Odd United States Question

[unmerged(2952)]

Originally posted by swampthing
Only problem i see with that is come late in the game, there are still going to be southerners and northerners and by making unpopular descisions, a second civil war is possible. That just doesnt seem right. [/B]

Why doesn't it seem right? Just because it didn't happen in OTL doesn't mean it wasn't possible. The US government after the 1880's spent a great deal of time and effort trying to regain support in the south. The whittling away of Civil Rights Laws, Jim Crow, share cropping, ect were all allowed because the North didn't want any further problems(within reason) and were willing either turn a blind eye or openly support what the South wanted.

If you have a government that takes a harder line, which openly admits to punishing the South (unlike the official line of OTL which was to "help improve the lives of African Americans) its quiet likely that the South will fester and errupt in violence again before the game ends.

 

[Tim O]

I would hope that a U.S. players actions, politics and policies in the years 1835-1860s would have a big effect on which states secceds and how united they are when the civil war finaly rolls around.

 

[unmerged(18885)]

Originally posted by DanielMcCollum
Why doesn't it seem right? Just because it didn't happen in OTL doesn't mean it wasn't possible. The US government after the 1880's spent a great deal of time and effort trying to regain support in the south. The whittling away of Civil Rights Laws, Jim Crow, share cropping, ect were all allowed because the North didn't want any further problems(within reason) and were willing either turn a blind eye or openly support what the South wanted.

If you have a government that takes a harder line, which openly admits to punishing the South (unlike the official line of OTL which was to "help improve the lives of African Americans) its quiet likely that the South will fester and errupt in violence again before the game ends.

A second civil war in the 1880s doesnt sound all that unreasonable. Im more thinking come 1914 you are still having to consider if, by joining WWI, the south is going to split (dont know if there was any talk of seccesion b/c of the US getting into WWI - just using the timeframe as an example)

 

[unmerged(2952)]

Originally posted by swampthing
A second civil war in the 1880s doesnt sound all that unreasonable. Im more thinking come 1914 you are still having to consider if, by joining WWI, the south is going to split (dont know if there was any talk of seccesion b/c of the US getting into WWI - just using the timeframe as an example)

Not in the South There was some mutterings about Wisconsin(which had an increadibly large German population, over 1/3 of the population was first generation German immigrants) not being loyal and refusing to fight. But we did; even if members of our government did prove to be some of the strongest anti-war proponents(LaFollette; wooooooooo ) Still; if things go worse........

 

[Sparrow]

I thought the US-Spanish War had gone some large steps towards healing the country? Maybe if the US hasn't had some event(s) to rally the country around an outside enemy between the time of the civil war and ww1 this might remain an issue?

 

[Termite2]

I'm a little late, but here goes:
Virginia did include West Virginia before the civil war, that is why there would be two cultures.
East Tennesseans formed 10 regts in 1862 for the union, there was a lot of unionist sentiment in East Tennessee, enough that a confederate army spent a lot of time repressing the area.
The same is true for north western North Carolina, although not on the scale as east Tenn.;there , they were intergrated into some of Ky and W.VA regts.
You could add that there was unionists in Texas also, but their influence disappeared after the start of war.
In Ky the majority favored the union and in Missouri the majority of the population favored the union; while the majority of counties favored the south.
There also was some minor sentiment for the north in Arkansas.
Of minor interest is the situation in the Indian Territories[Oklahoma] where the indian tribes split into union and confederate camps, with about equal numbers joining each side.
There was even a couple of battles between 'Northern" indians and "Southern" indians.

 

[Spruce]

there's always the difference between the leaders vision and the "crowd" vision.

Like the Texas governour favouring not te secede was promptly set aside,

Also another important parameter was the planters power. Most often they could act as local dukes - counts (see medevial) and gathering much power!

So the aristocrats shouldn't be underestimated in their power,

 

[Tim O]

Originally posted by Sparrow
I thought the US-Spanish War had gone some large steps towards healing the country? Maybe if the US hasn't had some event(s) to rally the country around an outside enemy between the time of the civil war and ww1 this might remain an issue?

General Wheeler who lead American troops in Cuba was a former Confederate Cavalry Commander.

 

[Guinnessmonkey]

Originally posted by KrisKannon
virginia : it was a state split on slavery. the creation of an entire state (west virginia) is an event caused by the civil war. these people did not want a seperated union.

north carolina : dont know, north carolina along with south carolina are the two most southern/plantation culture states i can think of.

tennessee : was a border state, was a late joiner to the confederacy. it would be understandable, but i would think tennessee should be all southern

Many areas of (today's) Virginia were strongly pro-Union, including the city of Richmond itself (which cheered Grant's armies like an army of liberation when the city was taken).

All of the states that became the northern confederacy (Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas) were far less reliant on slaves than the deep south was. Hell, many plantation owners were making a good deal of their profit margin by selling excess slaves south (as they had recently switched to less labor intensive crops such as tobacco). These states, therefore, depended on slavery much less than their cousins in the deep south. They therefore resisted secession for much longer.

IMHO Tenessee could have gone either way. We came close both to either a Union Tenessee or a seperate state of East Tenessee (or Franklin? ). North also very reluctant. It was not at all one of the most southern/plantation states. It's western areas were mountainous, with poor white farmers. It the beginnings of the textile mills it has today and their main crop wasn't even cotton, but tobacco.

If you want plantation culture look towards Mississippi, South Carolina, Georgia, or Alabama. Before the war the majority of the population in those states was slaves. But indeed it was the more reluctant populations of the confederacy, the poor farmers in Virginia, North Carolina (who provided more troops than any other CSA state), and Tennesseee who did most of the fighting and the dying (if only because they simply had higher white populations.....).

 

[Guinnessmonkey]

Originally posted by Termite2
You could add that there was unionists in Texas also, but their influence disappeared after the start of war.

Yes, in North Texas in particular. Poor, white, immigrant farmers didn't fancy the idea of dying for rich plantation owners right to own men as cattle. They fancied the idea of beind drafted to do so even less.

Unfortunately these communities were terrorised and lynched almost out of existence during and just after the war.... Areas that had once voted with a strong majority for Union soon was made up almost wholly of pro-Confederates.

 

[Aragos]

I suggest, for those that are interested, the reading of Richard Current's "Lincoln's Loyalists" which addresses the issue of Southern Unionists. I think that the crux of this thread is the topic of loyalty to the Federal government by many Southerners, and the issue of 'Southern ethnicity' noted by some of the posters in this thread. Southern Unionists considered themselves good Southerners; some were slave-owners, but most were not.

The simple fact is that all of the Confederate States, except South Carolina, provided at least 1 regiment of troops to the Federal cause. Some, most notibly Tennessee, Kentucky (I know, it was a 'CS' state in name only) and Arkansas provided thousands of troops to the Union cause (Arkansas alone provided over 10,000 Federal troops, organized into state regiments; this did not include the numerous USCT (black) regiments raised from the freed slaves 1863 and onward).

How this would be modeled in Victoria is up to folks with bigger brains than mine

 

[Spruce]

hm,

some people are trying to post an image about pro-Union factions in the South. I think the image is wrong.

I have the following to say. The emancipation of the slaves was somewhat a very slow process (that perhaps would have lasted too long, I agree) gowing South. Around 1830 Virginia is considering slave emancipation - or a first step towards it.

The turning point is the Turner slave-uprising in Virginia (1831). Some 50 whites are killid and the consequences of this act is that a few hundred blacks are killed/hanged.

From then on, the slave states polarised and the slow emancipation of slaves in slave states was promptly halted. The most important driver for the polarisation was the strong spread of "Northern" abolitionist propaganda and the needs of King Cotton.

The sentiment was the following = "we don't need this Northern abolitionist propaganda - we need our way of life and that's it!".

Black codes are established in slave states - a very harsh reaction against Northern "incursions".

One of the consequences was that people that didn't support the Southern "peculiar institution" were simply chased!

From those harsch moments on, Southern leaders were trying to defend and establish this confirmation of their economical power trough a culture, religious, economic motivation to keep the blacks as slaves... Calhoun and Fitzhugh are some examples of this...

Further keeping the balance between free states and slave states is becoming more and more difficult and culminates in the election of Lincoln...

Again the John Brown assault on Virginia is used by propaganda in North and South confirming the sentiments of the populations.

when the first slave state begins to secede we see that during the previous decades a strong base for secession has been created. When the war breaks out, the majority of the polarised states stick together into the confederacy.

So my conclusion is that the majority of the Southern states want to get rid of the Federal goverment. There's a firm base for this believe (see above),

and that the fact that "some" Unionists existed into the southern states is fairly normal. The same goes for Confederalists existed in the other slave boundary states Kentucky, Missouri and Maryland. The reason they didn't leave the Union lies entirely by Lincolns strategy...

And the reason West Virginia seceded from Virginia also lies with the Lincoln approach.