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Just a quick poser for you people better read in the American Civil War than I (which is pretty much everyone I'm afraid).

How do you think the world would look had the South successfully seceded from the Union? Which major historical figures would have been in a different role etc?

We'd still be seeing coloured people picking cotton for sure.

Perhaps. Certainly Britain abandoned the slave trade due to large amounts of public pressure.

But like I said, pretty much ignorant on timescales etc. No idea if this happened before, during or after the Civil War like.

Britain abandoned the slave trade long before the American Civil War. Actually, the biggest reason for the Emancipation Proclamation was to try and garner support from Europe (at least enough support to keep them from backing the south).

Also, http://www.csathemovie.com/ gives a pretty complete (and occasionally amusing) overview.

Yarr. I seem to recall being told that Britain fiddled around with both sides? Whether hoping to end up pally with the eventual victor, or just to prolong the war, I dunno though!

BrookM wrote:We'd still be seeing coloured people picking cotton for sure.

Actually I believe your wrong here. Blacks might have eventually garnered some sort of freedom from bondage in the south. Because slavery really was becoming a less and less useful tool to farm with. Machinery became more and more efficient than taking care of hundreds of people on ones farm. If the south had won though, blacks would still be at a major disadvantage socially still today. Also the south would probably not be as developed as it is now.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Yarr. I seem to recall being told that Britain fiddled around with both sides? Whether hoping to end up pally with the eventual victor, or just to prolong the war, I dunno though!

I think you were pissed that we had blockaded the south's cotton.

You guys sure liked your frilly clothes.

The South was all like "Cotton is Fin' aces yall!" and then we found it it tweren't true.

Well, not wasting any time in pointing out how unlikely a southern victory is, the first key is to determine what you mean by the south winning. It's extremely unlikely that the south can actually conquer the north: they logistics don't support it, and the states, the confederacy, and even the manpower were more than willing to stop at independence. Given how uncomfortable the army of Northern Va. was in the brief invasion campaigns, any steps to move further north than DC would probably collapse on themselves. Add into that the fire that would give to the pro-war factions in the union, and some sort of declared peace, possibly due to either the fall of DC or simple exhaustion in the North are the more likely vicotry conditions.

Next, the question has to be: did Britain (or another country) aid the Confederacy. It's hard to see a situation where Britain throws in it's lot with the Confederacy. Lincoln had made it pretty clear that if Britain gets involved with what was an internal matter, maybe other countries would start interfering with Britains internal matters, notably Ireland. Toss in the anti-slavery sentiments of Britain, and the fact that there was nothing really to gain from intervening, and that situation seems romantic. Even if britain did intervene, it never had the largest army, so it's help would mostly be economic and naval. The confederacy, after the first year or so, was constantly losing ground in the west, meaning that they were losing armies and territory even while there was the stalemate in the East. That said, a British blockade of the Union could have lead to increasing anti-war sentiment. It also could have lead to a third invasion of Canada, and possible war in Europe (there was no shortage of countries unhappy with the British Hegemony). All told, any confederate victory would have to be home grown, most likely.

So, how could it happen? Well, if Booth could easily kill Lincoln after the war, it's possible lincoln gets shot during the war. Without him to hold together the pro war factions, there might be a settled peace after a couple of bad union losses. Maybe the lost orders aren't lost. Maybe Stonewall jackson doesn't die and gettysbug goes really bad for the union. So, the North decides to play "let's make a deal." Here's another problem with most of these scenarios in alternate history worlds: does anybody really think that the North, who by 63 had held kentucky, regained Tennessee, held New Orleans and all but Vicksburg on the Mississippi (which fell in July of 1863), and was in no imminent danger of losing ground on any front would simply give away the store? Odds are the CSA gets back the states that formally seceded, Missouri and Kentucky stay in the North, and the CSA loses all claims to western territories.

So what does that create? A small nation, devestated by war, absent any really indiginous industry, and an already obsolete agricultural economy. Meanwhile, the north can expand west, will focus more on defense due to a hostile nation to it's south, and might even become more aggressive in gaining colonies. In the south, escaped slaves know that making it over the Mason Dixon is home free, as there is no Fugitive Slave act. They might not be welcome in the North, but they're not going back to slavery. As the value of cotton goes down, so too does the southern Economy.

It's hard to predict if the two nations would rejoin, or when the south would abandon chattel slavery. I think the owners would hold out for a generation, simply to justify the war, and then would phase it out organically. Of course, its also possible that the system atrophies, that the planters cling to slavery to keep their position at all costs. Also keep in mind that the CSA had a very weak national government, and it's likely that individual states either go fully independent or return the Union.

The real question is if the US would eventually reconquer the south. The north was more industrial, more populous, and more organized than the south was during the war, and those trends were only going to become more pronounced. It's not hard to imagine a second war 20 years later that results in a hard and fast union victory.

Polonius, I like how you put a ton of thought into that and are very well educated on the matter.

Care to expand even more on your ideas? I'd love to hear.

Well, the biggest problem I see with most people's fantasy's here is the idea that the South would have taken over the North. The C.S.A. was trying to secede, not conquer. So you'd have a much smaller United States of America and the separate nation of the Confederate States of America.

I'd venture that after seeing the south's successful secession the western states would have gone a similar route and formed their own nation (Californidonia?) so the U.S.A. of this alternate reality would probably just be made up of the north eastern and northern central states. I'd venture that WWI would end very similar, though without American troops helping the allies they would have suffered even more grievous losses, perhaps making the war reparations against German even worse. The big things happen during the 1940s. No US presence on the West Coast would mean no Pearl Harbor, no powerful nation stepping in to stop Japan from creating a Pacific empire. A much weaker U.S.A. means no arsenal of Democracy for England and Russia, so Germany seizes Europe. After generations of being lead by what would be describable as a Caucasian aristocracy, teaching values that non-whites are lower class, surrounded by "negros" and pinned against the Latino and Mexican cultures, I am sure the social values would been changed to the point where the C.S.A. could have swallowed the Nazi's "master race" propaganda and likely interfered against the U.S.A during the war.

Are you setting up some kind of hypothetical Nazis rule the world scenario?

Polonius gave a very well-thought out answer.

The CSA's most realistic chance of winning was to defeat the Army of the Potomac and capture Washington DC, causing a collapse of Union morale and hopefully international recognition for the CSA, which would lead to a peace treaty.

This had to be done early in the war, before the Union's big superiority in everything except good generals could be brought to bear. The war would therefore have been short and not very destructive to either side.

Howevethe root cause of the war would not have been solved. The CSA's objective was to preserve slavery, and Northern anti-slavery sentiment would not evaporate simply because they lost. The Union fought to preserve the Union, and this objective though failed in the short term could be re-instated in the long term.

I doubt a treaty with the CSA would have led to the secession of the western territories and states. If anything, the Union would have a greater motive to hang on to them, and no longer being at war with the CSA, greater means too.

IMO the most likely outcome would be a second war within a few years, leading to the destruction of the CSA, but the aftermath would be more bitter.

If the South had won, as Swordbreaker pointed out, it would have been able to secede rather than conquer the North.

The South was the agricultural behemoth of that time and the North needed the goods not only for food, but textiles and raw material for it's industry. The south needed the goods from the industrial North. So given the dependancies of the two nations what could be the possible outcomes?

Trade relations are opened between the two nations. Even with the animosity between the two countries the fact would remain that it would be far cheaper to produce and ship goods across established trade routes between states than look to Europe and it's colonies for the same goods. In this I believe the south would be at an advantage. The South could look elsewhere for industrial goods, albeit at a higher price, but there was no substitute for the sheer volume of agriculture provided by the Southern states. I believe this outcome would require the backing of European powers to prevent hostilities from breaking out again and legitimise the C.S.A.'s government.

Not being able to come to agreeable trade relations tensions could rise or greed could drive hostilities to reopen and war would continue, most likely with the North winning due to their industrial and finacial strength, unless foreign powers interdicted. Had England or France stepped up and lent the South their support the outcome of the war would have been very different. It should be noted, however, that until the Imancipation Proclimation Europe was very pro-South. After Lincoln changed the war from solely preserving the Union to include stamping out slavery, views changed significantly and ultimately doomed the secessionist cause.

Relations could eventually normalize. Between the interdependencies of the two nations and the slave argument eventually dying out as farmers found the efficency in cost and output of machines outpacing that of slave labor, those states might rejoin the Union, with maybe a few die hard States lagging behind.

There are a number of possibilities. It's my belief that the war ended in the only way it could have. The South would need foreign powers to step in and help. With the politics of the time and Russia's overt siding with the North (anchoring two fleets, one in San Fransisco and the other in New York), the unease Napoleon caused within Europe at the time, France's failed attempt to expand the Empire into Mexico, there was just too much turmoil for England or France to be comfortable with taking a position, let alone intervening in a meaningful fashion.

That's my take on it. I could be way off though lol. I'm no Historian.

What do you mean. Acording to them thay did win.

garret wrote:What do you mean. Acording to them thay did win.

According to the South? Yeah we kind of did. We have sweet tea, some of the nicest people around, some of the nicest places to live around. If you look at the north, they're all ass holes, their food sucks, and they can't seem to slow down. But the all the time on the go attitude is rubbing off on us a little I have to say. And we get to be part of America, the most powerful nation on the planet. Pretty sweet deal, considering all we had to give up was a few slaves we didn't really need anyway.

@ Tyras. I think you're over estimating the North's reliance on southern goods. The south's big products were cash crops, things like cotton, tobacco, indigo, and sugarcane. Even in the industrial revolution, the North had plenty of farms. Hell, even today Agriculture is the third biggest industry in states like Michigan (behind manufacturing and tourism). Yes, there was trade between the north and the south, but for being an agricultural state the Confederacy seemed to chronically be short of food while the North was well fed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_civil_war#Threat_of_international_intervention

This section points out that even during the war, the North was exporting grain to Europe. The line was "King corn is more powerful than King Cotton."

I'd also disagree that Europe was very pro south. I think most nations inherent sympathies laid with the south, if for no other reason than the South had an aristocracy, which still meant a lot in Europe. Britain's distaste for slavery is well known, and any other nation's involvement would require Britain's at least tacit approval. Britain arguably even had causus belli after the trent affair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trent_Affair), but still did nothing. The main article on Britain in the Civil war also points out that Britain wanted to make sure that it's blockades were respected, and working against the US harmed that goal.

By the 1860's, the North was roughly the same population as Great Britian (22 million each), and while the UK was more industrial, any war fought between the US and the UK woudl be in North America. BTW Canada was only 3 Million, making an invasion very, very likely.

Typeline wrote:

garret wrote:What do you mean. Acording to them thay did win.

According to the South? Yeah we kind of did. We have sweet tea, some of the nicest people around, some of the nicest places to live around. If you look at the north, they're all ass holes, their food sucks, and they can't seem to slow down. But the all the time on the go attitude is rubbing off on us a little I have to say. And we get to be part of America, the most powerful nation on the planet. Pretty sweet deal, considering all we had to give up was a few slaves we didn't really need anyway.

Yes but in the north we tend to have all our teeth. and dont feth our cousins.

I can only point to France's Emperor Napoleon III desired a Southern victory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_III_of_France and the British supplying war material to the South (C.S.S Alabama) and the fact that 11,000 British Army troops were sent to Canada over the Trent affair and only an apology from Lincoln and the release of Mason and Slidell averted likely military action from Britain. Granted England's attitude towards the Confederacy was no where near as cordial as France's it was still sypathetic enough to discount them as an ally to the Union.

I stand corrected on the Agriculture of the South during the Civil War.

Everything would be completely privatized. IIRC the Confederate Constitution forbid the state to interfere with free enterprise or to provide services that could be provided by private businesses. So schools, roads, hospitals, police departments, fire departments, utilities, and many other services would be private. The result would likely be that the burden of cost for these services would shift almost entirely to the middle and lower class resulting in the almost complete death of social mobility in the South.

On the bright side, if you lived in the north, you could hire day laborers for the same price as one currently can who speak your language (kinda.)

garret wrote:

Typeline wrote:

garret wrote:What do you mean. Acording to them thay did win.

According to the South? Yeah we kind of did. We have sweet tea, some of the nicest people around, some of the nicest places to live around. If you look at the north, they're all ass holes, their food sucks, and they can't seem to slow down. But the all the time on the go attitude is rubbing off on us a little I have to say. And we get to be part of America, the most powerful nation on the planet. Pretty sweet deal, considering all we had to give up was a few slaves we didn't really need anyway.

Yes but in the north we tend to have all our teeth. and dont feth our cousins.

sorry to ruin your mental image, but we actually have our teeth, and I've yet to meet anyone that went around shagging their cousins.

I think you've watch a few to many old tv shows

edit-and northerners may or may not talk funny

Sorry, but as someone who has lived in both the North and the South, I can say with relative certainty that the North has a higher tooth-to-mouth ratio.

Tyras wrote:I can only point to France's Emperor Napoleon III desired a Southern victory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_III_of_France and the British supplying war material to the South (C.S.S Alabama) and the fact that 11,000 British Army troops were sent to Canada over the Trent affair and only an apology from Lincoln and the release of Mason and Slidell averted likely military action from Britain. Granted England's attitude towards the Confederacy was no where near as cordial as France's it was still sypathetic enough to discount them as an ally to the Union.

Well, I think everybody in Europe, Russia aside, saw that a divide America would be in their best interests. Napoleon III had some big plans, but he couldn't hold onto france, much less project power. The brits did sell material to the South, but the also sold to the North. The alabama also was build privately, not by the Crown. Russia (and the swiss, oddly) acitvely supported the union, going so far as to station fleets around the US and authorizing attacks on british and confederate shipping if britain recognizes the confederacy.

The British armed up during the Trent Affair, but I think that has less to do with support for the Confederacy as it does defending it's own ships.

None of the governments of Europe did much to actively support the Confederacy. Britain sold arms and ships, but aside from that much of the support the south enjoyed was purely moral, not material. On the pro-union side, Britain did nothing to stop the blockade, closed it's ports to prize ships (so the confederates couldn't take captive ships to british ports), continued to allow immigration to the US (many of those immigrants fought for the Union), and still bought corn from the Union. The british government may have wanted a divided America, but they knew they couldn't get it. There were also strong anti-slavery forces in both the nobility and the commoners in England.

Don't forget that the US didn't have strong European allies back then, we were isolationist enough to not be involved with it. So, it's not surprising that France didn't jump up at the possibility of backing us. In fact, the pro-southern policies seemed to have less to do with supporting the south and more with simply wanting a quick end to the war.

You know what would have happened if the south had won its freedom?



CRIMSON SKIES, feth YEAH!

Southerners of the toothless variety are more on the older scale. Most of the younger ones tend to keep their teeth and take pretty well care of them.

All conspiracy stuff aside, fluoridated water really has helped dental hygiene.

Don't get me wrong, I've found my time in the south to be confusing and bizarre, but the people do tend to be friendly.

I simply cannot drink sweet tea though. Way too sugary for my tastes.

For those interested in similar scenarios.

http://io9.com/5113987/how-the-south-won-the-american-civil-war

Polonius wrote:

I simply cannot drink sweet tea though. Way too sugary for my tastes.

Lol, it is something on an aquired taste, i suppose.

BloodofOrks wrote:Sorry, but as someone who has lived in both the North and the South, I can say with relative certainty that the North has a higher tooth-to-mouth ratio.

But in the South, we have a higher 'foot-to-ass' ratio.

Just messin around.

I think the more interesting question is: what if the United States had allowed to South to secede, and THEN gone to war with them like making war against any other foreign nation?

The thing is, I agree with the South. They should have been allowed to go. What Union is worth maintaining when citizens are forced to remain within it against their own free will? The South had precisely the same sort of moral and political basis for their secession movement that the Colonials did when they declared independence from Great Britain. The North was entirely and completely in the wrong for forcing the South to remain part of the United States. When Southerners call it "The War of Northern Aggression," I think they're right.

The North made a HUGE mistake in keeping the South part of the United States, and I think now the whole country is paying the price. I live in Mass., and I think this is the best state in the Union by far. We're more free, are better educated, have better health care, better public transportation...all in all we pay a lot in taxes but our quality of life is amazing. I find it not just coincidence that Boston is where the Revolution was well and truly born, and now we're one of the most advanced cities in the country.

If the South had been allowed to go, and then just decimated like they actually were to eliminate them as economic competition and draw Britain away from them as economic partners, I think the Northeastern United States would have been the blueprint for the rest of the nation...and once things had sufficiently fallen apart the South would have come crawling back to be re-admitted into the Union, and we could have stripped them of a lot of their political power and you wouldn't see the sort of liberal vs. conservative dogmatic divide in our Federal government like you see right now. Look at the way votes in Presidential elections get split so clearly regionally...which regions are keeping the Republicans afloat?

If the North had allowed the South to go, and THEN let Sherman go on his march without any responsibility to rebuild things later, our modern politics might be Moderate-to-Liberal rather than Conservative-to-Moderate and we'd be properly in the 21st century by now rather than struggling to catch up.