Civil War History - "What if..." DiscussionsWhat if they had attacked instead of digging in...? What if he was in charge of the army instead...? Did you ever have a "What if..." question, and you weren't sure where to post it? Here's the place to ask these speculative questions!
So, Opn, you believe that war was inevitable even if the South had been allowed to secede?
Is that only under Seward or do you think that there was going to be a war eventually with any Republican president?
Do you think there is any scenario where the South secedes without bloodshed?
__________________ "There must be more historians of the Civil War than there were generals figthing in it... Of the two groups, the historians are the more belligerent." David Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered (1961)
Any other candidate in 1860, would, IMO, have let the erring sisters go, in the expectation that it would be cold dose of reality that would eventually bring them back into the Union. The result of the folly of such a belief, would have been a cold dose of reality to some very naive politicians in the North.
IMO, without Lincoln, it would be 50/50 on whether secession would leade to War. Tempers were inflamed and nerves frayed on both sides, but the North was much more moderate in it's reaction to Secession than the south and without the unifying effect of firing on the Flag, it is unlikely that an immediate war would develope.
This is assuming Seward is not President, instead of Lincoln, because as I noted any President that held the Union was paramount to politics as usual and despite his being a professional politician, his heart was in the right place (if not, always, his brains) and would tend to take a hard line with actual secession, which, as has been historically proven, the south would not tolerate and would provoke them to fire the first chance they had.
I will take on a part of you multiple part one question you asked. If the Seward had allow the breaking up of The United States it would have been not just folly for us but for the world to come.
I go say VA., NC. chose to stay while the rest leave except TN. and MO. break out in civil war which involves KS. and AR. as well but 1870 the US has brought these four wayward states back into the union by force of arms and to the delight of the locals.
The rest the Confederacy implodes over the 1860's and by the 1870 only SC., Fl., and GA. are still in the confederacy while the rest are independent nations.
TX ask back into the union by 1875 due to debt problems just like the first time it join the union. It indebtedness is due to corruption and backing the wrong side in the civil war that involved the earlier states mention.
By 1880, AL., LA., MS., GA. SC., FL. are waving under debt due to the collapse of cotton prices because Britain and United States are importing thier cotton from the producers in Egypt and India even with slave labour they cannot complete.. Slavery is the reason Britian and the United States began importing from other non-slave nation.
United States offers AL., LA., and MS. help and military protection from Confederacy (GA., SC., and FL) because FL wants it land back from AL.,MS., and LA.
They except the offer of protection and then sue rejoin the union. The Unites States except them back but slavery had to be abolished in those states. All three except the condition because cotton had lost it importance.
So by 1890 only GA., SC., and FL. are the only states still in secession but corruption, debt, and economic problem bring a dictator to power. The dictator offers Spain military bases in the Confederacy and the United States already at odds with Spain feels threaten.
The Monroe Doctrine is enforced and United States sends troops into the confederacy and within a year the Confederacy along with slavery is no more. The union is whole again.
Just in time to Fight the Spanish-American War and ready to fight the challenges of the 20th century..
A note 600,000 plus lives not lost and slavery is gone and Seward folly is not one after all...
__________________
"States Rights are about States Wrongs" - Jesse Jackson
That's the thing about "What If....?" literally, Anything has more or less plausibility.
Without war, there would have been no blockade, so it would have been business as usual for about 10 years at least for the South and Europe.
The problem, would be that, the slave owners would be growing richer (for a time, at lest) but that would guarantee a smaller population growth rate, uneven and inadequate education for the avg. southerner, lack of adequate industgry and an almost total lack of entrepreneurship etc., etc
Add to that with independence, comes a large standing army and the building of a Blue water navy., very expensive and unproductive and big user of valuable resources and money. Who has most of the wealth in the South, slave owners, with most of it's capital invested in land and property (relatively little in Specie or cash). The Confederate gov't would be hard pressed to digu9ise the fact that independence made the slave owning oligaarchy richer, but did little except raise the taxes of the poor whites. Poor farmers and struggling middle class would be quick to let their Congressmen know of their discontents, and would fuel the nascent centrifical forces present in all states whose governors and legislators are imbued with the ideal of States Rights.
About 10 years down the road, IMO the Confederacy would be on the brink of dissolution. About the same time England got up it's Indian and Egyptian cotton sources online and the advent of the boll weevil.In the 1870 - 1880 cheap cotton cloth as the fuel for Imperial trade, was declining and with it the source of southern income.
The question then becomes, what does the south do with its increasingly redundant slave labor. An even more interesting question becomes, will the Union want them back?
That's the thing about "What If....?" literally, Anything has more or less plausibility.
Without war, there would have been no blockade, so it would have been business as usual for about 10 years at least for the South and Europe.
The problem, would be that, the slave owners would be growing richer (for a time, at lest) but that would guarantee a smaller population growth rate, uneven and inadequate education for the avg. southerner, lack of adequate industgry and an almost total lack of entrepreneurship etc., etc
Add to that with independence, comes a large standing army and the building of a Blue water navy., very expensive and unproductive and big user of valuable resources and money. Who has most of the wealth in the South, slave owners, with most of it's capital invested in land and property (relatively little in Specie or cash). The Confederate gov't would be hard pressed to digu9ise the fact that independence made the slave owning oligaarchy richer, but did little except raise the taxes of the poor whites. Poor farmers and struggling middle class would be quick to let their Congressmen know of their discontents, and would fuel the nascent centrifical forces present in all states whose governors and legislators are imbued with the ideal of States Rights.
About 10 years down the road, IMO the Confederacy would be on the brink of dissolution. About the same time England got up it's Indian and Egyptian cotton sources online and the advent of the boll weevil.In the 1870 - 1880 cheap cotton cloth as the fuel for Imperial trade, was declining and with it the source of southern income.
The question then becomes, what does the south do with its increasingly redundant slave labor. An even more interesting question becomes, will the Union want them back?
In that case, I can certainly see the North telling the South "You made your bed, now lie in it." An industrial and educated North, with a developed infrastructure would look at the South as nothing but a cash pit. And they would not be terribly exicted about letting in all those Blacks back into the Union. Sorry to say, but I imagine most of the people in the North would be happy to have them stuck in a third world country to the South. So even if the Confederate states agreed to emancipation as quid pro quo for reunion, I think the North would still say "no thanks."
__________________ "There must be more historians of the Civil War than there were generals figthing in it... Of the two groups, the historians are the more belligerent." David Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered (1961)
because the south needed more territory to sell its slaves and expand the slave trade, than most modern students would admit.
The Confederate Secretary of State notified his representative in Great Britain , that the Confederacy would defend all the slave states, except Delaware.
It also claimed the U. S Territory of New Mexico and invaded what is now the State of New Mexico, early in the war.
The great achilles heel of the South were its slaves. It needed more than ten Confederate states to make it viable. The problem is they had extreme difficulty defending even half that number.
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