Suppose Lincoln had went along with the secesssion of the South…
And then sealed the borders…cut off all communication with the south. Put pressure on the European powers to not trade with them. Just sort of ignored them. Could they have survived? Or would they have crawled back to the Union? Did they have something the North could not do without?
Pressuring the European powers wouldn’t have worked, though–the British and French governments were both pro-Confederate during the Civil War. And the South was primarily agrarian–the British and French would have loved to have them as a market for industrial products, especially if the now-shrunken United States wasn’t going to trade with them, in exchange for cotton for the textile mills.
The North could presumably have done without Southern cotton for awhile, as it in fact did. But if there’s an embargo instead of a war, the lower Mississippi belongs to the Confederacy–no access for US shipping to New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico.
And…keep in mind that the South was not the first section of the US to consider secession–that was New England, around the time of the War of 1812. If one piece was allowed to split off, it’s entirely possible other pieces would have followed. For that matter, there were Southern leaders who disliked the Confederate government almost as much as the US government–at one point the Governor of Georgia threatened to seceed from the Confederacy, and the Vice President of the Confederacy left Richmond in disgust and never went back. I think it’s entirely possible the Confederacy itself would have split apart.
So…at least one possible outcome of Lincoln letting the South seceed would be the Balkanization of the US part of North America. And that would have far-reaching consequences for the later World Wars.
It’s an interesting subject to play with.
Both the North and South might have survived apart, but I can’t imagine either would have enjoyed the kind of success that remaining united has brought. Even if the two nations made by the split hadn’t ended up at war again, the best they could hope to achieve is some lackluster presence like that in Canada and more realistically one or both of them might have even have fared as poorly as Mexico.
I’m curious what you mean when you refer to “lackluster performance” on Canada’s part.
I didn’t say lackluster performance, I said lackluster presence. The United States is a super-power and Canada could never be confused for a super-power, but if the North and South had split, probably neither of them would have become super-powers either.
Funny as this may sound, if the south had been allowed to make a graceful exit, we could ALL be singing Dixie as our national anthem.
Many historians feel delaying the Civil War about 10 years would have meant that the south would have had time to tap the mineral resources in Alabama and therefore not been as dependent upon the north’s resources. Enough so to win the war.
Allow the South to leave gracefully, then let the south discover their self-sufficiency and in a few years the south could have conquered the north, or negotiated there “repatriation”.
Kind of scary to think that today you could go into a TGI Friday’s in Pittsburgh and order “sweet tea”, huh?
SouthernStyle
Actually, wouldn’t you order “tea” or “unsweetened tea”? Blech!
The South conquer the North do to increased mineral resources? That’s a stretch if I’ve ever seen one. The North vastly outnumbered the South in terms of population and industrial might. The South did well at the outset of the war due to the fact that they were fighting for something much more tangible. The Conferate States would have had no inclination to conquer the North, as that would have added a huge number of anti-slaverey voters to their country.
Had they all been crazy and tried to take over the North anyways, they would have lost badly. The North fought badly at the outset of the War of Northern Aggression due to the fact that they were fighting against their fellow countrymen for an abstract concept of national unity, while the southerners were fighting for the land they lived on. The North won largely due to having a vastly greater population and far more industry. Southerners fighting on Northern soil in a war to take over a separate country would have been creamed.
And scarier even than sweet tea up here is the prospect of an additional, let’s say, 50 years of slavery.
I have to agree with the above (I can’t provide a cite or “proof”, but hell, this is all conjecture, anyway)
I don’t believe the South could have ever conquered the North unless their technology were OVERWHELMING. This isn’t meant to be an anti-southern statement, as I feel that, in what actually transpired, the Southern soldiers acquitted themselves admirably, given the lack of resources and manpower.
However, reverse the situation–have the NORTH fighting for it’s way of life and the SOUTH fighting for “conquest”, and I agree with waterj2. The South loses.
Of course, military intervention, if available, by other foreign powers could have thrown all this into a cocked hat…
Which reminds me of a book by Harry Turtledove (IIRC) in which the course of the war is changed when the South gets AK-47’s. Never read it, but have heard good things. I have no idea where the AK’s came from in the book, or even if the South does win in the end. If you’re into what ifs, it might be interesting.
That’s one of my favorite books. Some Afrikaan’ers get ahold of a time machine and get Gen Lee some AK-47’s. South wins when Lee attacks Washington and forces a truce and peace. Lee and others discover what really happened in the future via books the guys brought back and outlaw slavery.
It’s a great book, better than my short description.
but anyway, the south did as well as it did because we had better Generals. (Until Grant showed up, but let’s face it, by that point, anyone with some skill could have knocked the Army of Northern Virginia off, it was so bad off.)
The South simply ran out of stuff to fight with.
We are all better off as one country.
waterj2: The AK-47s came from South Africans from the future. Evidently, SA figured out how to transport people and materials through time, and decided that if the South had won, then Apartheid might not be looked upon quite so archly.
Of course the above dates the book, since SA now has a constitution upon which the ANC worked, but it is an interesting read. Called Guns of the South, I believe. Also, the South winds up getting screwed due to the less-than gung-ho feelings of Lee.
Waste
Flick Lives!
The south didn’t discover it’s resources and begin developing a serious industial complex until it was too late to affect the outcome of the war. Wait a few years for the south to industrialize and things might have been different.
Remember that much of Europe was sympathetic to the south. Add a couple of severe winters, or droughts, and the north suddenly finds itself very hungry with no place to expand and a southerly neighbor of considerable might.
I remember this discussion from high school.
SouthernStyle
Turtledove had another trilogy (quadrology, quintology) about the South winning. After the North’s loss at Gettysburg, the France and England force Lincoln into an armistice. The Confederacy annexes Cuba, fights with Mexico and annexes Sonora giving it a Pacific presence, fights another small war with the North. The North and South, allied with the Kaiser and the Brits/French, respectively, are drawn into WWI. The terrors and tragedies of trench warfare are acted out in PA, MD VA KY etc.
I was born in Virginia, think Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson are millenial military heroes but I am so glad the North won the war.
Careful there, my friend. In the Beginning they were sympathetic to the Confederacy, and the Confederacy was counting on them to help to win the war. However, England and France both changed their minds not to long after the war started, both refusing to aid in anyway. I can’t remember the exact reason why, give me some time though, and I will find out.
I wanted to quote right from my history book, but sadly I don’t have it with me. =(
pepperlandgirl said:
I’m sorry, pepper, but that’s not correct–the British and French governments were both pro-Confederate throughout the Civil War. For that matter, British officials tended to interpret their own neutrality laws such as to overlook the building of Confederate commerce-raiders in Britain. (This was countered in part by the influnce of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband, who was a personal friend of US Ambassador Charles Francis Adams.)
What you may be thinking of is that neither the UK nor France recognized the Confederacy diplomatically–a major blow to the Southern cause. This was not because of a lack of desire to do so on the part of the leaders; it was political factors that prevented such recognition. And it can be argued that the British public, at least, became considerably more pro-Union after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect (though that was more that a year and a half after the war started). But the British government under Viscount Palmerston and the French government under Napoleon III were both very definitely pro-Confederate.
(And, to relate back to my original point, if the Confederacy had been established as an independent nation–the topic of the OP–the British and French would have certainly recognized and traded with it.)
A good source for this topic is Shelby Foote’s three volume The Civil War–A Narrative; it is also discussed in James M. McPherson’s Battle Cry Of Freedom–The Civil War Era.
Turtledove books on the subject:
**Guns of the South.
How Few Remain **
This book takes place in the 1880s. Although many people think this book is a continuation of Guns, it’s not. When Guns starts, for example, Stonewall Jackson is already dead. In this book, however, he is alive.
Without giving away too many details, the Confederacy, wanting an outlet to the Pacific, buy Sonora and Chihuahua from Mexico. That angers the U.S.'ers enough to go to war. Of course, with the U.S. busy in the South, the U.K. comes at the U.S. from Canada.
Interesting twist: Lincoln becomes a Marxist!
** The Great War Series
First book: American Front
Second book: Walk in Hell
Third book: Breakthroughs**
In short, the U.S. and the C.S. find themselves on opposite sides of World War I and fight it out here.
I have only read the first book of this series so far (I usually wait for paperback) and have enjoyed it.
Side note and minor hijack: Turtledove’s WorldWar Series is a terrific read!!
Zev Steinhardt