WI: CSA-USA Peaceful Reunion

[Johnrankins]

I'm not sure why you have brought all of this up and I am a bit vaue about what you are trying to say as you seem to be questioning something I had not posted? Anyhow I would also be most interested by what you mean when you say industrialised? Your assertion that the British were incapable of conquering the USA at this point in time (during the ACW) is frankly beyond belief. In the many hundreds of threads on this site where this has been discussed it is absolutely clear that the USA has no means of obtaining victory other than attrition and that the Union economy would collapse under blockade within months. I do not propose to discuss this further it is a given in my discussion. Frankly I am bored with that debate.



I am an agnostic myself but there are a lot of Christians on this site. Is it appropriate to start the paragraph as you have?

1) France can conquer southern Alta-California with almost no troops. It has some troops in theatre and more in Asia it can use.
2) Britain can take all of all of the important bits of California (SF, Sacramento and the lower goldfields) with assets it had in theatre in 1862.
3) The majority of the population of California was foreign born and even more of it did not support the Union. It would be easy for the British to engineer a change in Govt and independence.




I think you have just started being unpleasant because you cannot align with by scenario. In fact your ranting is a bit hard to interpret but what I think you are saying is that the USA would not accept peace terms that included the loss of tariffs? If so I would suggest that what happens then is they all go back to war and the RN destroys whatever is left of the USA's economy. However ... I would expect that in most scenarios the loss of tariff protection to the USA's economy would be so disasterous that the USA would renage on the peace agreement after several years when most of the British feets had gone home hoping that the British would not be upset enough to go to war again. This might be the case or it might not. In the latter instance the RN burn the east coast again.

It was considered industrialized because it was industrialized. It isn't a hard concept. The US made furniture, paper, railroad equipment, steel, timber, farm equipment, mining equipment, telegraphs, guns, cannon, newspapers, clothing, canned food etc. It was number THREE on the planet according to Kennedy.

The US was self sufficient in food, raw materials and most manufactured goods. The percentage of its GDP involved in overseas trade was tiny. So why exactly would the economy collapse?

California is a LOT closer to Illinois than either England or France and you can bet reinforcements would arrive in large numbers within months. England would be fighting a highly industrialized country larger than France, Germany, Italy and Spain combined 3,000 miles away! The US had more railroad miles than the rest of the world combined.

GB didn't insist on low tariffs after any war it fought with a Great Power that I can remember. It certainly never tried to do so in regards to the US in OTL. The costs would be far greater than the benefit. Most likely the US would refuse to trade with GB at all. How would the CSA change that?

 

[TFSmith121]

Short answer? It can't...

Lets assume that, and lets not argue about how the CSA gets free, but the reunion and how it comes about and its effects on US History.

Assuming the two nations are not united by war, but by peace and the two nations both agreeing to reunite, will the USA respect Confederate history in the history books, and for the sake of sanity lets say slavery is extinguished in the South by 1870, with the reunion anytime after 1890.

How does this affect Americas economy, our history, our modern concept of the CSA and the South. The World Wars (if unification happens before them, though it can happen after). Another thing is that THE CSA IS NOT COLLAPSING!

Would Confederate citizens become instant American citizens, as natural born US citizens, or no? What is the legacy of the Confederacy in this world, seeing as they were there own nation and then agreed to join there cousins again?

EDIT: The two sides split peacefully.

The US of 1861 would not "split peacefully" - there's a reason 600,000 people died between 1861-65 and god knows how many others had died beforehand. Secession would lead to war, as it practically did in 1832...and, frankly, as rebellions and insurrections pretty much were guaranteed to do in the Nineteenth Century, as witness British North America in 1837-38, and various and sundry equivalents in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina/Buenos Aires, etc.

Peaceful dissolution of a federal state is pretty rare, and certainly even more so in the Nineteenth Century than it was in the Twentieth. Nation states in the West in the era just did not function like that; the overall focus was toward national consolidation, and even when an independent federal state broke up (Central America, for example) it was pretty bloody.

If you want another country in North America to play with, and where there is one that calls itself the "United States" and another calls itself "someplace else," than you need a point of departure much earlier than 1861, but (presumably) after 1776.

And if you want "someplace else" to resemble the (historical) southern United States between 1776 and 1861, you also have to recognize that the wealth of the South that was created by plantation agriculture was only possible with chattel slavery.

Daniel Walker Howe's What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 is a great overview of the antebellum period in the U.S., generally, and especially of the sectional crisis.

Best,

 

[Corbell Mark IV]

Food, gold, oil, coal, iron, steel, furniture, railroad engines, chemicals, machine tools, glass, toys, books, paper, wood, tin, copper, steam engines etc. etc. The US would have NO problems paying its bills. The CSA on the other hand had nothing but cotton and tobacco.

Cotton and tobacco were good cash crops, hence building a whole regional society on them. A CSA that is allowed to leave, short term, is going to be in pretty good shape financially.


The North, on the other hand, is far more industrialized and even capitalistic then the SOuth outside of the Plantation system.

It will be ok in the Short term and even better in the longer term, providing it can find any markets for it's products. One of the best is going to be an largely agricultural CSA.

 

[Corbell Mark IV]

But what reason would the CSA have for reunifying, short of an outright collapse?

The obvious answer to me, is that in twenty or thirty years, with increasing pressure from it's trading partners/allies, and the Boll Weevil, that slavery is abolished and the prime reason for leaving the Union is gone.

There would need to be some convoluted rationalizations to avoid huge crow eating, and the Union would have to be somewhat diplomatic, but it could be done.

 

[Johnrankins]

Cotton and tobacco were good cash crops, hence building a whole regional society on them. A CSA that is allowed to leave, short term, is going to be in pretty good shape financially.


The North, on the other hand, is far more industrialized and even capitalistic then the SOuth outside of the Plantation system.

It will be ok in the Short term and even better in the longer term, providing it can find any markets for it's products. One of the best is going to be an largely agricultural CSA.

Finding markets for its products wasn't a problem OTL, so why would it be in this one? Despite frlmerrin's fantasies GB never insisted on having the US agree to low tariffs after a war, or anyone else that I can think of for that matter, so why would it do so in this one? The US economy was largely self sufficient in the 19th century. It didn't collapse during the War of 1812 without the overseas trade and wouldn't collapse in the 1860's. There was very little that it couldn't provide for itself. Even then it was a huge country with good farmland and lots of raw materials and was the 3rd most industrialized country on the planet. What exactly did it need from overseas to prevent a collapse of the economy?

 

[Corbell Mark IV]

Finding markets for its products wasn't a problem OTL, so why would it be in this one?

True.

Despite frlmerrin's fantasies GB never insisted on having the US agree to low tariffs after a war, or anyone else that I can think of for that matter, so why would it do so in this one? The US economy was largely self sufficient in the 19th century. It didn't collapse during the War of 1812 without the overseas trade and wouldn't collapse in the 1860's. There was very little that it couldn't provide for itself. Even then it was a huge country with good farmland and lots of raw materials and was the 3rd most industrialized country on the planet. What exactly did it need from overseas to prevent a collapse of the economy?

Agreed.

 

[zoomar]

Since we are stating up front that "CSA collapse" is off the table, I really don't see how this happens...

I agree. However, in the extremely unlikely event that a sucessful CSA wanted to rejoin the United States and that the USA also wanted this to happen, I think the only constitutionally valid way this could occur would be for the CSA and USA to sign some sort of treaty of annexation that first dissolves the CSA as an independent federal state and then provides for each individual state of the CSA to apply for and rejoin the United States according to the provisions established for adding states in the US Constitution and legislation.

The USA doesnt have (and presumably wouldn't have in this TL) any process under which it could merge with another nation as equals to establish something new and bigger. In this TL the USA and CSA would not be doing this. The CSA would be rejoining the United States, not merging with it.

 

[Johnrankins]

I agree. However, in the extremely unlikely event that a sucessful CSA wanted to rejoin the United States and that the USA also wanted this to happen, I think the only constitutionally valid way this could occur would be for the CSA and USA to sign some sort of treaty of annexation that first dissolves the CSA as an independent federal state and then provides for each individual state of the CSA to apply for and rejoin the United States according to the provisions established for adding states in the US Constitution and legislation.

The USA doesnt have (and presumably wouldn't have in this TL) any process under which it could merge with another nation as equals to establish something new and bigger. In this TL the USA and CSA would not be doing this. The CSA would be rejoining the United States, not merging with it.

If this were to happen (And not having the CSA simply collapse gets rid of at least 99.9% of all realistic scenarios. The only one I can come up with is that the CSA has serious problems with rioting Blacks but before it gets to the brink of collapse panicking Whites call for rejoining the Union so Northern troops can be brought down to help put Blacks "back in their place." ) it would be on a state by state basis. First VA and TN would go followed by North Carolina. South Carolina would go last.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

The obvious answer to me, is that in twenty or thirty years, with increasing pressure from it's trading partners/allies, and the Boll Weevil, that slavery is abolished and the prime reason for leaving the Union is gone.

Yes, but political divisions tend to take on a life of their own after the original reason for the division is no longer relevant. E.g., the reason why Canada and the USA are separate countries is that Canada stayed loyal to the Empire during the Revolution. Now the British Empire is gone, but I don't see many people on either side of the border clamouring for unification.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

Actually, a common threat often leads countries to unite -- e.g., the Swiss Cantons were originally independent before they banded together for mutual defence. So maybe a South America wank or something leads to the USA and CSA putting aside their differences and forming a military alliance. In view of the magnitude of the threat they decide they need to present a united front to the world, and their defence and foreign policies are increasingly co-ordinated through the league, which eventually evolves into a confederation-style government in all but name.

 

[Clandango]

The CSA collapsing is excluded from these reunion theroies

Any other things? Those sort should be stated at the beginning, lest good ideas be rubber stamped with a veto as the thread goes on. And can we at least have it where the states can leave the Cnfederacy if they like or had to fight the central government there to rejoin the US? Or to have them each negotiate admission independently.

 

[zoomar]

If this were to happen (And not having the CSA simply collapse gets rid of at least 99.9% of all realistic scenarios. The only one I can come up with is that the CSA has serious problems with rioting Blacks but before it gets to the brink of collapse panicking Whites call for rejoining the Union so Northern troops can be brought down to help put Blacks "back in their place." ) it would be on a state by state basis. First VA and TN would go followed by North Carolina. South Carolina would go last.

In this case, however, why on earth would the USA agree to take on the confederate states and inherit a potential slave revolt? One reason I believe the north would quickly become "happy with" or at least accepting of an independent CSA once the immediate hostility of the war was past is the realization that the entire issue of slavery and/or a large oppressed non-white population is now no longer a problem for the USA. It's another country's problem. The North was by and large just as racist as the South; it's government just didn't believe slavery was a legitimate way to express this racism. I also suspect that soon after the war the few slave-holding states remainig in the US would be forced to abandon the practice, probably through some sort of federal compensation scheme

So I believe no states of the CSA would ever be readmitted to the USA until they had either emancipated all slaves and established an education/settlement policy for them as citizens (unlikely) or free residents (more likely) or shipped them off to Liberia.

 

[Clandango]

Issue 1 - There are both Government funds and private funds to consider

Issue 2 - Private funds. With whom will the USA's industrialists trade? They can be undercut by the British even including trans Atlantic transport when trading into the CSA. If the CSA gained its independence via a British intervention then it is reasonable to conclude that (as part of the peace treaty) the British will stop the USA using tariffs to protect domestic industry. So they would not even be able to out compete the British (and some other Europeans) within the borders of the USA. If the USA's industry falters it will no longer be attractive to British and foreign Capitalists for investment. Of course post-independence the CSA being much less developed with far greater financial potential and nearly equally USA will have to service a large war debt out of the above income even if the war ends mid-1862 as they went on a very big spending spree.

Tariff income is gone because no one will be able to afford to import goods even if this is not a British intervention scenario. That leaves Californian gold. If this is a British intervention scenario the USA has probably lost California. Even if it hasn't it is still less than a third of what the USA's Govt needs.

Where do you think the British got most of their grain from or where much of their investments were held anyways? And there is no reason for the British to support the Confederates, as the Southerners tried blackmailing the British by saying they would not ship more cotton to them. The British already had loads of cotton stockpiled anyways and it helped those who sold it as the prices rose. In comparison, the Americans sent shipments of wheat to the poor of the industrial textile cities. Admittedly the British auctioned off the food the first time, but the poor got food from the next shipment

As for California, it was important to a degree in British foreign policy and colonialism. Namely, being afraid that the Forty-Niners would take over the Yukon or Australia when they swarmed to the areas at the discovery of gold. Besides, gold was running lower at this time and it is always better to be the only person someone is buying from rather than being out their digging up gold yourself. That is why the British did not try turning Latin America into colonies.


And I agree with the people who posted above about the likelyhood of slavery being abolished being low. Especially as it was banned to even mention trying it in the Confederate Constitution and the powers for states and private citizens to do so was vastly curtailed. I wouldn't be surprised it it got to the point where it was illegal to free slaves, which it was in some areas.

 

[zoomar]

Any other things? Those sort should be stated at the beginning, lest good ideas be rubber stamped with a veto as the thread goes on. And can we at least have it where the states can leave the Cnfederacy if they like or had to fight the central government there to rejoin the US? Or to have them each negotiate admission independently.

Well, it's the OP's post and a non-collapsing CSA is one of the requirements. Yes, this is quite restrictive and almost impossible. But it does raise some interesting questions that a "collapsing" or "disintigrating" confederacy doesn't. How do you unite two federal republics, each with a relatively powerful central government? Do you create a binary state with the US and CS governments surviving in some manner as an intermediate level of government between the new central government and each state? Do they merge in a manner in which both central governments cease to exist in their current form and an entirely new central government and constitution is established? Does one of the parties (the CSA, presumably) voluntarily dissolve itself so its constituent states can rejoin the union? These options create some quite interesting alternatives for North America.

 

[zoomar]

And I agree with the people who posted above about the likelyhood of slavery being abolished being low. Especially as it was banned to even mention trying it in the Confederate Constitution and the powers for states and private citizens to do so was vastly curtailed. I wouldn't be surprised it it got to the point where it was illegal to free slaves, which it was in some areas.

I agree, and in my opinion this makes any reunion of the USA and CSA something that neither country would want.

 

[Johnrankins]

In this case, however, why on earth would the USA agree to take on the confederate states and inherit a potential slave revolt?

National pride, an opportunity to gloat, a desire not to have the uprising spread to the US, sympathy for fellow Whites. Still, I think the odds are probably well under 50% but that is the best I could come up with.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

Maybe we could take the opposite route, and have scientific racism and eugenics take off in an even bigger way during the later 19th century. It's only a small step from "Some races are naturally inferior" to "Some races are natural slaves", after all, and having the North come round to support slavery, rather than the South coming to reject it, would be a pleasingly novel (if horrifically dystopian ) way of resolving the slavery issue.

 

[Johnrankins]

Maybe we could take the opposite route, and have scientific racism and eugenics take off in an even bigger way during the later 19th century. It's only a small step from "Some races are naturally inferior" to "Some races are natural slaves", after all, and having the North come round to support slavery, rather than the South coming to reject it, would be a pleasingly novel (if horrifically dystopian ) way of resolving the slavery issue.

That could work.

 

[frlmerrin]

<irrelevant stuff> Anyhow I would also be most interested by what you mean when you say industrialised?<more irrelevant stuff>

It was considered industrialized because it was industrialized. It isn't a hard concept.

I asked a simple question germane to the discussion and you present me with a tautology. You define industrialisation in terms of itself! It was pointless and suggests that despite your statement to the contrary for you at least industrialisation is a very hard concept indeed? Would you like to have another go?

My reason for asking this question was neither that I was incapable of taking in the world ‘industrialisation’ unless you repeated it to me several times nor that I was setting you up to embarrass you over your inability to explain your assertions, rather it is that there are many different definitions of what constitutes industrialisation and that the one you appear to have chosen (which I infer based on your reference) may well not be a useful or appropriate tool for what you are using it for, that is discussing how industrialised the USA was in the 1860s. See below.

The US made furniture, paper, railroad equipment, steel, timber, farm equipment, mining equipment, telegraphs, guns, cannon, newspapers, clothing, canned food etc. It was number THREE on the planet according to Kennedy.

By Kennedy I am assuming you mean The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy? This is a rather good revisionist history book. The way it looks at industrialisation is ideal for discussing the rise and fall of states over long periods, which is what the book is all about. However, because it covers all of the major powers of the world and more importantly covers a period of 500 years from 1500 to 2000 it does not provide a great deal of detail on any one particular country at any given point in time. It further obscures any detailed information because it makes use of data that has been collected and combined as indicies and percentages of various wholes. Most of the detail has been lost. It is a blunt and completely unsuitable instrument for looking at the relative capabilities of the USA, CSA and British Empire over a few short years in the 1860s. I fail to understand why some posters on this board slavishly refer to it when there are so many rich and far more detail sources of primary information easily to hand. For example the Statistical Abstracts of both Britain and the USA and many other primary documents such as national Almanacs for the period are widely available on the web.
So just because Kennedy say that the USA was the third industrial power using a compressed data set it does not mean it was third by other more appropriate measures of industrialisation that are actually relevant in this scenario.

Please stop using capital to emphasis your arguments – it is pointless and GIVES MEA A HEADACHE!

You are also guilty of two logical fallacies in your reasoning. First and worse Kennedy never addressed the power and potential of a USA that had been separated from the CSA, possibly California and some other bits too maybe. He was looking at the whole USA in OTL which is a far more powerful and well funded nation than a rump USA. In short there is no justification for applying any of Kennedy’s data (well he didn’t actually collate it I understand) without heavily massaging it to account for the loss of the CSA, California and whatever else is lost in the scenario. Clearly you have not done this.

Secondly, being the third industrial power becomes a complete irrelevance if you are at war with the first industrial power and the funds , production capacity and ability to commit war of that power are many times that of the third power.

You produced another list of thing the USA produced apparently as an argument that it was industrialised. Let us examine it.

Furniture – already mentioned nothing new to say.
Paper – already mentioned nothing new to say.
Railway equipment – yes it did. Locomotives we have already discussed. Rolling stock it could not produce enough of until well after the civil war and USA built iron rails (a) were so poor they had a very short life and (b) they could not produce enough of so they brought a huge amount from Britain (c) by the end of the ACW OTL the British were mass producing far superior steel rails, no one wanted iron rails anymore and it was many years before USA production of steel rail hit its stride. Years after they had general steel production sorted out in the 1870s-80s. In other words most railway equipment is an import loss and there is no prospect of exporting anything to the CSA or anywhere else for that matter
Steel – well no basically. Ante-bellum the whole USA (OTL USA and CSA) produced a tiny tonnage of crucible steel. In order to do this they had to import a similar tiny tonnage of Swedish bar iron which was hugely expensive. By 1863 the first small Bessemer converter was entering production somewhere out west (in what ISTR would be the Confederate Arizona territory? A region the Confederates might gain in this scenario). USA steel production did not really become significant until the 1870s in the OTL USA. In this scenario it is going to be even later due to lack of interest in funding production from the British capitalists and a lack of funds on the part of the USA capitalists. As the CSA is no less familiar with Bessemer technology than the USA (i.e. it is new technology) it is just as likely the CSA develops a steel industry too, perhaps more likely as it is ideally suited for production by slave labour.
Timber – already discussed.
Farm equipment – in OTL this industry was not significant for another 20-30 years after the ACW. The British are the centre of traction engine production and they were at the forefront of tractor production in the early years of 20th Century (they lost out to USA mass production in OTL between the wars). In this scenario however the USA farm equipment industry would probably be still-born as the major users – small free farmers are going to be much less affluent and the CSA’s farmers are likely to buy British because they are more efficient and will undercut the USA’s manufacturers most of the time.
Mining equipment – no idea not a major industry I think but ‘at the bottom of every pit is a Cornish Jack’ and they may well all go home or at least to Canada or the CSA in the event of an Anglo-Union war.
Telegraphs – these have very little capital outlay except for trans-Oceanic cables (which the British would of course control). The only major production item is the drawn, wound and wrapped cable. I would expect this to have been be made in Britain (probably in Salford) in OTL. I don’t know this however, so I would be most interested if you had any evidence to present to the contrary?
Guns – I assume you mean small arms? Union production in OTL was pitiful. Huge resources were thrown at increasing it but they did not manage to get the production values they needed until quite late in the ACW. One of the ways they managed to do this was by importing British machines and measurement technologies. After the war the CSA is not going to be buying small arms from the USA and the USA’s manufacturers will struggle to compete with the British manufacturers who will have increased production in the event of an Anglo-Union war (should that be the scenario). Incidentally does anyone know if they forged their own iron bars for the gun barrels or imported them?
Cannon – Nope. USA cannon were dross, either obsolete but effective like the Napoleons or unwieldy and created using unreliable cast iron technologies like the Dhalgrens, Parrotts and Ordinance rifles.
Newspapers – not exactly a major industry.
Clothing – You jest! Cloth and yarn came from Britain and was made up into clothing by garmentos in the USA. Boots and socks came from the Britain. All cloth - wools, cottons and even silks came via Britain. The amount of cloth actually made in the USA right up to the turn of the century was small.
Canned food – A middle class little luxury until the dawn of WWI.

The US was self sufficient in food, raw materials and most manufactured goods. The percentage of its GDP involved in overseas trade was tiny. So why exactly would the economy collapse?

Well now let us think. Once again you have fallen in to logically fallacy confusing the OTL USA with a post-CSA independence USA. This USA is clearly not self-sufficient in food. It might become so but it would be difficult and expensive. As a minimum it would not be self-sufficient in sugar and beef. Possibly hogs and if there has been an Anglo-Union war it is very unlikely Newfoundland, the Maritimes and Canada East would permit USA fishing vessels to access most of the Grand Banks, combined with the loss of fishing grounds off the CSA coast it is highly likely they would need to import fish too! They have no spice production; they had none before the war. Coffee is not produced in the USA, neither was tea or cocoa.

Raw materials? Even the OTL USA wasn’t self sufficient in raw materials. They had no Chile Nitrate and Guano to start with. Key woods such as mahogany, ebony, teak and lignum vitae – all vital engineering materials in the Victorian age needed to be imported, mostly from the British. Similarly lacquerers, shellacs, nacres and ivory are all needed and need to be imported. Even raw cotton now needs to be imported now. They had no steam coal on the west coast. In a few years time they will need rubber which is not grown domestically. I have already discussed steel and bar iron. Sulphur now needs to be imported and in less than 20 years so will oil. Tin and lead were imported during the ACW.

Manufactured goods, the USA even in OTL was not close to being self-sufficient. Steel and steel rails were vitally important. So too was hoop steel without it the primitive locomotive boilers and engines built in the USA could not even achieve the low pressures they did. Cloth and yard, cotton, wool and silk was imported on a large scale as already partially discussed. Boots and socks already discussed. Machine tools and metallurgical equipments were imported. Measurement tools were imported. The list is much longer but I am doing it from memory and this is all that come to mind.

So in conclusion of this section all of your assertions of self-sufficiency for the USA in a post-CSA independence scenario are shown to be false.

Regarding the assertion that export trade was only a tiny percentage of the USA’s GDP. I am not in possession of definitive evidence about this. On the face of it, the assertion would appear to be untrue. Simply think for a moment of the ante-bellum situation, how vast the British textile industry was and how much cotton, most of it from the South it consumed. What possible elements of the USA domestic economy could be regarded as being so large in their contribution to GDP that they would dwarf the export earnings of cotton?

If we now consider the post-CSA independence situation, then cotton drops out of the picture but wheat is still a major export and with the loss of the CSA the domestic economy has contracted considerably. It still looks like exports are a significant part of GDP.

In the absence of any firm evidence of my own on the size of the contribution of exports to post-CSA independence USA’s GDP I would be delighted to review any arguments or evidence you have on the matter?

California is a LOT closer to Illinois than either England or France and you can bet reinforcements would arrive in large numbers within months. England would be fighting a highly industrialized country larger than France, Germany, Italy and Spain combined 3,000 miles away! The US had more railroad miles than the rest of the world combined.

I’m not sure why you chose Illinois? New York would have been a more realistic distance as more USA troops were raised there in the ACW. The things that you are missing however is that whilst the distance between NY and California may be less than the distance from Britain and France to California certain other factors are more important.

1) There were in 1862 only a few good routes from the east across the Great American Desert to the West Coast. From memory these were: The Oregon trail, the California trail and the various intermeshing southern trails.
2) In the early 1860s the land routes across the Great American Desert were difficult to traverse and dangerous. In 1857 a wagon train to the Oregon could expect a mortality rate of 2-5%.
3) There was no railway across the Great American Desert during the ACW.
4) The Great American Desert was a real desert at that time. The Great Artesian Basin had not been found and tapped. Water was scarce.
5) It took a long time to traverse these trails. The quickest way to get from the East Coast to California was by ship to Panama, across the trans-continental railway there and by ship up the coast of Mexico to California. The second quickest way was by ship all the way around the Horn at the base of South America. Land travel was much slower than the other two options. When Winfield-Scott was sent to Vancouver Island to treat with the British and attempt to stop the Pig War becoming a real war he went the quickest way he could by ships and via Panama.
6) A USA Company owned the trans-Continental railway in Panama. It was guarded by a regiment of US Army troops that remained loyal to the Union. In the event of an Anglo-Union war the Royal Navy would secure the railway in the British strategic interest.
7) Thus to reinforce California all Union forces would have to cross the desert slowly. The British could move troops from the Caribbean to California much more quickly than the Union could move them overland. In fact if they want to the British could move troops from the home islands to California via Panama almost as quickly as the Union can move them across the desert.
8) The British had assets in theatre to attack and occupy the key parts of California and so did the French. The British had further assets to call on in China, Australasia and further afield in India. The French had assets in China and Indo-China.
9) Due to the fragility of the water holes it would not be possible to move large numbers of soldiers across the trails to the west coast in one go. Columns of about 200 at most could be accommodated with several days between each column to allow the water hole to recover.
10) As a rule of thumb it would take some 20,000 troops in the logistics train across the desert to deliver 10,000 troops to fight in California and keep them supplied.
11) For a USA that is waging war on both the CSA and the British Empire California is a low priority item. It will be below the war against the Confederates in the East, the British in the North, the defence of the Eastern coast, the war at sea and maybe even a lower priority still. Do you really think the USA’s Govt will find 30,000 troops to defend it? What will they sacrifice to find and supply those troops?
12) At the end of 1861/start of 1862 there were around 60 companies of Union troops of all types thinly spread over all of California and beyond. They were having major recruiting problems. About a third of the Companies were forming, untrained and in some cases had only a handful of troops in strength. The forts are chronically undermanned and under gunned.

Regarding railways the USA may have had more railway miles than anyone else but they were pretty poor low capacity, low reliability railways a point I may come back to in another post AND most importantly of all in this context they did not go to California!

GB didn't insist on low tariffs after any war it fought with a Great Power that I can remember.

Well actually when the Opium Wars ended Britain made provision in the treaty that the Chinese could not put tariffs on their goods without their agreement. You may very well say that China was not a Great Power at that time. I would have to agree but then I would point out that in 1862 neither was the USA and it certainly wouldn’t be a great power if it had just lost the CSA, California and been defeated by the British would it?

It certainly never tried to do so in regards to the US in OTL. The costs would be far greater than the benefit. Most likely the US would refuse to trade with GB at all. How would the CSA change that?

In 1814 it wasn’t that high on Britain’s agenda.
I would appreciate it if you could explain why you think the costs of imposing free trade on a defeated USA would cost British merchants more than they benefited. It is not obvious how this would come about.
You do realise that even if the British did not require that the USA embrace free trade as part of the peace terms and it continued to protect its industries with tariffs USA industries are still vulnerable to more efficient European industries? I would also point out that even in the presence of protective tariffs for the rump USA the CSA will make almost all of its purchases from Britain as the British can supply them cheaper even including the cost of transport. This will have a huge detrimental impact on the economy of the USA. It will also lead to industrial scale smuggling of British goods across the huge CSA-USA border to the further detriment of the USA economy.

 

[packmanwiscy]

I'm just throwing it out there that if the Confederates gain their independance, they wouldn't abolish slavery by 1870. They would probably have slavery until probably around 1880.