Why do people assume the Confederacy will liberalize post-war?

[holycookie]

Of course, with a weaker USA, Latin America have to deal with another major destabilizing factor; the Europeans.

Europeans were already interfering in Latin America, with or without the American doctrine. To be honest, the biggest protector of countries against European influence was England, not America. And even so, more than once England almost went to war with American countries, as happened with Brazil. With Brazil winning the dispute diplomatically. As a whole if we are being honest the monroe doctrine is more of a make believe than something real in this era. As a whole, the US interfered in the Caribbean, the region they managed to interfere with because they didn't have a strong enough local opponent.

The big reason Brazil lags behind the US is because Brazil was a slave empire, while the United States was mostly free.

Slavery was a reason but it was not the main one. Brazil failed for a wide range of reasons. Being colonized by Portugal being one of the most important, the country did not have the mass of people or power to win important disputes against Spain. So Brazil was unable to secure the Plata basin region (it would be the same as the USA not having the Mississippi basin). However, unlike the Mississippi River, the most suitable area for Europeans in South America is the Plata basin region (and the most fertile too).

The same country did not have a culture of appreciation for education. To give you an idea in 1800, Portugal had two universities (France had a total of 15 universities, he United Kingdom had a total of six universities and Spain had a total of five universities). And It prohibits the creation of universities and teaching centers in the colony.

Then, when it gained independence, the country had to basically go bankrupt to pay for Portugal's independence. This payment is caused by interference from the UK, which intervened to protect Portuga against brazil. When the country was reforming and beginning to advance, modernizing under the reign of Dom Pedro II, a coup d'état occurred by positivist military personnel in conjunction with the slave elite for the abolition of slavery. And instead of destroying the revolt, the emperor, who was in tremendous depression, preferred to abdicate. After that, these two groups destroyed the economy in less than 10 years. After that, the country staggered until today. Some moments going well in the economy and some bad moments, but being unable to really reform

 

[SWS]

The problem with an independent Texas is that before and during the War railroad schemes essentially planned for its commerce to be filtered into New Orleans. The Gulf coast cotton-planter would also likely reign supreme here throughout the latter nineteenth-century in regard to wealth and governmental power.

Unless, this fellow has anything to say about that:

What can planters do with their "fixed capital" then? Only the Mississippi Delta proved resilient IOTL.

 

[Karl der Große]

@Jürgen why would a significant amount of European immigrants move to the north of Mexico? It's a desert, full of Indians, and fairly lawless. Wouldn't European immigrants much rather go to the central plateau and lowlands where all the wealth, commerce, and European-descended people are?

 

[Jürgen]

@Jürgen why would a significant amount of European immigrants move to the north of Mexico? It's a desert, full of Indians, and fairly lawless. Wouldn't European immigrants much rather go to the central plateau and lowlands where all the wealth, commerce, and European-descended people are?

In OTL even with all the unrest the few Europeans immigrants Mexico did receive. mostly settle in the north, the Northern have more European admixture than the rest of Mexico. A imperial Mexico will be more peaceful with greater control over the north and it will likely receive more settlers, of course central Mexico will also receive more settlers.

 

[NedStark]

Mexico was outside countries like Paraguay and some Caribbean states, one of the Latin American countries with the worst 19th century, and the major factor in that was almost certainly the fact that they had USA as neighbor. USA was very much a destabilizing factor in Latin America until 1990 and the closer a country was to USA the more it was destabilized. Of course, with a weaker USA, Latin America have to deal with another major destabilizing factor; the Europeans.

The problems within Mexico IOTL - since we are talking about the 19th century - were largely caused by Mexico’s internal problems and Napoleon III’s personal plot (yes, it was Napoleon III who forced the adoption of his puppet monarchy on Mexican conservatives who at the time were just merely seeking French support).

without a empire of Mexico, so of course its survive and do pretty well. Mexico get significant European settlement in the north, mostly from Catholic part of Germany and from the Austrian Empire.

Not so sure about that. Maximilian was essentially a puppet Emperor relying on French bayonets to maintain power because he lack legitimacy outside of Mexico City - basically a South Vietnam of the 19th century. The North at that time was a Republican bastion - so expect loads of instability and insurgencies.

CSA receive more immigration than in OTL, mostly north Europeans in the Upper South and Texas and many buy up land for farms, through some like the Irish end up mostly in industry, the Upper South also turn into the manufacturing center of the Confederation.

I don’t see CSA immigration diverging away from *pre-war South*. And last time I check, the percentage of foreign-born population in the South was very low and was not really higher than post-war South, probably with New Orleans and Texas being the exceptions. The North still offered much higher wages, and cheaper, better lands thanks to the Homestead Act, plus simply more suitable climate - so you cannot just do the lazy calculation of subtracting a few millions migrants from the North and tossing them to the rest of the Americas.

Britain and France invest heavily in CSA.

Investment decisions from Britain and France were wholly made by private investors - and the factors that made the US/American North the prime investment location still remained here ITTL.

life is easier if we follow OTL pattern, so a Franco-Prussian War, the 2nd French Empire ends and the German Empire arises

French Empire being replaced by the Third Republic means CSA and Imperial Mexico 100% immediately losing French support overnight. And as I've just mentioned above, Maximilian's position totally depended on Imperial French backing.

Installing Maximilian in Mexico was purely Napoleon III’s personal decision without any notable input from the French political establishment, and at the same time pro-Confederate positions in France only found support among the Bonapartists and Legitimists who were about to lose all of their influence.

 

[Jürgen]

The problems within Mexico IOTL - since we are talking about the 19th century - were largely caused by Mexico’s internal problems and Napoleon III’s personal plot (yes, it was Napoleon III who forced the adoption of his puppet monarchy on Mexican conservatives who at the time were just merely seeking French support).


Not so sure about that. Maximilian was essentially a puppet Emperor relying on French bayonets to maintain power because he lack legitimacy outside of Mexico City - basically a South Vietnam of the 19th century. The North at that time was a Republican bastion - so expect loads of instability and insurgencies.

In OTL the Mexican empire only lasted a few years, while I agree collapse is likely here Maximillian is given several more years to get the situation under control. Likely he won’t succeed but as I said a surviving CSA timeline without a surviving Mexican Empire is hardly a CSA timeline at all.

I don’t see CSA immigration diverging away from *pre-war South*. And last time I check, the percentage of foreign-born population in the South was very low and was not really higher than post-war South, probably with New Orleans and Texas being the exceptions. The North still offered much higher wages, and cheaper, better lands thanks to the Homestead Act, plus simply more suitable climate - so you cannot just do the lazy calculation of subtracting a few millions migrants from the North and tossing them to the rest of the Americas.

A independent CSA have other interest than the American South as part of USA, they need foreign capital and skills. We need to remember that Argentina, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Brazil all got large number of immigrants too even through they were worse choices than USA.

Also I don’t expect an extraction, I expect mostly that a few more European emigrates, European emigration functioned mostly as pull rather than push factor. If USA had been closed for European migrants, some emigrants would have gone elsewhere but most would have stayed in Europe.

Investment decisions from Britain and France were wholly made by private investors - and the factors that made the US/American North the prime investment location still remained here ITTL.

Sigh, yes I get basic economy, but here’s the thing there’s a lot of financial infrastructure in investment, if a country welcome investment from specific countries they will general get more investment from these countries, and when you already have investment from that country it get easier for other investor from that country to invest in your country. CSA will shift away from Northern investments to some extend and here France and UK are the logical replacements.

 

[Rommel1941]

I think by 1900 the cost of slavery vs mechanization and hired hands would have eliminated slavery. Even by the 1860s it was becoming inefficient. Eliminate slavery and you would have had a mini USA economy. Probably a reaproachment between the north and south.

 

[Flavius Iulius Maiorianus]

I think by 1900 the cost of slavery vs mechanization and hired hands would have eliminated slavery. Even by the 1860s it was becoming inefficient. Eliminate slavery and you would have had a mini USA economy. Probably a reaproachment between the north and south.

This is not true though. Look at the cotton gin, which made slavery even more profitable by increasing labor efficiency. I see no reason why slaves couldn't do low-skilled factory work, which basically all factory work was until relatively recently.

 

[jmc247]

This is not true though. Look at the cotton gin, which made slavery even more profitable by increasing labor efficiency. I see no reason why slaves couldn't do low-skilled factory work, which basically all factory work was until relatively recently.

They were about 10% of the workforce in Virginia factories before the war. The biggest hinderance eliminating slavery in 1831 and probably still in the northern South after would be this matter.

“But, as it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.”
- Jefferson to John Holmes, April 22, 1820

 

[DG Valdron]

I don't actually see any prospect for reunification.

Through the 19th and 20th centuries, there hasn't been a lot of peaceful unifications - Italy maybe, Germany (although that took the Franco Prussian war), Vietnam by Conquest, E&W Germany is a special case, the various Arab Unions failed, Gran Colombia failed. I think if the Confederacy obtains independence, it keeps it. It might break up a little - Louisiana and Texas. But no unification, or partial unification.

 

[Dan1988]

I think by 1900 the cost of slavery vs mechanization and hired hands would have eliminated slavery.

Not necessarily- the South post-Reconstruction IOTL managed to make slavery work with industrialization, too. Of course, it wasn't called that explicitly- instead, it was convict leasing, peonage, and the like. A surviving CSA with a modicum of industrial development would do the same, as part of its own transition from agriculture.

 

[Rommel1941]

Not necessarily- the South post-Reconstruction IOTL managed to make slavery work with industrialization, too. Of course, it wasn't called that explicitly- instead, it was convict leasing, peonage, and the like. A surviving CSA with a modicum of industrial development would do the same, as part of its own transition from agriculture.

The cost of feeding. Housing medical etc exceeded the low cost of labor

 

[Dan1988]

The cost of feeding. Housing medical etc exceeded the low cost of labor

That didn't matter to the powers that be as long as the system was maintained regardless of cost. If they're that devoted to white supremacy and slavery to the point of a racial caste system, then slavery can (sadly) survive and evolve in new ways.

 

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

Given the lack of oil wells in the other states if Texas secedes, and the great abundance of southern yellow pine, the CSA motorcar industry probably uses wood gas.

 

[DG Valdron]

The cost of feeding. Housing medical etc exceeded the low cost of labor

Why didn’t the labourers starve to death then

 

[Rafi_T]

I think this is something that has to do with these boards and RW politics. Most members, dare I say, are bigots against the Confederacy and the RW political strains that are related to the Confederacy. I won't go further lest we get into RW politics. But when you're bigoted, you tend to look down upon, dismiss, and underestimate their abilities. We assume that they 'can't do any better' because they are 'just that way' and blinded.

Rather like Southerners underestimated the abilities of black people, I think on some level we look at Alt Confederates as constrained by our dislike of them. This is in no way saying the Confederate cause was good and fine.

I'm just saying we, as humans, have a human failing to underestimate what we despise.

Bro just pulled a “reverse racism” and said we’re bigoted against Confederates…

Stupidest shit I’ve heard on this site ever, and I’ve read the unironic Sealion threads.

We underestimate Southerners like they did Black people?!? You mean like they did slaves?!?

Oh I’m sorry, are there House Southerners and Field Southerners now?

Confederates literally made a revolution to keep the institution of slavery ongoing. It was baked into the Confederate constitution that no state could outlaw or restrict it, and that the constitution itself couldn’t be amended to abolish it or restrict it. They based their society on it, of course they’re going to follow that policy to their detriment.

It’s Lysenkoism except this time it’s a foundational part of the USSR, and is in the constitution. If that were the case, they would’ve kept going until every crop died off, and in that same way, the Confederates will keep slavery until they can’t any more, and not a second before.

(Different from South Africa, since in theory, if you have Smuts win in ‘48, that butterflies Apartheid, at least long enough to open up SA to unlimited white immigration, meaning the Afrikaners lose their ability to contest power to more pro-British/less racist whites. Meanwhile, to do the same in the South, you’d have to do a ton of butterflies, from Oglethorpe remaining governor of Georgia for life, to Jefferson’s Northwest Ordinance being approved, to Tennessee and Kentucky entering the union as free states, to getting Congress to make the Louisiana territory, and with ASB the state, to become free as well, and finally have Virginia approve gradual manumission in their 1831 constitutional convention. Even then you still have the Carolinas, and who’s to say that even if the LA territory and Alabama/Mississippi/Missouri/Arkansas/Florida were free under the Northwest Ordinance, that it wouldn’t be reversed after statehood?)

Edit: To address a point made elsewhere on this thread, the main issue with SA wasn’t demographics, it was the Afrikaners who emanated Hitler particles on a level that you’d think the Nazis went there rather than South America. To give context, if you added all proposed territories to SA: Namibia, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Botswana, and Swaziland, you’d have an even higher Black African population…. but your also drown the white African population with British whites, which would dilute the power of the Afrikaners to the point of irrelevance, meaning that the racial system stays more in the Indian white supremacy level, rather than Apartheid. Not good by any means, but a relative improvement, especially since it’s quite likely the Cape retains some of its colourer franchise, perhaps with an earlier PoD the entirety of South Africa has no racial restrictions on voting, but that’s a separate issue.)

 

[Rafi_T]

It's hard to imagine the Confederacy winning independence in 1864-1865. By 1863 the war was decisively lost.

A feasible victory would have been 1860-1861. 1862 at the latest. Or a major POD occurring during this period.

Pretty much this, even if McClellan agreed with the peace plank of his party (he didn’t, he wanted to continue and finish the war so he could be the one to win it), people forget that 1) the inauguration wouldn’t be until March, and 2) Lincoln had contingencies that if he lost, he’d rush Grant and Sherman to go as fast as possible to get the war over with before he was out of office, which would make post-election 1864 and pre-inauguration 1865 hell on earth for the confederacy as the Union goes all out on them to try and rush a capitulation.

 

[Rafi_T]

And to expand on this somewhat:

The people who say that (the Confederacy would be a basket case) often do not have any particular expertise in the subject. They're just repeating a meme. They're not looking at the Confederacy that was one of the richest, most literate (at least if we're talking about white people), and dare I say, industrialized places in the world. They're not looking at the Confederacy that had more railroads than almost anywhere else in the world. They're looking at the South of the Depression, which *was* a basket case, after the complete destruction of the banking system, almost fifty years of one-party reactionary tyranny, chronic underinvestment, and economic colonization by the north.

Now, there are ways you can get from the CSA winning the war to basket case. Cinco de Mayo (the timeline, for the unfamiliar) is a great envisioning of it. But there are some very specific conditions that get us from point a to point b. Not inevitabilities.

As for the liberalism part of the OP. "Liberal" as an ideological position, has it's roots in the idea that maximizing personal liberty will result in a greater realization of the common good. In no way does the South *at any point in history* strike me as a place where a premium has ever been put on liberal values. It stands out, along with Loyalist Ulster, as a place in the Anglosphere where those values have been historically weak. Rich? Somewhat powerful? Technologically modern by Western standards? Sure. Liberal? Nah.

1) Who built those railroads? It was northerners and their companies. Historically, southerners in Congress (except the internal improvements Whigs, not the states rights Whigs) voted against any railroad bills in the US. They even voted against a transcontinental railroad for years because they feared an influx of free, Northern whites into the South, even though if they had lobbied for a Southern route, they would’ve become fabulously wealthy!

2) They were classical liberals for the upper class. After all, they should be as unrestricted as possible in their property and endeavors. The national government was to serve only the basic functions of a federal organ, and protect the interests of slaveholders. Anything else was up to the states. That’s peak 19th century liberalism of national government non-interference.

Every (white) person is equal, just some are more equal than others. (It’s the thing about this period’s liberalism of “Is a man in a desert with no food and water truly free just because he has no laws limiting him?” And they said “yes”.)

 

[Rafi_T]

Why didn’t the labourers starve to death then

They kinda did though. Once you could lease convicts the same way you buy disposable razors, people tended to work them to death with much less compunction since this was no longer a lifetime investment, but a rental.

(Jesus, imagine a confederate YouTuber sponsored by an online subscription service for slaves? Like those parody ads about a modern day confederacy with ankle monitors.)

 

[rfmcdonald]

Confederates literally made a revolution to keep the institution of slavery ongoing. It was baked into the Confederate constitution that no state could outlaw or restrict, and that the constitution itself couldn’t be amended to abolish it or restrict it. They based their society on it, of course they’re going to follow that policy to their detriment.

It’s Lysenkoism except this time it’s a foundational part of the USSR, and is in the constitution. If that were the case, they would’ve kept going until every crop died off, and in that same way, the Confederates will keep slavery until they can’t any more, and not a second before.

(Different from South Africa, since in theory, if you have Smuts win in ‘48, that butterflies Apartheid, at least long enough to open up SA to unlimited white immigration, meaning the Afrikaners lose their ability to contest power to more pro-British/less racist whites. Meanwhile, to do the same in the South, you’d have to do a ton of butterflies, from Oglethorpe remaining governor of Georgia for life, to Jefferson’s Northwest Ordinance being approved, to Tennessee and Kentucky entering the union as free states, to getting Congress to make the Louisiana territory, and with ASB the state, to become free as well, and finally have Virginia approve gradual manumission in their 1831 constitutional convention. Even then you still have the Carolinas, and who’s to say that even if the LA territory and Alabama/Mississippi/Missouri/Arkansas/Florida were free under the Northwest Ordinance, that it wouldn’t be reversed after statehood?)

This locked-in nature of Confederate dysfunction, rooted in an almost anti-economic fashion in the heart of Confederate national identity, is why I think relative decline more likely than not. @dcharleos pointed out that there would be possibilities for a Confederacy to keep the relative lead it had over much of the rest of the world, but I am skeptical these would be taken.

There are many cases where relatively small changes could, at least, shift things towards less dysfunctional roots. If there had been slightly more white immigration to South Africa in the 1940s, say, as there plausibly could have been, then full apartheid might never have been implemented. There may be any number of PODs in the 20th century, right up to the 1970s, where Argentina could have gone on a different trajectory. With regards to the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia, even, different imaginable regional configurations of power and identity could have made things differently.

With the Confederacy, the central issue is that it was simultaneously a profound tyranny for a huge chunk of its population while also being deeply wedded to non-interventionism in many other domains, both for reasons of national identity that could only be challenged at great cost. We have the Cornerstone Speech, and other statements like it; the unmitigated domination of blacks by whites was key. This will inevitably have repercussions.