The South Wins---What Next

I guess this needs touched on. The 1867 Confederate Presidential Election.

The circumstances of it really depend on what kind of victory the CSA attains, an early 1862 victory still infrastructural intact, or an economically devastated 1864 attrition victory with a lot of forced industrialization.

Either way, that election is going to break into Pro and Anti-Davis camps. And very likely the birth of political parties. With some politicians jumping in as spoiler candidates.

I think in any given scenario, Davis had been preening John C. Breckinridge to be his successor. The opposition, being of the Stephens-Toombs wing of Deep South Democrats and Fire-Eaters will try to whip up a distinguished political foe of Davis to their ticket. PGT Beauregard is the prime guy to do it.

The primary issues of that election will be basically a referendum on Davis' presidency in the wake of a successful, but very costly war. Balancing State's Rights and Confederate Nationalism. And politics will break along Upper South (Pro-Davis) and Deep South (Anti-Davis) lines. Standardization of the railroads for national defense, putting down slave rebellions in formerly occupied areas. Reforming the Confederate Army and Navy with lessons learned during the war. Breckinridge, Lee, Morgan, Forrest, Hardee, Longstreet and Johnston will be the foremost voices of a complete overhaul of Confederate command structure and logistics to compete with the Yankees. Turning VMI and the Citadel into national military academies to compete with West Point.
 
The British had many more trade relations with the US than just purchasing cotton. After 1844 immigration from the UK to the US increased, mainly to the northern states. Thousands of people in the UK had relatives in the US and they were waiting for the US economy to improve so that the immigrants could resume their remittance to the UK. In addition, there were major investors in England and Scotland, some British, some Americans living in England, that had major investments in the US.
Britain usually ran a strong merchandise surplus with the US, even when it was purchasing cotton. The US always ran a deficit on interest payments. The deficits were partially made up by a surplus in investment funds.
People who made the typical "Cotton is king" arguments had no idea how complex the relationship between the UK, British North America and the USA had become once travel across the Atlantic became cheaper and safer.
 
There is no indication the US was going to quit the war midway through 1862. By that time the US already controlled the far west and was it passing bills for the national railroad. They conquered the Mississippi River below Memphis and had control of most of the Virginia and North Carolina coast.
The shell of the Confederacy that might have survived past 1863 was going to have a very small white population. They were going to have to bargain to regain their ports.
 
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p. 406. Agricultural over production was going to affect every part of US agriculture. After price parity was re-established in 1879, the price of cotton continued to decline. The post Civil War poverty in the south was real. Texas crowded into the market and that pushed the price of cotton down.
 
The cotton parts of the south would have declined more slowly. But the non cotton parts of the south were going to find the Midwest and its railroads unbeatable.
 
The cotton parts of the south would have declined more slowly. But the non cotton parts of the south were going to find the Midwest and its railroads unbeatable.
In terms of what? If industrial goods, there's now a tariff wall nicely preventing that. Even without one, there's a reason Pittsburgh pricing became a thing; even despite that, Alabama historically was producing a fifth of American iron/steel alone by 1920 and when the aforementioned pricing scheme was gone, Alabama became a major shipbuilding center.

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p. 406. Agricultural over production was going to affect every part of US agriculture. After price parity was re-established in 1879, the price of cotton continued to decline. The post Civil War poverty in the south was real. Texas crowded into the market and that pushed the price of cotton down.

Cotton remained the main U.S. export until 1937 and the value of said export increased from $227 Million in 1870 to $1.136 Billion in 1920; that's a 5x increase in value despite the export percentage decreasing from 60% of the crop to just 14%. They were getting much more for less, given that exports in 1920 were only three times larger than that in 1870.
 
There is no indication the US was going to quit the war midway through 1862. By that time the US already controlled the far west and was passing bills for the national railroad. They conquered the Mississippi River below Memphis and had control of most of the Virginia and North Carolina coast.
The shell of the Confederacy that might have survived past 1863 was going to have a very small white population. They were going to have to bargain to regain their ports.
In 1862? They were confined to above the Rappahannock in Virginia and a few coastal enclaves in the Tidewater, same for North Carolina with the major ports there still open and in operation for blockade running. As for war weariness, The National Park Service also has this to say:

December had been nothing short of disastrous for the Lincoln administration. Earlier that month two major Union offensives, launched in concert, had ended in disaster. At Fredericksburg, in northern Virginia, another Federal commander went down before Robert E. Lee when Major General Ambrose Burnside lost over twelve thousand men in a series of brutal and fruitless assaults. And in Mississippi, major generals U. S. Grant and William T. Sherman floundered in the bayous and backcountry above Vicksburg as what was to have been a two-pronged thrust against the Mississippi River citadel degenerated into a comedy of errors. Confederate cavalry under Earl Van Dorn descended on the huge Federal supply depot at Holly Springs, destroying everything in sight and forcing Grant to abort an already bankrupt offensive.​
The repeated humbling of Union arms that culminated in the defeats of December 1862 deepened Northern war weariness, particularly in the Old Northwest, home to most of the soldiers of the Army of the Cumberland. Republican governors Oliver Morton of Indiana and Richard Yates of Illinois feared open insurrection in their states when their legislatures convened after the new year.
Then news of Rosecrans's victory, won largely by troops from the Northwest, exploded in the headlines of the Union press. "Rosecrans Wins a Complete Victory; the Enemy in Full Retreat," trumpeted the Chicago Tribune as the first reports came in from the field. The overstated claims of the Tribune and other pro-administration dailies were effective. Pro-war mass meetings were held throughout the Northwest surpassing antiwar gatherings in militancy. Public sentiment shifted from antiwar Democrats. The General Assembly of Ohio offered a vote of thanks to Rosecrans for his "glorious victory." The General Assembly of Indiana passed a similar resolution.​
None were more grateful for the defeat of Bragg than the beleaguered president himself. "God bless you, and all with you," Lincoln wrote Rosecrans. "Please tender to all, and accept for yourself, the nation's gratitude for your and their skill, endurance, and dauntless courage." Time and later reserves did not diminish Lincoln's gratitude. Eight months later, on the verge of Rosecrans's thrashing at Chickamauga, the president wrote him of his continued belief in the importance of Stones River to the Union cause: "I can never forget, whilst I remember anything, that about the end of last year and the beginning of this, you gave us a hard-earned victory, which, had there been a defeat instead, the nation could scarcely have lived over."
 
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I guess this needs touched on. The 1867 Confederate Presidential Election.

The circumstances of it really depend on what kind of victory the CSA attains, an early 1862 victory still infrastructural intact, or an economically devastated 1864 attrition victory with a lot of forced industrialization.

Either way, that election is going to break into Pro and Anti-Davis camps. And very likely the birth of political parties. With some politicians jumping in as spoiler candidates.

I think in any given scenario, Davis had been preening John C. Breckinridge to be his successor. The opposition, being of the Stephens-Toombs wing of Deep South Democrats and Fire-Eaters will try to whip up a distinguished political foe of Davis to their ticket. PGT Beauregard is the prime guy to do it.

The primary issues of that election will be basically a referendum on Davis' presidency in the wake of a successful, but very costly war. Balancing State's Rights and Confederate Nationalism. And politics will break along Upper South (Pro-Davis) and Deep South (Anti-Davis) lines. Standardization of the railroads for national defense, putting down slave rebellions in formerly occupied areas. Reforming the Confederate Army and Navy with lessons learned during the war. Breckinridge, Lee, Morgan, Forrest, Hardee, Longstreet and Johnston will be the foremost voices of a complete overhaul of Confederate command structure and logistics to compete with the Yankees. Turning VMI and the Citadel into national military academies to compete with West Point.
With Slavery intact, there is no real ability to drive apart the Readjuster Party via race, for one thing.
 
Tactical victories by the Confederate armies that produced no strategic result had an influence on politicians and journalists. But in another 6 months the US produced more strategic results that changed the complexion of the war. Whatever version of the Confederacy survived, it was going to far less than the original 15 states that allowed coerced labor and less than the 11 secessionist states.
Whatever was in the southern states by 1920 was the result of them remaining within the US and also from slavery being abolished especially in Texas and Missouri.
Using information from real history to support a vision of a surviving Confederacy is not weak rhetoric that is not very interesting.
Missouri abolished slavery and experienced an immediate population and railroad boom as people from Tennessee, Kentucky and Germany moved there. Texas had to wait a little longer, but in the 1870's, freed from slavery, it also grew rapidly and gained from major railroad investment.
 
Tactical victories by the Confederate armies that produced no strategic result had an influence on politicians and journalists. But in another 6 months the US produced more strategic results that changed the complexion of the war. Whatever version of the Confederacy survived, it was going to far less than the original 15 states that allowed coerced labor and less than the 11 secessionist states.
Whatever was in the southern states by 1920 was the result of them remaining within the US and also from slavery being abolished especially in Texas and Missouri.
Using information from real history to support a vision of a surviving Confederacy is not weak rhetoric that is not very interesting.
Missouri abolished slavery and experienced an immediate population and railroad boom as people from Tennessee, Kentucky and Germany moved there. Texas had to wait a little longer, but in the 1870's, freed from slavery, it also grew rapidly and gained from major railroad investment.
They did produce strategic result, as noted by the cited source and indirectly via your statement that success came in six more months; Fredericksburg stopped the Union success begun at Antietam while Holly Springs and Chicksaw Bluffs collapsed Grant's efforts against Vicksburg for many months. War weariness also wasn't just a fear just among the politicians and journalists, as noted by the citation provided but also played out by the events that followed. See the Battle of Fort Fizzle in Ohio in 1863, the Detroit Race Riots of 1863, the Charleston Riot in March of 1864 in Illinois, the Fishing Creek Confederacy in Pennsylvania from July to November of 1864 and the well known New York Draft Riots of 1863.

With regards to the states of a surviving Confederacy, there is nothing to indicate that Cotton production would, for some random reason, decline as there was nothing inherent to being apart of the U.S. in that process. You may call it weak rhetoric, but that is not a substantive argument in of itself nor does anything to advance the understanding of the likely ramifications of Confederate Independence. If you feel it is wrong then please, provide the evidence that is the basis of your claim.

This extends to the matter of railways, as it is actually not backed up by the historical evidence. Southern governments collectively spent more than $128 million on railroads in the antebellum period, mostly in the 1850s, when railroad mileage in seven key southern states nearly quadrupled. There is thus no reason to assume such would not happen in a Confederate Texas, given the rate of investment in such activities in the South far exceeded that in the North by this time period.
 
Railroads in Texas as of 1860:
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p. 224 of the appendix. Compared to railroads in Iowa as or 1860:

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p. 229.
Lots of fun here.
 
And why did that happen? Because the Confederacy confiscated debts owed to US creditors during the war, and the big east coast banks weren't going to take the risk again.
And most of the southern banks had lent vast sums to the Confederacy, which the Confederate government was going to have repay from a shrunken tax base.
 
Up until 1870 cotton compromised a dominant part of US exports. But by 1900, the US a major exporter of manufactured goods.
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Despite the fact that the US domestic production of cotton reached 12 million bales per year, the US domestic consumption of that cotton continued to take a larger portion of that cotton.
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The US population was growing. The standard of living was increasing. Sewing machines made production of clothing easier both in the factories and at home. The south became more dependent on US consumption not less.
 
The simple truth was that as the domestic economy of the US grew, merchandise exports and imports became less important as a share of GNP.
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The US was going to move on with the Whig/Republican program of internal development.
If the Confederacy had remained, nearly all of the cotton produced in the Confederacy would have shipped to Liverpool. From there it would have shipped to European ports, and back to New York and Boston for US consumption.
Its a fun road to go down, because as a single productive business, cotton growing was an important business. But the US economy as a whole was complex and increasingly self sufficient.
 
And why did that happen? Because the Confederacy confiscated debts owed to US creditors during the war, and the big east coast banks weren't going to take the risk again.
And most of the southern banks had lent vast sums to the Confederacy, which the Confederate government was going to have repay from a shrunken tax base.
I don't find the claim viable, given that the U.S. fought a four year long civil war and then in 1869 the Supreme Court in Texas v. White ruled secession illegal; thus, there was no viable concern on the part of said East Coast Banks, particularly given that by 1870 Reconstruction was in place with Federal troops.

Taking it at face value, however, the Confederate Government can and would easily pay for such. Unlike the U.S. the Confederacy had, for example, adopted an export tax on cotton. From Without Consent or Contract by Robert Fogel, pg. 415 -

"The Confederacy could have financed its expansionist, proslavery policies by exploiting the southern monopoly of cotton production. A 5¢ sales tax on cotton not only would have put most of the burden of such policies on foreign consumers, but would have yielded about $100 million annually during the 1860s--50 percent more than the entire federal budget on the eve of the Civil War. With such a revenue the Confederacy could have emerged as one of the world's strongest military powers, maintaining a standing army several times as large as the North's, rapidly developing a major navy, and conducting an aggressive foreign policy. "​
 
Up until 1870 cotton compromised a dominant part of US exports. But by 1900, the US a major exporter of manufactured goods.
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Despite the fact that the US domestic production of cotton reached 12 million bales per year, the US domestic consumption of that cotton continued to take a larger portion of that cotton.
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The US population was growing. The standard of living was increasing. Sewing machines made production of clothing easier both in the factories and at home. The south became more dependent on US consumption not less.
Cotton remained the largest export until 1937. As for that domestic cotton, here that would be Confederate exports to the U.S. so that's still a benefit to the C.S.A.
 
A major question is how effective slave labor could be used in factories and manufacturing. By 1900 relying on a slave based agricultural economy would be dangerous. The Confedercy could export cotton, but it remains uncertain if other slave based agricultural products could compete in world markets. Even at the time of the Civil War Southern tobacco and sugar had problems competing with tobacco and sugar from other sources.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s most nations with fast growing economies relied on growing manufacturing, raising middle class consumer spending, and sometimes on natural resources. With half the population of the Confedercy being slaves there would be limited consumer spending. Slave do not purchase much. The drag on middleclass consumer spending would slow down economic growth in the Confederate nation. I am not sure the South could count on booming industrialization. Slaves could probably lean to perform manufacturing jobs, but it is difficult to know if the South could effectively use wide scale slave labor on in factories. The South did have some natural resources, but if slave labor could effectively extract the natural resources at competitive costs is uncertain.

In my opinion a slave based economic system would be in trouble by 1900. By 1930 it would be in real trouble.
 
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