Let’s just say that in the future, the US government spends huge amounts of money in Northern states and kind of neglects the Southern “rednecks.” Southerners feel like their taxes are being redirected elsewhere. Whether it was true or not, a strong division forms between Northern and Southern states. The South wants to form a separate union, and re-establish the Confederacy. Theoretically speaking (and perhaps with different circumstances than described) in today’s modern world, could a new Civil War break out?
No.
Next question.
I seriously doubt it. Back in the early 19th century, loyalty to one’s state usually preceded loyalty to the nation as a whole, making the whole Civil War thing possible. This is especially evident in Robert E. Lee who, though against both secession and slavery, resigned from the Northern army and joined the Southern when his state seceded. That simply isn’t the case anymore, especially with peolpe becoming more mobile and moving all over the US during their working lives. It doesn’t even make much sense anymore to refer to “loyalty to one’s state,” since the states are no longer so independent of each other and the national government. “Patriotism” and “loyalty” now refer to the United States only, at least for most Americans.
There’s an interesting movie on this subject called “The Second Civil War”, 1997. I was surprised to find it’s called a comedy – I don’t remember it being anything but dark fading to darker.
The plot seemed reasonable. The governer of Idaho makes a stand on an issue of state vs. federal control, purely for show. Unfortunately, as the situation escalates, he’s so involved with relationship problems, he doesn’t understand how serious it’s becoming. Somebody vows to stop federal troops at the border, news reporters confuse things, troops are actually sent. Other states take the “side” of the governer. It might blow over, then we’re introduced to the top “old boy” military officers on the field, who know and detest one other.
That spoils some of it, so the rest will remain unsaid.
There seems to be a fair amount of animosity between certain people in certain states. (Just to demonstrate how words can get ugly quickly, imagine being a Californian, and seeing bumper stickers elsewhere"Don’t Californicate Our State" Not friendly. Not rational. We’re that much different than them?? Some people must think so.) Could that attitude develop into an armed conflict? Not likely, but it does seem possible.
The South has settled for taking over the government. Why succeed when we run D.C.?
I could see a division over political ideology more likely than of geography. The problem would be how to divide up the land. As for whether or not it could succeed, all depends on whether those seceding manage to bring a significant portion of the military with them.
Okay, I’ll clarify: there is absolutely no chance that any current U.S. state would sever secede from the Union. And, even if I stipulated that it were possible (which it isn’t), there is no way the people of the states remaining in the Union would have the stomach for a long, protracted, bloody war to reel them back in.
There’s only one force today that’s strong enough to lead to secession, and that force is ethnicity. Hence, there’s only ONE scenario I can think of that could ever lead to secession. IF the U.S. ever admits Puerto Rico as a state, and the promised benefits that Puerto Ricans hoped statehood would bring don’t materialize… THEN, I could easily imagine a resurgent Puerto Rican nationalist movement, along with calls for secession.
But even that’s a far cry from civil war, which ain’t ever gonna happen.
Yes, I expect it to happen in my lifetime (unless I get killed in the events leading up to the war itself). It probably won’t be along North - South lines. It might or might not be along any geographical lines - at first.
Those who don’t think a state could ever want to seceed probably don’t realize just how small and homogenous the population of some states are.
I don’t think there could ever be a Civil War, per se. If several states wanted to secede (and I don’t know why they would) then I think it would probably occur relatively peacefully, through referendums and so on.
A few events more likely to take place sooner than another US Civil War:
Cubs win the World Series/Chicago Fire II (entire city burns to the ground)
Cubs win Cubs vs White Sox World Series/Hurricane off Lake Michigan (entire city leveled)
Boston Red Sox win World Series/Bill Buckner elected mayor of Boston
Well, you posed the question along the traditional North-South 1860s Civil War thought processes.
And along came what should have been to you the expected answer(s).
Now if you had made the question more generic the responses might have been different.
I, for one, believe the USA may very find itself in a civil war within the next 50 years or so.
But you didn’t ask the generic question so I’ll just leave it at that.
Oh, I think it’s way more possible than these other folks think. Just look at this fine map of the 2000 election.
[I myself have misused this map to enrage people on this very message board, with results I could not even begin to predict. I’m not gonna go there again and I won’t respond to anyone who tries to take me there.]
What I’m trying to point out this time is that there is a discernable ideological split in America, divisible by existing party lines, population density, and geography. If either side manages to gain such a grasp of power that the ideology of the other begins to be ignored or even restricted, we’ve got trouble which could fracture along any one of a dozen different social and political lines.
I might even be so bold as to say that the only thing that saved us the last time was the prevailing opinion: apathy. That, I will remind all of you, failed to save the Colonies from the Revolution, and this is not the nation it was a mere two years ago. Today, there are a lot more pissed off people around, I think, and suddenly we all have to care what they think.
Whether we are stronger and more united today, or temporarily motivated by an ephemeral and dissipating national goal is a question which I think remains to be answered, and we may very well be relying upon the buffer of those of us who are too self-absorbed to care to act as our moderating influence.
That scares me, but then again I’m at the wet end of the septic tank measuring stick these days, so my perspective is probably a little different from the rest of you.
Sofa King, I looked at your map and saw red… blue, I mean. Heh, heh. I won’t ask what the Dopers found objectionable.
Seriously, the only way another civil war could happen is a massive series of screw-ups, and that on top of some other major problem, say, the ice caps melting.
I don’t see how apathy plays a part. People tend to get very hot indeed when their power to influence political decisions is diluted. Folks also tend to feel rather strongly about being Americans these days…
But especially given the trend toward globalization, civil wars in the major countries seem outdated (with the exception of China, but that’s not the OP). Look at what happened with the USSR: the empire was broken into independent countries, and the very next thing those countries were scrambling to join the EU, or make ties with Russia. People seem to want larger political units, not smaller, less effective ones.
Call it what you want, but there’s no doubt in my mind there will be another “civil war” or “major uprising” of sorts. Two possibilities come to mind:
-
Race wars. Some predict that tension among minorities will one day get to the breaking point.
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Government tyranny. Examples include
- wholesale gun confiscation
- foreign troops on our soil
- random stops & seizures (“I vont to see your papers.”)
Really more of a Great Debate, but I’ll give it a GD-light response.
Back in the late 60s, when many major cities were the scenes of riots, I was absolutely convinced that the riots would lead to martial law, which would lead to hardened opinion on both sides, which would lead to general insurrection and a civil war of some way shape or form. That was 35 years ago, which is longer than the Compromise of 1821 lasted.
Call it complacency or call it self-correcting democracy, but the U.S. seems to defuse any potential societal bombs before they go off. Perhaps I’m over-optimistic, but I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
I don’t think there could be another Civil War along North/South lines. I’ll use my state as an example. Half of the people I know weren’t born in North Carolina. They moved here from Ohio or California or New Jersey. There’s a large Russian community here in Asheville, plenty of Asian immigrants in Charlotte, and a quickly growing Latino population all over the state. The population is nowhere near as homogenous in terms of race, background, religion, and values as it was in the 1860s.
There’s more political diversity here than you might expect. There are plenty of liberals in North Carolina; it’s just that due to the electoral college, their votes don’t carry much weight in national elections.
I think we might see more action from militia movements, but I very strongly doubt that a whole region–be it Southeast, Midwest, or West Coast–would ever attempt to secede.
A state might try to secede from the union, but then the feds would simply cut them off from all federal $$, the credit agencies would downgrade the state’s credit rating, suppliers (of ammunitions, food, vehicles, etc.) would deny credit and the war would be over.
Technically, we can’t have another Civil War because we never had one to begin with.
A civil war is when two factions vie for control of one government. In 1861 the South attempted to leave the North and form its own government. This is not a civil war, and I believe the South felt they were within their rights to secede. (Sorry, no cite handy)
AIUI, Texas has the right to secede from the Union at any time (something about how the treaty was designed when they joined, but I could be wrong)
Nope. It’s been covered numerous times; to begin with, there was nothing in the Act of Congress which annexed Texas (not a treaty) allowing for it to secede (see this page at urbanlegends.com); and after the Civil War, there was a U.S. Supreme Court Case, State of Texas v. White, which ruled that in fact Texas has no such right.
I think an amicable split is far more likely than a civil war…but that would still be a long way off.
I am thinking in a couple hundred years, when the US enters the 500-600 million population range, the country will just be too big for one government to manage. Then perhaps something similar to Constantine’s division of the Roman Empire could happen. The East will remain united under a government in Washington, while the West would have it’s own capital and government. But the two halves will share a common defense, currency, and economic market under a broad alliance, that could include other North American countries.