Any studies of what would be if we let the South secede?

[MessiahRp]

Just curious if anyone has done a thoughtful study on what the two Americas would be like if we had let the South secede instead of going through the civil war.

I honestly think that you can point to that moment in history and see many of the problems we have now with the Republicans. There appears to be different mindsets of thinking and the North tends to be more openminded to it's Southern counterparts while the South still seems to have an underlying hatred for the North.

Presidential politics in particular prove this theory as Northerners will vote for Southerners (Carter, Clinton) but Southerners refuse to vote for anyone from the North.

Now obviously these are broad statements that do not apply to Southern Liberals... but we appear to be outnumbered there by fundamentalist Christian Republicans.

So if anyone is aware of a study or a book that examines this, reply here... I'd like to see what would be today if we had two seperate Americas.

Rp

[liberalitch]

1. Along as I would still have access to T. Williams plays, REM...

the B52's and william faulkner
I wouldn't care
(I live in Va.... I'd move to Maryland)

[malmapus]

8. For real, gotta have REM and B-52s ...eom

..

[On the Road]

2. I Think Everyone Might Have Been Better Off

if the South had been allowed to secede. Coercion breeds resistance. Emancipation and reconstruction policies were enforced by the Union Army, but like all occupiers the North lost interest and pulled out after only 12 years, leaving the white Southerners to do everything short of actual slavery to oppress black people for another eighty years.

If the South had been allowed to secede, I don't think slavery would have lasted more than a few decades longer. Slavery was ending throughout the civilized world. There was a limit to the time the Confederacy would have been able to hold out.

On Edit:I haven't spent a lot of time trying to project the consequences of a North/South split, but I would be interested in hearing your thoughts.

And I just remembered: This isn't precisely what you were asking, but:

In the 60s, there was a cover article, I believe in one of those Sunday-paper magazines like Parade, called What if the South had won the Civil War? It consisted of a series of plausible developments which would have led to a Confederate victory and secession. I was pretty young, but I remember seeing the pictures, which included Lincoln being taken captive and the Confederacy winning at Gettysburg.

In the article, Texas became a separate nation after the war. Although there was obviously bad blood between the three countries, there were also very strong ties. The alternative history ended in the present, when the Union, the Confederacy, and Texas were reuniting like East and West Germany.

[Mizmoon]

3. All I know is that Confederates were traitors to the USA

How the North allowed them to keep their traitorous flags is beyond me. They should have been made illegal.

I consider anyone who sports those rebel flags to be of questionable allegiance to the Untied States of America.

[CTLawGuy]

6. Isn't it ironic

that while the Repugs blather on about everyone "hating America", they embrace the culture that made war on America and tried to split it in two? and they embrace their flag as well.

[malmapus]

7. For a time it was

In the years following the war it was illegal for Confederates to don their uniforms, and I think the flags fell under that.

But then as the years went by, people just became lax at actually enforcing it.

[CTLawGuy]

4. I don't know any studies

but Im confident that the North, (defined as New England, NY, PA, NJ, MD, DE, OH, WV, IN, MI, MN, WI, IL, IA, and MO) would be a country comparable more to Canada and today's Europe than the USA of today. The Repugs would be far less conservative, and the DLC wouldn't exist in our political system.

[Wright Patman]

5. Northerners have only themselves to blame

The CSA just wanted to be left alone with their states' rights and slaves. That's why they still call it the War of Northern Aggression or the War for Southern Independence and hardly ever the Civil War.

At the time, our former colonial overlords from Britain sided with the Confederacy for the same 'divide and conquer' reasons much of the world would love to see a repeat of history right now to take down the sickeningly and murderously self-righteous "only remaining superpower" as it runs amok attempting to rule the planet.

[Bridget Burke]

9. Too bad for the African-Americans....

Yes, I know ending slavery was not the cause of the War, but it was one good result of that bloody conflict. But that's not a problem for you, is it?

The do-good tradition of the Yankees as expressed in Abolition (& later, Women's Suffrage) would have been stifled & tightfisted, isolationist money grubbing would have ruled the day. The Western expansion would have been slowed--the indigenous peoples might have benefited--until other countries moved into the power vacuum. The US would not have helped Mexico fight off the French--we did give a bit of aid after our War. Fewer immigrants would have been needed in the new, smaller USA. The Irish could have remained at the bottom of the economy & the US's existence as a White Protestant nation would not have been threatened.

The US government did not "lose interest" in Reconstruction. It ended because of a dirty election in Florida: Because of widespread cheating on both sides, the vote-count and outcome of the 1876 presidential election between Hays the Republican and Tilden the Democrat is bitterly disputed, — particularly the count in the state of Florida. In the end, all disputed counts are resolved by a special committee appointed by Congress. Republicans outnumber Democrats on the committee by 8 to 7. All disputes are decided in favor of the Republicans by a vote of 8 to 7. Hays is declared the winner.

It is widely understood that a backroom deal is made with the Democrats who represent the overwhelming majority of white voters in the South. In return for the Democrats quietly accepting Hay's victory, the Republicans promise that Hays will remove the troops who have been providing at least some limited protection to Blacks in the South. And that the new Hays administration will cease enforcing the 15th Amendment and other civil rights laws. This is known as the "Compromise of 1877." The "compromise" being that the Republicans retain power in Washington while racists throughout the country are given free reign and encouragement to oppress and persecute non-whites.

www.crmvet.org/info/votehist.htm

The USA would have been tight, white & polite. With tasteful parlor tunes & sedate dancing for the upper classes.

[Mizmoon]

10. I have a history book dated 1904

in which they refer to it NOT as "the Civil War" or "the war between the states".

It is called "THE RACE WAR".

They were only 40-some years away from the event when the book was published. I believe that slavery was damn well exactly why that war happened. Over the years the south has changed it to their PC version of reality - State's Rights.

edit for spelling

[Bridget Burke]

11. Yes, I know a few of the "States Rights" crowd....

And slavery was definitely the underlying cause, no matter what they say.

[quaoar]

12. yet another South-bashing thread

This is getting quite old.

[RubyDuby in GA]

14. I agree

I alerted the mods when this was first posted this morning before anyone replied.

I'm sick of this shit. Intelligent discourse is impossible anymore. You Yankee jackasses can kiss my Southern ass!

[MessiahRp]

15. Actually

I was trying to ask a legitimate question. Instead of being defensive read my post. I excluded Southern Liberals and pointed out that I was using a broad brush and that it didn't apply to everyone.

I am curious to see literature on what the two Americas would look like and I certainly did not mean for my opinion to anger or infuriate our Southern Bretheren. Please accept my apologies.

I just figured with the well read DU crowd, that someone may be aware of such a book.

Rp

[On the Road]

17. I Didn't Think the Original Post was Flamebait

although some of the responses might qualify.

I've done a lot of thinking about this, and it's a very interesting question. And it's a very important one, because the lessons that we draw from the Civil War affect decisions today.

I think that slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War, and that slavery should have been abolished. Whether military occupation was the best way to do that is a different matter.

People have to solve their own problems. If a change is enforced at the point of a gun, it is always resented. I think enough of Southerners to believe that an independent Confederacy would have come to abolish slavery by the end of the 19th century. And it would have come from within.

As it is, 140 years later, there's still simmering resentment.

[QC]

18. No point in alerting the mods when a mod posted the flamebait. n/t

[Imagine My Surprise]

13. I suspect Polyester would suddenly become more popular

[Stinky The Clown]

16. I think a little more care needs to go into this sort of thinking

"The South" is not the issue.

The "Bible Belt" is more reflective of the issue (although even that does not cover it all).

And the "Bible Belt" is much, much more than the South.

In the American Civil War, the line was clear .... The Mason Dixon Line. Well, mostly clear. There were famous Union strongholds even in what was then "The South".

Today the war is about political ideologies, not states rights principles as it was in the Civil War.

Today, far more than was the case then, the war will be 'neighbor against neighbor' and 'brother against brother'.

To make the blanket statement that it is North vs South just shows that the person positing that division doesn't know Reality2005.

Furthermore, there were in the last election, far larger Republican pluralities in Northern and Midwestern States than in some of "The South".

Sorry, anyone who says it is a North/South issue is misinformed or disingenuous ..... or maybe both.

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

22. Religion is more prominent than geography

It seems very odd indeed to some of my Irish friends when conservative Catholics and evangelicals stand together to oppose the government!

What we're actually looking at is a coalition of the extreme factions from the Wars of Religion, against the moderates.

The forces we stand against are a most unholy alliance between the descendants of the Puritans and the spiritual heirs of the Counter-Reformation. These are the people who actually feel oppressed by the lack of separation between church and state. The Puritans left England not because they couldn't have their church in peace, but because they couldn't legally control and dominate everyone around them (except when their guy Cromwell, the first true fascist, ran the country).

The mainline churches Catholic and Protestant do not have these problems. They don't think that neighbors practicing other faiths or sinning reflects their own spiritual lives.

We find both types in all places, which means the next civil war will be a really rough one for all of us.

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

19. I think there's no question.

Eventually, a black uprising like in Haiti and a black republic at the doorstep of the RACIST north!

We went to war against this eventuality as much as on principle.

There would have been slavery in New England if the soil wasn't so rocky.

[QC]

20. American culture would be dull as dishwater.

No blues, jazz, or rock. Very few of the 20th century's great writers. Bland food. And so on.

On the plus side, the "snowbirds" wouldn't be flooding into Florida, driving up housing costs to the point that people here who actually work for a living have no hope of ever owning a home.

the South still seems to have an underlying hatred for the North

I would argue that that has far more to do with the attitude toward Southerners so often displayed here at DU than with a war that ended 140 years ago.

[MessiahRp]

21. Locking...

I did not intend for this to seem as if I were bashing the South or Southern Dems in any way and I don't want to let this become a battle of different viewpoints that could affect very sensitive lines for many.

Last thing I as a Mod want to do is start a flame-war. I apologize for anyone whom I may have offended.

Rp