Suppose that the Southern States had won the Civil War?

Post Reply New Topic

There is no way the CSA could -conquer- the USA. The best they could hope for is that the USA would recognize them as an independent and sovereign nation.

The USA had twice the population of the CSA and three times the white populatation of the CSA. The USA was richer and better armed. The only question is whether the folks in the USA would get tired of fighting the war and settle with the CSA. Apparently not.

ruveyn

Yeah, ruveyn is quite right on this issue. The North had a stronger economy, a more industrial economy, and more people. The south had more military experience, but still, the south could never really hope to take over the North.


Well, it really seems to me that most of the Southern states mention slavery in their declarations of secession rather clearly. I mean, I will agree that the Civil War was not about the morality of slavery, but rather about the economic results. After all, the North didn't go to war planning to free the slaves, but rather because they disagreed with the secession.

This is what people from the South say all the time. It makes them feel better. Germans will also tell you that the USA did not enter the Second World War to save the Jews. This is also true.



Actually, slaves outnumbered free people in several of the Southern states. Granted, many of the slaves were more white than black, but I don't really know how many. I don't think that the Census really counted slaves by race.

The USA used to have strong restrictions against immigration from non-Whites--especially Chinese and Japanese. I don't really know why. But, most of them went to the West Coast rather than the old CSA.

Most Chinese immigration was post Civil War. Chinese labor was sought to help build the western ends of the transcontinental railroads.

ruveyn

Harry Harrison has explored this in several directions. In one series, the CSA gets enough backing from Europe to stop the war. They don't really win. A second war occurs a generation later over the development of the west. Then WWI with the CSA and USA on opposite sides; ditto WW2.

I really prefer his series where Prince Albert dies a little earlier and the British come in for the CSA. Has some interesting twists.

Like all of his alternate fictions, they are very will constructed and reflect a deep knowledge of the politics of the time.

There was a movie awhile back called C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America that covered this topic, It would have
been a very different would we be living in is the south had won, I actually had great great grandfathers who fought on
both sides in that war.

I never was good at supposing...

Indentured servitude, wasn't it? Maybe somewhat better than slavery, but not a whole lot.

If the South had won, then cheap Chinese labour would have been completely unnecessary.

I had one grandfather in the Waffen SS, the other one in the Wehrmacht. The SS was much mor fun than the Wehrmacht, they agreed.

Wage labor. The wages were not very good.

If the CSA had won, then Southron railways would have been built by chattel slaves. Northern railways would still have been built by wage labor. Also they would have been better since the Yankee, George Westinghouse invented both the air-brake and block signals.

if the CSA had won the Union would have been smaller, but not conquered. There is no way a country with five million white citizens and four million negro slaves could occupy and conquer a republic with twenty million citizens. It could not have been done. As it was, much of the manpower of Dixie was employed in preventing slaves from escaping to the north.

ruveyn

Last edited by ruveyn on 24 Oct 2009, 8:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

No offense as I've lived in the south most of my life but if the southern states won the war I'd be living up north. There are many great southern people who are absolutely loveable, but down here there are also way too many rednecks and religionists for my taste and I'd hate to see what life would be like if they had their way.

The Harry Harrison books were fun; also check out the long series of books by Harry Turtledove. About 6-7 novels set between the Civil War and WWII (the South gets a Hitler, and it gets stranger from that).

I remember reading about the CSA movie; commercials for slave dealers, etc.

There was a book written back in the 30s (I think...it was definitely a hardback), about 'If the South had won the Civil War'...but there's been many treatings of it over the years.

Surprisingly, the South was much closer to Socialism (including an internal police arm charged with executing deserters) back then. The war was about a lot of things; Preserving the Union (North), State's Rights (South), some economics (the Irish were cheap labor at that time), and overall intransigence. It took 3 amendments to clean up the Constitution from the provisions for slavery (3/5ths of a 'person' for Census and representatives' allocation)

It would have been strange...

I think this is a short novel by McKinley Kantor. There was also a novel by Ward Moor entitled -Bring the Jubilee-. I believe Winston Churchill (yes, that Churchill) also wrote an essay on what would have happened if the CSA won its independence.

There are also several alternative history novels by Harry Turtledove on the subject. One of the, The Guns of the South is fairly good.

ruveyn

Yeah, like someone else said, I think the country would've been split into the CSA, Cascadia, and the USA. The reason the Cascadia movement fell through though, is because the US government put on a huge propaganda campaign that linked it with the south and slavery...

But I think it would've been better if we split up. The south could have their own little backwater, impoverished, theocratic, racist republic to themselves without them bothering the rest of us. Then we in the ol' Pacific Northwest could have our tree-hugging, hippie place without anyone bothering us.

Who knows, though. Maybe more regions would've ended up splitting off?

I toyed with writing a sci fi novel about that.

America becomes two countries. The north would not be able to afford to buy alaska from russia. Alaska get siezed by Japan in the 1905 russo japanese war.

During the depression both americas are driven to politcal extremes. The confederacy elects a a kind of cross between Huey Long and George Wallace type- an american fascist.

The south becomes allied to the axis, the north to the allies. And the US ends up refighting the civil war-but with the weapons of world war two.

North america ends up as devestated as Europe and Japan were in the reall ww2. There for no marshal plan for rebuilding europe. And the whole world slips back into the dark ages.

Thank gawd lee surrendered!

Slavery in the South would have died out in the late 1800s. I am not sure about racial segregation though. It would have lasted much longer.