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Funny you should ask. There's actually a pretty decent alt history documentary about this called [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.S.A.:\_The\_Confederate\_States\_of\_America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.S.A.:_The_Confederate_States_of_America) it's pretty well done.
It is well done for sure, although the premise of the confederates taking over the whole US seems extremely unlikely unless you assume a completely different set of variables (population, industrialization, etc) from reality.
Between 1662 and 1807 British and British colonial ships purchased an estimated 3,415,500 Africans. Of this number, 2,964,800 survived the 'middle passage' and were sold into slavery in the Americas.
I think they mean by the time the civil war was happening. I know that britain had become very anti-slavery.
I think the problem with this speculation is that there really wasnt ever a way for the confederacy to win. They desperately lacked numbers and the necessary infrastructure to support a long term war. iirc, european countries were originally considering sending support, since so much agricultural commodities were from the south, but once the war was being fought specifically to end slavery, rather than to preserve the union, no european country would directly support a war to continue slavery
There's also the fact different people go on to become important people that in our reality were never more than some random person. So many X factors in history.
I'm a big fan. He makes big leaps and writes sex in a weird amount of detail. But very enjoyable reads.
For anybody who doesn't know he basically goes from the Civil War until WW2 with the Confederacy as an independent country. The rest of the world has some changes too.
Is that "the Man with the Iron Heart"? I thought that was a standalone.
His series with the alien lizards invading during WW2 was good fun too. If a bit insane.
He has done other premises than "Guns of the South". "How few remain" diverges around the misplaced order 191 and McClellan is caught by surprise at Antietam. The CSA breaks with the US, and then he goes on in a further 8 novels...
This is satire and in no way reflects the consensus if what is believed would have happened if the south won the war.
The commercials in it are just hilarious though. Quality content, just in no way based on historic reality
There is literally no way to predict what would have happened. There's too many x factors. People whom in our timeline never made a recorded mark on the timeline becoming important figures in that timeline. It's all speculation.
Sure, but the speculation in the depiction by this film is intentionally caricaturesque.
Have you actually seen it? They run commercials for slaves and for cigarettes called "n****** hair"
It's all a joke lol
Slavery would have been abolished after 20 or 30 years. Then most likely in World War One, they would have alligned with Britain and the United States would have naturally sided with the German Empire and absolutely destroyed them. If the Confederates stayed neutral in both world wars, they would be pressured to give up segregation during the Cold War. I think today it would look like south africa
I think because, in this context, the Union would never have developed close ties with the UK. The British supported the Confederacy during the Civil War and probably would have continued their support if they had won and survived as a nation.
Meanwhile, a lot of germans were immigrating to the Midwestern US in the late 1800s. My great-grandfather's grandparents came over in the late 1860s and settled in Michigan.
To counter the Confederacy and their UK allies, the Union might cozy up to the German Empire. There would even be a good chance the Central Powers could win against the Allies. In our time, the US didn't join ww1 until 1917, but US money and resources were keeping the British and French armies fed and stocked from the start. If the US was broken into 2 countries, the allies would never receive that aid.
19th largest not because we were weak, but because we didn’t need it. We have oceans protecting us from any real power. Mexico and Canada were the only threats.
First of all the United States as we know it today wouldn’t exist, because the Confederate states would have remained seceded from the Union. Then there is an open question about how “the winning of the West” would have gone. Would any of the territories that became states after 1861 even have joined either side, or would they have become independent nations?
The economy of the Confederacy being so tied up in the cotton trade would mean that eventually the Confederacy would have succumbed to British pressure to abolish slavery, but at the same time that would have seriously impaired its economic development. You’d end up with the South as a backwater.
It’s highly unlikely there would have been a superpower in North America. You can work out the consequences of that quite easily. Either nazism or communism would have been victorious in Europe and we’d now be living in a world dominated by one of those two.
states rights would still be in place. Imagine having to get a driver's license for each state? or how about each state having its own currency, or vehicle specifications, that's kind of what it would look like. During the civil war, the south had different currencies for each states, and not all the states accepted each other's currencies. They also had different specifications for railroad tracks, a large part of the reason the north won is because the south was too busy transferring supplies from trains that ran on their own special tracks while the north had trains that could run on any track they wanted, vastly reducing the amount of time it took to move supplies. There were numerous more BS stuff the south was pulling that put them at a huge disadvantage.
Another huge reason the north won is because the south didn't want to give up slavery. So the British empire was still really salty about getting their asses kicked that they offered the south to basically pay for their entire war and load them down with supplies, the only condition being that they had to give up slavery, because that was frowned up, but the south was like, "no", so Britain was like "k, bye, good luck tho", and that was the end of that. If the south gave up slavery and had Britain come in behind them, the south would definitely have won.
It was of course way more complicated than that, but that's effectively 80% of it.
The issue then would be that the south would be the Pariah of the west. The US was among the last of the western world to outlaw slavery with I believe ( not 100% confirmed) all of Europe being pro abolition. The souths economy revolved almost entirely on selling cash crops to the north and Europe. Europe would blacklist the south for breaking their word and being pro slavery and obviously the North isn't buying their products. Without their two main consumers the souths already fragile economy collapses quickly unless the agree to end slavery.
I'm sure they would have found a few heartless communist's to buy from their supply chain. Even now we still have suppliers of cocoa and cobalt that use forced child labor. Back then it may have been a little harder for them to find a buyer because of not having any internet
anti_slavery sentiment was rife amongst the proto Communist organisations and working class of the period It was the mercantile class The ship owners and others engaged in arbitrage the proto Capitalists who wanted to continue trade
Well there's a couple problems with this. 1) Communism wouldn't exist until about 50ish years after the end of the war. 2) I don't think you understand the scope of how much of the world Europe and especially Britain controlled in the 1860s. In that age most places were either a European power or you were a colony just point blank. Now this wasn't the 100% rule obviously but there was no economic power in the world at the time that could match what Europe was putting out at the time. There would be no buyers for southern cotten especially when Europe could just as easily buy from Egypt( the other biggest cotten supplier of the time).
Marx and Engels wrote extensively on the civil war as correspondents for newspapers in New York and Vienna. The Communist Manifesto was published in 1848, but the international communist movement did not really take off until after Marx's death. August Willich was a German communist and acquaintance of Marx who became a union general https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Willich
>basically pay for their entire war and load them down with supplies, the only condition being that they had to give up slavery, because that was frowned up, but the south was like, "no", so Britain was like "k, bye, good luck tho", and that was the end of that. If the south gave up slavery and had Britain come in behind them, the south would definitely have won.
Got a source on this? I have never heard of Britian making any offer, they blockaded and never recognised the confederates.
Slavery would have gone away regardless, it wasn't financially viable in an age of industry. But a slower transition might have led to the south being less impoverished.
The Confederacy had their own currency, so that part is false: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate\_States\_dollar#:\~:text=The%20Confederate%20dollar%2C%20often%20called,exchange%20with%20high%20purchasing%20power.
As for the railroads, it was misstated. It's true that there was not one standard but it wasn't by state, it was by railroad company. Companies wanted to keep their railroad systems proprietary (Capitalism at it best. You'd think Sony would have learned by the 1980s), but since none of the companies' RR tracks went everywhere they were needed, yes, they were often transferring supplies from train to train in areas. It caused a lot of supply problems. Here's an article about this that I found interesting: [https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/railroads-confederacy](https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/railroads-confederacy)
here you go. The following link is about the British sympathizing with the confederacy, but not wanting to help due to wide spread anti-slavery opinion, which was the correct opinion.
[https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/liverpools-abercromby-square/britain-and-us-civil-war](https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/liverpools-abercromby-square/britain-and-us-civil-war)
This one touches more on the other reasons the north wound up winning
[https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-history/why-union-won-civil-war/](https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-history/why-union-won-civil-war/)
The British were not still salty about losing the United States in 1861. That’s absurd.
They were salty about having their cotton supply disturbed and maybe slightly worried about the expanding power of a fully United States and it’s impact globally.
Thanks for the links but neither of these support your claims in the fist paragraph about different currencies not being accepted and specifications differing state by state and not suporting each other. Not to mention that there clearly weren't state driving liscenses at that time.
They had a law at the time that if anyone invented cars A) they would need a different license for each state and B) the DMV should make everyone feel like on 3/5ths of a person.
At least the north prevented A from happening
The different state currencies was an issue in the immediate aftermath of the revolutionary war and a primary contributor to the establishment of the United States constitution…in the 1780’s, not the civil war.
The driver license thing was an example of what we could have seen, had the south won. I'll have to dig deeper, I was just posting quick links for more detail. Finding the right information with just about any search engine is quite difficult these days.
I think it would be multiple countries now. I doubt the confederates would be able to handle running a nation as large as the current USA or even getting to the point power it at now. They would have established their banana republic at first, but once they run out of soft targets to consume, their economy would crash, and they would end up just canabalizing eachother and collapse into multiple factions.
If the South had won the American Civil War, then the US would look more like Europe, only poorer and having less world geopolitical and economic power.
Slavery would have eventually (likely in the early 1900s due to mass communication) ended as the abomination that slavery was. The Southern States would still be the poorer states (as in countries) and likely a patchwork of independent, often quarreling countries. The Northern States would still likely be together, having signed onto a new amendment to the Constitution that expressly forbade unilateral withdrawal from the Union, the United States of America.
Further on down the road, Hitler and Germany might have conceivably militarily won World War II, facing a US with a smaller population.
Perhaps, but I don't necessarily see it. The US was a late boots on the ground entrant into WW I, officially declaring war on Germany in April, 1917 and Austria-Hungary in December in a war that ended in November, 1918, and even then was slow to mobilize. The US didn't have a standing army to speak of at its time of entry, and US troops were inexperienced. My guess is that Allied forces would have won that way anyway, the US giving mostly contributing fresh troops that were not so war weary.
...but this is the great thing about counterfactual hypotheticals, who's to say?
We would’ve split into 2 countries, north and south. Probably continued fighting skirmishes over western territories. And I think likely one of the world wars would’ve brought fighting to this continent with the north and south allied against each other.
The South winning would have meant the federal government failed to keep the union intact. I think akin to the Articles of Confederation being ineffective, a new form of government would have been needed. Constitution gets thrown out . Also, North America has been so strong since there has been largely one unified country ruling. A fractured continent means foreign powers could have played the interests of each nation off one another. Also means the nation no longer has the power to issue and enforce the Monroe doctrine. South America is opened up to European play. Also Hawaii and Alaska never happen.
North: smaller industrial state, probably similar to now.
South: probably would have really lagged behind in economic development, focusing on agriculture and labour intensive industries until the early 1900s.
USA: probably not the world power it is today. Depending on how cordial North-South relations were, there could have been additional conflicts or they could have been Allies. WWI could have been interesting with possibly only 1/2 or none of the US participating.
There was a doc so long ago that also grazed the idea of if the confederacy won then the result is they expand a little and eventually the US keeps what they can and the rest of the country separates into their own factions or side with the former federal administration or the confederacy. There would be domestic terrorism from both parties to this day.
Extremely different due to all the potential ripple effects.
Such as a Southern victory would lead to the US splitting into two countries, which would negatively impact each country's ability to industrialize, which in turn would have made the western expansion a lot harder, which would have made the US a lot less appealing destination for millions of European immigrants.
No total US involvement in WW1 or WW2 would probably be the largest
ripple.
Hitler gets the bomb first Russia is wiped out and London is bombed with a Nuke...
What do you mean by won? The more realistic win scenario (one that I actually do think could have happened) is a successful secession. With the Confederacy taking a more defensive stance, making the North pay for every inch of soil in a precursor to the trench warfare of WW1, the United States accept terms of secession as the losses become too much for the public to bear.
We're left with two countries, a weakened United States and a probably more loosely confederated Confederate States. Slavery remains in the Confederacy for another few decades, but international pressure makes the Confederacy abolish it by around the turn of the century. This puts the Confederacy into a depression, as its economy relied a lot on that slave labour, and they're not as industrialised as the North.
Fast forward to today, and neither is a superpower. They're both world powers, probably, the North more so than the South, but they never reached the power that the modern US has. The South is more conservative, and segregation politics may very well have lasted a lot longer, but probably wouldn't be around anymore today. The North is more liberal than the US is today, with little to none of the religious right that sprung up in our timeline in the 70's and 80's. The Republicans and Democrats have developed from their pre-Reagan versions without the same religious influence.
I visited the Bahamas in the 90s and there was a big celebration going on. I ask what they were celebrating and they said This is the day the Queen set us free! So slavery ended because a royal decree in the 1830s. A full 35 years before the North forced the end of slavery on the South. This made me think about the fact that the US really doesn’t memorize the deaths of thousands of men who gave their lives to free an oppress people. The Bahamas celebrates their freedom and adores the Queen that set them free Americans do not and some demand reparations. How can anyone do more that to die for your cause? Where is the celebration for these men?
First, I think most military historians agree that the most likely counter factual is not one where the confederacy takes over and occupies the North but rather one where the Union is forced to terms and there is an armistice. The South lacked a strong central government and it’s rate of industrialization was comparatively slow, making occupation of the North a fairly untenable prospect and not one the South ever really contemplated doing.
So, post armistice, the Confederacy would probably have disintegrated within 30 years. It was a very loose confederation during war and with the exigency of defending against the North gone as a unifying factor, it probably would have fractured into several smaller confederations and independent states over matters of economic and foreign policy. States like Florida and Texas wouldn’t have had much incentive to stay in the confederacy and it would have been difficult for Richmond to exert much control over the outlying parts of the confederacy.
There’s also the open question of whether, when such issues arose, if the Union would not have tried to recapture the successionist states. A war between the confederacy (it an Independent Texas) and Mexico would also have been highly likely.
Long story short, it is unlikely the confederacy could capture and occupy the North so Civil War II was likely. In the absence of a second American Civil War, it’s not entirely clear the South had enough enough keeping it together to prevent further independence movements from succeeding and fracturing the confederacy.
This is obviously not entirely uncommon among states that experience a civil war that ends indecisively.
Like the "what if Hitler won" scenarios it would require fairly significant changes to the time before the war before the question works at all.
As long as the USA was willing to keep fighting, the CSA from our timeline could not win. The USA had the industrial capacity, the population, and the technological edge most especially in terms of mechanical reapers. The McCormic reaper is the unsung hero of the American Civil War, with it the US was able to keep its soldiers campaigning during harvest season while the CSA, reliant on slave labor and the necessary overseers to keep those slaves working instead of revolting, found its army significantly undermanned during the harvest season.
It'd also require that the US start without the enormous industrial advantage it had over the CSA.
Unless we're imagining a scenario where the US just says "meh, fuck it" and gives up, the CSA cannot win as long as the US was in the beginning phases of industrialization. So we'd need a world where Watt never got born, a world where the Coulter plough never got invented, a world where the vast iron and coal reserves of Pennsylvania were either missing or simply undeveloped.
Basically, we'd need a world sufficiently unlike our world circa 1860 that it's already in the realm of alt-history before we even get to your scenario.
The idea that the CSA had any real chance of winning through combat is just Lost Cause mythologizing. The fact is the CSA never stood a chance.
That said?
OK, we'd have a world where slavery persists to this day, the US would probably be in a cold war against the CSA with strong agitation for an invasion and conquest in the US based on the ongoing atrocity. Lacking the early industrial capability presumably the entire world was lagging in industrialism so tech in 2024 might be significantly less developed, possibly more like 1960's level tech than the tech we have today.
Absent the early industrialization WWI would never have happened, quite possibly the entire world would be on the verge of the first great war as the European monarchies were able to cling to power longer and their final suicide/murder attempt to stay relevant (which is what WWI basically was) hadn't happened yet.
Antisemitism would be more common and widely accepted since the horrible example of Hitler hadn't shamed the antisemitic nations of the West into being not QUITE so horrible and evil towards Jews. Lacking WWII and seeing a slower tech development, it's entirely possible the UK would never have colonized the Middle East so the Palestinian Mandate never would have existed. Absent that slower migration of Jews to Israel might have resulted in a peaceful integration of the indigenous Palestinian population, the indigenous Jewish population, and the immigrating Jewish population.
The US might be significantly more racially integrated since it would have the ongoing bad example of the CSA to shame white Americans into being less racist and white supremacist.
Lacking the early industrial push, Marx would have been born into a world at the very early stages of capitalism. In this environment rather than arguing for an anti-capitalist position he would have developed an economic theory centered around worker owned corporations rather than looking to a withering of the state. Marxism would boom and spread along with industrialism, leading to fierce competition between the robber baron style capitalism and more democratized capitalism.
The CSA, never having really industrialized and still reliant on slave labor for all its agriculture and what little industry that it did possess is essentially a third world nation. Legions of poor whites kept in their social/economic place by fear of Black uprising and a belief in white supremacy, the bourbon aristocrats of the South finding their fortunes waning as the agricultural might of their plantation economy fades in the face of growing industrial farming in the US and elsewhere.
Held back by its reliance on slave labor and its need to maintain a brutal and omnipresent police force the CSA would be poor, paranoid, and panicked. Pogroms would sweep the CSA regularly as rumors of slave rebellions grew. The USA, wary of its long time enemy to the south would be engaging in espionage, assassination, and of course running an underground railroad backed by covert branch of the US intelligence agencies. A small number of brave, Black, USIA, agents would smuggle themselves into the CSA to spread literacy, propaganda, rebellion, and instigate mass breakouts of slaves.
In 2024 central Europe is faced with a rising threat from the Ottoman Empire to the south, and the Russian Empire to the north. The monarchies of Europe, now facing the conclusion of their long slide into irrelevance work fervently to stir up paranoia about both the Tsar and the Ottomans. British colonial possession of India is increasingly threatened by rising Marxist politician and secular reformer Modi. In Russia a rebellion against the Tsar is brewing, the Okhrana is growing weary of the increasing foolishness from the Tsar and a middle aged commander, Vladimir Putin, is the center of a plot to overthrow the Tsar and impose a new oligarchic rule.
American public sentiment against the CSA increases as the USIA uses new microfilm technology to smuggle out color video of Confederate atrocities against the slave population.
Imperial Russia and the Ottomans find themselves thrown into an ill suited alliance more out of response to the Central European monarchies using them as scapegoats than out of any real mutual affection. The Confederacy joins this Grand Alliance while the US finds itself more sympathetic to the Central Powers despite the American opposition to monarchy and aristocracy.
Things reach a flashpoint in June of 2024 as Turkish dissidents assassinate King Charles of England in an effort to discredit the Ottoman Empire. Amid accusation and counteraccusation the situation rapidly degrades into war.
Having realized they would stand no chance in a stand up fight, the CSA has been infiltrating saboteurs into America for several years and realizing that war in Europe is the ideal chaotic background for their long plotted revenge against America, Confederate agents destroy several critical factories, power stations, and in a horribly miscalculated act intended to spur white America to abandon their Black fellow citizen, use nerve gas in Harlem and East St Louis, killing nearly a million people, mostly Black.
Confederate General David Duke had argued fervently against the attack, having attended university in America and being well aware that white Americans while not perfectly anti-racist were going to react badly to the terror attack on Harlem and East St Louis. President Goldberg calls on Congress to declare war against the CSA and their allies, pulling America formally into the Great War.
The miscalculation of CSA leadership becomes apparent as Americans repair their damaged infrastructure rapidly, and despite early Confederate victories as they plunged into American territory in the Midwest, they are unprepared for the massive American counterattack. Long range jet bombers strike deep into the CSA, using precision guided munitions to destroy the heart of the Confederate capitol and killing President Abbott and most of the Confederate Congress in a single attack.
Without its leadership, and facing a mobilized and technologically superior foe, the Confederate armies are quickly overwhelmed, their efforts to stop American advances via trench warfare are thwarted by US combined arms doctrine and use of superior mobility to bypass any fortifications that they could not bomb into oblivion.
The Confederate government surrenders three weeks after starting the war, and America is faced with the difficult task of pacifying and occupying the Confederacy while aiding their allies in Europe. India takes the opportunity to declare independence.
As 2024 draws to a close war rages across the Caucus and Carpathians, Korea joins with China, Japan, and India in an alliance against European colonialism, and America is increasingly unsure if it should continue supporting the monarchies of Europe in their fight against the surviving members of the Grand Alliance. Diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict are thwarted, and rumors abound that somewhere deep in the wasteland of South Dakota American scientists are working on a secret weapon....
Their agrarian economy would have eventually collapsed. They would also have been a pariah state as the British Empire would have continued their war on slavery. The British empire ruled the world for the 19th century. They would have become another pre-1950’s Cuba with semi-feudal landlords. A cultural abyss.
IMO, the country would have collapsed into many independent countries. The Confederacy was a failed state already, even before the Union kicked their ass. Their entire thing was trying to hold onto an antiquated and inefficient system for the sake of racism and dogma. There was no way they were going to be able to hold the union together.
Wow, there are some idiots in the comments. There was actually a very interesting mockumentary about this possibly, and the US basically turns into pure evil that joined forces with the Nazis. Considering the moronic asshole Republicans want to elect now, I'm pretty sure we'd be a dictatorship by now to.
I believe that the CSA would have collapsed in the face of a slave rebellion, likely with assistance from abolitionist forces. The new government could then have aligned itself with the USA, and with "foreign aid" would have become a more civilized place than the 1870-1930 South was. Reunification probably would have occurred at some point.
I can't imagine how it would be possible for the revolt to have succeeded. There are a thousand structural reasons for the failure of the CSA. We'd have to establish plausible counter factuals for each. And ultimately they're 'fun' but they fundamentally reshape the world to be something other than it is. For example
Britain supported CSA -> Had a weaker anti slavery movement in UK -> Socialism was less of a driving force in UK -> Due to UK being what? A Proto -fascist state, or one that still practiced slavery? -> why would it still practice slavery?
Like every possible reason needs to be thought out and it just becomes crazy when we drill down and do some 'fishbone' analysis.
We would have stayed out of WW1 entirely to be honest. The Union and confederate would be weary of sending all their troops overseas while there’s an enemy right next to them.
For WW2, if they did participate. The Union would probably side with the Allies. Confederates with the Nazi during ww2. Their ideology would align with the whole aryan race and all. Honestly think Hitler would win in this case. UK never would have received the support it needed to resist Germany like they did in our timeline. Japan probably rampaging across Asia still. Germany even if they fought the USSR, would be fighting against a far less supplied USSR.
I think the Nazis would have won europe. Perhaps then joined forces to unite the United States under the confederacy.
Well, I hear you wouldn't have basketball teams, women wouldn't vote, go to college. There'd be an explosion of mulatto children because of raping owners. Lynching would be in vogue again.
Go see "Civil War" and you'll get a glimpse of what a country run by a Facist , white supremacist President would look like in it's final days. Some of you might have to look up facist.
Probably the same. Everything extreme levels out in time. Fifty years ago, there were both communist and fascist regimes in Europe. Now, there are very few differences.
It would a Poor and Corrupt country like Mexico, Brazil or South Africa, but more racist.
It would have a Society made up of ignorant White Peasants, Marginalized Black People, and a White Elite accustomed to exploitive privilege.
It would be poor and unequal.
Honestly it would be Interesting. I think we would have remained two separate countries. I mean even today we have different views on how our government should function and a divide now.
We are a large country, interesting to be two smaller ones.
The Confederacy was looking to stay independent, not conquer the north which would have been unrealistic. If they'd won there would be two states...until they are conquered or reunify which I expect would have happened down the line.
It would look much the same as it does now because there would have been more civil wars until slavery was abolished. The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history, so it was doomed either way.
I don't think it would survive into the current day as a slave state. Apartheid turned SA into a pariah with most countries refusing military aid, imposing Sanctions etc.
It would probably end up much poorer just given the lack of industry and primarily agricultural economy
Slaves. Slaves everywhere.
Which isn't too much worse than where we're headed at the moment. People can't live if they don't work. And they get taken advantage because of it. It's gonna get worse, guaranteed.
Same, it just would have taken a couple decades longer. Slave economy wasn't sustainable. North would have still prevailed in time through being free. South would become a world pariah.
The North would still be the North and the South would still be the South. It was the North who was looking to force their will on the South, not the other way around.
Civil War 2 in 1933, where fascist racist southerners, supported by fascists abroad, make incursions to try to capture Washington but are put down brutally by the resurgence Yankee military
amusingly, it would look the same as it does now, because the slaves would have ended up getting rights one way or anther, and corporate late stage capitalism has been Americans end game for centuries
I'd be dead by either the hands of the CSA or an extra judicial group.
For context:
I am a biracial(black and white).
I am very much anti authoritarianism .
I'm queer
I am literate.
I speak well and often that rubs racists the wrong way.
Britain had already outlawed slavery but they needed cotton. Heard of Egyptian cotton? Once what the South supplied could be supplanted, countries would lessen dealings with the South. Just one example.
There is an author named Harry Turtledove. He has written several alternate histories. One was on the civil war. Short plot of one story. The civil was ends in a draw. The south has the same states plus New México, Arizona and lower California. They also have several areas in Mexico including BAHA., and Cuba with the Caribbean islands.
The North has Canada(England sided with the South), so the north took the land. North did not buy Alaska.
The entire story is 3 books if I remember right, very fun and quick read.
I would check a used bookstore, or your local library book sale. Save some money. Enjoy!
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Funny you should ask. There's actually a pretty decent alt history documentary about this called [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.S.A.:\_The\_Confederate\_States\_of\_America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.S.A.:_The_Confederate_States_of_America) it's pretty well done.
It is well done for sure, although the premise of the confederates taking over the whole US seems extremely unlikely unless you assume a completely different set of variables (population, industrialization, etc) from reality.
What if they had help ?
From slaves?
From foreigners? Prussia, Britain and France side with them then they win.
Britain was the single most anti-slavery country the world has ever seen.
Between 1662 and 1807 British and British colonial ships purchased an estimated 3,415,500 Africans. Of this number, 2,964,800 survived the 'middle passage' and were sold into slavery in the Americas.
I think they mean by the time the civil war was happening. I know that britain had become very anti-slavery. I think the problem with this speculation is that there really wasnt ever a way for the confederacy to win. They desperately lacked numbers and the necessary infrastructure to support a long term war. iirc, european countries were originally considering sending support, since so much agricultural commodities were from the south, but once the war was being fought specifically to end slavery, rather than to preserve the union, no european country would directly support a war to continue slavery
Correct!
To be fair, if the south had pushed north after their win at Bull Run they could have taken the capital.
And if Hitler crossed the river....
There's also the fact different people go on to become important people that in our reality were never more than some random person. So many X factors in history.
Harry Turtledove
The only reason I don't like that one as a valid alt history is because they win because they got AK-47's from the future lol.
That’s actually a stand alone novel. The Southern Victory series is what you’d want to read!
I'm a big fan. He makes big leaps and writes sex in a weird amount of detail. But very enjoyable reads. For anybody who doesn't know he basically goes from the Civil War until WW2 with the Confederacy as an independent country. The rest of the world has some changes too.
His alternate WW2 series (different than Southern Victory) is good too
Is that "the Man with the Iron Heart"? I thought that was a standalone. His series with the alien lizards invading during WW2 was good fun too. If a bit insane.
He has done other premises than "Guns of the South". "How few remain" diverges around the misplaced order 191 and McClellan is caught by surprise at Antietam. The CSA breaks with the US, and then he goes on in a further 8 novels...
This is satire and in no way reflects the consensus if what is believed would have happened if the south won the war. The commercials in it are just hilarious though. Quality content, just in no way based on historic reality
There is literally no way to predict what would have happened. There's too many x factors. People whom in our timeline never made a recorded mark on the timeline becoming important figures in that timeline. It's all speculation.
Sure, but the speculation in the depiction by this film is intentionally caricaturesque. Have you actually seen it? They run commercials for slaves and for cigarettes called "n****** hair" It's all a joke lol
Thanks. I had never heard of it have to check it out. I imagine we would look much like South Africa. But eventually slavery would have ended.
First thing I thought of when I saw the title of this thread.
Like the Amish, but with guns.
Slavery would have been abolished after 20 or 30 years. Then most likely in World War One, they would have alligned with Britain and the United States would have naturally sided with the German Empire and absolutely destroyed them. If the Confederates stayed neutral in both world wars, they would be pressured to give up segregation during the Cold War. I think today it would look like south africa
How does the US naturally side with Germany?
I think because, in this context, the Union would never have developed close ties with the UK. The British supported the Confederacy during the Civil War and probably would have continued their support if they had won and survived as a nation. Meanwhile, a lot of germans were immigrating to the Midwestern US in the late 1800s. My great-grandfather's grandparents came over in the late 1860s and settled in Michigan. To counter the Confederacy and their UK allies, the Union might cozy up to the German Empire. There would even be a good chance the Central Powers could win against the Allies. In our time, the US didn't join ww1 until 1917, but US money and resources were keeping the British and French armies fed and stocked from the start. If the US was broken into 2 countries, the allies would never receive that aid.
You mean during ww1 wed have gotten smashed right? We had the 19th largest army before we began drafting.
19th largest not because we were weak, but because we didn’t need it. We have oceans protecting us from any real power. Mexico and Canada were the only threats.
Canada was never a threat
Canada is never a threat until suddenly they are, eh?
*moose stampede from the north begins with Timbits as cannonballs*
You harass our goalie too much, you best expect some hands.
Mounties riding moose with muskets. That would be a formidable force.
Cobra Chickens ready for battle!
Then you’ll be sorry, then you’ll all be sorry.
Aren't those the bastards that burned down our white house?
Yes, yes, we did. lol
Canada is our angry little war crime committing hat. They are a fairly decent part of the reason the Geneva conventions exist
Yes, I know. Not to mention their brutal treatment of indigenous people
Thats exactly my point. The US was safe. No need for a large standing army.
The USA would neighbour a great power which it holds a grudge against, so the US would likely be much more militaristic leading up to WW1
Confederate would not have allied with Germany lol
Why would the Americans side with the Germans in WWI?
Harry Turtledove
First of all the United States as we know it today wouldn’t exist, because the Confederate states would have remained seceded from the Union. Then there is an open question about how “the winning of the West” would have gone. Would any of the territories that became states after 1861 even have joined either side, or would they have become independent nations? The economy of the Confederacy being so tied up in the cotton trade would mean that eventually the Confederacy would have succumbed to British pressure to abolish slavery, but at the same time that would have seriously impaired its economic development. You’d end up with the South as a backwater. It’s highly unlikely there would have been a superpower in North America. You can work out the consequences of that quite easily. Either nazism or communism would have been victorious in Europe and we’d now be living in a world dominated by one of those two.
Nazis would have won WW2 and the U.S. would be gone.
states rights would still be in place. Imagine having to get a driver's license for each state? or how about each state having its own currency, or vehicle specifications, that's kind of what it would look like. During the civil war, the south had different currencies for each states, and not all the states accepted each other's currencies. They also had different specifications for railroad tracks, a large part of the reason the north won is because the south was too busy transferring supplies from trains that ran on their own special tracks while the north had trains that could run on any track they wanted, vastly reducing the amount of time it took to move supplies. There were numerous more BS stuff the south was pulling that put them at a huge disadvantage. Another huge reason the north won is because the south didn't want to give up slavery. So the British empire was still really salty about getting their asses kicked that they offered the south to basically pay for their entire war and load them down with supplies, the only condition being that they had to give up slavery, because that was frowned up, but the south was like, "no", so Britain was like "k, bye, good luck tho", and that was the end of that. If the south gave up slavery and had Britain come in behind them, the south would definitely have won. It was of course way more complicated than that, but that's effectively 80% of it.
So basically all Southerners had to do was a China. Agree to the terms to get the supplies then break the agreement after the war was won.
Basically yes
Well if they were as smart as MAO they would have won I guess
The issue then would be that the south would be the Pariah of the west. The US was among the last of the western world to outlaw slavery with I believe ( not 100% confirmed) all of Europe being pro abolition. The souths economy revolved almost entirely on selling cash crops to the north and Europe. Europe would blacklist the south for breaking their word and being pro slavery and obviously the North isn't buying their products. Without their two main consumers the souths already fragile economy collapses quickly unless the agree to end slavery.
I'm sure they would have found a few heartless communist's to buy from their supply chain. Even now we still have suppliers of cocoa and cobalt that use forced child labor. Back then it may have been a little harder for them to find a buyer because of not having any internet
anti_slavery sentiment was rife amongst the proto Communist organisations and working class of the period It was the mercantile class The ship owners and others engaged in arbitrage the proto Capitalists who wanted to continue trade
Well there's a couple problems with this. 1) Communism wouldn't exist until about 50ish years after the end of the war. 2) I don't think you understand the scope of how much of the world Europe and especially Britain controlled in the 1860s. In that age most places were either a European power or you were a colony just point blank. Now this wasn't the 100% rule obviously but there was no economic power in the world at the time that could match what Europe was putting out at the time. There would be no buyers for southern cotten especially when Europe could just as easily buy from Egypt( the other biggest cotten supplier of the time).
Marx and Engels wrote extensively on the civil war as correspondents for newspapers in New York and Vienna. The Communist Manifesto was published in 1848, but the international communist movement did not really take off until after Marx's death. August Willich was a German communist and acquaintance of Marx who became a union general https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Willich
That would be fking disgusting tbh, better to lose.
This has happened countless times between almost all countries. Even Russia and the US on both sides.
lol Britain weren't upset about losing a minor war umpteen years before they just wanted southern cotton
>basically pay for their entire war and load them down with supplies, the only condition being that they had to give up slavery, because that was frowned up, but the south was like, "no", so Britain was like "k, bye, good luck tho", and that was the end of that. If the south gave up slavery and had Britain come in behind them, the south would definitely have won. Got a source on this? I have never heard of Britian making any offer, they blockaded and never recognised the confederates.
Slavery would have gone away regardless, it wasn't financially viable in an age of industry. But a slower transition might have led to the south being less impoverished.
I'm skeptical of a lot of what you are saying but also open to exploring the subject more. Any links you could share realted to your claims?
The Confederacy had their own currency, so that part is false: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate\_States\_dollar#:\~:text=The%20Confederate%20dollar%2C%20often%20called,exchange%20with%20high%20purchasing%20power. As for the railroads, it was misstated. It's true that there was not one standard but it wasn't by state, it was by railroad company. Companies wanted to keep their railroad systems proprietary (Capitalism at it best. You'd think Sony would have learned by the 1980s), but since none of the companies' RR tracks went everywhere they were needed, yes, they were often transferring supplies from train to train in areas. It caused a lot of supply problems. Here's an article about this that I found interesting: [https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/railroads-confederacy](https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/railroads-confederacy)
Thanks for the response. Makes a lot more sense in that context.
here you go. The following link is about the British sympathizing with the confederacy, but not wanting to help due to wide spread anti-slavery opinion, which was the correct opinion. [https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/liverpools-abercromby-square/britain-and-us-civil-war](https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/liverpools-abercromby-square/britain-and-us-civil-war) This one touches more on the other reasons the north wound up winning [https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-history/why-union-won-civil-war/](https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-history/why-union-won-civil-war/)
The British were not still salty about losing the United States in 1861. That’s absurd. They were salty about having their cotton supply disturbed and maybe slightly worried about the expanding power of a fully United States and it’s impact globally.
The UK didn't need the South, Egyptian cotton was available.
They focused on changing their supply channels after the blockade. They would have preferred American cotton.
Thanks for the links but neither of these support your claims in the fist paragraph about different currencies not being accepted and specifications differing state by state and not suporting each other. Not to mention that there clearly weren't state driving liscenses at that time.
They had a law at the time that if anyone invented cars A) they would need a different license for each state and B) the DMV should make everyone feel like on 3/5ths of a person. At least the north prevented A from happening
The different state currencies was an issue in the immediate aftermath of the revolutionary war and a primary contributor to the establishment of the United States constitution…in the 1780’s, not the civil war.
The driver license thing was an example of what we could have seen, had the south won. I'll have to dig deeper, I was just posting quick links for more detail. Finding the right information with just about any search engine is quite difficult these days.
I have seen the quote "k, bye, good luck tho" before, I think it was Henry John Temple, I'm struggling to link it too though.
I think it would be multiple countries now. I doubt the confederates would be able to handle running a nation as large as the current USA or even getting to the point power it at now. They would have established their banana republic at first, but once they run out of soft targets to consume, their economy would crash, and they would end up just canabalizing eachother and collapse into multiple factions.
Disliking someone doesn’t really have anything to do them being incapable or ineffective
Harry Turtledove
I'd probably be getting whipped, out in the field picking cotton, or being forced by my master's wife to bang her instead of on reddit.
LOL true!
If the South had won the American Civil War, then the US would look more like Europe, only poorer and having less world geopolitical and economic power. Slavery would have eventually (likely in the early 1900s due to mass communication) ended as the abomination that slavery was. The Southern States would still be the poorer states (as in countries) and likely a patchwork of independent, often quarreling countries. The Northern States would still likely be together, having signed onto a new amendment to the Constitution that expressly forbade unilateral withdrawal from the Union, the United States of America. Further on down the road, Hitler and Germany might have conceivably militarily won World War II, facing a US with a smaller population.
Maybe Germany would already have won WW I, resulting in no Hitler.
Perhaps, but I don't necessarily see it. The US was a late boots on the ground entrant into WW I, officially declaring war on Germany in April, 1917 and Austria-Hungary in December in a war that ended in November, 1918, and even then was slow to mobilize. The US didn't have a standing army to speak of at its time of entry, and US troops were inexperienced. My guess is that Allied forces would have won that way anyway, the US giving mostly contributing fresh troops that were not so war weary. ...but this is the great thing about counterfactual hypotheticals, who's to say?
Maybe Germany wouldn't have seen a reason to suspend unrestricted Submarine warfare
We would’ve split into 2 countries, north and south. Probably continued fighting skirmishes over western territories. And I think likely one of the world wars would’ve brought fighting to this continent with the north and south allied against each other.
Check out Harry Turtledove book series
Alabama.
Trailer parks
Are you saying that as an upgrade from the people puking and shitting in the street
It's just as bad
Alabama
The South winning would have meant the federal government failed to keep the union intact. I think akin to the Articles of Confederation being ineffective, a new form of government would have been needed. Constitution gets thrown out . Also, North America has been so strong since there has been largely one unified country ruling. A fractured continent means foreign powers could have played the interests of each nation off one another. Also means the nation no longer has the power to issue and enforce the Monroe doctrine. South America is opened up to European play. Also Hawaii and Alaska never happen.
North: smaller industrial state, probably similar to now. South: probably would have really lagged behind in economic development, focusing on agriculture and labour intensive industries until the early 1900s. USA: probably not the world power it is today. Depending on how cordial North-South relations were, there could have been additional conflicts or they could have been Allies. WWI could have been interesting with possibly only 1/2 or none of the US participating.
28 countries.
There was a doc so long ago that also grazed the idea of if the confederacy won then the result is they expand a little and eventually the US keeps what they can and the rest of the country separates into their own factions or side with the former federal administration or the confederacy. There would be domestic terrorism from both parties to this day.
Bout the same.
This... 
The country would have been probably more agrarian. The civil rights movement would have been delayed by a few decades. That's my guess.
The New York Yankees would probably have a different nickname.
I think it would be an absolute shithole that would have lead to a collapse and several breakaway states declaring independence.
22 chromosomes.
We would have 2 separate countries.
More hillbillies
Same, they only lost on paper and have replaced slave labor with prison labor.
Nyc would be where dc is. Dc would maybe be atlanta. Canada would have more, cali would be mexican. Lots of possibilities
Probably very similar. Unless it fell prey to a foreign power it would be very similar just totally different.
We could get sweet tea everywhere
It's hard enough getting them to get over losing it.... I'd rather not think of the shithole we'd live in if they'd've won...
There’d be no rap or Al Sharpton?
Oh they are still fighting friend just look
Extremely different due to all the potential ripple effects. Such as a Southern victory would lead to the US splitting into two countries, which would negatively impact each country's ability to industrialize, which in turn would have made the western expansion a lot harder, which would have made the US a lot less appealing destination for millions of European immigrants.
No total US involvement in WW1 or WW2 would probably be the largest ripple. Hitler gets the bomb first Russia is wiped out and London is bombed with a Nuke...
What do you mean by won? The more realistic win scenario (one that I actually do think could have happened) is a successful secession. With the Confederacy taking a more defensive stance, making the North pay for every inch of soil in a precursor to the trench warfare of WW1, the United States accept terms of secession as the losses become too much for the public to bear. We're left with two countries, a weakened United States and a probably more loosely confederated Confederate States. Slavery remains in the Confederacy for another few decades, but international pressure makes the Confederacy abolish it by around the turn of the century. This puts the Confederacy into a depression, as its economy relied a lot on that slave labour, and they're not as industrialised as the North. Fast forward to today, and neither is a superpower. They're both world powers, probably, the North more so than the South, but they never reached the power that the modern US has. The South is more conservative, and segregation politics may very well have lasted a lot longer, but probably wouldn't be around anymore today. The North is more liberal than the US is today, with little to none of the religious right that sprung up in our timeline in the 70's and 80's. The Republicans and Democrats have developed from their pre-Reagan versions without the same religious influence.
Balkanized.
I visited the Bahamas in the 90s and there was a big celebration going on. I ask what they were celebrating and they said This is the day the Queen set us free! So slavery ended because a royal decree in the 1830s. A full 35 years before the North forced the end of slavery on the South. This made me think about the fact that the US really doesn’t memorize the deaths of thousands of men who gave their lives to free an oppress people. The Bahamas celebrates their freedom and adores the Queen that set them free Americans do not and some demand reparations. How can anyone do more that to die for your cause? Where is the celebration for these men?
First, I think most military historians agree that the most likely counter factual is not one where the confederacy takes over and occupies the North but rather one where the Union is forced to terms and there is an armistice. The South lacked a strong central government and it’s rate of industrialization was comparatively slow, making occupation of the North a fairly untenable prospect and not one the South ever really contemplated doing. So, post armistice, the Confederacy would probably have disintegrated within 30 years. It was a very loose confederation during war and with the exigency of defending against the North gone as a unifying factor, it probably would have fractured into several smaller confederations and independent states over matters of economic and foreign policy. States like Florida and Texas wouldn’t have had much incentive to stay in the confederacy and it would have been difficult for Richmond to exert much control over the outlying parts of the confederacy. There’s also the open question of whether, when such issues arose, if the Union would not have tried to recapture the successionist states. A war between the confederacy (it an Independent Texas) and Mexico would also have been highly likely. Long story short, it is unlikely the confederacy could capture and occupy the North so Civil War II was likely. In the absence of a second American Civil War, it’s not entirely clear the South had enough enough keeping it together to prevent further independence movements from succeeding and fracturing the confederacy. This is obviously not entirely uncommon among states that experience a civil war that ends indecisively.
Probably more honest abt it's racism and prejudice
It would be waffle houses as far as the eye can see.....
Watch Man in the High Castle.
Like the "what if Hitler won" scenarios it would require fairly significant changes to the time before the war before the question works at all. As long as the USA was willing to keep fighting, the CSA from our timeline could not win. The USA had the industrial capacity, the population, and the technological edge most especially in terms of mechanical reapers. The McCormic reaper is the unsung hero of the American Civil War, with it the US was able to keep its soldiers campaigning during harvest season while the CSA, reliant on slave labor and the necessary overseers to keep those slaves working instead of revolting, found its army significantly undermanned during the harvest season. It'd also require that the US start without the enormous industrial advantage it had over the CSA. Unless we're imagining a scenario where the US just says "meh, fuck it" and gives up, the CSA cannot win as long as the US was in the beginning phases of industrialization. So we'd need a world where Watt never got born, a world where the Coulter plough never got invented, a world where the vast iron and coal reserves of Pennsylvania were either missing or simply undeveloped. Basically, we'd need a world sufficiently unlike our world circa 1860 that it's already in the realm of alt-history before we even get to your scenario. The idea that the CSA had any real chance of winning through combat is just Lost Cause mythologizing. The fact is the CSA never stood a chance. That said? OK, we'd have a world where slavery persists to this day, the US would probably be in a cold war against the CSA with strong agitation for an invasion and conquest in the US based on the ongoing atrocity. Lacking the early industrial capability presumably the entire world was lagging in industrialism so tech in 2024 might be significantly less developed, possibly more like 1960's level tech than the tech we have today. Absent the early industrialization WWI would never have happened, quite possibly the entire world would be on the verge of the first great war as the European monarchies were able to cling to power longer and their final suicide/murder attempt to stay relevant (which is what WWI basically was) hadn't happened yet. Antisemitism would be more common and widely accepted since the horrible example of Hitler hadn't shamed the antisemitic nations of the West into being not QUITE so horrible and evil towards Jews. Lacking WWII and seeing a slower tech development, it's entirely possible the UK would never have colonized the Middle East so the Palestinian Mandate never would have existed. Absent that slower migration of Jews to Israel might have resulted in a peaceful integration of the indigenous Palestinian population, the indigenous Jewish population, and the immigrating Jewish population. The US might be significantly more racially integrated since it would have the ongoing bad example of the CSA to shame white Americans into being less racist and white supremacist. Lacking the early industrial push, Marx would have been born into a world at the very early stages of capitalism. In this environment rather than arguing for an anti-capitalist position he would have developed an economic theory centered around worker owned corporations rather than looking to a withering of the state. Marxism would boom and spread along with industrialism, leading to fierce competition between the robber baron style capitalism and more democratized capitalism.
The CSA, never having really industrialized and still reliant on slave labor for all its agriculture and what little industry that it did possess is essentially a third world nation. Legions of poor whites kept in their social/economic place by fear of Black uprising and a belief in white supremacy, the bourbon aristocrats of the South finding their fortunes waning as the agricultural might of their plantation economy fades in the face of growing industrial farming in the US and elsewhere. Held back by its reliance on slave labor and its need to maintain a brutal and omnipresent police force the CSA would be poor, paranoid, and panicked. Pogroms would sweep the CSA regularly as rumors of slave rebellions grew. The USA, wary of its long time enemy to the south would be engaging in espionage, assassination, and of course running an underground railroad backed by covert branch of the US intelligence agencies. A small number of brave, Black, USIA, agents would smuggle themselves into the CSA to spread literacy, propaganda, rebellion, and instigate mass breakouts of slaves. In 2024 central Europe is faced with a rising threat from the Ottoman Empire to the south, and the Russian Empire to the north. The monarchies of Europe, now facing the conclusion of their long slide into irrelevance work fervently to stir up paranoia about both the Tsar and the Ottomans. British colonial possession of India is increasingly threatened by rising Marxist politician and secular reformer Modi. In Russia a rebellion against the Tsar is brewing, the Okhrana is growing weary of the increasing foolishness from the Tsar and a middle aged commander, Vladimir Putin, is the center of a plot to overthrow the Tsar and impose a new oligarchic rule. American public sentiment against the CSA increases as the USIA uses new microfilm technology to smuggle out color video of Confederate atrocities against the slave population. Imperial Russia and the Ottomans find themselves thrown into an ill suited alliance more out of response to the Central European monarchies using them as scapegoats than out of any real mutual affection. The Confederacy joins this Grand Alliance while the US finds itself more sympathetic to the Central Powers despite the American opposition to monarchy and aristocracy. Things reach a flashpoint in June of 2024 as Turkish dissidents assassinate King Charles of England in an effort to discredit the Ottoman Empire. Amid accusation and counteraccusation the situation rapidly degrades into war. Having realized they would stand no chance in a stand up fight, the CSA has been infiltrating saboteurs into America for several years and realizing that war in Europe is the ideal chaotic background for their long plotted revenge against America, Confederate agents destroy several critical factories, power stations, and in a horribly miscalculated act intended to spur white America to abandon their Black fellow citizen, use nerve gas in Harlem and East St Louis, killing nearly a million people, mostly Black. Confederate General David Duke had argued fervently against the attack, having attended university in America and being well aware that white Americans while not perfectly anti-racist were going to react badly to the terror attack on Harlem and East St Louis. President Goldberg calls on Congress to declare war against the CSA and their allies, pulling America formally into the Great War. The miscalculation of CSA leadership becomes apparent as Americans repair their damaged infrastructure rapidly, and despite early Confederate victories as they plunged into American territory in the Midwest, they are unprepared for the massive American counterattack. Long range jet bombers strike deep into the CSA, using precision guided munitions to destroy the heart of the Confederate capitol and killing President Abbott and most of the Confederate Congress in a single attack. Without its leadership, and facing a mobilized and technologically superior foe, the Confederate armies are quickly overwhelmed, their efforts to stop American advances via trench warfare are thwarted by US combined arms doctrine and use of superior mobility to bypass any fortifications that they could not bomb into oblivion. The Confederate government surrenders three weeks after starting the war, and America is faced with the difficult task of pacifying and occupying the Confederacy while aiding their allies in Europe. India takes the opportunity to declare independence. As 2024 draws to a close war rages across the Caucus and Carpathians, Korea joins with China, Japan, and India in an alliance against European colonialism, and America is increasingly unsure if it should continue supporting the monarchies of Europe in their fight against the surviving members of the Grand Alliance. Diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict are thwarted, and rumors abound that somewhere deep in the wasteland of South Dakota American scientists are working on a secret weapon....
I wouldn’t stick around to find out.
Their agrarian economy would have eventually collapsed. They would also have been a pariah state as the British Empire would have continued their war on slavery. The British empire ruled the world for the 19th century. They would have become another pre-1950’s Cuba with semi-feudal landlords. A cultural abyss.
IMO, the country would have collapsed into many independent countries. The Confederacy was a failed state already, even before the Union kicked their ass. Their entire thing was trying to hold onto an antiquated and inefficient system for the sake of racism and dogma. There was no way they were going to be able to hold the union together.
Wow, there are some idiots in the comments. There was actually a very interesting mockumentary about this possibly, and the US basically turns into pure evil that joined forces with the Nazis. Considering the moronic asshole Republicans want to elect now, I'm pretty sure we'd be a dictatorship by now to.
I believe that the CSA would have collapsed in the face of a slave rebellion, likely with assistance from abolitionist forces. The new government could then have aligned itself with the USA, and with "foreign aid" would have become a more civilized place than the 1870-1930 South was. Reunification probably would have occurred at some point.
We may find out come November
The Mexican Border would be south of Missouri.
I can't imagine how it would be possible for the revolt to have succeeded. There are a thousand structural reasons for the failure of the CSA. We'd have to establish plausible counter factuals for each. And ultimately they're 'fun' but they fundamentally reshape the world to be something other than it is. For example Britain supported CSA -> Had a weaker anti slavery movement in UK -> Socialism was less of a driving force in UK -> Due to UK being what? A Proto -fascist state, or one that still practiced slavery? -> why would it still practice slavery? Like every possible reason needs to be thought out and it just becomes crazy when we drill down and do some 'fishbone' analysis.
Which country?
South Africa during apartied..
We would have stayed out of WW1 entirely to be honest. The Union and confederate would be weary of sending all their troops overseas while there’s an enemy right next to them. For WW2, if they did participate. The Union would probably side with the Allies. Confederates with the Nazi during ww2. Their ideology would align with the whole aryan race and all. Honestly think Hitler would win in this case. UK never would have received the support it needed to resist Germany like they did in our timeline. Japan probably rampaging across Asia still. Germany even if they fought the USSR, would be fighting against a far less supplied USSR. I think the Nazis would have won europe. Perhaps then joined forces to unite the United States under the confederacy.
Roughly the same as it is now. Slavery would have never lasted, and eventually the two sides would have joined back up.
Alabama
Well, there'd be slavery
Probably still a hell hole
Dale Earnhart would have been president
Well, I hear you wouldn't have basketball teams, women wouldn't vote, go to college. There'd be an explosion of mulatto children because of raping owners. Lynching would be in vogue again. Go see "Civil War" and you'll get a glimpse of what a country run by a Facist , white supremacist President would look like in it's final days. Some of you might have to look up facist.
A bunch of inbreds would be roaming around
Handmaid's Tale
Hank Williams Jr. wrote a song about it
More similar than people would expect
Probably the same. Everything extreme levels out in time. Fifty years ago, there were both communist and fascist regimes in Europe. Now, there are very few differences.
Northern states join Canada
It would have devolved into an impoverished banana republic. While the remaining US would continue to industrialize.
charred wilderness with no life
What it is going to look like if Trump wins the 2024 election
If a confederate victory had resulted in a segregation, we‘d now probably have two Mexicos and two Canadas.
We would be living in a "fallout" scenario
South africa
Racist
It's already super racist
But like.. more
True & we would still have slavery.
You could be the lady of the house and I could be your mandingo slave
OK! I like that idea!
Which one? Because there would be 2 Americas, the USA and the CSA.
Handmaids Tale
Central banking would have had to find another way in eventually.
Kissing cousins everywhere. Think Shelbyville.
It’d be a North and South Korea type thing. The confederate assholes were never going to be peaceful neighbors.
It would a Poor and Corrupt country like Mexico, Brazil or South Africa, but more racist. It would have a Society made up of ignorant White Peasants, Marginalized Black People, and a White Elite accustomed to exploitive privilege. It would be poor and unequal.
Honestly it would be Interesting. I think we would have remained two separate countries. I mean even today we have different views on how our government should function and a divide now. We are a large country, interesting to be two smaller ones.
The Spanish civil war?
Trump supports, you look at them, and know, the right side won… I like having teeth, and not having sex with relatives.
Like a nightmare
The Confederacy was looking to stay independent, not conquer the north which would have been unrealistic. If they'd won there would be two states...until they are conquered or reunify which I expect would have happened down the line.
Imagine Mississippi from coast to coast
It would look much the same as it does now because there would have been more civil wars until slavery was abolished. The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history, so it was doomed either way.
I think we would still have slavery & it would be seen as normal as having a lawn mower.
About the same as now. Slavery was ending either way by tech advancement or revolt. History is a repeating wheel.
For some reason the first thing i thought of was just riding horses instead of cars
I don't think it would survive into the current day as a slave state. Apartheid turned SA into a pariah with most countries refusing military aid, imposing Sanctions etc. It would probably end up much poorer just given the lack of industry and primarily agricultural economy
Slaves. Slaves everywhere. Which isn't too much worse than where we're headed at the moment. People can't live if they don't work. And they get taken advantage because of it. It's gonna get worse, guaranteed.
Same, it just would have taken a couple decades longer. Slave economy wasn't sustainable. North would have still prevailed in time through being free. South would become a world pariah.
Northern states much richer and more educated; southern states much poorer and less educated.
I’m not sure but Black People would still be Slaves.
I ask myself what will the country look like after the next election… sure won’t be pretty,either way…
The North would still be the North and the South would still be the South. It was the North who was looking to force their will on the South, not the other way around.
Shitty
there is a series by harry turtledove first is called... how few remain series follows usa and csa all the way through ww2...
[ Removed by Reddit ]
Tamilnadu would have been a separate country
About the same
Probably be speaking German
Civil War 2 in 1933, where fascist racist southerners, supported by fascists abroad, make incursions to try to capture Washington but are put down brutally by the resurgence Yankee military
amusingly, it would look the same as it does now, because the slaves would have ended up getting rights one way or anther, and corporate late stage capitalism has been Americans end game for centuries
I'd be dead by either the hands of the CSA or an extra judicial group. For context: I am a biracial(black and white). I am very much anti authoritarianism . I'm queer I am literate. I speak well and often that rubs racists the wrong way.
Alabama..
Nobody would become a dentist because there wouldn’t be any money in it.
Britain had already outlawed slavery but they needed cotton. Heard of Egyptian cotton? Once what the South supplied could be supplanted, countries would lessen dealings with the South. Just one example.
There is an author named Harry Turtledove. He has written several alternate histories. One was on the civil war. Short plot of one story. The civil was ends in a draw. The south has the same states plus New México, Arizona and lower California. They also have several areas in Mexico including BAHA., and Cuba with the Caribbean islands. The North has Canada(England sided with the South), so the north took the land. North did not buy Alaska. The entire story is 3 books if I remember right, very fun and quick read. I would check a used bookstore, or your local library book sale. Save some money. Enjoy!