Confederacy W/O War

[Maur]

I suggest reading Look Away by William Davis and The Confederacy as a Revolutionary Experience by Emory Davis. In OTL, the citizens of the CSA put up with central control which surpassed that of the USA.

The Davis administration drafted state militia members who should have been exempt from the national draft. They instituted internal passports. They dictated rates to the railroads and required blockage runners to devote a certain percent (1/3 IIRC) of cargo space to government cargos free of charge. They instituted income taxes and the draft (which covered men aged 17 to 50). It authorized the execution and enslavement of certain Union POWs. Richmond was under martial law from March 1, 1862 and civilian firearms were confiscated by the government. Price controls were imposed. It impressed cotton, horses, food, and slaves and when it paid, paid far below market rates. It avoided labor unrest by drafting the workers. It dictated allowed rates of profit for business. By 1863 "the Richmond government employed more civil servants than its counterpart in Washington". Several CSA states instituted Prohibition during the war.

OP premise is that the civil war does not happen, so there is no reason for such drastic measures that happened IOTL.

The big question is what happens when King Cotton is no longer king?

CSA remains backwards underdeveloped state with economy based on agriculture and resource extraction until it manages to modernize. Something akin to... OTL southern states?

 

[NKVD]

Cool necromancy, bro.

 

[Maur]

You mean, the yesterday thread? I didn't dig it up, someone else did! I just found this decaying abandoned body and i'm having fun with it!

 

[Fiver]

Except this was all done as -War Time Emergency - If there was no War most of this would not have been done.

Definite point. For a CSA without war, you need them to not open fire on Ft Sumter or anything else. You also need a USA president willing to let them go. Neither seems particularly likely.

If they manage it, you have a smaller and less industrial CSA than in OTL. They also don't have the border states with their significant pro-union populations.

But they're still founded on the idea that any state can leave at any time for any reason.

South Carolina nearly didn't join because of the prohibition on the international slave trade. Texas will probably find the Richmond government even less willing than the Washington one to spend money to protect them from Mexicans, bandits, and Indians. Some will still favor expansion into Mexico or the Caribbean, while other states will oppose it. As 7 state CSA is less prone to fragmentation than an 11 state CSA, but the risk is still there.

The main slave exporting states were Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Maryland. In TTL, all but South Carolina are Union territory. To meet their labor needs, many CSA states are going to need to import slaves from the Union, find a way to encourage whites to move there, or reopen the African slave trade.