News What if the confederates would have won

[jaap de vries]

What if the confederates would have won...

I have a interesting question that I have been thinking of lately.

What if the confederates would have won the civil war to the extend that the USA would have been split up into two countries around the Mason-Dixon line. What would those two countries look like today?

 

[D H]

Read some of Harry Turtledove's books. Or, look at this forum: http://www.alternatehistory.com

 

[russ_watters]

I have a interesting question that I have been thinking of lately.

What if the confederates would have won the civil war to the extend that the USA would have been split up into two countries around the Mason-Dixon line. What would those two countries look like today?

With a lower population, a much smaller economy, and no manufacturing base, the South would have come crawling back by 1900 even if they had won. They picked a bad time to go to war: the industrial revolution was in the process of making the slavery issue moot.

 

[vanesch]

What if the confederates would have won the civil war to the extend that the USA would have been split up into two countries around the Mason-Dixon line. What would those two countries look like today?

Mexico would be a bigger country by now

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

We would all have to learn to speak with a drawl.

 

[BobG]

With a lower population, a much smaller economy, and no manufacturing base, the South would have come crawling back by 1900 even if they had won. They picked a bad time to go to war: the industrial revolution was in the process of making the slavery issue moot.

I think they would have come back even sooner. Up until the civil war, threatening to secede was the way states forced the federal government to pay attention to their wants. If they won, they'd meet with the government and would have at least eased the import taxes on British goods. The end result would be that industrial growth would have been slower. In 1860, the US couldn't compete against British manufacturing even accounting for the fact that the British had to ship their goods across the Atlantic.

It might have slowed growth enough that the US wouldn't have been considered a significant factor in World War I. In other words, the British and French wouldn't have seen much advantage in looking for help from the US.

I don't think the difference would be great enough that you'd see much difference today. Eventually, the US would have caught up, the same as Japan caught up with US auto makers.

 

[jaap de vries]

It seems to me that a lot of the resources that turned out important (oil) was available in the south.

 

[russ_watters]

It seems to me that a lot of the resources that turned out important (oil) was available in the south.

That didn't happen until much later. During the industrial revolution, the natural resource and therefore the manufacturing base of the US was in Pennsylvania. Incidentally/ironically, the year it started was 1861: http://www.priweb.org/ed/pgws/history/pennsylvania/pennsylvania.html

And then there's Standard Oil, the original modern big corporation and part of the reason for the Sherman Anti-Trust Act: founded in Pittsburgh, PA, in 1868.

 

[russ_watters]

I think they would have come back even sooner. Up until the civil war, threatening to secede was the way states forced the federal government to pay attention to their wants.

I never really thought of it that way, but yeah - the fact that they decided to go to war kinda means they had already lost.