South victorious?
February 10, 2008 9:52 PM   Subscribe

What would have happened if the South had won the civil war?
posted by TigerCrane to Law & Government (7 answers total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: So chatfilter. -- cortex

 
Open-ended unanswerable or hypothetical questions like "What if Hitler had never been born?" .... is not a good use of AskMe.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:56 PM on February 10, 2008


This thread would be about what would have happened if the North had won the Civil War.
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:56 PM on February 10, 2008 [1 favorite]


I dunno, everybody would be a lot more chatty. or something.
posted by special-k at 9:58 PM on February 10, 2008


Response by poster:

Open-ended unanswerable or hypothetical questions like "What if Hitler had never been born?" .... is not a good use of AskMe.


Is that a quote from the guidelines, or a personal opinion?
posted by TigerCrane at 10:00 PM on February 10, 2008


Response by poster: The two big questions:

1) Would they still have slavery?
2) Would they have allied with Hitler?

Some commentators I've read said that slavery would have fallen apart eventually, because it would have been too expensive once the cotton industry fell down in importance. I'm not too sure. If the slaves HAD been freed, they would have been kept in an official second-class-citizen status (which is basically what DID happen, until the sixties)

My guess is that the CSA would sign a mutual defence pact with Hitler. With a large potential enemy on our border, we wouldn't have been able to fight WWII. We (the North) would still have been absolutely dependant on the south for its natural resources. Even an embargo would have been a serious threat. That means a Nazi Europe and an East Asia conquered by Japanese militarists. Its not clear who would win in the conflict between Russia and Germany. My guess is that Russia is just too hard to beat, and there would eventually be an armistice. The Chinese communists might prevail against the Japanese, so we'd have a Communist China. That leaves America and Canada as the last outpost of Jeffersonian Democracy.

Of course, its also possible that the above nightmare scenario _would_ force us into a second civil war. We'd invade the south for the natural reasources that would be necesary to fund the war machine. We'd need a causus belli...hmmm, maybe to free the slaves?

Fighting a war on our own soil would make our situation far more precarious in the War...we could have lost.
posted by TigerCrane at 10:00 PM on February 10, 2008


There would be more NASCAR tracks outside of the South. Professional wrestling would be nationally televised. Presidential hopefuls would refer to Jesus as a philosopher. Everyone would drive big ass four-wheel drive capable vehicles even if they never go off road. Churches would have stadium seating. Oh wait...
posted by wfrgms at 10:02 PM on February 10, 2008


I dunno.
posted by ericb at 10:03 PM on February 10, 2008


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