Fragmentation of the CSA

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

One thing you never really see in CSA-wins TLs is further splintering of the Confederacy. Why is this? Doesn't it follow that a more loosely-bunched group of states that broke away in the first place might find cause to go off in their own directions later?

Texas for instance, or later on slavery might become uneconomical in some states while not others - or some states might want to drift back into the USA.

Has anyone given this any thought?

 

[Saladan]

Because it just makes for a more interesting TL to have the US have a equal rival that actually shares a border with it. Personally I'm more partial to having the CSA break up with Virginia and Tennessee rejoining the US while Texas becomes it's own thing once again and the other states all just break up into their own thing only for all or most of the former Confederacy to rejoin the US.

 

[David S Poepoe]

Saladan's right in that the more interesting ATL are the more radical. It would be necessary to consider the date of the POD also if one considers fragmentation. However, on the other had the 'test of fire' - the Southron War of Independence - also creates national identity which may work to counter any immediate secessions.

Technically, the South is basically resetting their governance back to the old days of the Articles of Confederation. Just as events changed how governance between the states changed with the adoption of the Constitution, so could the South develop into a more centralized nation.

 

[Hawkeye]

I think there was already a thread for this a while back, but if the CSA balkanized then this is what I think could happen.

 

[AmIndHistoryAuthor]

One thing you never really see in CSA-wins TLs is further splintering of the Confederacy. Why is this? Doesn't it follow that a more loosely-bunched group of states that broke away in the first place might find cause to go off in their own directions later?

Texas for instance, or later on slavery might become uneconomical in some states while not others - or some states might want to drift back into the USA.

Has anyone given this any thought?

I think many Confederacy supporters are reluctant to admit it may have been unworkable. Maybe not at this forum, but certainly the ones with CSA flag bumber stickers.

OTH, there was a repressive streak in the Confederacy that many don't acknowledge. Not just in enslaving millions because there was profit in it, but also in how it treated its white citizens, voter suppression, widespread censorship, violent intimidation and jailing of dissidents. I haven't yet seen a POD that admits the only way the CSA might stay together is by continued repression.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

Texas, if it does become a power in the South, may take some states or regions of the Southern states with it (portions of Louisiana, for example); not necessarily because of support from the people of those areas but because of a certain expansionist streak you have in powers around the time. But that all depends on how powerful it is though I think it has the potential.

 

[Solomaxwell6]

Texas, if it does become a power in the South, may take some states or regions of the Southern states with it (portions of Louisiana, for example); not necessarily because of support from the people of those areas but because of a certain expansionist streak you have in powers around the time. But that all depends on how powerful it is though I think it has the potential.

Wouldn't the rest of the CS object if Texas suddenly started annexing states? It's one thing for Texas to secede; after all, that's how the CS got its start. It's quite another if it starts gobbling up states. And I'm sure that Texas would lose to the combined might of the rest of the CS, especially early on.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

Wouldn't the rest of the CS object if Texas suddenly started annexing states? It's one thing for Texas to secede; after all, that's how the CS got its start. It's quite another if it starts gobbling up states. And I'm sure that Texas would lose to the combined might of the rest of the CS, especially early on.

No, no, no. I'm talking about a scenario where the whole of the CS fragments in total with the respective states each reverting to individual republics or thereabouts. Texas may try to maintain an independent Southern nation if it fears those states may get gobbled up back into the Union.

 

[DISSIDENT]

Cotton Republics?

 

[Nytram01]

A possible TL would be a disasterous war with Mexico where the Confederates are beaten, followed by a disasterous war with Spain where the Confederates are beaten, followed by heavy Confederate despression, then infighting amungst the states and secession and War.

 

[Nytram01]

I think there was already a thread for this a while back, but if the CSA balkanized then this is what I think could happen.

Why would North Carolina consent to being called "The Commonwealth of Virginia"? Or have they been annexed?

 

[Carinthium]

Secession was technically illegal under the CSA constitution. This strange but true fact would make a fragmation of the CS less likely.

I think many Confederacy supporters are reluctant to admit it may have been unworkable. Maybe not at this forum, but certainly the ones with CSA flag bumber stickers.

OTH, there was a repressive streak in the Confederacy that many don't acknowledge. Not just in enslaving millions because there was profit in it, but also in how it treated its white citizens, voter suppression, widespread censorship, violent intimidation and jailing of dissidents. I haven't yet seen a POD that admits the only way the CSA might stay together is by continued repression.

Can you give me some sources on that?

 

[DISSIDENT]

I'm in favor of developing this idea further somehow, just because its a Confederacy timeline that doesn't involve Jake Featherston. It was entertaining but contrived and made for some good but disturbing books. Let's not have all alternate history discussion of the topic of the Civil War be based on it.

 

[MerryPrankster]

I think many Confederacy supporters are reluctant to admit it may have been unworkable. Maybe not at this forum, but certainly the ones with CSA flag bumber stickers.

OTH, there was a repressive streak in the Confederacy that many don't acknowledge. Not just in enslaving millions because there was profit in it, but also in how it treated its white citizens, voter suppression, widespread censorship, violent intimidation and jailing of dissidents. I haven't yet seen a POD that admits the only way the CSA might stay together is by continued repression.

Someone actually wrote a Confederate TL where postwar civil unrest leads to the imposition of draconian laws against abolitionism.

It's on this board somewhere.

 

[MerryPrankster]

Back when MEJ was here, he posted a question entitled "WI No Confederate Nostalgia."

It turned into a flamewar. I tried to come up with a real scenario, but pretty much everyone ignored it.

The premise was that the Confederacy would suffer lots of unrest, slave revolts, international hatreds and sanctions, etc. and eventually states would try to leave and rejoin the USA.

(I assume abolishing slavery as a condition to do so)

Eventually, the last ex-Confederate states would rejoin the Union and nobody would remember the Confederacy as anything but a disaster.

 

[Nytram01]

Back when MEJ was here, he posted a question entitled "WI No Confederate Nostalgia."

It turned into a flamewar. I tried to come up with a real scenario, but pretty much everyone ignored it.

The premise was that the Confederacy would suffer lots of unrest, slave revolts, international hatreds and sanctions, etc. and eventually states would try to leave and rejoin the USA.

(I assume abolishing slavery as a condition to do so)

Eventually, the last ex-Confederate states would rejoin the Union and nobody would remember the Confederacy as anything but a disaster.

While I dont disagree with everthing you put there I still find the idea that these states who fought so hard to leave the Union would suddenly want to rejoin it after becoming dissilioustioned with the Confederacy and leaving that.

It would be like the 13 colonies falling out with each other, disolving infant USA then all clamering to rejoin the British Empire. It's not likely.

That's the only bit I find unrealisitc bit about what you propose.

 

[MerryPrankster]

While I dont disagree with everthing you put there I still find the idea that these states who fought so hard to leave the Union would suddenly want to rejoin it after becoming dissilioustioned with the Confederacy and leaving that.

It would be like the 13 colonies falling out with each other, disolving infant USA then all clamering to rejoin the British Empire. It's not likely.

That's the only bit I find unrealisitc bit about what you propose.

It wouldn't be *sudden*. The reconstitution of the pre-1861 Union would be a matter of decades and would likely be the result of desperation by the South.

(The North might be reluctant to take them back, particularly the more screwed-up ones, but nationalism might prevail)

 

[David S Poepoe]

While I dont disagree with everthing you put there I still find the idea that these states who fought so hard to leave the Union would suddenly want to rejoin it after becoming dissilioustioned with the Confederacy and leaving that.

It would be like the 13 colonies falling out with each other, disolving infant USA then all clamering to rejoin the British Empire. It's not likely.

That's the only bit I find unrealisitc bit about what you propose.

I agree with you. I believe that this is a manifestation of the belief that anything outside the Union is wrong, evil and will fail. There are certain beliefs that we are conditonalized to believe there is no possible positive alternative.

 

[Faeelin]

Secession was technically illegal under the CSA constitution. This strange but true fact would make a fragmation of the CS less likely.

My understanding was that the CSA constitution was silent on this, which is not surprising. If you said secession was illegal, you'd look hypocritical. If you said it was legal, then the absence of such a clause from the American constitution would suggest it was illegal to secede from America.

Thus proving all bad ideas come from lawyers.

 

[zoomar]

That is a common thread in any "CSA wins" TL's I've described or suggested on this board. I posted a long TL many years ago. I think the disintegration of the CSA is almost inevitable, both for the reasons you suggest and others. In my TL (which does include significant European intervention to help the South win), the CSA begins to fission by the 1880's, with some states (Texas) becoming independent, and others eventually opting to rejoin the USA (Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee). The survival of the rump (deep south plantation slave core) CSA is ensured only because the USA props it up as a buffer between itself and a powerful French colonial empire in Mexico and central america.

This TL also presumes the sucessful secession of the CSA also sets a precedent in the USA, fostering a sucessful and unresisted secessionist movement in New York City.