WI: Confederates win, but collapse?

[Mikestone8]

The whole thing falls apart after massive slave rebellions and a US invasion.

Why should the US invade?

If the CS is in the sort of mess you envisage, much of its white population will be migrating back into the old Union. So reconquering the South serves only to saddle yourself with its race problem. Where's the sense in doing that?

 

[usertron2020]

Why should the US invade?

If the CS is in the sort of mess you envisage, much of its white population will be migrating back into the old Union. So reconquering the South serves only to saddle yourself with its race problem. Where's the sense in doing that?

Freedom of navigation for the Ohio-Missouri-Mississippi River System

Completing Abolition, and wiping Slavery off the face of North America

Making for a safer more secure border running all the way to the Rio Grande

Showing the people of the Union that the many tens of thousands who died in the American Civil War did not die in vain

Securing the resources of the South for the USA as a whole

Securing proper lines of communications (railroads and later highways) across the South through to the US West Coast

The North already had its own race problems

Under the Constitution, the USA can't stop anyone from coming north, and the USA still had open immigration back then

 

[Mikestone8]

Under the Constitution, the USA can't stop anyone from coming north, and the USA still had open immigration back then

They can choose whom they let in from a foreign country, so as long as the CS is independent they can limit immigration to whites. After all, only a few years later they did pass laws against Chinese immigration, iirc.

It is also conceivable that Texas (whose Black population, iirc, was relatively modest, could have been bribed into rejoining the Union voluntarily. The bribes would probably come to far less than the cost of getting it by war.

 

[usertron2020]

They can choose whom thy let in from a foreign country, so as long as the CS is independent they can limit immigration to whites. After all, only a few years later they did pass laws against Chinese immigration, iirc.

It is also conceivable that Texas (whose Black population, iirc, was relatively modest, could have been bribed into rejoining the Union voluntarily. The bribes would probably come to far less than the cost of getting it by war.

Controlling immigration via seaports is one thing. Controlling population migrations overland on a continental scale is another.

As to Texas, the Native American tribes in Texas enjoyed the most successful counter-offensive seen in NA history during the ACW. For the most part, the Texans found themselves by 1865 driven back to the pre-1850 borders. Retaking much of the state would be relatively easy, except in the flood prone eastern basin in and north of Sabine City.

 

[Lateknight]

Yeah I agree with the people that say the American government will invade a collapsed confederacy. It would be chance to win a war they just lost what nation wouldn't take that chance.

 

[EnglishCanuck]

Yeah I agree with the people that say the American government will invade a collapsed confederacy. It would be chance to win a war they just lost what nation wouldn't take that chance.

Well they'd probably couch it in terms of being 'humanitarian' and preventing 'race war' amongst a collapsing Confederacy. It would probably win international acclaim too.

 

[usertron2020]

Yeah I agree with the people that say the American government will invade a collapsed confederacy. It would be chance to win a war they just lost what nation wouldn't take that chance.

Imagine an ATL in which (somehow) Austria wins the Austro-Prussian War, gobbles up much of central Germany, and THEN collapses into a state of civil war. The Prussians would go through the Austrians like a dose of salts.

Well they'd probably couch it in terms of being 'humanitarian' and preventing 'race war' amongst a collapsing Confederacy. It would probably win international acclaim too.

Especially since by this time Chauncy Gardiner-Uh, I mean, Lord Palmerston would be dead.

 

[EnglishCanuck]

Especially since by this time Chauncy Gardiner-Uh, I mean, Lord Palmerston would be dead.

Well if Gladstone was in office the irony would be decidedly delicious

 

[usertron2020]

Well if Gladstone was in office the irony would be decidedly delicious

Do you think if he were in charge he:

would...?

OR

could...?

Pull off a "Henry Vth"?

 

[EnglishCanuck]

Do you think if he were in charge he:

would...?

OR

could...?

Pull off a "Henry Vth"?

I just meant that considering his infamous Newcastle speech if he was PM at the time of the collapse of the Confederate States and pushing for humanitarian intervention it would be quite humorous.

 

[Mikestone8]

Controlling immigration via seaports is one thing. Controlling population migrations overland on a continental scale is another.

Not so hard when the immigrants are instantly recognisable by their colour, and are relatively few in number (only such slaves as manage to escape)My assumption is that the Union will be perfectly ok with white immigrants.

As to Texas, the Native American tribes in Texas enjoyed the most successful counter-offensive seen in NA history during the ACW. For the most part, the Texans found themselves by 1865 driven back to the pre-1850 borders. Retaking much of the state would be relatively easy, except in the flood prone eastern basin in and north of Sabine City.

Sure, while so many Texans were away in the CS Army. If the war is over they won't be.

 

[usertron2020]

Not so hard when the immigrants are instantly recognisable by their colour, and are relatively few in number (only such slaves as manage to escape)My assumption is that the Union will be perfectly ok with white immigrants.

That's assuming that the Union will suddenly start enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law AND the Dred Scott Decision AFTER the Confederacy has won the war and gained its independence. Otherwise, the Underground Railroad can go into overdrive with the full support of the US government. No more ass-kissing of the South by Southern-sympathetic USA presidents. Rather, Radical Republicans pushing for an anti-SOuthern (and ABolitionist) set of policies.

Sure, while so many Texans were away in the CS Army. If the war is over they won't be.

Texas is BIG. And in a two-front war with the Native-Americans and the Union.

Make that three front war, as they have to eventually worry about their southern border and a distinctly anti-Confederate Juarista Mexico. Not in terms of Mexican invasion, but of the Union using it as a base of operations. Meanwhile the Union floods the Mexican Army and government with aid for their fight with the French, and for the right to use Northern Mexico to take Texas all the easier.

Make that a four front war, with the Union coming down from the north after they've conquered a weak Indian Territory.

Texas was very underpopulated at this time, young men coming home or no.

 

[Mikestone8]

That's assuming that the Union will suddenly start enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law AND the Dred Scott Decision AFTER the Confederacy has won the war and gained its independence. Otherwise, the Underground Railroad can go into overdrive with the full support of the US government. No more ass-kissing of the South by Southern-sympathetic USA presidents. Rather, Radical Republicans pushing for an anti-SOuthern (and ABolitionist) set of policies.

So long as the UR takes them on to Canada, quite possibly. but if the Blacks start wanting to stay in the rump US in large numbers, how long will their welcome (if any) last?

Anti-Confederate doesn't mean pro-Black.

 

[ThePest179]

if the Blacks start wanting to stay in the rump US in large numbers, how long will their welcome (if any) last?

They'll get treated like shit, definitely, but it's a world better than the CSA.

 

[usertron2020]

They'll get treated like shit, definitely, but it's a world better than the CSA.

This. Pretty much anything is better than seeing your wife and children sold off and never seeing them again. And don't get me started on torture and mutilation.

 

[Mikestone8]

They'll get treated like shit, definitely, but it's a world better than the CSA.

I wasn't considering how the Blacks might feel about the US, but how the US (or rather its white population) would feel about them.

 

[usertron2020]

I wasn't considering how the Blacks might feel about the US, but how the US (or rather its white population) would feel about them.

Some 1/3rd of the US was Abolitionist at the start just on principle. You'd need a very early CSA victory not to see that fraction grow in leaps and bounds Once Northern soldiers moved into the South and saw the true horrors of Slavery for themselves for the very first time...

 

[zoomar]

Some 1/3rd of the US was Abolitionist at the start just on principle. You'd need a very early CSA victory not to see that fraction grow in leaps and bounds Once Northern soldiers moved into the South and saw the true horrors of Slavery for themselves for the very first time...

I'm not sure I share your positive take. OTL, Union soldiers did penetrate throughout the south and saw "the true horrors of slavery" in the victorious conquest of the Confederacy and many in the North still remained broadly sympathetic to white slave-owning Southerners for the next 50 years...arguably more sympathetic to them than to the blacks in the south. After all, the pro-Southern "Gone With the Wind" and other fiction like that was popular throughout the North as well as the South.

One can oppose slavery on moral grounds and still believe blacks are not equal to whites. My own opinion is that, in a "South Wins" scenario, Northerners are likely to remain broadly abolitionist (in that "we don't want slavery" in the reduced US), but be less likely to care what happens to blacks in the CSA as long as they stay "down there". There will also be a tendency by some to blame "extreme" abolitionists (and perhaps free blacks as well) for the war and defeat. If the collapse of the CSA leads to a race war or slave rebellion scenario many white northerners might actually be more sympathetic to the embattled whites than the slaves and US intervention might well be to "restore order and stability", not to construct a more egalitarian Southern society. I also think the US would not be welcoming to black refugees, but it might stimulate serious Government interest in "back to Africa" movements such as Marcus Garvey's.

 

[Troyer IV]

CSA wins, then collapses... well, the USA comes back on them. End of story.

No way Britain or France is going to prop up a failed state. No way is the USA going to allow France to try to barge in on any bit of the rightful USA lands, such as Louisiana, regardless of historical claim. Mexico going at Texas will end the same, with the USA pouncing.

Tennessee would be the first to rejoin the Union, and that location would put a single state between the Union and the Gulf Coast, from Mississippi all around. None of the southern states have any sort of economic or industrial backing on their own to hold off the Union. They didn't as a Confederacy, so solo is a quick story.

No, no matter how you play things out, ANY USA worth its salt post-Civil War is going to face down ANY foreign aggressors on the simple principle of 'once an American, always an American' if only for the simple fact none are going to let others in their backyard.

Britain isn't stupid enough to try to support a failed state, as I said. France follows Britain's lead. Mexico has its own problems. Spain's empire is already in shambles, so same deal.

Basically, no outside player is capable or willing to contest/conquer the failed CSA, and the USA isn't going to sit idle while someone wipes their asses with the Monroe Doctrine. This means it's only a matter of time before the former CSA is slowly reincorporated to the USA. Either by hook, crook, or simple despair the CSA states will rejoin the Union eventually.

 

[usertron2020]

I'm not sure I share your positive take. OTL, Union soldiers did penetrate throughout the south and saw "the true horrors of slavery" in the victorious conquest of the Confederacy and many in the North still remained broadly sympathetic to white slave-owning Southerners for the next 50 years...arguably more sympathetic to them than to the blacks in the south. After all, the pro-Southern "Gone With the Wind" and other fiction like that was popular throughout the North as well as the South.

One can oppose slavery on moral grounds and still believe blacks are not equal to whites. My own opinion is that, in a "South Wins" scenario, Northerners are likely to remain broadly abolitionist (in that "we don't want slavery" in the reduced US), but be less likely to care what happens to blacks in the CSA as long as they stay "down there". There will also be a tendency by some to blame "extreme" abolitionists (and perhaps free blacks as well) for the war and defeat. If the collapse of the CSA leads to a race war or slave rebellion scenario many white northerners might actually be more sympathetic to the embattled whites than the slaves and US intervention might well be to "restore order and stability", not to construct a more egalitarian Southern society. I also think the US would not be welcoming to black refugees, but it might stimulate serious Government interest in "back to Africa" movements such as Marcus Garvey's.

I see your points, but I say that even with Northern "sympathy" for "Gone with the Wind", or even "Birth of a Nation", such sympathies generally had to do with the civil war periods of those films, most certainly NOT Reconstruction.

As to "Back to Africa", such movements were more a scheme to remove Black intelligencia from North America, not Blacks as a whole. It took 400 years to get the Black populations of Africa to the Western Hemisphere, and that was with the trade triangle of "Rum, molasses, and slaves" supporting it. Try to send Blacks from the West "back to Africa" without it and you'll bankrupt the West a dozen times over. And just think of the nature of how Blacks got here in the first place. See: Middle Passage

CSA wins, then collapses... well, the USA comes back on them. End of story.

No way Britain or France is going to prop up a failed state. No way is the USA going to allow France to try to barge in on any bit of the rightful USA lands, such as Louisiana, regardless of historical claim. Mexico going at Texas will end the same, with the USA pouncing.

Tennessee would be the first to rejoin the Union, and that location would put a single state between the Union and the Gulf Coast, from Mississippi all around. None of the southern states have any sort of economic or industrial backing on their own to hold off the Union. They didn't as a Confederacy, so solo is a quick story.

No, no matter how you play things out, ANY USA worth its salt post-Civil War is going to face down ANY foreign aggressors on the simple principle of 'once an American, always an American' if only for the simple fact none are going to let others in their backyard.

Britain isn't stupid enough to try to support a failed state, as I said. France follows Britain's lead. Mexico has its own problems. Spain's empire is already in shambles, so same deal.

Basically, no outside player is capable or willing to contest/conquer the failed CSA, and the USA isn't going to sit idle while someone wipes their asses with the Monroe Doctrine. This means it's only a matter of time before the former CSA is slowly reincorporated to the USA. Either by hook, crook, or simple despair the CSA states will rejoin the Union eventually.

I'm waiting now for the Sun Never Sets types to descend and tell you how wrong you are. As in, the British Empire of the 1860s-70s defeating the USA using nothing but harsh language.