If the Confederate States of America had succeedeed in defeating the Union and gained independence what would be the long-term effects? Would these two nations become friends or will they become enemies and join opposing alliances? Will they ever reunite peacefully or violently? Much of this depends on how the South wins although it’ll almost certainly need British and French recognition which may mean the CSA’s friendship with them and the US’s enmity against them.
They’d never reconcile. First, because the mere existence of the North as a functioning entity is an offense to the South since it demonstrates that any claims they make as to the necessity of their system are lies. Second, because the fact that the North is more prosperous and getting more so helps demonstrate that slavery is not only unnecessary but self destructive; another blow to the collective ego of the South. And third, the South’s insistence on retaining their slave system means that they’ll never rise above the equivalent of Third World nation status, a preindustrial producer of resources economically dominated by the North.
They’d never be friends. And in the long run as the economic gap between the two grew wider the question would be if if the North would choose to eventually reconquer them or keep them around as an easily dominated source of cheap resources and labor. Either of which would naturally increase the dislike between the two, of course.
Not good. Harry Turtledove knows.
The South remains basically the same as it was pre-War initially. As the rest of the world rapidly advances into the modern industrial world, the Southern states become disjointed banana republics. Slave uprisings fueled by foreign and domestic abolitionists would occur. Most of the free non-slave owners would leave because the entire political basis of the Confereracy was to maintain slave labor for a wealthy minority. As their ability to sustain civilization declines, the wealthy minority would depart as well, leaving a mercenary force in place to exact the slave labor, until the slaves rise up and slaughter them. Corrupt US politicans get bribed to send the military in to take control of the situation. Spanish, Mexican, French, and English attempts are made to colonize the former Confederacy. It would be at least 1875 by this point. It’s hard to say what happens, but the Spanish American War is unlikely to occur, although similar politically motivated skirmishes would probably happen. Events in Eastern Europe are largely unaffected, so the course of the 20th century is virtually unchanged except for the change to the maps.
BTW, Qin, nobody calls it the “Southern Rebellion.” To Yankees it is simply the “Civil War”; to Southerners it is/was the “War Between the States” or the “War of Northern Aggression,” or, during and after Reconstruction, the “Late Unpleasantness.”
Turtledove was just basically cutting and pasting what happened to Germany from 1918 to '45 to the CSA. I mean how the hell would there be Western Front style trench warfare throughout the US completely ignoring the fact that most of the USA-CSA border west of the Appalahcians are plains?
There is the Monroe Doctrine first of all. ANd there is also the Butterfly effect.
It was referred to as the “War of the Rebellion” until the Southerners got upset about that.
They seemed to believe it was to their economic system. Industrialization of farming machinery would have changed that.
It was also about representation in the House, demonstrated by having nuclear missile silos in Arkansas rather than New York or California.
And let us not forget that Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith were hanged in Indiana. 
[quote=“Qin_Shi_Huangdi, post:6, topic:589206”]
There is the Monroe Doctrine first of all.
[quote]
Yes there is. So what? I said the Europeans attempted to colonize the South. Is there some particular illogical connection you want me to explain to you.
No there isn’t. Unless you mean the movie, which will probably still get made. I can’t be sure because I only went back and looked at the years 1861 to 1961 in the alternate universe. Since everything was so much the same by 1961, I figured the next 50 years would be about the same as in our universe.
Only as an irrational assertion of faith. They “believed” it was necessary because admitting that it wasn’t was simply unacceptable to them. They had the North and much of the rest of the world to prove them wrong. And IIRC even at the time there were economic analyses demonstrating that slavery was actually costing them money. But if they admitted it wasn’t necessary and morally just, then they’d have had to admit that all the oppression and degradation and torture had been for nothing.
[quote=“TriPolar, post:8, topic:589206”]
[quote=“Qin_Shi_Huangdi, post:6, topic:589206”]
There is the Monroe Doctrine first of all.
I meant once one thing changes, the rest of history becomes unpredictable. First of all nobody born nine months or so after history diverges is going to be the “same” as in our universe because they ever so slightly will be different as sperm #153539843 rather than 153539844 will be fertilized for example. Secondly, in this case for example the French might have more of a hand in Mexico and help install Emperor Maximillian on the throne which in turn cause a Franco-Austrian alliance (Maximillian was a Hapsburg) which of course will completely change anything like the Firs World War.
Reconstruction will do that to you.
Oops, Maryland and Delaware weren’t reconstructed.
I was talking about before the Civil War.
But those things didn’t happen. There were lots of little changes. For instance, cars in the US ended up with drivers sitting on the wrong side like in England. Early cars caught on a little quicker, and a marketing fight waged over minor cosmetic features. When two leading companies began an all out battle with one company featuring a driver’s seat on the left, as God intended, and the other with the driver’s seat in the middle. These companies boosted car sales by constantly lowering prices and offering freebies like electric sewing machines with each car purchase. But these companies were unable to keep up with demand. Henry Ford still had his idea about a production line, but he needed a gimmick to sell his cars. So he positioned the driver’s seat on the right. He published photos of a dashing young man with a sporty mustache, a straw boater on his head, his left arm around the shoulder of a smiling Broadway actress named Bertha Blake, and his right hand on the steering wheel of a Model T. The captions were things like “Driving Through the Countryside” and “Full Speed Ahead”, considered quite risque at the time. Ford sales skyrocketed. There were lots of little differences like that, but otherwise things were pretty much the same.
So what happens is one butterfly flaps his wings, but so does another one. Those things are always cancelling each other out with only a few exceptions. That’s why alternate universes only diverge around major events. Contrary to popular belief there’s no alternate universe where someone goes back in time and shoots a little man named Alphonse DeToma who lives in southern France. You can only find ones where someone goes back in time and shoots Hitler, or stops Booth from shooting Lincoln (really good one BTW). There is one for every major war, where it comes out the other way. There’s one for every major figure who gets assasinated where he or she isn’t in ours, and one for every significant person getting assasinated as well. As a matter of fact we’re in the one where McKinley dies and Reagan lives. In the one where McKinley lives and Reagan dies, they have jet packs.
I myself prefer to start referring to it as “The War of Southern Treason” whenever someone whips out that War of Northern Aggression nonsense.
Cotton prices would have collapsed, post-war, due to British advances in (horticulture? agriculture?).
Selective breeding created cotton strains that produced high-value cotton that could grow in British Imperial-era India.
The slave-based economy would go ker-plotz.
Eh? India was the world’s largest producer of cotton textiles until 1848 or so. The problem wasn’t growing cotton; it was that the Raj didn’t want to invest in industrial processing and weaving in India, preferring to ship the cotton to the UK to protect the domestic industry.