They may have taken Southern Secession too seriously. . .
Maybe no so strange, but that is the best AI formed CSA I've ever seem. Not sure how the Mexican concession became slave states as I was playing GB fighting off the 8th Ottoman Reconquest of East Macedonia, The Great North German Gang Bang (Defending NGF not participating) and slapping Russia around for trying to annex Korea. Saw the Independence pop up, scrolled over to take a peak and was amused =)
Sadly had to scrap that game as I did some region editing (split South Carolina of whichever state it was lumped with in vanilla, splitting Nevada-Utah and removing the cores for the British Dominions for a mod)
So is there no chance you could load as the CSA and see thier setup is like? As far as social and political reforms are concerned mostly. But also who's in power and what kind of a government they're under?
I've been trying to play the CSA recently and got really hooked to it so if you could share some info it would be helpful!
P.S. I've never once seen a successful CSA formed by the AI during my games. They always get whooped and re-annexed.