If the south won the U.S civil war how do think things would be different(if at all) today in the USofA?

Question

White House in Texas maybe?

Answer 1

Good question.

If the South had won the American Civil War--a scenario:

The South eventually emancipates the slaves; reasons are: industry, manufacturing, technology, and just outright economic advancements.

The South was a loosely aligned Confederacy, meaning, there were disagreements amidst the southern states. This could have led to several splits or factions, like we have in the Balkans. There could have been several nations today: the United States, the Confederate States, the Nation of Texas, the Union of the South, etc.

Answer 2

The significance of the Civil War was summed up by Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address. The great issue in the war was not the abolition of slavery, or even so much the preservation of the Union. In the president's words "that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

The real issue in the Civil War was whether democracy was a practical form of government that could defend itself against rebellion. If the south had won, the territory that is now the United States would have fissioned into an assortment of squabbling principalities.

But more than that, the message world wide would have been that democracy is a dead end. No sizable nation based on freedom and democracy could be expected to survive. You would certainly have had more rulers like Napoleon III of France. The statelets that would now comprise the former United States of America would look much like the current map of South America, with an assortment of Juan Perons, Fidel Castros, Duvaliers and similar tyrants.

You can be sure that the White House would not be in Texas, although perhaps the local dictator there would by now have built a palace many times grander and more opulent than Versailles to demonstrate his power.

Answer 3

I agree with the other answers, that slavery would have eventually been abolished as it doesn't make economic and of course moral sense. However, I also feel that western expansion would have been limited as well.

In the 19th century, the United States adopted a Manifest Destiny http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_Destiny that stated that it was our destiny to expand from sea to sea. Although famous trails such as the Oregon Trail http://www.isu.edu/~trinmich/Oregontrail.html and the Mormon Trail http://www.americanwest.com/trails/pages/mormtrl.htm
had been established in the 1840s, western movement had been motivated by slavery rights. The Missouri Compromise http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_Compromise allowed a state to be a free or slave state based on popular opinion. Abolishionists and Slave supporters alike stettled what is now the mid-west in order to tip the scales in the election.

Had the south won the Civil War, such expasion would be moot. The Confederate States of America may not have had the power to maintain the newly attain southwestern states from Mexico that had only been won a little over a decade earlier.

Answer 4

The Union was fighting to keep the country as one, the Confederacy was fighting to stay separate. If the Confederacy had won there would have been two countries, the USA and the CSA. The Confederacy could not have survived on its own long term, and slavery was going to come to a natural end eventually anyway. After perhaps 20 years the two countries would have reunified, the impoverished Confederacy coming to the USA with hat in hand begging to be to reunify.

Today, 100 years after reunification, the south would still be a backward impoverished place looked down upon by the rest of the USA.

Answer 5

Not as different as one might think. Conquest of the North would have introduced the southeners to the manufacturing and industrial capabilities that they lacked. They would have adopted them and eventually the South would become industrialized, in addition to agricultural economy they then depended on.

But the question of slavery would have led to a second conflict. Imposing slavery on the Northern people would have been anathemic to them, and they would have rejected it. This situation might have led to them to initiate guerilla warfare against the Southern government, to the point where a second American Revolution would have taken place. So, even if the Confederacy was victorious in 1865, it still would have been overthrown and vanquished.

Answer 6

It's not really my answer, but writer Harry Turtledove has an ongoing series based on a Confederate victory. A quick synopsis:

1. The CSA and the USA both exist, with the Confederacy including Cuba and parts of what is currently Mexico. The US has occupied Canada and set up Quebec as an independent republic.

2. Wars similar to WW1 and WW2 occur, with Britain siding with the CSA and Germany with the US.

More details available on the linked page.

Personally, I think it depends on what you mean by win. If, as in this series, a win led to an independent CSA similar to what existed in history, I don't know if they'd have had the industrial base to keep up with the US.

In any case, I don't think an independent CSA would have had its capital in Texas. Richmond, Montgomery, or an unburned Atlanta would be more likely.

Answer 7

I think slavery would have come to an end sooner or later in any case as the economy changed. The US would remain a true federation of states, rather than power being concentrated in Washington.

That would change everything as the US wouldn't have a powerful federal goverment that could back huge projects like the great society, the TVA, WW2, NASA etc. So it would be a totally different world.

Answer 8

The federal government would be much less powerful
You would see your own state flag more than you see the federal flag
Each state would decide its own law, so you wouldn't have the Supreme Court deciding laws for all the states (like abortion.... it would be left to the states)
Eventually society would have accepted the slaves as equal and we would have granted civil rights anyway.
And Lincoln would finally be regarded as the Nationalist that he was. He was NOT a Republican.

Answer 9

properly, if the North had won the "Civil war" we would all be slaves, slavery could be an equivalent threat employer, we would all be salary slaves quite of finished chattel slaves. Oh, wait, i think of that's what passed off.....