Screwing US without Balkanization

[cpip]

Most of this seems to center around Settlement/1812/Mexican War/ACW strife. Those PODs are too distant to keep the USA together as we know it.

I would suggest, for maintaining the 50 states, something simpler. Like screwing up America's handling of the Great Depression and pretty much everything that happened after that. 1929 to modern day dystopia.

Well, this is the Before-1900 forum; the presumption may well be that the POD must therefore conform to the terms of the forum.

By that token, let me suggest: Bryan beats McKinley in 1896. Free Silver and economic turmoil following that cause significant disruption, and the Panic of 1907 becomes even worse, leading to a significant US economic collapse that is never quite recovered from; ultimately the United States spends much of the 20th Century as a second-rate power, dominated by European financial interests.

I can't say that Free Silver actually would do this, but it's certainly how the Republicans advertised Bryan's candidacy...

 

[Mikestone8]

It's kind of funny because that was pretty much what happened IOTL. The ACW dragged on far longer than analysis says it should have and ate up far more lives and resources than expected, Reconstruction was neutered by Johnson and petered out, allowing the south to continue as normal with sharecropping, Jim Crow, and the KKK right up until the 60s.

Yet that was a only a hiccup as far as American growth was concerned. The US still went from strength to strength in spite of it.

It would have to be a lot worse than OTL's Civil War.

 

[Faeelin]

Yet that was a only a hiccup as far as American growth was concerned. The US still went from strength to strength in spite of it.

It would have to be a lot worse than OTL's Civil War.

Turtledove once wrote a grimdark piece, must and shall, where white separatists continued to terrorize hte south into the 1940s.

It kinda lost a bit of its horror since one result was that the black characters were clearly equal. If shooting secessionist terrorists it the price we had to pay back then, I'd have paid it.

 

[Kayin Dreemurr]

Go further back. Prevent the coup against Guerrero and keep Santa Anna out of the halls of power. Without the Siete Leyes we can avoid the Texas rebellion altogether. War is still likely to erupt with the US over Alta California due to Manifest Destiny, but a Mexico that has a reasonably stable political system and unified national front stands a decent chance of winning, and if it does, it will become a great power.

WE NEED THIS TIMELINE!!! Mexico does not nearly get enough attention in Alternative History...

 

[Marc Pasquin]

That's interesting. A United States that is hemmed-in east of the Appalachians, with an eternal vendetta against the British. Somebody needs to write that TL.

.....et voilà !

 

[Statesman]

That's interesting. A United States that is hemmed-in east of the Appalachians, with an eternal vendetta against the British. Somebody needs to write that TL.

Shut up and take my money!!



My idea though: Give Woodrow Wilson or Herbert Hoover an extra term. That's be pretty bad, don't you think?

 

[TheYoungPretender]

A lot of the story of US power comes from it being a free society, getting freer. As the US has stumbled and fucked up along the historical path, the tendency has been to unlock more and more of the human capital of the society that had been locked away by custom and tradition. A Republic built for property owners goes universal white suffrage. Than universal manhood suffrage, than universal suffrage, etc. and all of the cultural changes that come along with.

I think the North in some form, at the ballot box, or in some quiet coup after Lincoln's elected, accedes to the South's 1860 demands. Between the fugitive Slave Act, Dred Scot, etc., the South had already started to run roughshod over the laws and customs of the Northern states that supported abolition or fee soil. There's no reason to think that this doesn't continue if the South stays in the Union, at least for another decade or two. You end up with a more thoroughly entrenched slavery when things come to a head, if they ever do. Or you end up with a slow Emancipation sliding into much hasher, and nation-wide, system of de jure segregation.

You also have the unintended consequence where the expansion of Federal power is entirely to police individual opinion. After Dred Scot and the Fugitive Slave Law, would probably want their own system of internal repression - the opening of mail, the jailing or denial of property to anyone with strong abolitionist opinions, extrajudicial killings - exported to the North. Perhaps the North ends up with a better militia system? After all, the big unmentionable truth of various CSA nostalgia is that the South had a better go of it initially because they had a beefier militia system - to keep the slaves down. But a bigger Northern militia system, and more militarized North, would generate scads of butterflys.

So you end with an America that's effectively a big Brazil circa 1910. Cliques of wealthy agricultural planters holding the whiphand and making sure no center of economic, cultural, or political power could threaten them. This isn't a Lost Cause wank(1) - this would cripple a lot of the economic and scientific power that made the US powerful in the 20th Century.

You end with the US on the Spanish American development path - caudillos and planters calling the tune and coup-proofing countries by crippling it. This could be an interesting timeline.


(1) To be a real CSA Victorious! timeline, the South must secede, yet have the economic and military muscle of the OTL US, so it can sally forth to defeat the Nazis, Communists, The Race, etc. when the perfidious Yankees break and run. This proposal is not that.

 

[Dorozhand]

A lot of the story of US power comes from it being a free society, getting freer. As the US has stumbled and fucked up along the historical path, the tendency has been to unlock more and more of the human capital of the society that had been locked away by custom and tradition. A Republic built for property owners goes universal white suffrage. Than universal manhood suffrage, than universal suffrage, etc. and all of the cultural changes that come along with.

I think the North in some form, at the ballot box, or in some quiet coup after Lincoln's elected, accedes to the South's 1860 demands. Between the fugitive Slave Act, Dred Scot, etc., the South had already started to run roughshod over the laws and customs of the Northern states that supported abolition or fee soil. There's no reason to think that this doesn't continue if the South stays in the Union, at least for another decade or two. You end up with a more thoroughly entrenched slavery when things come to a head, if they ever do. Or you end up with a slow Emancipation sliding into much hasher, and nation-wide, system of de jure segregation.

You also have the unintended consequence where the expansion of Federal power is entirely to police individual opinion. After Dred Scot and the Fugitive Slave Law, would probably want their own system of internal repression - the opening of mail, the jailing or denial of property to anyone with strong abolitionist opinions, extrajudicial killings - exported to the North. Perhaps the North ends up with a better militia system? After all, the big unmentionable truth of various CSA nostalgia is that the South had a better go of it initially because they had a beefier militia system - to keep the slaves down. But a bigger Northern militia system, and more militarized North, would generate scads of butterflys.

So you end with an America that's effectively a big Brazil circa 1910. Cliques of wealthy agricultural planters holding the whiphand and making sure no center of economic, cultural, or political power could threaten them. This isn't a Lost Cause wank(1) - this would cripple a lot of the economic and scientific power that made the US powerful in the 20th Century.

You end with the US on the Spanish American development path - caudillos and planters calling the tune and coup-proofing countries by crippling it. This could be an interesting timeline.


(1) To be a real CSA Victorious! timeline, the South must secede, yet have the economic and military muscle of the OTL US, so it can sally forth to defeat the Nazis, Communists, The Race, etc. when the perfidious Yankees break and run. This proposal is not that.

I like that. Maybe it could also end like Mexico around 1915 with a massive revolution and civil war, where the US comes out of it a semi-socialist one-party state with improving social and economic conditions but still a gamut of problems.

 

[Dorozhand]

WE NEED THIS TIMELINE!!! Mexico does not nearly get enough attention in Alternative History...

As it happens I'm kind of working on a timeline similar to that

 

[Widukind]

The scenario where Southern demands are met is a good basis for a dystopian USA. However, if this somehow becomes constitutionally entrenched, I could see the North seceding over it. Then you still get balkanisation.

An alternative would be a scenario where the Federalists (and especially the Southern ones, like the Pinckneys of SC) are much stronger. That could lead to a pact between the Northern elite and the Southern elite, with the aim of restricting the vote as much as possible, turning the USA in a 'republic' where only a very small, affluent majority can vote. For reference: for a long time, only some 5% (the wealthiest 5%!) of the population could vote in South Carolina. Now imagine that level of franchise limitation throughout the entire USA.

Both the Northern and Southern elites could profit from slavery, with the old 'molasses to rum' mentality being expanded: raw materials delivered by Southern plantations turned into manufactures by Northern industry. All while high tarriffs keep out all foreign competition.

The result would be a USA ruled by an elite, which has zero interest in getting rid of slavery and even less interest in giving 'the masses' any kind of say in government. Antebellum Southern repression to guard against slave uprisings and typical 1790s Alien-and-Sedition-Acts Federalist repressive legislation would go hand in hand, all throughout the Union.

 

[TheYoungPretender]

The scenario where Southern demands are met is a good basis for a dystopian USA. However, if this somehow becomes constitutionally entrenched, I could see the North seceding over it. Then you still get balkanisation.

An alternative would be a scenario where the Federalists (and especially the Southern ones, like the Pinckneys of SC) are much stronger. That could lead to a pact between the Northern elite and the Southern elite, with the aim of restricting the vote as much as possible, turning the USA in a 'republic' where only a very small, affluent majority can vote. For reference: for a long time, only some 5% (the wealthiest 5%!) of the population could vote in South Carolina. Now imagine that level of franchise limitation throughout the entire USA.

Both the Northern and Southern elites could profit from slavery, with the old 'molasses to rum' mentality being expanded: raw materials delivered by Southern plantations turned into manufactures by Northern industry. All while high tarriffs keep out all foreign competition.

The result would be a USA ruled by an elite, which has zero interest in getting rid of slavery and even less interest in giving 'the masses' any kind of say in government. Antebellum Southern repression to guard against slave uprisings and typical 1790s Alien-and-Sedition-Acts Federalist repressive legislation would go hand in hand, all throughout the Union.

The critical thing here is that I'm not sure there ever one thing that enough of the North cares about together to secede over. Abolitionists traders in the Northeast are going to have a different attitude towards an overwheening South than Old Northwest butternuts and farmers who don't mind slavery all that much, to a new set of Scandinavians and Germans in the Midwest who haven't even learned English yet - and won't have to in some parts of Wisconsin and Minnesota until the end of the 19th.

The reason why the South staying in under the status quo antebellum is so disastrous is that they have the advantage of being the largest cohesive group, even if they're far from a majority. They have a unity of purpose - the maintenance of chattel slavery - and the ability to run the table in their region against any others who'd dream of objecting. They can try to play parts of the North off against each other, and as a result you get a more dystopian US.

 

[usertron2020]

Well, this is the Before-1900 forum; the presumption may well be that the POD must therefore conform to the terms of the forum.

By that token, let me suggest: Bryan beats McKinley in 1896. Free Silver and economic turmoil following that cause significant disruption, and the Panic of 1907 becomes even worse, leading to a significant US economic collapse that is never quite recovered from; ultimately the United States spends much of the 20th Century as a second-rate power, dominated by European financial interests.

I can't say that Free Silver actually would do this, but it's certainly how the Republicans advertised Bryan's candidacy...

1899 includes pre-1900. That takes in Alaska and Hawaii.

 

[General Mosh]

Let me go ahead and make it a nice, utopian (I guess, if you're an ends justify the means type) screw. The Third Pandemic hits in the early 1600s, and goes pneumonic (or maybe just make it a later Black Death, either way). Europe, Asia, and Africa are devastated, but America isn't touched. Somehow, through effective quarantine on the part of the colonials, the plague never reaches the Americas. For decades nothing more than a small contingent of colonists exists in the Americas, contriving to coexist to a point with the Natives, while the Old World rebuilds. Stable governments are formed in the Americas, and Britain, at least, is forced to treat the colonies as equal or lose them. North America (pre-Seven Years War British Canada and the 13 colonies) becomes an integrated part of the more democratic British Empire.

Expansion is slow, and the Native American tribes are assimilated. European immigration occurs, but there isn't much of it until later, as much of the Americas still hasn't been discovered and there really is plenty of space in the Old World. Eventually the much less powerful, British controlled American provinces control the continent from sea to shining sea, but really aren't incredibly industrialized or very populated, containing only around 100-150 million people by 2014, living spread across the continent in primarily small town communities with some large cities on the coasts, and with the government dealing with powerful tribes, part of the nation yet still autonomous.

 

[Maur]

Basically, give the South more influence. No New England education as the example in the north, so less public schooling and fewer universities. More widespread slavery, which discourages immigration. Fewer internal improvements, etc.

This. Add political coalition between north-west and south, focusing on free trade, and you got nascent northern industry faltering and the whole country going the way of resource economy a la rest of OTL Americas.

 

[freivolk]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Victor_Marie_Moreau

takes power in France instead of Napoleopn. France stays a Republic, never tries to reestablish slavery in Haiti and there is no Louisiana purchase. French Louisiana blocks the Expansion of the USA to the West and the South gets detbilized by French Haiti.

 

[Ravenflight]

Would a rise of Nazism in the USA be possible? It seemed to have chapters in most countries in the 20's and 30's. I can't see how that would benefit the USA, especially seeing how it would be like Germany with no war to fight, and so a really crappy economic model. If you added a kind of technophobia then you've got a really shitty country and no wars (unless you wanted them).

 

[Widukind]

The critical thing here is that I'm not sure there ever one thing that enough of the North cares about together to secede over. Abolitionists traders in the Northeast are going to have a different attitude towards an overwheening South than Old Northwest butternuts and farmers who don't mind slavery all that much, to a new set of Scandinavians and Germans in the Midwest who haven't even learned English yet - and won't have to in some parts of Wisconsin and Minnesota until the end of the 19th.

The reason why the South staying in under the status quo antebellum is so disastrous is that they have the advantage of being the largest cohesive group, even if they're far from a majority. They have a unity of purpose - the maintenance of chattel slavery - and the ability to run the table in their region against any others who'd dream of objecting. They can try to play parts of the North off against each other, and as a result you get a more dystopian US.

Just to be clear: I wasn't dismissing your scenario at all. Personally, I think the North might opt to secede in case of utter Southern dominance (hence my alternative scenario), but that's purely speculative and depends al lot on butterflies that cannot be predicted.

This. Add political coalition between north-west and south, focusing on free trade, and you got nascent northern industry faltering and the whole country going the way of resource economy a la rest of OTL Americas.

I'd argue that free trade is actually very good for a country, and it's protectionism that leads to all sorts of trouble. IOTL, the increasingly high tarriffs actually encouraged Southern planters to become more and more dependant on their number one cash crop: cotton. The revenue from those tarriffs, meanwhile, was mostly used to foster industry and internal improvements in the North, making the North ever more hospitable to foreign investment, and the South... not at all. At the same time, taxation of trade means Northern industry would sooner use raw produce from the South than from abroad, which also encouraged the South to keep delivering raw produce instead of developing its own industry. All this helped to enforce the agrarian nature of the South way past its due date.

Extremely low tarriffs, free trade with all nations, tax on land instead of on trade, and no subsidies what-so-ever for any kind of industry would be the best thing that could have been done, really. (That, and any funds for 'internal improvements' to be evenly distributed among all states, instead of something like 80% going to the North.)

Sadly, history did not oblige. So if we want the USA to do badly and slavery to be more encouraged, free trade wouldn't be the answer. Free trade would do the opposite, and turn out benificial.

 

[JudgeFifty]

Total British Victory in the War of 1812, US has to cede the Louisiana Purchase,The Northern Part of Maine,and the Great Lakes area for a Native American puppet state

 

[Maur]

I'd argue that free trade is actually very good for a country, and it's protectionism that leads to all sorts of trouble. IOTL, the increasingly high tarriffs actually encouraged Southern planters to become more and more dependant on their number one cash crop: cotton. The revenue from those tarriffs, meanwhile, was mostly used to foster industry and internal improvements in the North, making the North ever more hospitable to foreign investment, and the South... not at all. At the same time, taxation of trade means Northern industry would sooner use raw produce from the South than from abroad, which also encouraged the South to keep delivering raw produce instead of developing its own industry. All this helped to enforce the agrarian nature of the South way past its due date.

Extremely low tarriffs, free trade with all nations, tax on land instead of on trade, and no subsidies what-so-ever for any kind of industry would be the best thing that could have been done, really. (That, and any funds for 'internal improvements' to be evenly distributed among all states, instead of something like 80% going to the North.)

Sadly, history did not oblige. So if we want the USA to do badly and slavery to be more encouraged, free trade wouldn't be the answer. Free trade would do the opposite, and turn out benificial.

1. What increasingly high tariffs? (since you said planters, i assume pre civil war)
2. Internal US differences werent the focus of what i wrote, and neither was the fate of the South compared to the North (hence: >the whole country<). Without protectionism, northern industry couldnt compete with foreign (meaning, British) industries.
3. This (free trade) scenario makes the country do what it has competetive advantage in. Which is not industrial production, but, growing cotton, grain, and raising livestock, and mining some stuff. Which is nice since it brings money. Sadly, long term prospects of such country are much worse.

 

[Widukind]

1. What increasingly high tariffs? (since you said planters, i assume pre civil war)

I was responding to your observation that "political coalition between north-west and south, focusing on free trade" would lead to "nascent northern industry faltering and the whole country going the way of resource economy a la rest of OTL Americas."

What I was attempting to make clear was that the lack of free trade in the antebellum period was a very bad thing, and free trade would have made things better. Tariiffs were repeatedly heightened during the antebellum period, and that was a very bad thing, for the reasons I mentioned.

2. Internal US differences werent the focus of what i wrote, and neither was the fate of the South compared to the North (hence: >the whole country<). Without protectionism, northern industry couldnt compete with foreign (meaning, British) industries.

I only mentioned those differences to demonstrate how OTL protectionism made them considerably worse, and how free trade would have helped ease them.

Your claim that industry could not thrive without protectionism is, frankly, incorrect. In fact, the introduction of free trade has consistently fostered industry, and protectionism has consistently crippled it.

3. This (free trade) scenario makes the country do what it has competetive advantage in. Which is not industrial production, but, growing cotton, grain, and raising livestock, and mining some stuff. Which is nice since it brings money. Sadly, long term prospects of such country are much worse.

This is also incorrect, I must say. Britain, for instance, experienced its greatest industrial development in a period when it embraced free trade and did away with outdated mercantillist nonsense. In fact, they did away with that nonsense because free trade advocates (such as Adam Smith) has theorized that free trade would be benificial, while protectionism was detrimental. those theories have been proven correct time and again.


Do forgive me for this somewhat digressive post; I wanted to answer your points, even though it takes us away from the actual point of this thread. To recapitulate: I found myself in disagreement with your opinion that free trade would lead to negative effects, and wished to present a counter-argument. In my view, the introduction of free trade would not lead to the negative results you predict. On the contrary: the South's OTL lack of industry was, as I explained, partially caused by protectionism. Free trade would mean more Southern industrialization. That's the opposite of a USA-screw, I'd say.