Wanna play pretend? by yinyang

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Wanna play pretend?

POSTED BY: YINYANG
UPDATED: Sunday, February 1, 2009 09:17
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Friday, January 30, 2009 4:32 PM

You were busy trying to get yourself lit on fire. It happens.

In my political science class today, while discussing news headlines - particularly the one concerning North and South Korea* - my instructor made mention of the tensions there would be if there was a North and South United States. Which leads me to this question:

What do you think would have happened if the Southern states had been allowed to secede, and there was no American Civil War?

Here's one response I found:

http://www.sklatch.net/thoughtlets/lincoln.html

Do you agree with most of that? Disagree? Why? Are there other consequences the author didn't mention?

I only have a few thoughts for now:

1) Obviously, with no civil war, shit like the scorched earth policy wouldn't have happened, and then the nastiness of Reconstruction wouldn't have followed, either.

2) On the other hand, no Emancipation Proclamation.

3) On the other, other hand, Abraham Lincoln might not have been assassinated.

4) Would there have been some sort of dispute over the Western territories?

5) Firefly would not exist.

It's been awhile since I had U.S. History, and I'm not a Civil War buff, so I'm interested in what other people think.** And, it'll give us a nice break from other threads in RWED... if anyone's interested, that is.

----------
"Pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, 'cause there's bugger all down here on Earth."

* http://tinyurl.com/nandskoreacnn

**Duh - otherwise I wouldn't be posting this.

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 4:02 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Relating to your teacher's conflating North and South Korea with a USA/CSA situation, I don't think it'd be that similar. If secession had occurred peacefully, there'd probably have been, and would continue to be, a good bit of trade and travel between countries as each would have materials, foodstuffs, and manufactured goods the other wanted. Both countries would have democratic forms of government (up to a certain point, in the CSA), so wouldn't have the ideological differences the Koreas have. Abolition would still be an issue, but more likely in a social and political arena rather than open warfare.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 5:18 AM

DREAMTROVE

Hmm. Okay, I'm going to agree with Geezer that there's no real parallel between the Korean situation and the Civil War. S. Korea didn't secede, Korea was invaded by Communists from China, who trained and armed locals, the same as Vietnam. The only difference between those is that Korea was pre-sino-soviet split, and Russia-China was really all the soviet union, at least, the line was very grey.

wikipedia, from google:
Warning - visiting this web site may harm your computer!
WTF?
It says that on all the search results. Linux rules! Muahahahahahah

But skipping the lack of parallel, What if there had been no Civil War.

Check out the strangeness of this election result:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1860

I never realized that Lincoln had lost so resoundingly, I knew that he lost, but I hadn't looked at the results.

Anyway, okay, abolition: Slavery would have ended around 1881, for the same reason it ended in Brazil, it was becoming a liability, principally for economic reasons. Slavery spilled out of agriculture and into industry, causing an economic collapse. This would have led to abolition in any event.

Lincoln wouldn't have been shot, he also wouldn't have been president.

Strong hawkish elements in the Confederacy would have gone to war with Mexico, which had been already in the planning. The CSA would have lost to Mexico.

The new Mexican empire would probably not sustain indefinitely, but Mexico would end retaking Texas-California. Manifest Destiny would have been in serious trouble. The Union would maintain a pacific coast, but probably not a Spanish American War.

Mexico would remain a trading partner, and the would have strong ties to Europe The CSA would probably later secede from Mexico, but would stop at the Mississippi. It would not be able to break away from Mexico without a strong outside ally. With slavery a dead issue, this ally might be the US, but it also might be anyone in Europe. Even if the South had the Union as an ally, doesn't mean we would re-unite. The atmosphere would have changed, and we'd be like the US and Canada.

This would have caused potential problems down the road, if the anyone was pulled in WWI, it would be the South, probably as a British ally. The North would remain republican, and avoid the war. Mexico might side with Austria-Hungary, but wouldn't go to war with the South. Germany would probably defeat western Europe, but not the East, or the UK. This would have prevented the war-debt and probably prevented WWII. The Ottoman Empire would control the Mideast, butting heads with Iran, and we wouldn't be involved in that conflict. There still would have been a Soviet Union, etc. This butterfly effect of global politics is something that I have some friends who have done a lot of research into, and so the above is a random guess, but it's somewhere in the ballpark of accurate, imho.

The social consequences would be harder to predict. Would black flee the South after the end of slavery, fearing that it would return? Possibly. I don't know, this sort of thing takes some gnawing.

Summer Glau would speak Spanish as as a first language, but there still might have been Firefly. It might be destiny. There are many multinational productions.

There wouldn't be a Nafta, 4 relatively equal powers would balance off against each other.

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 5:31 AM

CITIZEN

I remember reading somewhere an alternate history where there was a civil war, but for various reasons the South Won, so USA and CSA remained divided. I think the CSA ended up a fascist dictatorship.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 6:06 AM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by yinyang:

What do you think would have happened if the Southern states had been allowed to secede, and there was no American Civil War?

Today Hero, AURaptor & Finn would own slaves and be rich plantation owners in the good 'ole CS of A!

The laughing Chrisisall

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 6:20 AM

DREAMTROVE

Chris, unlikely. But even if there were still slavery, you're assuming that whites would still be masters, or that Hero, AURaptor & Finn would still be white :)

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 6:22 AM

WULFENSTAR

http://youtu.be/VUnGTXRxGHg

You are thinking of Harry TurtleDove.

Quite an interesting take actually.

Just remember tho, that the CSA had the RIGHT to secede.

What the North did violated the Constitution.

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 6:22 AM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Chris, unlikely. But even if there were still slavery, you're assuming that whites would still be masters, or that Hero, AURaptor & Finn would still be white :)

Ruin my joke why doncha.

The laughing Chrisisall

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 6:24 AM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by Wulfenstar:

What the North did violated the Constitution.

It's just a goddamn piece of paper, always has been. Are you some kind of frikkin' idealist, Wulf?

The laughing Chrisisall

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 6:31 AM

KIRKULES

Economics would have quickly brought about the end of slavery in the South and reunification would have happened very quickly. Slavery was already on it's way out due to the fact that it was more economical for southern plantation owners to exploit white share croppers than own slaves. The productivity of slaves was much less than that of those that worked for the pittance the organised coops of plantation owners payed the share croppers. It's a mistake to attribute the motivations of the South to maintaining slavery for economic purposes primarily because such a minute fraction of Southerners owned slaves, it was actually just a culture responding to outside forces trying to change their way of life.

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 6:40 AM

CITIZEN

Quote:
Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
You are thinking of Harry TurtleDove.

Quite an interesting take actually.

Yeah, I've heard about his books, but never read them. I'm thinking of something that was on the internet, of course it could have been a timeline for his books...

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 7:01 AM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:

Summer Glau would speak Spanish as as a first language,

but Morena would still be Morena.

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 7:11 AM

DREAMTROVE

In the various declarations of secession, the main issue is the proposed partitioning of the western states, to marginalize the south. The argument was something to the effect of who wants to be part of a union where you have no say in the outcome.

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 7:28 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
I remember reading somewhere an alternate history where there was a civil war, but for various reasons the South Won, so USA and CSA remained divided. I think the CSA ended up a fascist dictatorship.

The first I remember is If the South Had Won the Civil War by MacKinlay Kantor, which was serialized in Look magazine in 1960 and then published as a book.

Harry Turtledove has a whole alternate history series about this.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 9:19 AM

FREMDFIRMA

This is a question I'd prefer to ask L. Neil Smith, cause his answer to it would be the same as mine and about sixteen times as eloquent and accurate.

The North would have collapsed economically, though, without a vessel to exploit for profit their whole economy would have come to pieces.

-F

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 11:41 AM

DREAMTROVE

Quote:

The North would have collapsed economically, though, without a vessel to exploit for profit their whole economy would have come to pieces.

Sorry, I spy a skeet. Industrial economies survive off of neighboring agrarian ones all the time, with economic ease. Africa and S. America are used this way all the time by other nations. Consider all of the nations of the middle east, esp. the Arabian peninsula. They survive. People can buy food.

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 3:08 PM

FREMDFIRMA

There's survival, and there's living high on the hog while ruining others financially.

Their economy, going into the war, was substantially based on a form of ruthless exploitation so brutal that it was the primary initiating factor of hostilities, more than any other.

"The U.S. House of Representatives had passed the Morrill tariff in the 1859-1860 session, and the Senate passed it on March 2, 1861, two days before Lincoln’s inauguration. President James Buchanan, a Pennsylvanian who owed much of his own political success to Pennsylvania protectionists, signed it into law. The bill immediately raised the average tariff rate from about 15 percent (according to Frank Taussig in Tariff History of the United States) to 37.5 percent, but with a greatly expanded list of covered items. The tax burden would about triple. Soon thereafter, a second tariff increase would increase the average rate to 47.06 percent, Taussig writes.

So, Lincoln owed everything--his nomination and election--to Northern protectionists, especially the ones in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He was expected to be the enforcer of the Morrill tariff. Understanding all too well that the South Carolina tariff nullifiers had foiled the last attempt to impose a draconian protectionist tariff on the nation by voting in political convention not to collect the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations," Lincoln literally promised in his first inaugural address a military invasion if the new, tripled tariff rate was not collected.

At the time, Taussig says, the import-dependent South was paying as much as 80 percent of the tariff, while complaining bitterly that most of the revenues were being spent in the North. The South was being plundered by the tax system and wanted no more of it. Then along comes Lincoln and the Republicans, tripling (!) the rate of tariff taxation (before the war was an issue). Lincoln then threw down the gauntlet in his first inaugural: "The power confided in me," he said, "will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion--no using force against, or among the people anywhere"
http://www.mises.org/article.aspx?Id=952

Just another bailout for the rich, which we been doing all along - yes the north would have survived, but the economy based on predation of the south for benefit of what would eventually become the neocon imperialists we all know and hate, would have crumbled to dust, and those behind it would have suffered in the end, the fate of Benito Mousolini, which is only fitting cause it was that models foundation upon which he laid his own, just like Hitler founded his final solution on our solution to the "indian problem".

If you wanna get all technical about it, Fascism started here, and it started with Hamilton, Jay, Adams, then Lincoln - but never has it fully taken root till recently, and even then I wonder, cause for whatever reason, Americans will only take so much shit before they do something about it.

Anyhows, I'm not sure of the eventual fate of those pricks had the south won, given how we play forgive and forget every 8-15 years with the fuckers even today, and pay dearly for it every goddamn time....

But their economic system, that woulda been the first thing to go, absolutely - with no one left to rob but their own to maintain their standard of living, and given the massive damage and casualties that would have HAD to be inflicted to stop the north, given that they were willing to slaughter their own in droves to force them to fight (See Also: NY Draft Riots) with a reduced population base, a wrecked industry, and paper money that wasn't worth the paper it was printed on, they could not have maintained it no matter how they tried to.

And that's only if the south was willing to forgo stringing them up on the white house lawn, which they probably would have since all they desired was to go their way in peace.

The only folk who've ever gone that far in actually finishing the damn job have been the french, and they screwed it up about halfway through, alas.

Believe me, were it to come to it here, and angry lynch mobs tearing the neocon imperialists, globalist NWO and neofascist corpies limb from limb, finally finishing the freakin job, at least for a while - I'd not shed a bitter tear about it.

But no, we forgive, and forget, and we pay and pay and pay for it...

Me, I'm tired of paying that price, and I'll do anything in my power to save my descendants from having to.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

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Sunday, February 1, 2009 5:21 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Quote:
Originally posted by yinyang:

What do you think would have happened if the Southern states had been allowed to secede, and there was no American Civil War?

Today Hero, AURaptor & Finn would own slaves and be rich plantation owners in the good 'ole CS of A!

The laughing Chrisisall

Only all my "slaves" would look like Halle Berry or Kandyse McClure, and would work indoors.

It is not those who use the term "Islamo-Fascism" who are sullying the name of Islam; it is the Islamo-Fascists. - Dennis Prager

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

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Sunday, February 1, 2009 5:23 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Quote:
Originally posted by Wulfenstar:

What the North did violated the Constitution.

It's just a goddamn piece of paper, always has been. Are you some kind of frikkin' idealist, Wulf?

The laughing Chrisisall

Now now Chris. We've been over this before. Play fair!

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Sunday, February 1, 2009 9:17 AM

DREAMTROVE

FREM

Interesting about the tariffs. I agree that the north was bent on imperialism, I think that abolition was just what I call "the ugly poster child for bad policy." Just a couple of examples:

Death penalty. Show us a really horrible series killer that eats brains, and tell us that this guy isn't worth a dime for redemption. Then enact a law that allows the govt. to execute its citizens pretty much at will.

I can think of 100 of these, just wanted to paint the concept.

I disagree with your optimistic view of the collapse of liberty street. I think that if they failed to be predatory on the South, they'd just move on to prey on someone else. England has been a predator nation for a long time. They just shift the quarry.

As for the one-world neocons and the credit economy greed mongers, I was recently in a conversation about how the two got in each other's way in the Iraq war: Greed interrupted the formation of a total puppet state in Iraq, and Globalism got in the way of war profiteering. I used a classic Giles: "If those two don't kill each other soon, I might just lend a hand"

Rap, move to Dubai, they still have slavery there, just the kind you're looking for. And don't worry, it's not a muslim nation, Ironically, it's a hindu colony, though the population is now about 80% muslim.

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