Epilogue
"We stand at the grave of the fallen emperor and ask: what has remained of his life's work, what is the legacy he has left to posterity?"
Rotteck and Welcker
Confederate States of America
The establishment and recognition of the Confederate States of America in 1862 finally shattered the uneasy balance of power in North America and consigned the United States to the ranks of second powers. By passing through the fire and the water, the CSA leadership, with some outside aid, had irrevocably reshaped the geopolitical landscape of North America. The Treaty of Baltimore would prove however to be the apex of the Confederate project
In a way, it should be of little surprise that the fortunes of the Confederacy soon dwindled, or at least failed to meet expectations, after the so-called 'Second War of Independence'. This was a conflict entered into not for the realisation of some future ideal but in defence of a way of life (or, more academically, a socio-economic model) that was already rapidly becoming obsolete. Increasingly unable to preserve their status and economic clout within the Union, the Southern landowners had ultimately been forced into open conflict out of weakness, not strength. Not that this was apparent, of course, in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Washington. European nations, led by Britain and France, queued up to recognise the new nationstate and it was common wisdom that the Confederacy, having demonstrated its mettle, would soon emerge as a power in its own right. It was not to be
Initial signs of trouble emerged in the late 1860s with the realisation that the defeated United States was not going to simply disappear or surrender it's, still marked, demographic and industrial advantages. With the Southern state legislatures squabbling over the cost of maintaining a large standing army and accompanying fortifications, Richmond was forced to swallow its prejudices and enter into a military alliance with Porfirio Diaz's Mexico. Over time this would reduce the CSA to the junior partner of Mexico City. Such concerns were not aided by the unavoidable fact that over a third of the Confederate population of 1870 was classified as slaves – with no civil rights, little economic potential, and of no military value
Slavery was, regardless of its apologists' arguments, the key issue behind secession, but the defining political question of the 1870s was how to acceptably abolish this institution and modernise the economy. It was only gradually that it became accepted that these were two sides of the same argument – ie, that a plantation economy dependent on slavery, and geared towards agricultural exports, hindered the development of an industrial base – but, perhaps tragically, there was no time to arrive at political consensus. In 1876 the global price of cotton crashed, due to the emergence of Ottoman Egypt as a major producer region, and never recovered. The death of 'King Cotton' conspired with increasing military expenditure to tip an already stagnating economy into recession. The most obvious and immediate effect was mass impoverishment, but in the long-term the deteriorating economic outlook scuppered any possibility of a resolution to the slavery issue – the state could simply not afford to compensate landowners for releasing their slaves
Slavery as an issue simply refused to disappear in the South. Indeed the elites' siege mentality only deepened post-Independence
Instead the following decades saw a hardening of attitudes amongst the Confederate elite. The central government in Richmond greatly increased its powers by taking up the states' financial burdens (eventually coming to direct most economic activities in a manner than its critics sneering referred to as 'state capitalism') and through serving as a bastion against any future slave uprising. The latter was certainly not a figment of the imagination, with underground political groups gradually graining traction amongst the enslaved masses, but rampant paranoia soon became a feature of the late-stage Confederacy. This was a state under siege
With its economy still moribund and agrarian in character, its people divided, and its government increasingly reliant on Mexican and British military and financial assistance, the Confederate States of America was hopelessly ill equipped to deal with the global explosion of popular unrest and industrialised warfare that marked the opening years of the 20th C. It did not survive the chaos of the Second Revolutionary Wars but, tragically, its demise would be marked by even greater death and atrocity than its creation
Second Mexican Empire
The post-Independence decades had been one of turmoil for Mexico. All but one of its heroes of the independence struggle (including Santa Anna) had died in exile or by firing squad; the office of President typically changed hands every few months; and the country had been blighted by a bitter civil war. Mexico craved stability and it received Porfirio Diaz. From 1863 to 1905 he would reign as the undisputed Generalissimo, overseeing the transition from Republic to Empire in the process. Under the
Porfiriato there would be 'Order and Progress' and most assuredly in that order. The modernisation of the Mexican state apparatus bore more than a passing resemblance to Santa Anna's earlier 'centralist' reforms of the 1840s but carried through with far greater vigour and vision. The powers of regional assemblies were curtailed, Congress brought to heel (although not disbanded outright), central bureaucracies expanded, and the numbers and responsibilities of the state's paramilitaries (the
Rurales) further increased
Yet it was ultimately advances in the economic sphere that silenced the opposition as the Mexican political class was co-opted into silence. A massive infusion of foreign capital (particularly after the 1876 coronation helped secure European recognition of Mexico as a power in her own right) and state direction led to the industrial 'take-off' of the country. The genius of Diaz was in ensuring that his political opponents shared in this hectic development of industry and infrastructure. By the end of the century the political 'opposition', as it was, could be found on the boards of countless enterprises and were themselves heavily invested in the maintenance of the
Porfiriato
For all its economic triumphs – in 1859 there were less than 400km of rail in the country; fifty years later this had grown to over 35,000km – Diaz's programme nonetheless remained a curiously lopsided one. Was it really 'progress' to dismantle most of the Republic's democratic institutions or to adamantly refuse any form of land reform that might benefit the country's many millions of peasants? The counterpoint to the stylish new public buildings and multiplying villas was the vast slums that grew up around Mexico's major cities and the continued impoverishment of its peasant communes. The unspoken secret to Diaz's success was in uniting the old
notables, no longer divided between centralist/federalist or conservative/liberal, in an alliance held together by avarice and a fear of what would happen if the system broke down. Little wonder at the bitterness of Benito Juarez before his death in 1872
The vital Mexico-Veracruz railway was finally completed in 1877, some 30 years after construction had begun under Santa Anna. Its opening was a national event and quickly became a symbol of the country's progress
Ultimately of course this was a balancing act that could not hold, even if the system itself remained remarkably robust. The mass disturbances and riots of 1883-'85 were weathered by the government with some ease and their passing saw the introduction of a range of measures designed to mollify, though not actually address, the crippling social inequalities. It is from here that many historians trace the first stirrings of Mexican proto-fascism as Diaz's government promoted policies such as state-controlled unions, agricultural subsidies, and an increasingly strident nationalism. The latter would greatly contribute to the general North American crises of the early 20th C that would later lead to the collapse of the Empire
Throughout this it is worth noting that for most Mexicans life in 1900 was little different to that of 1800 or even 1700. The great dramas of the post-Independence years and the economic programmes of the
Porfiriato simply passed huge swathes of the country by and left them almost untouched. This was particularly true of the North American territories seized during the Mexican-American Wars. The Indian Territories and heavily fortified border excepted, these lands saw little interference from Mexico City and precious few migrants. For most subjects of the Mexican Empire politics was a game that they had little interest or stake in
United States of America
In 1876, the year of Santa Anna's death, the United States celebrated a century of independence with the Centennial International Exhibition in Philadelphia, the first World Fair to be held in North America. In a way the poor attendances and derision directed at the Exposition was merely a reflection of the faltering self-confidence of a seemingly cursed nation. Little trace was to be found of the early optimism that had once characterised the dynamic and resourceful people encountered by de Tocqueville in the 1830s. Both the defeats to Mexico (the crushing of the so-called 'Manifest Destiny') and the sundering of the Union in the Civil War had deeply scarred the American collective psyche. Neither was as grave a blow as is often portrayed but a deep sense lingered that the nation's narrative had been interrupted and that the idealism that had, at least nominally, underpinned and validated the existence of the United States was bankrupt
Nonetheless, by most objective measures, excepting territory of course, the USA continued its remarkable growth during the second half of the 19th C. The vast majority of the North American population, ie not including Central Mexico, were to be found within its borders and the 1900 census recorded a resident population of just over 55 million. These citizens, many of whom were immigrants, toiled in what was fast becoming one of the world's industrial centres. Secession of the Confederate States had both weakened the agricultural lobby in Washington and presented a large foreign market for northern manufactured goods. By 1900 the United States was unquestionably the world's fourth largest industrial power, after Germany, Britain and the Ottoman Empire. The Confederate politicians had good reason to fear their northern neighbour
A Puck cartoon from the 1880s. The caption reads 'The New Slavery' and it remains a biting commentary on industrial relations at the time
When coupled with a political class that was both disillusioned and increasingly reliant on machine politics, this tremendous growth did present significant challenges. The United States was not Tsarist Russia or Papal Italy but the presence of a large and urbanised proletariat was conductive to the growth of socialist parties and the organised labour movement. Unsurprisingly this was fiercely resisted and actively combated by the US establishment in the interests of business. Local government and agencies became increasingly relied upon to maintain the balance of power within the factories and mines. The bitterness between labour and capital reached new heights following the 1900 presidential elections when only electoral fraud on a massive scale secured the office for Robert Anderson Van Wyck (1849-1918) against the challenge of the Socialist Eugene V Debs
This contentious election, and the scenes of violence that accompanied the result, severely panicked the political class and paved the way for the rise to prominence of the
Boulangerist General Nelson A Miles (1839-1925) four years later. A war hero and committed reactionary (most noted for bloodily suppressing the Pullman Strikes of 1894) he triumphed in the 1904 elections on a programme that married combative anti-unionism with a virulent revanchism. Peace at home could only be achieved, according to Miles, through a national resurgence and the recovery of the 'lost territories'. As Europe slid into the horrors of the Second Revolutionary Wars, President Miles was on hand to put his new 'Manifest Destiny' into action and bring the conflict to North America
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