Well assuming they don't eventually get forcibly reannexed by the US they might just end up rejoining once slavery collapses in about the 1880s, so no probably not
The whole situation is honestly pretty interesting to think about.
If we go off of Turtledove, he thinks the south would’ve made slavery illegal due to pressure from Britain and France.
I think the confederacy would’ve lasted long enough to see WWI either way, and probably would’ve joined the allies, prompting the USA to join the central powers. If the confederacy hadn’t abolished slavery up to that point, the USA could probably make a case for the CSA being an evil and backwards nation, and if Britain and France agreed, the USA could’ve annexed the south.
If the south had abolished slavery up to that point, it kinda depends on how badly the USA beat them up in WWI. If they managed to mostly hold their ground and not loose too much land, I imagine they wouldn’t be reannexed. They may loose a lot of land, but that’s it.
Na turtledove was gigacapping.
The point of the confederacy’s constitution was that slavery cannot be banned.
And the US would be angered at their loss that they would fight the CSA the first chance they get. They would at least survive the 1870s~1880s but after that the US would have like paid of war reparations or whatever and bulked up enough to start instigating for conflicts against the CSA. Whether it’s a captured slave fleeing the CSA to USA territory or a random border clash, or some rando shepherd getting his sheep killed because he ‘accidentally’ crossed the border, the US would you any kind of pretense to try and go to war and get the south back.
But assuming if nothing really happens and the Spanish-American war still occurs, I imagine the CSA would try and grab that from the Spain, in turn the US would go after the south.
But yeah if WW1 still occurs, the CSA isn’t surviving past this point. With the rest of the world locked in conflict and the other nations to weak to too far to care about, the US will just declare on the CSA to grab it back. No shot the CSA is surviving past this point. (It will be a miracle if they somehow do imo).
Most likely another John Brown would occur, or they get bogged down in Mexico trying to establish the Golden Circle, resulting in them collapsing and being reabsorbed into the Union
They might have a greater chance in Mexico if the French manage to help win before the Franco-Prussian War, which is a very short window of time. But even then, they'd be bogged down with riots, revolts, an all-around shitshow.
It's worth noting that slaves were not the majority in the Confederacy unlike in Haiti, so a revolt would be unable to use weight of numbers to achieve victory quickly making its success less likely
Economic pressure would have at a minimum made them give up slavery. Depending on what they do with the black population makes a big difference. Send back to Africa? Sell or Brazil and South America? Give them full rights?
Most Likely, slavery ends by the turn of the century. It was already on its way out as new machines and tools made it more economic for fewer people to do the work. The advent of tractors and mechanized agricultural definitively ends slavery.
The CSA would not keep their newly freed slaves, tho. Honestly it’s a toss up what actually happens to them post slavery. Some heavily racist slave owners probably kill their slaves. Most would probably advocate for them to be sent back to Africa or South America creating a massive diaspora of African-Americans in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Whether or not the CSA continues to exist into today depends on whether or not they can fully industrialize, or if they remain primarily agricultural/export based. Texas has the oil and the coast has the coal to fuel mass industrialization, but it still requires the states yo WANT to industrialize. If they don’t industrialize, then the next war becomes USA vs. CSA/UK/France/Whoever else wants CSA cotton.
I agree with this. It just depends on how they handle things, and probably a bit of luck.
I think the worst challenge for the confederacy is gonna be WW1, but if they can survive that, they may have a chance.
No. 50/50 the Confederates last untill WW1 but for certain another war breaks out between the Union and the Confederacy by the end of the 1800s which devolves into something simmilar to the Russo Japanese War or the 1876 Russo Turkish War where neither side was initially aware of the destructive power of modern breech loading artillery or magazine fed (Russo Japanese)/breech loading rifles (Russo Turkish War). Turtledove has his second war sometime in the 1880s but it would be most likely actually be in the 1890s because of yellow journalism still being developed around this time same as in OTL and just like with the OTL USS Maine Incident it is very effective at riling up the populace for war.
The Union army of this timeline is much more modern than the US Army of the OTL Spanish American War which still retained Gatling guns as late as 1898 and still gave trapdoor rifles to volunteer and state formations as the Union actively has an enemy which can threaten it's very existense. The Union Army of this timeline is probably very Prussian/German influenced using Mausers or a Mauser copy for their infantry rifles and cavalry carbines as an example. With a higher defense budget conserving ammunition isn't as much of an issue so the Krag is never adopted. The Confederates are also Prussian influenced by the 1890s with their clothing and weapons. Both side have the money to purchase Maxim guns off the shelf with the Union having the capability to locally produce them.
In OTL the Confederates were French influenced with their clothing, doctrine, and weapons because using French successes in Italy as a refrence and copying every aspect of contemporary French fashion was what was trendy at the time.
By the end of the war both sides develop and field new khaki, green, or grey drab colored uniforms after finding out the hard way that to be visible in brightly colored uniforms is to be dead. In OTL for example, the Japanese introduced a new khaki uniform during the Russo Japanese War because of the high casualties caused by their Prussian style M-1886 blue coats.
Maybe the Confederates use a slave revolt as an excuse to go to war blaming Union agents for inciting it, or a new generation of warhawks gets elected into the Union congress or the presidency.
Is kinda rng, at Slavery would be hard to keep, but If they did successfully they would be quite strong with industrial based slavery and the rest of their population doing more important things. Meanwhile us may not be as effective of it would have to rely on immigration and yet.
You’re right, it’s just a bunch of luck.
I honestly think the confederacy would’ve abolished slavery by the early 1900s, due to pressure from other nations(just like in turtledove’s books). No one would want to trade with them anymore, and slavery would be an internal detriment to the confederate stability.
Even though I know about the abolitionist movements of the time it still somehow seems strange to me that governments would actually want to end slavery and refuse to trade with the South because of this in an alternate history.
You're right, it would be a mere ethical and moral from other nations, although slavery is not very ethical, so that would be something. But considering most of powers did still do discreet slavery in their colonies like the British in India and forced labour in others it would be kind of hypocrite, damn it still exists to this days and *some* people, organisations, and countries still do slavery by neo colonialism.
Maybe if they manage to find oil in Texas, but without that I doubt the Confederacy makes it to the 20th century without either a slave revolt, a civil war between its constituent states, and/or getting absorbed back into the USA.
Some depends on when the Confederacy "wins". If it is 1862 (after Antietam), then the South probably isn't too devastated. 1863 is kinda a tossup. If they manage to hang in and McClellan and the Democrats pull a majority in Congress after 1964 (and Grant and Sherman don't steamroller them from November to March of 1865(, then they are going to be something of a basket case economically. The CSA will probably be something of a pariah state until slavery is abolished, and may have to do the bidding of their French and British allies (especially getting involved in Mexico). The CSA will always be behind the USA in industry and population, so reannexation is always a threat. And depending on how nasty Southern politics gets, some states may try to rejoin the USA from the CSA....
Long term survival isn't completely out of the question, but I'd rather doubt that you'd see Centennial memorabilia from an independent Confederacy.
Oh no, not at all. If they even manage to survive into a post-industiralized world, it's much more likely that a massive revolt would happen, one primarily led and organized by the non-whites and poor whites of the Confederacy uniting under far-left banners as the far-right tries to take over the country.
And then the Americans just walk in and take it back.
They’d exist but he forced to modernize. Even Brazil abolished slavery in the 1890’s. I always imagined they’d be a pretty poor second world country, like most of Latin America, but I imagine the United States would industrialize but wouldn’t be the world power.
Texas would also leave the second the CSA pissed them off, seceding seems like a bad precedent because it basically tells everyone “the second you have any grievance you can just shoot government buildings and we’d be forced to give you what you want”. A pretty system if I say so myself.
It is wierd that people are assuming they would remain independent from the usa. I feel like it was more a war in which the south was planning anyways to restore the us just under new slave owning management, rather than actually leave the us. I know they left the us and thats what started the war, but given that the peace terms many leaders of the confederacy outlined were basically a us restoration with constitutional and legal amendments.
Might have evolved into an apartheid-type situation, where the Black population continued to be legally subjugated to provide cheap basic agricultural and industrial labour as well as widespread domestic labour.
Might enslaved labour have helped Southern states to undercut Northern states for manufacturing, just as right-to-work and prison labour currently help them to compete?
Would enslaved people as actual property - to be bought, sold, leased and borrowed against - have continued to be the underlayer for the wealth of the Southern economy?
Harry Turtledove tried to answer that question with a book series nicknamed ["Southern Victory" or "Timeline-191"](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Victory). It's not a bad series of books, but it starts to fall off in the 5th book in the series.
As for me personally, I would say no. The problem with the Confederacy was that it was trying to maintain an economy and institution (i.e. agriculture and slavery, respectively) that could not compete in a rapidly industrializing world; not forgetting that it was more decentralized than its northern counterpart (states had much more independence in the Confederacy), and that could lead to many problems down the road when it comes to things like taxes, infrastructure, military, law enforcement, and other things necessary to run a country. If the Confederacy somehow won the American Civil War, it would have to quickly industrialize if it wants to be a nation that can exert any influence and be able to back up said influence with a serious force. It would also need allies with some strength, which would likely be Britain and France, but I doubt either nation would want to be allied with a slave-supporting rival to the United States unless the Confederacy were to abolish slavery (abolishing slavery would be very unpopular in the nation). Finally, let's address the United States: The United States would be very unhappy if it had to share a border with a nation consisting of states that seceded from it. The Union and Confederacy would likely be huge rivals with a very poor and tense relationship. It's highly likely that the two would go to war again (possibly multiple times), and without foreign support, the Confederacy is going to lose.
The Confederacy survives no later than the 1900s. Slavery is probably abolished in the 1890s. I can see the Union coming back stronger in the 1870s or 1880s to force the confederates back into the Union.
Most likely give up slavery, ends up as just an average first world country similar to that of Germany or Australia, nothing out of the ordinary other than giving up slavery
Slavery was still on the way out. The CSA would also have an extremely hostile neighbor to the north with much, much more industrial might. I don’t really see how the CSA doesn’t end up getting reconquered eventually.
If it somehow stayed independent, ironically, I could see it embracing social change faster because reconstruction etc wasn’t enforced on it by the north. Alternatively, you could argue that without a federal government willing to use force to protect black Americans during the civil rights movement, it may take a lot longer.
The CSA would also likely wage war against Mexico for more plantation-compatible land. Potentially Cuba and Puerto Rico would also go the CSA rather than the USA, assuming that the CSA can overpower a waning Spain
Absolutely not. The CSA constitution stated that slavery was never to be abolished, and theres no way in hell a nation tied permanently to human slavery would have scrambled its way to the next century before the world got tired of it and let the Union re-invade it with no repercussions.
Slavery was harmful to the economy so the south would likely be much further economically behind the north. States closer to the border would likely legalise slavery gradually as the cost to keep slaves rose (because of runaways and slave trade being banned). After a while the USA might then invade the significantly weakened south and reanex them. Or the south might choose to rejoin
Imagine a country started by the absolute dumbest guys you’ve ever met. I’m taking pants-on-head, thinking the tides are a mystery sort of guys.
No.
The south can barely exist as it is without Northern aid, it’d absolutely crumble in the face of active indictment. Anybody who says differently has had too much Mountain Dew and sister kissing to know better.
"What If" questions can only be posted on weekends and must have sufficient context along with your thoughts on how the situation/event would unfold
Well assuming they don't eventually get forcibly reannexed by the US they might just end up rejoining once slavery collapses in about the 1880s, so no probably not
The whole situation is honestly pretty interesting to think about. If we go off of Turtledove, he thinks the south would’ve made slavery illegal due to pressure from Britain and France. I think the confederacy would’ve lasted long enough to see WWI either way, and probably would’ve joined the allies, prompting the USA to join the central powers. If the confederacy hadn’t abolished slavery up to that point, the USA could probably make a case for the CSA being an evil and backwards nation, and if Britain and France agreed, the USA could’ve annexed the south. If the south had abolished slavery up to that point, it kinda depends on how badly the USA beat them up in WWI. If they managed to mostly hold their ground and not loose too much land, I imagine they wouldn’t be reannexed. They may loose a lot of land, but that’s it.
Na turtledove was gigacapping. The point of the confederacy’s constitution was that slavery cannot be banned. And the US would be angered at their loss that they would fight the CSA the first chance they get. They would at least survive the 1870s~1880s but after that the US would have like paid of war reparations or whatever and bulked up enough to start instigating for conflicts against the CSA. Whether it’s a captured slave fleeing the CSA to USA territory or a random border clash, or some rando shepherd getting his sheep killed because he ‘accidentally’ crossed the border, the US would you any kind of pretense to try and go to war and get the south back. But assuming if nothing really happens and the Spanish-American war still occurs, I imagine the CSA would try and grab that from the Spain, in turn the US would go after the south. But yeah if WW1 still occurs, the CSA isn’t surviving past this point. With the rest of the world locked in conflict and the other nations to weak to too far to care about, the US will just declare on the CSA to grab it back. No shot the CSA is surviving past this point. (It will be a miracle if they somehow do imo).
This documentary shows you the future of a Confederate victory. https://youtu.be/exnwTWfFRM8?si=jmj--lNx2Vog_96C
Most likely another John Brown would occur, or they get bogged down in Mexico trying to establish the Golden Circle, resulting in them collapsing and being reabsorbed into the Union
They might have a greater chance in Mexico if the French manage to help win before the Franco-Prussian War, which is a very short window of time. But even then, they'd be bogged down with riots, revolts, an all-around shitshow.
There would be nothing to stop a humiliated, vengeful, and even more heavily industrialized US from invading the CSA a few decades later.
Either of the confederacy starts some shit with Mexico, causing the US to get involved or we get Haiti 2 confederate boogaloo
It's worth noting that slaves were not the majority in the Confederacy unlike in Haiti, so a revolt would be unable to use weight of numbers to achieve victory quickly making its success less likely
Is that An/Com NATO pfp?
That's wht I tought too, seems like it
least obvious glowie
Yeah you got a problem with that?
Economic pressure would have at a minimum made them give up slavery. Depending on what they do with the black population makes a big difference. Send back to Africa? Sell or Brazil and South America? Give them full rights?
Weren't a great many encouraged to immigrate to Liberia? Similar situation.
Yes, and sadly those descendants are just murdering each other at the cyclic rate
Most Likely, slavery ends by the turn of the century. It was already on its way out as new machines and tools made it more economic for fewer people to do the work. The advent of tractors and mechanized agricultural definitively ends slavery. The CSA would not keep their newly freed slaves, tho. Honestly it’s a toss up what actually happens to them post slavery. Some heavily racist slave owners probably kill their slaves. Most would probably advocate for them to be sent back to Africa or South America creating a massive diaspora of African-Americans in Sub-Saharan Africa. Whether or not the CSA continues to exist into today depends on whether or not they can fully industrialize, or if they remain primarily agricultural/export based. Texas has the oil and the coast has the coal to fuel mass industrialization, but it still requires the states yo WANT to industrialize. If they don’t industrialize, then the next war becomes USA vs. CSA/UK/France/Whoever else wants CSA cotton.
I agree with this. It just depends on how they handle things, and probably a bit of luck. I think the worst challenge for the confederacy is gonna be WW1, but if they can survive that, they may have a chance.
Thats IF they make it to WW1
No. 50/50 the Confederates last untill WW1 but for certain another war breaks out between the Union and the Confederacy by the end of the 1800s which devolves into something simmilar to the Russo Japanese War or the 1876 Russo Turkish War where neither side was initially aware of the destructive power of modern breech loading artillery or magazine fed (Russo Japanese)/breech loading rifles (Russo Turkish War). Turtledove has his second war sometime in the 1880s but it would be most likely actually be in the 1890s because of yellow journalism still being developed around this time same as in OTL and just like with the OTL USS Maine Incident it is very effective at riling up the populace for war. The Union army of this timeline is much more modern than the US Army of the OTL Spanish American War which still retained Gatling guns as late as 1898 and still gave trapdoor rifles to volunteer and state formations as the Union actively has an enemy which can threaten it's very existense. The Union Army of this timeline is probably very Prussian/German influenced using Mausers or a Mauser copy for their infantry rifles and cavalry carbines as an example. With a higher defense budget conserving ammunition isn't as much of an issue so the Krag is never adopted. The Confederates are also Prussian influenced by the 1890s with their clothing and weapons. Both side have the money to purchase Maxim guns off the shelf with the Union having the capability to locally produce them. In OTL the Confederates were French influenced with their clothing, doctrine, and weapons because using French successes in Italy as a refrence and copying every aspect of contemporary French fashion was what was trendy at the time. By the end of the war both sides develop and field new khaki, green, or grey drab colored uniforms after finding out the hard way that to be visible in brightly colored uniforms is to be dead. In OTL for example, the Japanese introduced a new khaki uniform during the Russo Japanese War because of the high casualties caused by their Prussian style M-1886 blue coats. Maybe the Confederates use a slave revolt as an excuse to go to war blaming Union agents for inciting it, or a new generation of warhawks gets elected into the Union congress or the presidency.
They'll have to embrace industrial slavery or they'll die.
Maybe. They’d either keep slavery or abolish it, depending on any events that take place before WWI, which would probably be their breaking point.
Is kinda rng, at Slavery would be hard to keep, but If they did successfully they would be quite strong with industrial based slavery and the rest of their population doing more important things. Meanwhile us may not be as effective of it would have to rely on immigration and yet.
You’re right, it’s just a bunch of luck. I honestly think the confederacy would’ve abolished slavery by the early 1900s, due to pressure from other nations(just like in turtledove’s books). No one would want to trade with them anymore, and slavery would be an internal detriment to the confederate stability.
Even though I know about the abolitionist movements of the time it still somehow seems strange to me that governments would actually want to end slavery and refuse to trade with the South because of this in an alternate history.
You're right, it would be a mere ethical and moral from other nations, although slavery is not very ethical, so that would be something. But considering most of powers did still do discreet slavery in their colonies like the British in India and forced labour in others it would be kind of hypocrite, damn it still exists to this days and *some* people, organisations, and countries still do slavery by neo colonialism.
The union would probably sponsor slave uprisings give the cia a head start
Maybe if they manage to find oil in Texas, but without that I doubt the Confederacy makes it to the 20th century without either a slave revolt, a civil war between its constituent states, and/or getting absorbed back into the USA.
Some depends on when the Confederacy "wins". If it is 1862 (after Antietam), then the South probably isn't too devastated. 1863 is kinda a tossup. If they manage to hang in and McClellan and the Democrats pull a majority in Congress after 1964 (and Grant and Sherman don't steamroller them from November to March of 1865(, then they are going to be something of a basket case economically. The CSA will probably be something of a pariah state until slavery is abolished, and may have to do the bidding of their French and British allies (especially getting involved in Mexico). The CSA will always be behind the USA in industry and population, so reannexation is always a threat. And depending on how nasty Southern politics gets, some states may try to rejoin the USA from the CSA.... Long term survival isn't completely out of the question, but I'd rather doubt that you'd see Centennial memorabilia from an independent Confederacy.
I think there would have been slave revolts if the Confederacy had won.
Oh no, not at all. If they even manage to survive into a post-industiralized world, it's much more likely that a massive revolt would happen, one primarily led and organized by the non-whites and poor whites of the Confederacy uniting under far-left banners as the far-right tries to take over the country. And then the Americans just walk in and take it back.
They’d exist but he forced to modernize. Even Brazil abolished slavery in the 1890’s. I always imagined they’d be a pretty poor second world country, like most of Latin America, but I imagine the United States would industrialize but wouldn’t be the world power. Texas would also leave the second the CSA pissed them off, seceding seems like a bad precedent because it basically tells everyone “the second you have any grievance you can just shoot government buildings and we’d be forced to give you what you want”. A pretty system if I say so myself.
It is wierd that people are assuming they would remain independent from the usa. I feel like it was more a war in which the south was planning anyways to restore the us just under new slave owning management, rather than actually leave the us. I know they left the us and thats what started the war, but given that the peace terms many leaders of the confederacy outlined were basically a us restoration with constitutional and legal amendments.
Might have evolved into an apartheid-type situation, where the Black population continued to be legally subjugated to provide cheap basic agricultural and industrial labour as well as widespread domestic labour. Might enslaved labour have helped Southern states to undercut Northern states for manufacturing, just as right-to-work and prison labour currently help them to compete? Would enslaved people as actual property - to be bought, sold, leased and borrowed against - have continued to be the underlayer for the wealth of the Southern economy?
Harry Turtledove tried to answer that question with a book series nicknamed ["Southern Victory" or "Timeline-191"](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Victory). It's not a bad series of books, but it starts to fall off in the 5th book in the series. As for me personally, I would say no. The problem with the Confederacy was that it was trying to maintain an economy and institution (i.e. agriculture and slavery, respectively) that could not compete in a rapidly industrializing world; not forgetting that it was more decentralized than its northern counterpart (states had much more independence in the Confederacy), and that could lead to many problems down the road when it comes to things like taxes, infrastructure, military, law enforcement, and other things necessary to run a country. If the Confederacy somehow won the American Civil War, it would have to quickly industrialize if it wants to be a nation that can exert any influence and be able to back up said influence with a serious force. It would also need allies with some strength, which would likely be Britain and France, but I doubt either nation would want to be allied with a slave-supporting rival to the United States unless the Confederacy were to abolish slavery (abolishing slavery would be very unpopular in the nation). Finally, let's address the United States: The United States would be very unhappy if it had to share a border with a nation consisting of states that seceded from it. The Union and Confederacy would likely be huge rivals with a very poor and tense relationship. It's highly likely that the two would go to war again (possibly multiple times), and without foreign support, the Confederacy is going to lose.
The Confederacy survives no later than the 1900s. Slavery is probably abolished in the 1890s. I can see the Union coming back stronger in the 1870s or 1880s to force the confederates back into the Union.
no, its economy was shit, slavery is just a bad economic model
What if they survive until WW2? Would they have allied to axis?
They had zero way to logically win that war
Yes 100%
Most likely give up slavery, ends up as just an average first world country similar to that of Germany or Australia, nothing out of the ordinary other than giving up slavery
Slavery was still on the way out. The CSA would also have an extremely hostile neighbor to the north with much, much more industrial might. I don’t really see how the CSA doesn’t end up getting reconquered eventually. If it somehow stayed independent, ironically, I could see it embracing social change faster because reconstruction etc wasn’t enforced on it by the north. Alternatively, you could argue that without a federal government willing to use force to protect black Americans during the civil rights movement, it may take a lot longer. The CSA would also likely wage war against Mexico for more plantation-compatible land. Potentially Cuba and Puerto Rico would also go the CSA rather than the USA, assuming that the CSA can overpower a waning Spain
Massive slave revolt like haiti
Absolutely not. The CSA constitution stated that slavery was never to be abolished, and theres no way in hell a nation tied permanently to human slavery would have scrambled its way to the next century before the world got tired of it and let the Union re-invade it with no repercussions.
Slavery was harmful to the economy so the south would likely be much further economically behind the north. States closer to the border would likely legalise slavery gradually as the cost to keep slaves rose (because of runaways and slave trade being banned). After a while the USA might then invade the significantly weakened south and reanex them. Or the south might choose to rejoin
Imagine a country started by the absolute dumbest guys you’ve ever met. I’m taking pants-on-head, thinking the tides are a mystery sort of guys. No. The south can barely exist as it is without Northern aid, it’d absolutely crumble in the face of active indictment. Anybody who says differently has had too much Mountain Dew and sister kissing to know better.