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Then the Confederacy would have quickly fallen apart into 13 independent states most of which would be little better then poverty stricken banana Republics.
Then the Confederacy would have quickly fallen apart into 13 independent states most of which would be little better then poverty stricken banana Republics.
Despite your rather cynical attitude, I agree with you. Even during the war, the Southern states were basically at war with each other. They argued about everything, and often reached deadlocks that sabotaged their war effort. Most would not let locomotives/railcars leave their borders, and states like Georgia even refused to send the regiments they had raised to the front lines.
For the record though, had the South "won" the war, there is no way in hell the blockade would be lifted. We would see something akin the period between the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, where the British seized cargo, blockaded ports, etc. So the Southern economy would have remained just as depressed as it did from 1865-1945.
In any case, it is pretty hard to project these "what if" scenarios, but I have to agree with Lincoln that a divided house cannot stand.
...but slavery wasn't truly the issue behind the civil war to begin with. The primary issue is one would be hard-pressed (or just plain stupid) to disagree with the South over. And that issue is the one of states' rights.
Please describe how the Civil War occurs if slavery had never been introduced into North America.
If the CSA won in say 1862-1863, they would have to get British and French favor, in no way would the Union be able to hold the blockade if the Royal Navy starts pounding towards South Carolina.
While some say that the Confederacy would have fallen apart, I say differently, the fact that they fought each other is going to be meaningless when they realize that now they NEED to stick together more than ever because there is a giant industrial powerhouse to their north that would LOVE to see them dead.
The Slavery question gets muddled, I personally think the Confederate states would give up slavery between 1880-1900. At this time mechinization was encroaching the western world, and a little beetle called the Boll Weevil was beginning to cause trouble for cotton farms, imagine if something that severe economy wise hit's a still-plantation South? Something like it I feel would cause a Slave's worth to gradually decline, not to mention the poor whites would not appreciate being undercut by another class that is worked for free. These things may push for abolition in the CSA, but they would probably take a different strategy than their Northern counterparts.
Geographically, I think the CSA would be from Virginia to Kentucky to Texas/Oklahoma to Sonora or New Mexico, encompassing around 13-15 states.
There probably would have eventually been massive slave uprisings in the South. Eventually the South would have given up slavery, but there would probably have been huge race riots and other such problems
Abraham Lincoln probably wouldn't have been assassinated. Would be very interesting to think about what his roll would have been in American politics after finishing his presidency (assuming he had lived on much longer afterwards).
After the US Civil War war world cotton prices declined every year until WWI and after the war they began to fall again. Economically plantation slavery was on its way out. You still would have seen some tobacco plantations, but that was about it. The only chance I can see it growing anywhere is perhaps some sugar and citrus plantations being established in Florida, but if I remember correctly both of these crops weren't really even investigated in Florida until the early 20th century.
In general in an industrialized nation at this time we can see it was better to use poor free people for factory labor since you weren't expected to provide them food and shelter for the rest of their lives if they got maimed at work as you would have been for a slave.
I think you probably would have seen the CSA attracting European immigrants for factory labor and instituting some kind of plan to purchase slaves from their owners and ship them to Liberia or elsewhere in Africa. Once you got to the point where slavery consisted of rich men's house servants and tobacco plantations in three or four states you would have already seen it ended in a lot of states anyways in my opinion.
At the same time I also think reunification would have been likely happening a state or two at a time with perhaps Texas and the area that became Oklahoma remaining independent if they had stayed independent long enough for oil to be discovered in Texas.
There's another book entitled "The Confederate States of America: What Might Have Been" by Roger Ransom that purports to economically examine a victorious CSA in the time after the war, but I have not read it yet.
The USA would probably resemble a western European nation (complete with universal healthcare), while the CSA would economically resemble a South American country.
If the South would have won the war, southerners would have something to actually be proud of. As it stands they are proud of having participated in a war they lost, which is something I don't understand.
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