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BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed..
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BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. |
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Subject: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: Ebbie Date: 11 Oct 14 - 06:20 PM What do you think would have happened if the South had been allowed to secede from the Union? The Southern economy would have been strong, I imagine, for some years. Cotton and other textiles, a necessity to the whole world, would have been grown on the vast Southern plantation fields as an exportable commodity both to the North and overseas. Mills would have proliferated all across the South. And other businesses would have sprung up- there are good clay beds in the South so pottery would have boomed. A long growing season would have been conducive to the planting and harvesting of many fruits and vegetables. Slavery would have been countenanced and utilized for some years, no doubt. Politically, a Southern government would have agitated strongly for growth in the number of states in the Confederacy. All eyes, both North and South, would have been fixed on the West with its wide open spaces. Kansas Territory, no doubt, would have gone Confederate , and perhaps the Indian Territory which became Oklahoma, and Missouri. which had strong ties to both the North and South. That leaves up for grabs the New Mexico Territory (which includes present day Arizona), California, Oregon, the Washington Territory, (Idaho), the Utah Territory (Nevada and Wyoming) , the Nebraska Territory (Montana and Wyoming, as well as the unorganized territories of North and South Dakota). The North would have begun with approximately 20 states. The South, if all the areas were successfully annexed by them would have approximately the same number, subject to division into states rather than territories. It doesn't seem likely that the process would have been peaceful and war may have broken out in any event. Any thoughts on the probable sequence of events? This is just off the top of my head, although I did look at an 1860's map. States that seceded in 1860-1861 (in this order): South Carolina Mississippi Florida Alabama Georgia Louisiana Texas Virginia Arkansas North Carolina Tennessee |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: michaelr Date: 11 Oct 14 - 06:34 PM Might have been a good thing, after all, to have all those rednecks in a furrin' country. |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: Bill D Date: 11 Oct 14 - 06:43 PM Oh, I hate to imagine..... but I would bet that the slavery issue would have become a serious issue (even more than it was) as people tried to sneak North. Far beyond what areas might or might not have joined the Confederacy, I'd bet it would have led, eventually, to some sort of armed conflict. Then, when technology and culture changed and made slavery impossible to contain, I'd expect that there would have been attempts to re-unite the Union. I also assume that international politics would have affected all of the westward movement. It's all speculation, and the vagaries of history depend on so many details and 'might have beens' that I think I'll leave further speculation to others. |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: Bill D Date: 11 Oct 14 - 07:02 PM But here's a scary look at what it might sound like from http://www.rebel-son.com/ |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: Jack Campin Date: 11 Oct 14 - 07:20 PM Without the Civil War as a laboratory for developing the capabilities of precision-engineered advanced weaponry, the world would have stayed with simpler arms. By the time WW1 rolled round, this would have meant that sheer mass of forces would have counted more than technical sophistication; Russia would have steamrollered the Austro-Hungarian and Turkish Empires, extending its borders to Prague and the Persian Gulf. With those resources under its control, they could have bought off the Russian proletariat and the 1917 Revolution would never have happened. Meanwhile Scotland would have developed its trade with the South even further (they already had much more significant trade links than England by 1860) and would have become an industrial giant supplying the South with heavy machinery. The resulting boom would have led to splitting the country from England, the border being redrawn a bit south of Manchester. Scotland would then pick a fight with Russia over control of the mines of Svalbard and lose ignominiously. |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: Ebbie Date: 11 Oct 14 - 07:49 PM One scenario might go as follows: Slavery has become so despised and denigrated that the South would cast about for alternatives. There were already many abolitionists in the South- some of them might have been run out of town, so to speak, but a significant number would come to power, I should think, that there would be heated debates all over the region. As has been mentioned elsewhere, only the big landowners had slaves they depended upon economically and I can imagine the equivalent of the KKK nightriders making life difficult for them. Interesting what ifs. |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: Greg F. Date: 11 Oct 14 - 08:35 PM only the big landowners had slaves Not true. The majority of the slaves were owned by large landowners, but there were plenty of folks of modest means who owned a slave or three. Please do check your facts. The Southern economy would have been strong Not so - it was almost entirely based on agriculture worked by slaves. It was an economic backwater dependant upon imports for most of its commoditles and virtually all its manufactured goods. Mills would have proliferated all across the South Wrong. Most southern capital was tied up in slaves and there was virtually no money available for investment in industry. Kansas Territory, no doubt, would have gone Confederate Have you never read the history of the Kansas Nebraska act & what ensued thereafter??? Ebbie, where do you come up with this crap? And there are plenty more mis-statements of fact than I have addressed, above. Have you never studied American history at all? Or do you just enjoy posting nonsense??? |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: Ebbie Date: 11 Oct 14 - 09:01 PM Tut, tut, Greg F. I know a bit more than I am indicating here. My aim is to get people into a discussion here, not to shut it down. As for mills in the South there were a number of them, even though they sent most of their raw material to the North to be processed. http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2002440744_mill15.html TALLASSEE, Ala. — The old stone mill along the Tallapoosa River once made fabric for both slave clothes and Confederate uniforms. It survived the Civil War and the economic struggles of the next century, employing entire generations of families. https://www.google.com/search?q=pre+civil+war+southern+mills&0 Mills in South Carolina http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historic_mills_of_the_Atlanta_area 27 pre-war Mills in Atlanta area, textile, grist and saw As a point of discussion it seems to me that the South could not have survived much longer in its pre-war form. Cotton had so depleted the land that most of the profit came to consist of the slave trade. Surely that would come to a dead end? |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: olddude Date: 11 Oct 14 - 09:28 PM At the time of the civil war slave sale was huge to their economy. It probably was the single thing that drove the economy. So Greg has a point but no need to insult. |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: LadyJean Date: 11 Oct 14 - 10:22 PM Most likely the south would become a colony of Great Britain in all but name, dependent on Britain to buy their cotton, while depending on Britain for just about everything except food. The south imported most of their skilled workers, and would, no doubt have continued to do so, bringing them from Europe, Britain or perhaps Canada. Slavery would, in time, have gone away. Plantation slaves would have become serfs. City slaves would become an underclass. Meanwhile a few enterprising Britons, and perhaps some Germans and French, noting a good supply of raw materials and cheap labor, might have built factories. Doubtful the planter aristocracy would have had anything to do with them, so they would have set up their own communities with close ties to their home countries. There would have been no Tennessee Williams, no O. Henry, no Thomas Hunt Morgan, no Lyndon Johnson, no Bill Clinton, no Barbara Jordan, no Martin Luther King, no Elvis Presley, no Johnny Cash, no Dixie Chicks. |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: Bill D Date: 11 Oct 14 - 10:24 PM At least one of my family, in Amherst County, Virginia, owned several slaves. His will decreed they were to remain with his daughter until she was 18, and then be freed. He died in 1840. Most of the rest of my family were in Penn. & Delaware and had 'almost' no part in the Civil War due to remote location and/or age== so I have no family history to give me personal insight. It took me many years to get any perspective on what the North-South division was about, but I lived in several places where segregation was so pervasive that I barely knew any Black folks until I was 14 or so. I did figure out that the South was 'different', and I knew I dared not try to live there as an adult. |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: olddude Date: 11 Oct 14 - 11:22 PM My relative was awarded the medal of honor for his service in the navy. It cost him a leg. I remember ray Charles telling Jimmy Carter that his grandfather owned his. |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: olddude Date: 11 Oct 14 - 11:23 PM Great grandparents that is or something like that. |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: Ebbie Date: 12 Oct 14 - 01:44 AM Lady Jean, that's an interesting hypothesis. I hadn't thought of that. It is true that Britain was very involved in the struggle. Bill D, when my family first moved to Virginia it was well before the Civil Rights movement. I remember my amazement at 'Colored ' fountains, not to mention Colored entrances. |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: Musket Date: 12 Oct 14 - 03:35 AM True. The British Empire was busy interfering everywhere at the time. But thanks to William Wilberforce, there was no love in with the Southern confederacy and their source of labour. It was a time of forging links and backing the right horse. Would Mexico have been seized as The South's land grab in the only direction they could go? |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: GUEST,gillymor Date: 12 Oct 14 - 09:40 AM If North America had been pieced out into a number of squabbling competitive, warring nations like Europe there would have been no USA to prevent Germany from dominating Europe in the 20th century. And a southern slave empire would certainly have tried to expand southward as they had attempted some colonial adventuring in Central America and the Caribbean before they even became a confederacy. |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: Greg F. Date: 12 Oct 14 - 10:21 AM My aim is to get people into a discussion here Ebbie, I think the discussion might be more worthwhile if the initial premises were based on fact instead of fantasy. One can "imagine" damn near anything. Would Mexico have been seized as The South's land grab in the only direction they could go? Why not? They seized- oh, 'scuse me, "annexed" - what became Texas & in the Mexican War land-grab all of the Southwest U.S. & California. They would have needed land to expand cotton cultivation - and slavery. |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: Ebbie Date: 12 Oct 14 - 12:17 PM If the Confederacy had made war southward in its quest for more land and was successful it could have ended up larger than the original Union. Who knows what would have happened then. But a hundred and fifty years later it may have found itself ceding the land back to its former owners (I am sympathetic to the Mexican flood into California and the other states bordering Mexico). In WII (assuming that it would have happened in the way it did which is probably not valid) without the assistance of a large and powerful USA I "imagine" :) that the Western Allies would still have prevailed. The outcome of Germany's incursion into Russia didn't bode well for the invader. However, the war might have ended with a treaty rather than capitulation. Nicht wahr? |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: GUEST,gillymor Date: 12 Oct 14 - 12:29 PM But then without American aid Hitler may have broken up the USSR and then refocused on the western front. He came quite close as it was. |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: GUEST,gillymor Date: 12 Oct 14 - 12:38 PM Plus you could make the argument that American capital,armaments and to a lesser extent it's manpower made the difference against the Central Powers in WWI. |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: wysiwyg Date: 12 Oct 14 - 12:45 PM So.... is one anybody's unexamined premises that the Black folks in bondage would not have risen up to claim the South as their own, because.... they weren't smart enough to pull it off? Their "owners" knew better. Which side would have won THAT battle of minds? I'd bet on the folks whose minds had been suppressed. Human beings (as events in our own lifetimes reflect) tend towards "agency". Also who is to say that white southern women would not have sickened in increasing numbers, at the dual inhumanities of war and slavery? Would they have fukfilled our modern day stereotype of good southern womanhood forever, or would they have pinched off the supply of soldiers, slave owners, and overseers? There were Jewish slavers. Would the essential tenets of that faith not have eventually moved them too into the ranks of abolitionists? What about the secular humanists? What about the anarchists? What about Mexican power taking back land and then some? We have much to learn from the recent history of South Africa. I agree with MLK that the arc of history, though long, tends toward justice. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: wysiwyg Date: 12 Oct 14 - 12:47 PM Typo via fone. .. first phrase above is So... is one OF anybody's |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: olddude Date: 12 Oct 14 - 02:30 PM I appreciate your knowledge Greg. I have done further research and reading because of your suggestions. But no need to insult Ebbie ok |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: olddude Date: 12 Oct 14 - 02:33 PM For some states I think they still believe secession succeeded |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: Greg F. Date: 12 Oct 14 - 02:41 PM Not meant as an insult, Dan, but a serious question since the initial premisses/propositions that launched this discussion are seriously flawed and in some cases downright wrong. If this thread is meant as an exercise in pure fantasy, developed from invention & make-believe then by all means have at it. But it has bugger-all to do with history. |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: GUEST Date: 12 Oct 14 - 03:09 PM A lot would depend on relations between the Confederacy and the residual Union. If there was serious hostility I can imagine that the various Indian Wars would have been different as one side or the other supported the tribes against their rival. With trade going over the Atlantic rather than to the North I think that there would be British and French efforts to counter attempts by the Union to destabalise the Confederacy but to be politically acceptable the minimum quid pro quo would have had to be a nominal end to slavery although probably without any real change in the status of black workers. Great fun if you want to write an "alternative history" novel but too many variables for a real projection into the 20th century. |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: Ebbie Date: 12 Oct 14 - 04:54 PM I don't mind insults, Greg F and Dan, I whipped out commonly held perceptions in order to get to dialogue. I do like dialogue. |
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Subject: RE: BS: If the Southern Secession were Allowed.. From: Greg F. Date: 12 Oct 14 - 06:21 PM But Ebbie, do you like historical fact and real history in general? Or are you more comfortable with perpetuationg myth & nonsense? |
