the north rankles in the rural south. They were devastated by the war - by the loss of healthy young men, by Sherman's wanton destruction, by opportunistic carpetbaggers. Could the South have been worse off dealing with being a non-industrial society and deciding how to phase out slavery? It seems to me that if they had no one to blame but themselves for their situation, the rifts would be easier to heal.

[RED DAVE]

I can't imagine that the consequences of an unfought Civil War would have been harder on the North or South than the actual war and its aftermath.How about the consequences to the millions of black people suffering in slavery. Or don't they count?

Nearly 150 years later, deep resentment of the north rankles in the rural south.And we should be worried about that or about the fact that the South was perpetuating slavery. If Reconstruction had been carried through thoroughly and systematically, the resentment wouldn't exist.

They were devastated by the warThe South started the war.

by the loss of healthy young menAnd the health young men of the North and black men and women who were slaves?

by Sherman's wanton destructionYou mean the consequnces of the war they started.

by opportunistic carpetbaggersA miserable Southern fantasy.

Could the South have been worse off dealing with being a non-industrial society and deciding how to phase out slavery?Every moment the South existed was slavery for millions.

It seems to me that if they had no one to blame but themselves for their situation, the rifts would be easier to heal.RED DAVE

[Ray Moscow]

Most countries managed to abolish slavery without a war -- gradually phasing it out, buying off the slaveowners, and finally just outlawing it.

The US had become way too polarised for that to work, perhaps, but it did work in most countries with relatively little bloodshed. It wasn't instant justice, but then we didn't get instant justice with the US Civil War, either.

[Rathpig]

And again it must be noted that the U.S. Civil War was not initially concerned with the abolition of slavery. The issue for the Confederate States was the expansion of slavery rights into new territories and the issue for the Union States was the end of secession. Complete abolition was a late war issue and a not the primary motivation of the North in the war.

The political motivation of the non-slave states throughout the 1850's was to limit Southern political power gained through the 3/5ths Compromise. The U.S. Civil War was fought over representative political balance and unionism as much as the issue of slavery. This is why Dred Scott so easily lead to Jim Crow. The concern for chattel slavery and subsequently de jure discrimination was not a primary motivation of the Union philosophy. Remember that prior to April 12, 1861 it was the United States which codified slavery, and the First Emancipation Proclamation did not occur until September 22, 1862 and did not immediately free slaves under Union control.

[ninewands]

I've read a lot of speculation about what might have happened if the South had won the war, but I don't think I've seen anything in the vein DMB is asking about.

I agree with you DMB, I think slavery would have collapsed on it's own, and I'm going to stick my neck WAAaayy out and say I think it would have happened before the turn of the century.

A really interesting question in this line is which states would have, in fact, seceded? I think it's pretty certain that the core, "ol' South" states like Georgia, the Carolinas, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana would have gone. Virginia, while likely to have seceded, would probably not have been a certainty, and Tennessee and Texas would have been "iffy" since their economies were much less dependent on slave-holding for their viability.

A very interesting question comes up in the matter of Maryland, which didn't secede, but which maintained its status as a slave state all through the war. I suspect that in a situation where peaceful secession was allowed Maryland might conceivably have been told, "abolish slavery or go with the others." Of course I am presuming that the Union sentiment would have been one that valued abolition over unity, the reverse of the historical sentiment. Would the United States have maintained DC as its capital, isolated as it would have been, or would the capital have been moved to Philadelphia or New York?

Well, heck, let's get our "Confederacy" established and see where it goes from there. Speculation like this can be fun!

[ninewands]

As I say I haven't read them myself but there is a USA and a CSA in them so both appear to still exist in his alternate world
I've read almost all of them and I have to say, Turtledove must have done a helluvalot of research into the personalities of the prominent players on both side because I find it VERY easy to imagine the movers and shakers acting the way they do in his books.

[ninewands]

I don't think that the CSA could have survived. It would have broken up over every petty dispute. The only thing that kept it united was the war.
Assuming the seceding states would have formed a new republic, I don't think it would have survived. However, I don't think it would have been because of internecine squabbling. I just don't think the South could have put together a viable economy.

The industrial center of the CSA was Birmingham, Alabama. The steel mills in Birmingham existed because of the coal and iron ore resources of the Black Warrior Basin in northern Alabama. In comparison to the Appalachian coal resources and the iron ore in the Mesabi Range of Minnesota, these resources were pitiful.

Without a manufacturing base of its own, the Confederacy would have been, as Rathpig said, an exporter of raw materials and an importer of finished goods. The trade imbalances caused by this situation would have quickly crushed the economy of the Confederacy and turned it into a third world nation, or, alternatively, forced a reunification with the North.
The question is whether the Union would have survived.
I think it would have, but it would not have had nearly the influence the United States has had on world affairs. Hoiwever, this would not necessarily have been a bad thing, on balance.

[Rathpig]

Of course I am presuming that the Union sentiment would have been one that valued abolition over unity, the reverse of the historical sentiment.

This should be repeated because you are correct that the true majority historical sentiment was primarily unionist. Few Union soldiers cared personally about abolition outside of the politics which slavery represented. Much of this began with the 3/5th Compromise.

Far too many people in secondary schools and even many college programs are taught that abolition was a primary factor. Slavery, specifically the expansion of slavery, was a primary factor, but abolition itself was secondary. Without expansion or succession this would have probably remained an academic political issue only.

Even in the border war between Kansas and Missouri, it was expansion and the political power of the slave owning class that fueled much of the conflict. Pro-slavery Missourians were traveling to Kansas to illegally vote the slavery ticket under the popular sovereignty concept. Henry Ward Beecher supplying abolitionist Kansan immigrants with Sharp's rifles was as a defensive measure, and the defensive stance was common. With the exception of John Brown, very few violent offensive acts were committed solely in the name abolition. Though violence was committed in the name of the "Free State" position, it is highly unlikely a war would have resulted to force abolition in the existing slave states.

The stupid move of The South was not firing on Sumter. That could have been solved without a war. Succession was the one thing that forced Lincoln to act. When Succession became wide-spread, war was probably unavoidable.


I am currently doing research in the irregular combatant situation in Missouri and Arkansas. It is fascinating that an "insurgent" situation of guerrilla warfare existed in the area for over 10 years on both sides of the slavery issue and ultimately as pure outlawry in most cases. Much of this primary documentation hasn't been touched.

Daniel E. Sutherland at the University of Arkansas has done some great work in this area. Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Daniel%20E.%20Sutherland&page=1)

[DrLight]

Perhaps its because I'm British that I find it very odd that no one has mentioned British involvement in our Civil-NonWar.
The British government would have great interest in supporting a Confederacy, as a source of raw materials and a place to sell finished goods, as mentioned by Ninewands.
In which case I wonder if they might not end up with Dominion status, similar to Canada?

This might well heavily restrict the United States, with British States on either side of it - what do people think?

Of course abolition would be part of the deal, but I think monetary recompense and the surety of the Empire's protection would outweigh any sense of loss of freedom.

Or from an expansionist Empire perspective, supply the Confederacy with aid and encourage it to stop French Imperial designs in Mexico. That would give the Confederacy extra land as recompense for abolition when they join the Empire.

[dancer_rnb]

Perhaps its because I'm British that I find it very odd that no one has mentioned British involvement in our Civil-NonWar.
The British government would have great interest in supporting a Confederacy, as a source of raw materials and a place to sell finished goods, as mentioned by Ninewands.
In which case I wonder if they might not end up with Dominion status, similar to Canada?

This might well heavily restrict the United States, with British States on either side of it - what do people think?

Of course abolition would be part of the deal, but I think monetary recompense and the surety of the Empire's protection would outweigh any sense of loss of freedom.

Or from an expansionist Empire perspective, supply the Confederacy with aid and encourage it to stop French Imperial designs in Mexico. That would give the Confederacy extra land as recompense for abolition when they join the Empire.

What makes you think they would want to join the empire?
I've read some of the speculative work where this was seen as a delusion held by some Brits, but with no real basis among the confederate population.

[Rathpig]

The Confederacy would have had no desire whatsoever to "join" the British Empire. The abolition of slavery was obviously not something that would have been entertained in any form by the CSA during the negotiations for British assistance. The problem was that Britain had no desire to actually side with the CSA if this meant the loss of the Northern markets. The British wanted both sides of the war profiteering, but this became restricted by the blockade fairly early in the war.

If the North had simply let the South succeed, the need for massive amounts of British war-material would have been lessened and simple trade as it had existed prior to 1860 would have continued. Ironically, trade with the North would have probably been a major competitor with Britain had the war been avoided. This was also a period of western expansion which required massive amounts of manufactured goods and machined goods to establish mills and mines. The war slowed western expansion greatly, so the lack of a war would have seen drastic changes along the frontier edge which finally occurred in the 1870's.

I would speculate that the lack of a war would have been a loss for the British Empire because war material, ships for the CSA, and the goods exported for post-war rebuilding were massive. The standard CSA rifled musket was the Enfield and it was the second most common Union musket. No war and no need for hundreds of thousands of the Pattern 1853 Enfield. Even after the arms embargo to appease Lincoln, the British used private contractors and blockade runners to supply the Southern need for rifles.

[lpetrich]

Although it is certainly correct that the North was not very into abolishing slavery, the South was very firm on preserving slavery. Southern politicians repeated over and over again that they wanted to protect slavery, and they even pushed through the Fugitive Slave Act, which gave them the right to bring back runaway slaves. Southern slave owners even kidnapped free young black men to work on their farms by claiming that they were runaway slaves.

And Southern clergymen repeated over and over again that black people have the curse of Ham on them, that they ought to be subject to white people and work for white people's benefit because some legendary ancestor had been a Peeping Tom.

Many northern churches were not very eager to oppose slavery; some of them complained that they did not want to cut their "silken ties" to their Southern coreligionists.


As to opposition to slavery, I've seen an interesting argument that a lot of it was from a relatively selfish motive. Lots of lower-middle-class sorts of people opposed slavery because they thought that it would tilt the balance of power too much in employers' favor, that they'd be competing with "employers" who did not have to worry about their
"employees" running away to better-paying jobs and even starting small businesses.


And how might history have turned out if the North had decided to accept the South's secession? There would likely have been a cold war between the North and the South, and the two new nations would have competed for western territory and trade with European nations.

It is farther to the West Coast from the North than from the South, but the North was more industrialized and richer, and could more easily finance building a transcontinental railroad line. So the North might have gotten San Francisco and the Central Valley, while the South might have gotten Los Angeles and San Diego. But if the North got to the West Coast with the South still struggling along in the southwestern desert, then the North would have gotten all of California.

The North would have been in a weaker position relative to Canada than the US in our timeline, and would have found it more difficult to confront Canada over the Pacific Northwest. Canada might have gotten all the land north of the Pacific Northwest, which is most of Washington State.

Alaska? The North may not have been rich enough to purchase it from Russia, so the Russians would have had a foothold in North America.

Hawaii? It might have become a British instead of an American colony.

Latin America? A divided US would have found it more difficult to meddle there, and the Spanish-American War may have been a minor skirmish over Cuba, with Spain still holding on to the Philippines.

So at the turn of the last century, North America would have been divided into five east-west strips; from north to south:

Russia
Canada
The United States of America proper
The Confederate States of America
Mexico

The CSA would have belatedly industralized, but when it did, mechanization of agriculture would have put much of the rural population out of business, as it did elsewhere, and the increasing urban working class could have successfully pushed for abolishing slavery.

Would the USA and CSA have reunited? I can't say for sure, but they would have gradually reconciled.


As to WWI, the US would likely have not been able to make much of a difference; the two halves may well have chosen different sides. But Britain and France had been more accessible by sea than Germany, so both of them might have ended up supporting Britain and France.

So after the Bolshevik Revolution, the "Great War" might likely have ended in a stalemate, with western and central Europe returning to its prewar borders and the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary) getting much of the westernmost territories of the Russian Empire: the Baltic states, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, ...

This was from the treaty of Brest-Litovsk that they signed with Vladimir Lenin early in 1918. In our timeline, that did not last long, because of the defeat of the Central Powers, while in this timeline, the Central Powers were less weakened, and could have held on to that territory. They could either have annexed it or turned it into nominally independent states allied with it, but the Bolsheviks would likely not have gotten Ukraine and Belarus.

A certain Austrian corporal and painter of landscapes would have felt more satisfied with how the war turned out, settling down into a quiet life and blaming his lack of professional success on the Jews and the Bolsheviks.

Eastern Europe would likely have continued to be a sore spot, especially if the Central Powers had decided to stay in control, and there might have been wars off and on there for some decades.

I'll stop here for now.