Just how unstable and self destructive was the Confederacy?

[CaptHawkeye]

It's been said by a few people on the board that even if, by some miracle, the industrially limited Confederacy was able to win the War of Secession against the North. The Confederate Government would still be undone by its largely inefficient, powerless, Central Government. Not to mention the signifigant differances setting the Southern States apart from one another. (They were signifigant issues the Southern States had with one another that were merely put aside for the duration of the war.) As well as the precedent set by the Confederate Government which basically allowed States to leave the Confederacy whenever they damn well pleased.

I find these concepts intruiging. As well as the idea that a Confederate Government ultimately would have been unable to survive itself. Can anyone allude to further issues affecting the Confederacy? Or can they go into detail about the stated issues?

[Straha]

The problem with those arguments is twofold.

First, the constitution of the Confederacy was just about the same as the U.S. one, except it changed the term of the Presidency and explicitly defended slavery (duh.)

Second, we have no idea how the Confederate government would have acted under peacetime situations. The entire existence of the confederacy was spent fighting a very bloody total war with a massive and hostile neighbor, most of the time with large occupying forces 'confederate' soil. If you're charitable and only count Vicksburg/Gettysburg as the start date of the irrevocable invasion of the South that means the confederacy had just over two years of formal existence as a whole country before large sections of it were under permanent union control. There's not enough material to make a valid judgment as to how the Confederacy would have acted later in a peacetime setting.

That said, and I'll let other people answer this in depth, the Confederacy needed credit of the Northern Bankers and industrialists in order to survive. Without it the large plantations and small farms that made up the southern states could not have survived. If the Confederacy was cut off from that credit it would wither up and collapse in on itself economically, if for no other reason.

[Samuel]

The Confederates were extreme states rights, to the point where it interfered with their war effort because governers wouldn't cooperate with the federal government. It would essentially be a repeat of the Articles of Confederation.

[Straha]

The Confederates were extreme states rights, to the point where it interfered with their war effort because governers wouldn't cooperate with the federal government. It would essentially be a repeat of the Articles of Confederation.

The oft overlooked thing here is that the states were being occupied, or terrified of being occupied, by the Union army. When President Davis calls up the Governor of Mississippi and says "I need you to send twenty thousand troops to Virginia to reinforce General Lee." the Governor of Mississippi is probably going to look at all the Union soldiers marching through his state and say "No! Fuck you! I need them here so I can live!" And if Pres. Davis calls the Governor of Alabama and asks for the same thing that governor is likely to look west and say "No! Fuck you! I need them here for when the Union gets through Mississippi." If you could find a prolonged period of time when the CSA wasn't fighting a losing war on its own soil then we could make valid extrapolations as to how they'd act during peacetime. As it is, we have nothing of the sort, so making judgment calls on how the CSA would have held up, or fallen apart, at peace is pretty pointless.

[Kaiser Caesar]

The Confederacy likely would not have been able to survive. During the war, there was a large amount of opposition to almost any act the Confederate government instituted. For example, when the Confederate government began the processes of conscription, the governor of Georgia declared it "[the] essence of military despotism" and the governor of North Carolina's opposition to it resulted in very poor numbers of recruits from the state.

And this is not getting into other stuff like how North Carolina refused to provide shoes to soldiers from other states and rather heated arguments between the national government and the state governments over who had the right to designate days of prayer.

[Pelranius]

That said, and I'll let other people answer this in depth, the Confederacy needed credit of the Northern Bankers and industrialists in order to survive. Without it the large plantations and small farms that made up the southern states could not have survived. If the Confederacy was cut off from that credit it would wither up and collapse in on itself economically, if for no other reason.

How hard would it have been to just get British credit? Assuming that the British get over their anti slavery sentiments.

[CmdrWilkens]

It's been said by a few people on the board that even if, by some miracle, the industrially limited Confederacy was able to win the War of Secession against the North. The Confederate Government would still be undone by its largely inefficient, powerless, Central Government. Not to mention the signifigant differances setting the Southern States apart from one another. (They were signifigant issues the Southern States had with one another that were merely put aside for the duration of the war.) As well as the precedent set by the Confederate Government which basically allowed States to leave the Confederacy whenever they damn well pleased.

I find these concepts intruiging. As well as the idea that a Confederate Government ultimately would have been unable to survive itself. Can anyone allude to further issues affecting the Confederacy? Or can they go into detail about the stated issues?

Well here is the thing, and Straha started a bit towards it: There has to be a point at which the Confederate Government actually is left to function as a seperate peactime entity at which point one can look at the economic situation and extrapolate from there. Realistically there are probably only one point at which the South could see through to victory and that is if the fall 1862 campaigns were carried off succesfully (no '63 doesn't count because even a Confederate victory at Gettysburg would have left Lee badly damaged deep in emeny territory with militia and other re-inforcements streamign in while Vicksburg woud still surrender).

Giving some time for negotiations and the like to sort out the status of Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee the earliest the Confederate Government could begin to sort out their peacetime government woudl be early 1863. By this point things weren't yet out of control, inflation had only run to double and not triple digits, the railroads were still partially operational, the ports were largely still open in the Gulf (though the North probably wouldn't bargain away New Orleans which would make it a sort of Guantanamo in the Confederacy) and there were still sufficient markets for cotton that credit could be realized.

The problems would occur, much as they had for the Articles of Confederation, when the states took to quarreling and eventually one by one beginnign to realize how dependant they were on northern industry. While creedit could be realized from cotton and other cash crop sales the south was still dependant on the north for manufactured goods and staple crops, in the course of the 2 years of war the northern markets already were shifting east west and beginning the massive export market the US would develop over the next century in both categories. With a healthy market established and with southern currency still backslidiing due to lack of actual specie backing most northern growers ranchers and industrialists will sell to Europe and the developing markets of their colonies driving up prices even further in the South. With tariffs and other restrictions on the Missisippi trade (in addition to the aforementiond Union possession of New Orleans) Southern trade woudl become highly localized while the ability of the central government to hold reign over the vatly different tempermants of the state governors woudl likely lead to Texas re-declaring a Republic and North Carolina or Georgia breaking away themselves (as both almost did).

Returning soldiers were already grumbling about the inequalities of the slave-owner system that exempted masters and overseers from many levies while the loss of their payment to inflation would turn them sour impoverishing that class even more. The government itself lacked more than a handful of truly compentent administrators and almost all of them were in the Executive department while few at all were in the legislature. Most were wildly overconfident about the power of cotton and victory would likely as not fuel that beleif until the wariness of British interests in such runaway inflation would squelch further development.

In other words I simply can't see the Confederates lasting even as long as the Articles of Confederation did and more than a few states may have applied for re-admission to the Union if the Republican anti-slavery paltform is taken down a peg by legislative losses in the wake of the military loss by time the CSA found itself literally bankrupt.

[Kaiser Caesar]

If New Orleans remains a part of the United States, then Louisiana might be the first state the leave the Confederacy in such a scenario due to its pro-tariff stance. Tennesse might go next, and then the Confederacy will likely collapse over the next few years as states in the Upper South join the Union and the Deep South tears the Confederate goverment apart from within.

[Duckie]

That said, and I'll let other people answer this in depth, the Confederacy needed credit of the Northern Bankers and industrialists in order to survive. Without it the large plantations and small farms that made up the southern states could not have survived. If the Confederacy was cut off from that credit it would wither up and collapse in on itself economically, if for no other reason.

How hard would it have been to just get British credit? Assuming that the British get over their anti slavery sentiments.

That's like saying "Assuming confederate soldiers learn magic and how to shoot fireballs at the union". Britain historically has taken several actions to its own detriment in fighting slavery, and no amount of economic or political persuasion seems to have stemmed their moral crusade once it built up. Unless I'm wildly misinterpreting history, which I admit I could be.

Even if there were a decade or two of British investment, it would probably come sooner or later with a heavy price such as recognition and trade at the cost of gradual emancipation and an end to the slave trade (like they did with Imperial Brazil, essentially ensuring its doom later)

[Straha]

To elaborate on Duckie's point: the British detested slavery so much that they simply bought Holland and Spain completely out of the slave trade, and dedicated the Royal Navy to stopping slavery for the better part of fifty years after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. They weren't going to get over slavery for cotton they could get cheaper in Egypt.

[Guardsman Bass]

To elaborate on Duckie's point: the British detested slavery so much that they simply bought Holland and Spain completely out of the slave trade, and dedicated the Royal Navy to stopping slavery for the better part of fifty years after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. They weren't going to get over slavery for cotton they could get cheaper in Egypt.

There was an interesting book I once read, which basically had sections on different parts of American history - as seen in other countries' textbooks (for example, if I recall correctly, it had Mexico's and the UK's views on the American Civil War). That was one of the things I remember from that book - slavery was immensely unpopular in Great Britain at the time, and most of the British public was pro-Union (if they held a view on the conflict).

One problem I could see for the Confederacy would be that even if they somehow got a peace-time situation, they're still going to have to deal with the active rebellions and insurgencies that were occurring on southern soil throughout the whole period and probably afterward (of which West Virginia was only one, and successful - another one was East Tennessee, which wasn't so successful, among others). The Union wouldn't be simply sitting idly by, either; they would probably be covertly aiding these efforts.

[Pelranius]

I guess that Napoleon III's ability to offer help to the Confederacy after their victory wouldn't change things very much?

He always seemed to have overestimated French influence and chances are that he'd be busy with that Mexico brouhaha involving his pet Hapsburg emperor.

[Bilbo]

Assuming that the Confederacy survives a short war or averts war completely it is still going to have problems. The Confederacy is dependent on cotton, unfortunately for the south all it did was grow the cotton. The south had little ability to turn it into textiles of any sort, nor did the south have much ability to transport the cotton any distance. Cotton grown in the south was shipped to the north for conversion to textile products and then put onto northern ships to go to Europe for sale.

Can the Confederacy survive long enough to set up both for itself? Or are we going to assume that the north is going to continue to provide these same services? Even if the north did it wouldnt be too much of a leap to see it done at a very steep price.

Internal problems would also abound as the Confederacy basically allowed the states to tellt he federal government to shove off on just about anything they did not like. This is going to cause lots of problems for the Confederacy.

Foreign policy is going to be another huge problem. Several times leading up to secession and the Civil War the federal government and stepped in to stop attempts by southerners (with support of southern state governments) to start revolutions or wars of conquest in Central America. Southerners also wanted control of Cuba and without the federal government to stop them they are not going to take no for an answer. This means instead of one nation acting together each state may be acting on its own as governors in various states support Walker style "fillibusters" working to expand the Confederacy. Confederate credit and reputation is going to suffer greatly under this type of behavior.

I will also assume that the remaining United States will do its damnest to use its control of California, New Mexico, and other states to the west of the CSA to claim as much of the remaining open land in North America as possible to hem the CSA in and keep it from expanding. This could lead to bush wars or skirmishes directly between the USA and CSA or proxy wars using thugs, mercenaries, and hired indian tribes. Something like this could cause the war to break out again.

I do not see the CSA surviving for any real length of time. Too many ways it could be pulled down, and a great many of them are from within the CSA itself.

[Sea Skimmer]

Early in the war the southern states actually blocked the Confederate government from funding construction of a vital 40 mile long railroad because it was a violation of states rights! This line, which was to connect Greensboro North Carolina with Danville Virginia, was rather vital as only two railroads entered Virginia from the other southern states, one of which, the line to Chattanooga was highly exposed to federal attacks. As a result of the state protests and further protests and outright obstruction by local cotton planters the six month job was not completed until more then two years into the war.

In another wonderful example of Confederate prowess, the state of North Carolina which contained over half the south’s precious few textile mills declared that these mills would supply ONLY North Carolina troops. As a result warehouses of material piled up, while other southern troops wore rags. Though, from time to time, the state governor did order special issues of new cloths to other states troops passing through, as he did not wish to look at them in the rags.

Another fun fact, the state of Alabama paid slave owners 30 dollars per month per slave sent to work on the states coastal fortifications, and yet the salary of a solider in the confederate army was only 11 dollars a month. Even then slave owners were reluctant to allow any slaves to do war work, least the precious and cotton be neglected. After all the south was going to win in three months, and then the blockade would end!

The confederacy would have fallen apart nearly the moment the war ended, and the individual states would have been such economic basket cases that one by one, they’d petition to rejoin the union. I suspect by the 1890s only a very few, if any would be left independent and some would be rejoining by the early 1870s if not sooner.

[Guardsman Bass]

I guess that Napoleon III's ability to offer help to the Confederacy after their victory wouldn't change things very much?

He always seemed to have overestimated French influence and chances are that he'd be busy with that Mexico brouhaha involving his pet Hapsburg emperor.

That's more or less the case - he was much too busy dealing with things in Europe, and what attention he had for the Americas was primarily around putting up Maximilian I in power in Mexico (and he deserted him in 1866, if I recall correctly. ).

The confederacy would have fallen apart nearly the moment the war ended, and the individual states would have been such economic basket cases that one by one, they’d petition to rejoin the union. I suspect by the 1890s only a very few, if any would be left independent and some would be rejoining by the early 1870s if not sooner.

Although I definitely wouldn't wish for it, I suppose one advantage of this situation would have been that no myth of the "solid south" would have ever emerged, and the planter class would have been more or less discredited when cotton as a valuable product goes south in terms of price due to Egypt. It's hard to talk about the Solid South and good southern values (like the planter culture) when you sheepishly crawl back into the country you rebelled from to avoid risking starvation and immense poverty.

[Alferd Packer]

Although I definitely wouldn't wish for it, I suppose one advantage of this situation would have been that no myth of the "solid south" would have ever emerged, and the planter class would have been more or less discredited when cotton as a valuable product goes south in terms of price due to Egypt. It's hard to talk about the Solid South and good southern values (like the planter culture) when you sheepishly crawl back into the country you rebelled from to avoid risking starvation and immense poverty.

What about emigration to the North? In this scenario, after all, the CSA has successfully seceded. Wouldn't northern politicians spite those governments who rebelled, instead encouraging the populations of those places to flee north and be absorbed into the growing manufacturing centers as part of the faceless rabble of industrial laborers? IOW, could severe depopulation afflict the South as a consequence of their inherent instability?

[Pablo Sanchez]

What about emigration to the North? In this scenario, after all, the CSA has successfully seceded. Wouldn't northern politicians spite those governments who rebelled, instead encouraging the populations of those places to flee north and be absorbed into the growing manufacturing centers as part of the faceless rabble of industrial laborers? IOW, could severe depopulation afflict the South as a consequence of their inherent instability?

This is very much possible, even without any active encouragement on the part of northerners, because American industry would be entering a seriously expansive phase in the 1870s probably without regard to the outcome of the war. Cotton prices actually increased for the South during the later part of the 1860s due to quality control problems in India and Egypt relating to inexperience with cultivation and production, but decline in the market does set in later, and the South's political disunity and instability will have serious economic consequences regardless of the export situation. Louisiana might subject freight from other states passing through New Orleans to punishing fees as a way of raising capital in a nation starved for it, or similar possibilities of state-against-state exploitation; there's also the probable decay in national infrastructure and money lost to importing manufactured goods from abroad. The South would very likely become an alternate source of cheap labor to the historical European emigration, as poor whites flee economic troubles for plentiful industrial jobs in Northern cities. There would most likely be a burgeoning Underground Railroad as well, aimed at denuding the CSA of slaves as best as possible.

[Isolder74]

The South was alway very dependent on imported finished goods. As such they were always very uppity about any increase in the Tariffs and fought hard against them to keep them from going up. One of there many mistaken ideas was that the trade partners of the United States were unable to live with out their cotton. The is where the idea of 'King Cotton' came from. The South felt that any threat of cutting of the cotton flow would result in Britain, etc, coming out in outcry if they held back their product and would push the Federal Government to lower the tariff.

What we saw happen during the Civil War, showed the opposite. Those outside nations just looked for other places to get their cotton from or set up new growing operations to fill their needs.

[Serafina]

How long would the South need to survive to start serious industrialisation?

Because, if they do not industrialize at some point, they will remain a third-world country - a "supplier of resources".

[Setzer]

The government is too weak to do it on their own, the rich and powerful have their fortunes and lifestyles tied up in land and slaves. Europe and the North wouldn't invest money in the Confederate economy. Short of the Union developing the region after reconquest, I think there's no chance. If they're independent, I can't see them ever industrializing to any significant extent on their own.

[Mayabird]

The South also had very few centers of education that could produce mechanics or engineers for industrialization (besides the fact that it had little education to begin with), plus a mentality that any kind of labor was something that poor people/slaves did, plus a patchwork of infrastructure that mostly catered to shipping out cotton than to actually moving goods about. Plus cotton drains the soil of nutrients very quickly - hence why the slavers kept wanting to go further west, because they were mining the soil to death. It was very much an extraction economy. I liken it to Saudi Arabia today.

[Serafina]

The South also had very few centers of education that could produce mechanics or engineers for industrialization (besides the fact that it had little education to begin with), plus a mentality that any kind of labor was something that poor people/slaves did, plus a patchwork of infrastructure that mostly catered to shipping out cotton than to actually moving goods about. Plus cotton drains the soil of nutrients very quickly - hence why the slavers kept wanting to go further west, because they were mining the soil to death. It was very much an extraction economy. I liken it to Saudi Arabia today.

So, essentially, even if the south somehow survived as a nation, it would have been economically bankrupt after a few decades?

Thats some good AH-stuff - having a bankrupt third-world country next to the well developed northern USA.

[Setzer]

I'm reminded of the song Schadenfreude from Avenue Q.

[Guardsman Bass]

The South also had very few centers of education that could produce mechanics or engineers for industrialization (besides the fact that it had little education to begin with), plus a mentality that any kind of labor was something that poor people/slaves did, plus a patchwork of infrastructure that mostly catered to shipping out cotton than to actually moving goods about. Plus cotton drains the soil of nutrients very quickly - hence why the slavers kept wanting to go further west, because they were mining the soil to death. It was very much an extraction economy. I liken it to Saudi Arabia today.

So, essentially, even if the south somehow survived as a nation, it would have been economically bankrupt after a few decades?

Thats some good AH-stuff - having a bankrupt third-world country next to the well developed northern USA.

It would certainly make for some interesting stories if done realistically. Not just with regards to the South, either - you could do some interesting stories showing how the North reacts in a scenario where the South somehow brings them to the table and gets independence.

[CmdrWilkens]

How long would the South need to survive to start serious industrialisation?

Because, if they do not industrialize at some point, they will remain a third-world country - a "supplier of resources".

There are two centers from which it could start to produce an industrialized economy and that remains with Richmond and Atlanta. The former has the advantages of a solid rail network, existing infrastructure and port outlets to the world (or more distant states where rail shipment is chancy) for finished goods. At the same time it carries huge problems in terms of raw material supply as iron, coke and coal production in the CSA was almost all centered on Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee which were, oddly enough, stridently pro-Union (though not anti-slavery per se). Even in a short war Kentucky will be almost certian to remain in the North which leaves Eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina as the principal providers of iron for any industrial center. Both cities (Atlanta and Richmond) would be in severe need of raw materials imported from the North or from the West (both under control of Union forces).

So what the South would need is rapid movement westward to claim at least parts of New Mexico and Arizona where mineral resources are to be had in sufficient quantities AND the will to lay sufficient rails to transport the raw material back east (though TN could feed Richmond decently). You'd be looking at a good two decades of reliable government sponsorship for that kind of movement and nothing in its limited history or the available bag of tools suggests the CSA could pull it off.