Would the southern states of America have been better off if the Confederacy had survived past the Civil War?
I understand that "better off" is very subjective, but it seems to me that the South benefits much more as part of the modern American superpower than it would have as a separate nation constantly at odds with their northern neighbor.
Carson Perez
if they ended up conquering south America , perhaps so
but I agree with ya, constant war with north would have been shitty
Dylan Allen
If you were a rich planter yes, on the whole no...most likely would have become a client-state of either Britain or France.
Julian Anderson
>constantly at odds with their northern neighbor.
YFW we do not live in a world dominated by the German Empire and its ally, the Northern States of America.
William Williams
No. Their agrarian economy, especially one based on slavery, would not sustain enough for them to prosperous. Additionally, there was a significant gap in wealth distribution in the Antebellum South that would have only continued to grow without the destruction of slavery.
Nathan King
The Confederacy conquering South America is not even a feasible outcome. They couldn't even win a war against the North, how would they manage to conquer all of South America?
Isaac Hill
>if they ended up conquering south America , perhaps so
Even America united could not conquer all of South America, even today.
Gabriel Lewis
>Would the southern states of America have been better off if the Confederacy had survived past the Civil War?
Absolutely,
Reminder that the Eternal Unionist cares not for honor or principal, but only for for profit and domination. He is filthy swine who isn't worth the oxygen his degenerate wastes with every breath.
Mason Baker
>if they ended up conquering south America , perhaps so
pic related blocks your path...
Jeremiah Gray
>but only for for profit and domination.
...says the part of the country run by lazy, slave-owning, millionaires.
Carter Morales
Because Latin American countries are run by incompetent blowhards and they are almost always plagued with political instability, corruption, and economic illiteracy.
And why is it such a big deal that the CSA lost against the Union? It was a foregone conclusion, numbnuts. One side is industrialized, the other isn't. Doesn't take a genius to predict the outcome.
But Latin American republics are not the Union. Militarily speaking, Latin Americans make for some of the worst soldiers in human history. Even to this day, a lot of Latin American countries lack basic infrastructure and don't even follow the rule of law.
Leo Thomas
it's the 19th century, a Confederate invasion of Latin America would be crushed by the French or British.
William Allen
Then explain why the Brits and French didn't intervene in the Spanish-American War of 1898.
Kevin Diaz
Because a united America had a near seas fleet big enough to make it very hard to get troops in and the Americans had proved they could raise massive armies the size of which neither power could supply that far from Europe.
Keep in mind that back then the population sizes and industrial capability of the two sections were very mismatched. Together, there is a huge agricultural base, population, and industrial capacity.
Also, by 1898, America was already the largest economy in the world and the largest population great power. No one was going to stop them on their home turf.
Jayden Peterson
An example of an editorial calling for the conquest and enslavement of the Mexicans in the year 1858.
By filibustering he is referring to the phenomenon where southern citizens launched private invasions of central america to try to annex them to the United States as slave states, thereby bypassing government gridlock from the north which would block all such attempts.
Parker Turner
Got it.
Jordan Gray
Well, plus, 1898, you'd need a massive force to stop a united USA, and you'd need to send it while a united Germany is sitting right behind you.
Kayden Campbell
German-Amerian Alliance would've been unstoppable.
Xavier Carter
>Largest world economy >Greatest world military >Largest world economy makes alliance with Greatest world military
Holy fucking shit.
Ryder Reyes
No political will to do it, plus, they didn't fully exploit the West for decades, so why expand into sparsely populated wilderness?
Now, had England openly helped the South, I think they still would have lost. But it would have been an even more bitter war. With a giant army mobilized, there is no way the US doesn't strip away Canada.
That's probably a big reason England stayed out of it. You have a small chance of doing a major blow to a up and coming rival (provided you get in quick before inertia sets in), but you also stand to lose a huge stretch of land full of resources and make the up and coming rival larger and hostile towards you.
Noah Cruz
there's like 5 other civil war threads up and they're all shit. Why add another shit thread. Answering your question is impossible because 150 years is too long of a time to guess how a nation would develop. However the CSA would probably have fared better in the immediate years following a hypothetical secession. If you aren't just baiting and actually care about the Confederacy's economic problems in relation to secession then take the time to read pic related.
Kevin Lewis
imagine a very different battle of Jutland...
Jayden Davis
>That's probably a big reason England stayed out of it. You have a small chance of doing a major blow to a up and coming rival (provided you get in quick before inertia sets in), but you also stand to lose a huge stretch of land full of resources and make the up and coming rival larger and hostile towards you.
that...and the thousands of casualties they would have suffered.
Noah King
the CSA was spanking the Union through superior generalship until attrition and the general industrial capacity of the north wore the south down. If the CSA had only material backing from a nation such as England, victory couldve been very achievable.
James Martin
you know there were battles outside of Virginia right?
Jacob Johnson
>you know there were battles outside of Virginia right? Don't be dense, he's talking about how well the South did in ALL the theatres of war from the entire nation, from Fredericksburg all the way to Spotsylvania.
James Young
They could have taken Cuba and much of the Caribbean. While south America may have been a bridge too far, they feasibly could have made progress in Central America. There were even some very prominent Yankee Republicans who had their eyes on expansion.
Jace Diaz
yes. so?
Carson Nguyen
heh...I lol'd. well done.
Liam Sanchez
so....Virginia was the only front of the entire war the Confederates ever spanked the Union on for any length of time.
>in before "muh Chickamauga" >a "victory" that effectively destroyed the Army of Tennessee as an offensive force.
Zachary Green
>yes. so? Winfield Scott's Anaconda plan made constant progress almost immediately from the first shots of the war. Northern Virginia was a very bloody tempest in a very small teapot, the South was being strangled everywhere on the margins without interruption the entire war.
John Flores
What if stonewall jackson had lived. he would've been at gettysburg.
Blake Foster
>They could have taken Cuba and much of the Caribbean.
with what Navy?
Lincoln Brown
THIS....
Christian Watson
>What if stonewall jackson had lived. he would've been at gettysburg. Sure, maybe he'd have been sent through the Wheatfield and caught lead like Armistead did.
Jeremiah Wood
and yet if the south had won at gettysburg, total victory was within reach. the army of northern virginia was the main front. where the war was won or lost.
Henry Cruz
The southern states had plenty of resources, know-how, and potential to build a strong naval force. Also, Cuba isn't that far from Florida. All they'd need are several barges (Napoleon style) since Spain was a spent force at the time. In fact, in the 1840's and 50's the US twice declined the opportunity to annex Cuba although it was thoroughly considered.
Asher Robinson
they probably wouldn't have fought at Gettysburg...
Jace Perez
>and yet if the south had won at gettysburg, total victory was within reach. How does that work? Less than 24 hrs. after the last shots at Gettysburg, Vicksburg surrendered and both shores of the Mississippi River were in Union Hands from Minnesota to New Orleans.
Logan Adams
>The southern states had plenty of resources
no they didnt. by the end of the war they were fighting battles with starving soldiers, laughably little ammunition, and only the love of their homeland, and the knowledge of the righteousness of their cause in their heart.
Isaiah Baker
because if you win at Gettysburg, Vicksburg goes away?
plus how could the ANV win a decisive victory at Gettysburg?
Wyatt Sanchez
and the Union navy wouldn't stop this because?
Brandon Jenkins
>Robert E. Lee with a clear path to DC
thats how that works.
Colton Rivera
>plus how could the ANV win a decisive victory at Gettysburg? Nighttime Commando Parachute Drop on Little Round Top to clear out the US Artillery.
Brandon Jones
also Rosecrans had Bragg on the run by then...
Ethan Phillips
In our wacky scenario the Civil War never occurred since the North accepted the legality of southern secession.
There probably would have been a scramble for empire in Latin America and the Caribbean between the USA and the CSA...again, had the north accepted the legality of southern secession without fighting the war.
Landon Hall
You mean, to stop the Washington Garrison having to dig in and fight for a few days in prepared positions against a tired opponent, the US would surrender Louisiana, Tennessee, most of Arkansas and Missouri?
Luke Parker
>clear path to DC
only half the AotP was engaged at Gettysburg. There is no scenario where the ANV gets out of Penn without suffering huge losses. where does this clear path come from?
Zachary Mitchell
>There probably would have been a scramble for empire in Latin America and the Caribbean between the USA and the CSA...again, had the north accepted the legality of southern secession without fighting the war.
yeah but then the Europeans would have gotten in it too and then shit gets weird.
Charles Bailey
>scramble for empire in Latin America and the Caribbean between the USA and the CSA...again, had the north accepted the legality of southern secession without fighting the war. I submit that with secession readily accepted, North America would be a cold, white bread South America and the sovereign Republic of Mississippi would have no real prospect of power projection to conquer the equally sovereign Republic of Paraguay.
Angel Kelly
Yeah. The USA would still keep the Monroe Doctrine and it's unclear what view the CSA would have taken toward Europeans. I am aware, however, that the south took a very negative view toward Britain in the wake of emancipation (or whatever it REALLY was) in the West Indies coming to see Britain as an adversary of plantation slavery in the west. The South would likely have been compelled to take portions of the Caribbean and and viewed the rest with suspicion due to the slave uprisings and revolts throughout that region.
I disagree. I think the southern states would have remained together in a loose confederacy. After all, the Confederate constitution was modeled on the US constitution. I think in the event of peaceful secession the US and CS would have quickly come to terms on economic and territorial concerns on the mainland and continued to view European meddling in the western hemisphere as a very very bad thing. Also, MS was one of the wealthiest states prior to the civil war.
Lucas Rivera
>The South would likely have been compelled to take portions of the Caribbean and and viewed the rest with suspicion due to the slave uprisings and revolts throughout that region.
they'd have to buy any new territory because it's extremely unlikely they could have that kind of force projection.
maybe if they pulled a giant filibuster...
Jeremiah Baker
Are we including black as people if so then most definitely not.
Adrian Davis
Fuck. I'm drunk.
Yeah. Asking, "What if?" is always a little murky but I think the confederacy could have mustered a decent military force with quality on par with the USA, if smaller. I think it'd come down to the political will to act. But yes. The filibuster invasions are a hell of a lot of fun to read about.
Jack Martinez
>Nighttime Commando Parachute Drop on Little Round Top to clear out the US Artillery.
Hell yeah
>tfw no alternate timeline with joint operation between the ANV and 1st Airborne
Evan Howard
The South only needed to industrialize
>Industrial Economy with Slave Labor
Can you fucking imagine the wealth?
Josiah Hill
Can we discuss how aesthetically pleasing that painting is?
Brayden Clark
But it's really not? Scott was a hack who took advantage of American nostalgia