Maybe. It would have been hard for them, though, with large pro-secession populations, propaganda from the Confederacy, and being increasingly isolated in the Congress.
I also think you might have seen the attempted secession of California and the Utah territory.
At any rate, had seccession been successful, both north and south would have been weaker, poorer, and less stable.
I would add, slavery was already becoming uneconomic by the 1850’s. this inefficiency was concealed by the one-crop planatation system, but the South was falling behind-and keeping education away from thje poor (black and whites) helped keep the South backward.
The south was pretty much an economic basket case until the 1950’s-and it would have been worse if the CSA survived.
This would be hard to prove. I think a large part of the economic problems in the south was the sudden manner in which slavery was ending, thus crashing their economy (not to mention the whole war things costs a lot). We have no way of knowing if the southern economy would of been worse off had slavery been ended in a more incremental manner, or if they had of later abolished it themselves.
I was recently at the Lynchburg, Va museum, and they claimed that Lynchburg Va had the second highest GPD in the nation prior to the civil war. It seems to me that the war and the reconstruction (essentially foreign occupation and control) had more to do with the souths economic woes than anything else.
GDP or GDP per capita? If the latter, it might be skewed if they weren’t counting the slaves in the population (or only counting them as 2/3 a person).
One of the many things that in tandem damned the Confederacy was that not even their armies could work together in spite of a life-and-death common cause. (Examples: uniforms rotted by the thousands in South Carolina warehouses because the state would not share them with other states, corn rotted in warehouses in north Alabama because they would not give them up to the armies that weren’t from Alabama, Forrest followed the orders of Bragg when he felt like it [which was seldom, though in his defense he was always right when he disobeyed], it was a source of major politicking to promote a Mississippian over a North Carolinian or vice versa, etc…) The same things would have hopelessly damned any government or union had the war not happened, imo. Texas would have split off to be its own country again, Tennessee would probably have left the south to rejoin the Union, MS/AL/GA would probably have formed a secondary “sub-Confederacy”, and it would have been back to the 13 Colonies except with a lot more animosity.
As for slavery, I don’t think it would likely have ever gone away completely. The plutocrats simply had absolutely no incentive to essentially bankrupt themselves. Doing historical and genealogical research I’ve found several accounts where good and cultivated farmland sold for $10-$20 per acre; an old slave sold for $200 or more, and a young slave in good condition could sell for anywhere from $1500 on up (way up if they had skills*]); in other words a slave in good condition was worth more to his/her owners than a 100 or 200 acre farm, sometimes more than a plantation.* Slaves, not land or cotton or houses or stock or cash, were the bulk of the ruling class’s wealth.
Anyway, I don’t think the plutocrats, who were less than 2000 of the south’s millions of families but controlled something like 80% of the land and capital, would ever have voluntarily let slavery go. If they’d been absolutely forced to it would have been by a plebeian movement due to the unfair economic power slavery afforded the owners. Even in that case I think it would have shrivelled slowly with such measures as “children born to a slave mother on or after January 1, 18_ _ will be regarded as free” and “all people shall be freed of their enslavement status as of January 1 [30 years from now]”, etc…
Ultimately the south never could have made it imo and would have rejoined of its own accord, or bonded with England or France. After the Suez was completed and Europe could get cotton and other goods cheaper from India I doubt even that would have happened.
One secession just leads to another. Quit the Union, then quit the CSA when you don’t like some policy or other. Then the counties of a state secede from it when they don’t like something. I think eventually it would have to form a sort of Union (yes, there’s the word they hated) or it would become a bunch of city-states.
The Union:Marriage :: The CSA:Shacking up.
you are correct it was the second, but I still believe that the war and reconstruction greatly hindered progress in the south for a long time.
I understand, to some extent, both sides in the war, and I also agree with both sides. (Not in the essence of owning slaves, I find that reprehensible but in the right of secession and also in the north not wanting a split nation.)
Share cropping and coal mining come to mind. The Black population of Mississippi increased after the Civil War as freed slaves relocated there to find work, albeit share cropping. Share croppers of any color came so far into debt to the land owners that they were virtual slaves.
I apologize for posting twice.
Ideed, Sir. My own state was 15th in wealth before the war; now we are 47th in about everything, having struggled past Mississippi and West Virginia.
I’m inclined to think that eventually war would have broken out between the North and South over territorial disputes in the West.
The South did secede. Messy business.
We are still confused about that. They were “States in Rebellion” who attempted to secede, but after the war had to rejoin the Union which would imply that secession was successful.
Even when he massacred the Black Union soldiers?
The wild west would’ve been wilder with another power player on the field.
:dubious:
Why is it that some people must always bring in things which have nothing to dow with the issue at hand? I am very, very close to Pitting you for this inanity. I think I will.
Fort Pillow had nothing to do with Bragg’s orders. Forrest quite rightly disregarded Bragg’s orders, because Bragg was a military incompetent.
Forrest’s role in the massacre at Fort Pillow is not only completely irrelevant to this thread (for there is absolutely no question that it had nothing to do with his conflicts with Bragg) but is sharply debated in its own right. Not that I think you’re remotely interested.
I think the south would have soon run into trouble with their own slave populace. There’s scholarship out there (I don’t have a cite) concerning a system of land “ownership” by slaves in parts of Georgia (and I believe South Carolina and elsewhere). Basically, it was possible for some slaves to be allotted a portion of their own land that they could work so long as they finished their primary chores. More experienced slaves would even put the newer slaves to work on their own property. The amount of goods produced by the slaves on their “own” land was significant enough that slaves were afforded the opportunity to trade with whites.
The amazing thing is that the slaves did not actually own the land, and the master could take it away from them at any time, but this rarely happened. Either the masters recognized the value these slaves were providing with their own labors, or they feared angering them (being outnumbered by slaves in many areas). So at least in some areas of the south you have a certain liberalization in relations between whites and slaves occurring before the Civil War.
Assuming no Civil War, I think this type of liberalization would have continued, resulting in a type of slave “middle class” that had acquired a measure of rights (indeed, many former slaves sought to formally claim ownership of their little plots of land after the war). A strike or revolt at this point would have crippled the southern economy (assuming they remained largely agricultural). The Union, with what I presume would have had a much stronger economy and a willingness to harbor fugitive slaves, could still have exerted plenty of pressure on the Confederacy even without warfare.
The reason for the war was that Lincoln would not allow slavery to be extended to the Western territories. the big plantationowners saw their salvation in moving west-single ctop cultivation (cotton) had ruined the soil in the deep south. The plantation system was incredibly inefficient-it provided enough surplus for the owner and his family, but kept the rest in poverty.
That is why I think, the Old South would have been run down and poor by the 1890’s 9had slavery continued).
While slaveowners were a minority in the Southern population (a small minority if you only count slaveowners who owned numerous slaves) they controlled Southern politics. So I wouldn’t have been surprised if they wrote themselves a “golden parachute” as the economic problems of slave owning became increasingly evident. They would have enacted a government payout for manumited slaves with high assessed values and converted their slaves into hard cash at the expense of the Confederate taxpayer.
You are assuming that Southern Slavery was economic based. Not true, it was based upon racism. This is why all the ideas that Southern Slaveholders would have been happy to free their slaves given enough financial incentive is bunk. Keepng the black man down allowed them to feel superior. Note that even after the slaves were freed, instiutionalized racism continued untilt he 1960’s, and even then was only ended at the point of Federal enforcement.