What if Buchanan/Lincoln had let them go?

[LaCroix]

I was watching a documentary on the Civil War recently, and I came up with some questions.

Under the assumption that Buchanan would simply have pulled all Federal assests out of South Carolina (including Sumpter) and let them have their cake and choke on it, what would have happened next?

You could make an argument that the other 6 'initial' states would also secede before Lincoldn took office, granted the same conditions (probably during the February peace conferency), but historically, the other states weren't that displeased with the status quo, and only seceded after war broke out. So it is worth discussing wether they would leave the union immediately.

How would this coexistence work out in the long term - was it viable? Would the Confederacy simply turn into a second-rate country once it was decoupled from the Union's industry? What would be the impact on history as we know it?

[Sea Skimmer]

Fighting was already ongoing in the west and had been for a while, war would still have a strong chance of breaking out anyway when the Confederates seize all the federal arsenals and customs houses (containing tens of millions in gold) in ordered to decide that fighting.

[Simon_Jester]

Perhaps then, we should modify the question:

What if the White House had been willing to take the steps necessary to disengage from the rebel states on all fronts, and the Confederacy had cooperated to such an extent as to make this 'uncontested secession' possible?

[LaCroix]

Perhaps then, we should modify the question:

What if the White House had been willing to take the steps necessary to disengage from the rebel states on all fronts, and the Confederacy had cooperated to such an extent as to make this 'uncontested secession' possible?

Yes, that was my implied scenario - controlled pull out of federal assets and cessation of all hostilities after a sucessfull Peace conferency in February that resulted in an ordered and uncontested secession of the 7 core Confederated states.

So we start with a clean slate, assets are divided up according to calculated percentages, military units are relocated and reorganized to only contain the correct nationality, Confederated/Union nationals are either transferred to their respective countries or given passports and visas, border control is created, Diplomats exchanged, etc.

So we don't have an immediate war, but precedent of peaceful secession.

The question now is, will the Confederacy prosper? Will other states secede? Will some States secede the Confederacy and try to rejoin the Union? What would be the political impact of states being allowed to secede at will, but only reapply by approval vote. What would be the geopolitical impact of having three Northamerican countries with a south-north axis of social-liberal thinking (Confederacy the worst, Canada the most social society).

[Flagg]

Here's a better one, what if Lee rode a unicorn?

[Simon_Jester]

Oooh, pointless -1 post!

The real problem with secession is that the kind of president who'd take the secession lying down is probably the kind the southern states wouldn't have wanted to secede from. The federal government of the 1850s had been quite favorable to the preservation and even expansion of slavery; as long as that condition stayed true the South had nothing to gain from leaving. Once it ended with Lincoln having obviously won the election of 1860, you saw southern states deciding to take their marbles and go home.

And even though Congress is generally the more powerful branch over the long haul in 19th century America, the president is a key figure here because so many of the decisions are military and administrative, such as deciding whether or not to reinforce an important fortress.




If you could get it to work, the South would face a major economic problem pretty quickly, in the form of competition for cotton exports with Egypt and India. The antebellum South is just not set up to deal with a changing economic world, because the slave labor system is very much an immobile system. Then the Confederate cotton crop gets eaten by boll weevils in the 1890s.

Pretty soon, the only people with any money are the Texas oil barons, and the CSA becomes the world's first Third World petrostate...

[this is exaggerated, but I suspect that the economic trends I describe would occur and affect the CSA's viability as a modern-ish nation]

[Flagg]

My point dumbass, was that the chances of this scenario existing is about the same as that of a unicorn. You know, in that it never could. By your own admission the Southern states wouldn't secede under conditions in which theirs secession would be allowed. So to summarize, it's about as likely as Lee riding a unicorn. But hey, what if Napoleon had jets?

[CaptHawkeye]

I can't believe the the Northern States would simply be content with the Feds just letting the South leave, AND occupy Federal lands, forts, and buildings. That sort of implies the Federal Government is either unable or unwilling to do its job. I'd expect a coup or overthrow of some sort, and Lincoln's replacement with a leader who's willing to pursue an aggressive course against the South.

[LaCroix]

My idea was that first, Lincoln wasn't such a hardliner as the south believed (a candidate turning out to be something else than people believed is not exactly something that never happens), and that people agreed to the southern interpretation of the state's right of secession.

Also, a heavy dose of "I certainly will not let my son die over some stupid negroes, as evil as slavery might be" eroding support for a war that was realized to be a long and bloody one.

With a compromise of letting the federal assets being withdrawn back into the union in exchange for release from the union, the deal might not be too bad for the north. The remaining states even get more political power, as the artificially increased voting block of slave owners (Three fifths compromise) really shifted numbers in congress. Depending on whether it was already forseeable that the economic power of the south was dwindling, they might be very well willing to let these almost uninhabitable hot desert and bug-infested swamp areas go.

[Pelranius]

What about places in the Confederacy that didn't want to secede from the Union (a lot of the Appalachian counties come to mind, for starters).

[LaCroix]

What about places in the Confederacy that didn't want to secede from the Union (a lot of the Appalachian counties come to mind, for starters).

I guess they could have split the state (Like West Virginia did) and re- apply for membership in the union?

[Steve]

More likely the Confederacy viciously opposes that. Not to mention the fact that there were reasons to oppose secession that had nothing to do with freeing slaves, like the economic interest of maintaining control of the Mississippi River straight to the see.

Conflict is inevitable unless you restrict the secessions to the Carolinas, Georgia, and Alabama, at the very least.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Would the Confederacy aim to take control of the new territories relatively "untouched by slavery" just to spread slavery and to acquire new land?

The impression I got from "A Team of Rivals" is that it seems that the South was quite determined to spread slavery just to increase its leverage in Congress and to ensure land is decidedly theirs, remains theirs. And it seemed that slavery as an institution had also gone to the head with a near religious devotion of sorts.

[LaCroix]

Would the Confederacy aim to take control of the new territories relatively "untouched by slavery" just to spread slavery and to acquire new land?

The impression I got from "A Team of Rivals" is that it seems that the South was quite determined to spread slavery just to increase its leverage in Congress and to ensure land is decidedly theirs, remains theirs. And it seemed that slavery as an institution had also gone to the head with a near religious devotion of sorts.

Well, since they now have their on congress, this makes no sense, anymore. Other motivations to increase territory, most important, economic reasons, remain, though. Arizona and new Mexico were good cotton-growing states, afaik.

[Lord Revan]

correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the federal organs in CSA rather ineffectual due to them not being able to make a working solution to what was state matters and what was federal matters.

[Sea Skimmer]

They were heading towards useless. It took the south two years to fill in a massively vital 40 mile gap in the railway network in no small part because the states insisted that the federal level of government was simply not allowed to spend money on such projects. By the time it was finished the only other east-west link in the system had been overrun by the Union too. The states wouldn't help each other either, just one state, North Carolina I think it was, had half the textile mills in the south, but refused to allow its mills to cloth any but North Carolinian troops for much of the war. This then became the main factor in why so much of the Confederate army was so poorly clothed.

On the other hand the Confederates did do extremely well on organizing gunpowder and armament production across state lines, and never lost a major battle from a lack of weapons or ammunition. They ran out of men before munitions were a real problem. Helped though that they captured over a thousand heavy cannon at Norfolk, without which they never could have armed such extensive coastal defenses, which then allowed them to concentrate entirely on field weapons.

[Elfdart]

Would the Confederacy aim to take control of the new territories relatively "untouched by slavery" just to spread slavery and to acquire new land?

The impression I got from "A Team of Rivals" is that it seems that the South was quite determined to spread slavery just to increase its leverage in Congress and to ensure land is decidedly theirs, remains theirs. And it seemed that slavery as an institution had also gone to the head with a near religious devotion of sorts.

That's part of it. Slave Power wasn't just interested in keeping Congress under their thumb, they also wanted to make sure slaves had nowhere to run if they escaped*. That means territorial expansion and that means armed conflict with Uncle Sam, Mexico, Indian territories, and Spain (the slavers had a raging hard-on for Cuba). At some point one or more of these powers would decide enough was enough.

*Ever wonder why it was southerners who were most enthusiastic for the War of 1812, The Mexican War and the smaller wars in-between (like the Seminole Wars)? It's because the British, Mexicans and Seminoles weren't very cooperative in handing runaway slaves back over to their masters, and taking land from them while expanding slavery was a two-fer.

[Thanas]

It would be kinda comical if the confederacy would suddenly wage war with a major European naval power like Spain which had actual ocean-going ironclads.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Would the Confederacy aim to take control of the new territories relatively "untouched by slavery" just to spread slavery and to acquire new land?

The impression I got from "A Team of Rivals" is that it seems that the South was quite determined to spread slavery just to increase its leverage in Congress and to ensure land is decidedly theirs, remains theirs. And it seemed that slavery as an institution had also gone to the head with a near religious devotion of sorts.

That's part of it. Slave Power wasn't just interested in keeping Congress under their thumb, they also wanted to make sure slaves had nowhere to run if they escaped*. That means territorial expansion and that means armed conflict with Uncle Sam, Mexico, Indian territories, and Spain (the slavers had a raging hard-on for Cuba). At some point one or more of these powers would decide enough was enough.

*Ever wonder why it was southerners who were most enthusiastic for the War of 1812, The Mexican War and the smaller wars in-between (like the Seminole Wars)? It's because the British, Mexicans and Seminoles weren't very cooperative in handing runaway slaves back over to their masters, and taking land from them while expanding slavery was a two-fer.

They certainly had a hediously twisted concept of ownership considering how anal they were demanding that the Northern states returned their escaped slaves. The appeasers of the South tended to keelhaul over that.

It would be kinda comical if the confederacy would suddenly wage war with a major European naval power like Spain which had actual ocean-going ironclads.

They did want the European powers to side with them in exchange for cotton!

[Sea Skimmer]

It would be kinda comical if the confederacy would suddenly wage war with a major European naval power like Spain which had actual ocean-going ironclads.

What would be comical is how completely useless those large ironclads would be against Confederate ports. The water is simply too shallow to get close enough to do anything in most cases, and most of them are too slow to make useful blockade ships either. Even New Ironsides drew too much water to be really useful, and she drew ten feet less then typical European ironclads. Several European powers built small ironclads for a long time because this was an issue with some European ports too.

In any case say, Spain, had no ironclads at all before 1865 and if the Confederates became a recognized independent power they'd have no problems buying major ships from other people if they felt like it. They could have also built vastly better ships locally if they'd been able to import engines. The Confederates were no industrial power but they had a fairly large amount of money for the era, and a rail system which while not dense, was actually the third longest in the world, behind the British, the Union and ahead of France. They wouldn't be a pushover as an independent power in the early years, it'd take the rise of a steel economy to make them hurt, and even then a lot of industry could be developed in the south, if anyone cared to try.

[Thanas]

What would be comical is how completely useless those large ironclads would be against Confederate ports. The water is simply too shallow to get close enough to do anything in most cases, and most of them are too slow to make useful blockade ships either.

I am talking about the Confederacy making a grab for Cuba after a few years of consolidation. The spanish would not use ironclads for blockading them, but they would use those to oppose an invasion fleet.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Yeah, the Armada was still capable of worldwide power-projection still in that period, so I have no doubt it would end terribly.

[Sea Skimmer]

The summary in Conway's Fighting Ships would suggest the Armada in 1860 was functionally no stronger then the US fleet would have been had it been mobilized, if not weaker, and certainly not a serious global force for anything but piracy patrols. As was typical she had no unarmored screw ships of the line, and only six steam frigates, three of those paddle wheel. The ironclads the Confederates ordered in Europe were nothing very powerful, but four or five of the weaker sort would put an utter end to what Spain had before the later 1860s, and ordering a few bigger ones would have been easy without the immense cost of a land war, or all those locally built harbor defense ironclads to worry about. Matching Spain seems like it may be comically possible if the Confederates were seriously inclined.

[Steve]

The hard-on for Cuba was heavily motivated by the fact it was a slave-holding colony too (and didn't have abolition until what, 1880?), so it was seen as a potential Slave State antebellum. I imagine after a victory over the Union the CSA would be more interested in expanding to the Pacific via northern Mexico. Presuming they aren't forced to keep a large army on the border to guard against any Union revanchism.

[Simon_Jester]

How badly would the Confederates want northern Mexico, though? Their economy is organized around exporting cash crops to Europe, they don't have floods of immigrants to populate homesteads in newly opened western territories, and northern Mexico isn't exactly prime real estate.

All they gain from it is a longer border with the US and a stretch of Pacific coastline they can't use for anything to speak of. I'm reminded of Turtledove's American Front series, and the fact that I am thus reminded doesn't make me more confident of the plausibility.