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[Proud Public Servant]

121. The CSA would be easy to imagine; the USA would be harder

Last edited Thu Jan 19, 2012, 12:12 PM - Edit history (1)

Had the union not been preserved, the fate of the CSA would be clear: it would have evolved into the Western Hemisphere's South Africa.

But the USA is trickier. Some speculation:

- The USA would have become, essentially, a one-party government, as Democrats were demonized as the party of rebellion. This, in fact, is what happened immediately after the Civil War, but the Dems staged a comeback in the waning days of Reconstruction, when popular opinion in the North turned against Reconstruction efforts and Southern states began to be "redeemed" (that is, ruled by white Democrats). They were certainly the minority party for at least 2 generations after the Civil War, but without the South as part of the US it's difficult to imagine they would have survived at all.

- Without a significant black underclass in the North (a product of the early 20th century "Great Migration&quot , other groups would have had to play the role of despised minority. These almost certainly would have been Southern and Eastern European immigrants (including my grandparents), who would not have been allowed to assimilate.

- In a much smaller USA (more on that in a second), regional and rural/urban splits would not play the same role; instead, class would have become the major fault line in US politics, as it did in Europe. The emergence of a Socialist party as a major force in the USA becomes a real possibility; President Debs is imaginable.

- And it would be a smaller USA. Without the South, it's unlikely the North would have the wherewithal to settle a continental empire. The likeliest scenario is that the Pacific Coast states would break away and become their own nation. Also likely is that (1) Texas would break away from the CSA and expand its boundaries in the Southwest (while the CSA would add Cuba and Hispaniola to its territory), and (2) nobody would bother with the Northern Plains states, which could very well lead to the existence of an established Sioux nation with its own territory.

So I'm seeing a former USA carved into 5 countries; in the one my family lived in, the much-diminished USA, it's unlikely we Catholic Slavs ever would have been allowed to rise into the middle class (let alone that, by the 3rd generation, we'd boast Ivy-League grads and PhDs). The CSA, a race-based feudal society, would be simply unspeakable. I have a harder time imagining what the Republics of Texas and Pacifica might be like.