Benevolent CSA

[johan_steele]

I have seen the neo-CSA & CSA apologists brag often about how the world would be a better place today if the Confederacy had survived or if a peaceful secession could have been arranged. My own cynical nature has caused me to question this and I did a bit of reading. What I found suprised even my jaded self.

What I propose is that those of you who espouse the Confederacy as a nation that was pure as the driven snow and nothing but victims of the evil Lincoln and the bad old North... back it up.

Why was the Confederacy better than the US? What actions prove that the CSA would have handled the Indian issue differently than the US. What evidence is there to suggest that the CSA would have coexisted peacefully w/ the US, Mexico, Cuba etc.? What evidence is there to show that emancipation would ever have been considered in a CSA Senate etc.

Why did the CSA feel the need to call p 100,000 troops? ALL of the cabinet members involved were quite aware of the deployment and condition of the Regular US Army. Jeff Davis had been the Secretary of War & senator, he was quite knowledgeable of the condition of the US Military. Calling up seven times the number of the standing army is argued as a defensive posture... ooooookkkkkkaaaayyyy. Only if the best defense is an aggressive offence. No one seems willing or capable of putting forward a viable defence of the CSA on this matter.

I expect some interesting insight... please don't disapoint me. Maybe someone will even convince me that the Confederacy really was just misunderstood.

 

[jackbluelight]

Well, there are about a hundred questions squeezed within that post, and a hundred more could be asked on the very subject. But I will attempt to raise a possible answer for a few of them. There is no answer to some, history never goes the way you think it will. Most probably, the history of the world would have been different from how it actually went down. What would have happened in the world wars,would the world wars even take place? I do not think the C.S. was better than the U.S. because , as the saying go's, may the better man win, but I believe that there were principals held high by the Confederates that should have carried over to the U.S. Such as state rights, and a certain duty to one's state over their country. To say that something like that could exist in the U.S. may not be entirely rediculous, just look at the Articles of Confederation, and all the men who had such beliefs who were president before the Civil War. It all raises alot of possibilities.

 

[bill_torrens]

Shane,

The issue wasn't whether the C.S.A. was better than the U.S.A. The issue was whether it was different. And if you feel you are different you surely have the right to pursue your own individual destiny, don't you?

Bill

 

[johan_steele]

Bill, most who espouse that the CSA should have survived also espouse that it would have been better than the US... what I'm trying to find out is why. I appreciate your reply, the absence of replies from others is deafening. As an Englishman w/ no direct influence from either side I appreciate your, what I consider, pretty unbiased opinion.

I issued specific questions, the mute replies speak volumes.

The CS Constitution was very nearly a direct copy of the US Constitution, the differences were slight but also quite damning as to any intention of Emancipation.

I agree that the CS was quite different, certainly no better and frankly little worse than the US. I wish others would note that.

My opinion on the matter is well known, I was hoping some might step forward and "put up" as the saying goes.

 

[johan_steele]

Casey, you have hit the nail quite squarley on the head... my opinion of "what if" scenarios is that they generally detract from real history and research, that said I suppose "what if's" make for fun fiction.

As to the idea of State's rights... they should be trumped by the rights of the individual and every individual has rights, certainly not something espoused by the CSA. Especially when it came to the right of a black man or woman to freedom.

Perhaps Czar Nicholas II said it best when he said: "No nation can survive that is founded on slavery." No wonder that Czar supported the US in it's time of open rebellion. I wonder if any of the leaders of the CSA ever read his Emancipation Manifesto and feared something similar in the US?

 

[johan_steele]

Bill, I wonder... do you suppose Marxism would have had a chance in a CSA that survived the Civil War, or didn't fight it? The agrarian masses against the wealthy slave holding land owners... or would such a movement have been put down in another "Bloody Sunday."

In the same vein where would a facist movement have stood in a CSA of the 20th century?

Twice now I have laid the CS Constitution beside that of the US and tried to see any enourmous differences, most of what I see is almost plagerism or outright copying of the US Constitution w/ extras added. While I see nothing wrong w/ taking the best from a document and using it as your own if it is a viable political document, I see little evidence to suggest that the CSA was founded as anything more than a losing electorate getting what they wanted by refusing to play in the sandbox any longer.

 

[dawna]

Are those differences enough to justify a Civil War?

Dawna

 

[bill_torrens]

Shane,

My apologies. I have only just seen your post addressed to me.

A Marxist Dixie? No. I don't see militant atheism going down too well in the Bible Belt.

A Fascist Dixie? One might just as well hypothesise about a Fascist U.S.A. after the creation of the C.S.A. Do you have any particular reason to believe that such a situation was likelier to arise in the South than in the North?

I'm entirely sceptical about Fascist or Marxist dictatorships anywhere in the (for want of a better term) Anglo-Saxon world. In our various countries we tend to display a scepticism and cynicism about politicians which creates sterile ground for would-be Fuhrers & Duces.

Bill

(Message edited by Bill_torrens on October 29, 2004)

 

[johan_steele]

Bill, I was just musing, Communism took quite a hold in a good bit of western Europe after World War 1... Germany, France, Spain and Italy all had and still do have issue w/ Communism. It even took root somewhat in England and the US.

I could see Communism looking quite attractive to a CS slave class and the average white farmer if the financial gulf between them and the plantation owner continued to widen. You put forward a good thought that the center of the Bible belt might well have prevented such a thing from happening... then I am reminded how deeply religious the Serfs of Russia were and just how powerful the Russian Orthodox Church was.

I think the difference that has allowed the US to keep dueces and Marxists at bay more than anything has been the propensity of firearms in the country... the CS decree of martial Law so early might have alevieted the threat of real popular uprising to the grab of power of such who have reason to fear a rifle in the hands of an angry citizen.

Good point about the possobility of Communism or Facism taking root in the US w/ a CSA to the south. But that is another What if...

 

[FSPowers]

The Alternate History author, Harry Turtledove, took a look at that very possibility in a series of books with a constant USA, CSA conflict.

How Few Remain: The Second Mexican War, CSA wins the war and buys Northern Mexico.

The Great War: Alternate WWI. US and Imperial Germany vs. CSA, France, and UK. Includes Communist uprising among the CSA's Blacks. US victory.

American Empire: Interwar years, Depression, rise of Facist Freedom Party in CSA.

I forget the latest series that started coming out, but an alternate WWII has been started by the CSA.