"Would the CSA have been doomed to economic disaster?" Topic

"Suppose it won, I am going to assume 1865 as Lincoln wouldn't have given up. So Little Mac wins and is assassinated and George Pendleton takes over. Being little more than a traitor he hands back everything to the CSA outside of WV. This is close to a best case scenario for the South. Let's say Sherman is at Milledgeville, Georgia when the war ends. I think that the CSA would be in such a mess it would take until at least 1900 before it is back where it was before the war…."
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Amicalement
Armand

Someone's going to have to define "economic disaster" for me before I take this seriously. Worse than collectivization in the Soviet Union? Worse than Red China's "Great Leap Forward?" Than India under the "License Raj, or a typical year in the DPRK? Lots of places don't do very well in terms of median per capita GDP or growth thereof. Most do pretty well for the people who run the place, and the 1866 CSA would presumably not be figuring "per capita" the same way we would anyway.

I notice no one on that thread points out that historically cotton--and, for a while, rice and sugar--came back very strongly after the ACW, and the southern transport net was quickly rebuilt without a lot of Yankee "foreign aid." Plenty of people saw money to be made in helping a valuable crop get to market.

It's also hard to believe that the UK, which had no problem with private persons buying Confederate bonds and providing the CSA with uniforms, weapons and ships was suddenly going to object to them loaning money for railroads had the CSA won.

The case against slavery does not, I trust, rest on its admittedly wretched economic performance. Have you seen some of the systems politicians and economists have defended over the years?

Thanks.

Amicalement
Armand

I can't wrap my head around the South winning. It just wasn't possible. What I can talk about is the south lagging behind for more than a century. The south only now is catching up. Still. Out of the 10 poorest states in the United States, 7 are southern with 2 being border areas.
1) Mississippi
3) Alabama
4) Louisiana
7) South Carolina
8) Arkansas
9) Georgia
10) North Carolina

Being outside the USA, I'm curious to know what are the other three states. [I'm thinking the level of poverty may be race-related, rather than a formally CSA/USA division, as I understand most of the states listed have significant African-American populations.]

I don't think that the CSA states would have necessarily 'been doomed to economic disaster' if they had won. Victory (depending on when it occurred) would enabled them to avoid the destruction wrought on their lands in the latter stages of the war and certainly a victory would have enabled them to avoid exploitation post-war.

The South being impoverished and backwards was a result of the ACW.

Before the ACW Southern cotton and tobacco made up the vast majority of U.S. exports. The trade in these same crops until 1850 formed the basis of much of the Northeast's shipping, banking and finance, insurance and industrial activities. Before the California gold rush the southeast was the primary source of U.S. mined gold. The South was certainly less industrialized than the northeast, but this is frequently overstated. Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky and Tennessee were certainly industrializing by 1860, although they were not as industrialized as Massachusetts, New York or Pennsylvania. Slavery was not inconsistent with industrial activity. Further south the larger plantations themselves were frequently mini-factories, producing much of what was needed on the plantation. Southern railroad mileage wasn't as developed in 1860 as the northeast or Midwest, but it was developing rapidly in the 1850s. 1861 saw the south with a continuous trunk line running from Norfolk, Richmond and Savannah to Memphis and New Orleans. But for a break at Augusta you could add Charleston and Wilmington to that list. If the United States had not opposed Confederate independence there is reason to believe the Confederacy would have held up well economically in the late nineteenth century.

The problem for the South is that the war destroyed its industrial, transportation and financial infrastructure. The former states of the CSA in 1865 had far less infrastructure than they did in 1861, while the states that stayed loyal to the U.S. had more by 1865. So the question is at what point is enough of the Southern infrastructure destroyed so that the southern states were going to emerge from the war as an economic colony of someone else. To me that arguably has happened by the end of 1862, and it definitely has happened by the end of 1863. So yes a Confederate victory in 1864 would have meant the South would have been about as doomed economically as it was by the ultimate U.S. victory.

Sorry so long.

Being outside the USA, I'm curious to know what are the other three states. [I'm thinking the level of poverty may be race-related, rather than a formally CSA/USA division, as I understand most of the states listed have significant African-American populations.

I believe some of the western states w large Native American populations are also impoverished.

The concept I have always had re the post war CSA is that it would have been the typical agricultural state with little industry and capital and tied to a rapidly outmoded socio-economic model. In that regard, see Mexico, Central America, etc.

There is little doubt that the latter countries had / have ample natural resources, but their dependence on external capital and technology continually undermined their economic development.

Quite apart from the fact that the old CSA is still the poorest region of the USA, it must be realized that they are, with a few exceptions, the states that are the most subsidized by the taxes of the other, more prosperous, states. Without the substantial subsidies, federal investments in bases and federal infrastructure ranging from roads, to ports, local offices, etc.their situation would be even more dire.

This is ironic since they often complain about the horrors of welfare, Federalism, etc.

YouTube link

Stumbled over this at random today.

Being outside the USA, I'm curious to know what are the other three states. [I'm thinking the level of poverty may be race-related, rather than a formally CSA/USA division, as I understand most of the states listed have significant African-American populations.

The other three states are:

New Mexico
Kentucky
West Virginia

Kentucky was a slave border state.
West Virginia is mountainous and with coal no longer economic to be mined.
New Mexico is mostly desert.

Quite apart from the fact that the old CSA is still the poorest region of the USA, it must be realized that they are, with a few exceptions, the states that are the most subsidized by the taxes of the other, more prosperous, states. Without the substantial subsidies, federal investments in bases and federal infrastructure ranging from roads, to ports, local offices, etc.their situation would be even more dire.

This is ironic since they often complain about the horrors of welfare, Federalism, etc.

+1 Repiqueone

A victorious Confederacy would also have been subject to breaking up politically, since secession would have been proven as both legitimate and useful.

YouTube link
Stumbled over this at random today.

A nasty situation but, unfortunately, rather unsurprising.

A victorious Confederacy would also have been subject to breaking up politically, since secession would have been proven as both legitimate and useful.

But what would the reason be for further secession?

It took the Slavery Issue to break the Union in 1861. Nothing else would have had anything like the economic and social effect to force a further rupture.

A couple of comments -

The SE United States is the fastest growing region of the country in economic terms and has been for some time. Check into the growth of areas like Greenville SC, Charleston SC, Charlotte NC, Raleigh-Durham NC, Nashville TN, Dallas-Ft Worth & Austin TX, for example.

By comparison, many states in the old north of the USA – CT, NY, IL, NJ – are presently in considerable economic trouble.

- – -

Bill N is spot on regarding the "Old South's" position as the cash cow of the American Republic prior to the ACW.

- – -

Interesting side note regarding the fate of old King Cotton. The South had actually regained its position as the dominant supplier of cotton to the global (meaning Great Britain's) textile industry within 15 years of the end of the ACW.

B

But what would the reason be for further secession?

Any serious disagreement between a state government and the Confederate government. Issues might include a possible further expansion into Mexico and/or the Caribbean, including the possibility of war to achieve this; another war with the U.S., possibly over New Mexico/Arizona/California; and/or relations with France and/or Britain (for instance, concerning French presence in Mexico conflicting with the desire to expand that way themselves).

Bill N is spot on regarding the "Old South's" position as the cash cow of the American Republic prior to the ACW.
Interesting side note regarding the fate of old King Cotton. The South had actually regained its position as the dominant supplier of cotton to the global (meaning Great Britain's) textile industry within 15 years of the end of the ACW.
B

Okay. In that case, why didn't the South industrialize, capitalize and become the economic powerhouse of the USA in the late 19th Century?

Why do we read about New York, Chicago and Detroit and not Montgomery, Richmond and Charlotte as the economic drivers of the US in the period 1880-1940?

If the South became the "cash cow" by growing cotton, why should it change to building factories?

Hi huevans011,
I do not claim to understand the story in comprehensive detail, but, from bits and pieces absorbed over time, I am not sure that the post-ACW cotton business was quite as profitable as in the glory days of "King Cotton".

1 – The wealth of the large plantation owners was wiped out by the war. The slaves they had owned had represented somewhere between 50-70 pct of their assets.

2 – Many of the plantations were either completely wrecked, or burnt out during the course of the war; others were looted by occupation troops after the war.

3 – Since no one in the South had any money after the collapse of the Confederacy, where did the money come from to resume large-scale cotton cultivation? My guess is that it came from northern investors/banks who "took their piece of the action" off the top.

4 – Farm labor was no longer "free".

5 – The South received very little in the way of infrastructure rehabilitation after the war, perhaps a function of lingering post-war hostility in the north. For example, one story I have heard is that the Port of Charleston was prohibited by the US government from handling international shipping traffic until 1904-6 or so.

6 – A lot of investment in the post-ACW period went toward development of the American west rather than re-building the south. There were probably better returns on investment to be had in the west.

One factor I suspect did favor the southern plantation owning families was the close business relationships built up over the preceding years with merchants in Great Britain.

My opinion, FWIW.

Best wishes for 2020.

B