CSA: Confederate States of America

CSA: Confederate States of America

Cast & Credits
Fernando Arenas, Sean Blake, Richard A. Buswell, Charles Frank (II), Evamarii Johnson

Directed by Kevin Willmott.

A pseudo-documentary, in the style of Ken Burns' "The Civil War," that examines what might have happened if the Confederacy had prevailed over the Union forces in America's most devisive conflict. Recent history has once again shown us that, although the Commander-in-Chief of one side may declare military triumph and "Mission Accomplished," it is always the losers -- and the losers alone -- who can actually declare when a war is over. Because it's not over until they stop fighting back. Indeed, the apparently defeated may continue their battles indefinitely using unconventional methods, and beyond the officially delineated battlefields. In speculating about a Confederate victory, "CSA" begins to question (as anyone who is at all familiar with the Southeastern Red States probably has) whether, in fact, the American Civil War is truly over, and whether the people of the South (many still as bitter as if General Lee had surrendered yesterday) consider themselves not only the victims of unjustified Union oppression, but (paradoxically) the true political/cultural victors. They may have lost the battle in 1865, but did they win the war in the long run?

More: http://www.csathemovie.com/

the film assumes that slavery has continued and slaves are now sold on the home shopping channel and the internet. As a believer in the essential goodness of humanity and evolution of human behavior to realize the wrongs of the past, I don't think that a triumphant CSA would have continued slavery into the twentieth century, much less into the twenty-first. I think that slavery would have died out for a combination of reasons, some economic, some altruistic. With no imposition of a harsh Reconstruction on a conquered South, no carpetbaggers or scalawags, none of the elevation of blacks to Southern Congressional seats and government jobs at the expense of whites, with the intent of sticking it to white Southerners, I think we'd have had less racism in the South. The victorious Union, like many victorious nations, wanted to punish the people who fought them and sometimes they used blacks (by giving them government jobs in the South, for example) to punish the white Southerners.

Whites in the South would surely have adapted more easily to the abolition of slavery if they had been part of making that choice rather than having it imposed upon them. I also think a gradual abolition, rather than the sudden freeing of all slaves at once, would have eased the tensions, eliminating fears of a large and suddenly free black population. So, while I'm interested in this film, I'd like to see another one exploring "what if?" the CSA had won but freed its slaves within the next twenty or thirty years. Also assume that neither country occupied the other's territory after the USA surrendered. Under those circumstances, how different would the USA and CSA be today? What sort of trade and diplomatic relationships would they have?

the civil war thought slavery was part of their own essential "southern-ness." seems to me like any attempt by a southern politician who wanted to end slavery would be acused of being a Northerner.

Also, people keep talking about "economic" reasons for slavery ending... but I don't see them. I guess it's referring to the industrial revolution, but industry was already entrenched in the North and was making small inroads to the South and I don't recall any slave owners setting theirs free because they're being outperformed by machines.

I guess what I'm saying, is, that since the South for the most part rejected the industrial revolution because it threatened their social structure (ie, slave owning whites > tiny middle class whites > lower class whites > all slaves) while they still had slaves, actually achieving independence and maintaning slavery wouldn't have changed much, and you'd have a virtual "Japan effect," meaning, similar to the way Japan rejected firearms because those changed the face of warfare and threatened the Samuri class, they rejected other inventions they thought to be foreign and thus lagged significantly behind those countries with firearms.

Now I'm babbling. Let's just say that even if the South had won their independence (remember, they were outnumbered by like 5 to one by Northerners), border friction would probably restart the conflict every twenty years.

Jefferson Davis did propose Emancipation of Slaves in 1864 in order to attract support of Great Britain and France. Also, the Confederate Secretary of State made an offer sometime in 1865 of freedom to any slave who enlisted in the Army.


L-

But here is a link which does discuss this.

One person they do not mention though is Patrick Cleburne, a CSA General who also advocated for the arming and freeing of slaves.

http://www.37thtexas.org/html/BlkHist.html

The guy who maintains that website is, well, not all there.

It's a long story, so I'll just summarize.

When he first put his site online dealing with Terrel's Cavalry, a friend of mine, a professor at the University of Alabama, who is an expert on Texas cavalry was intrigued as he'd not researched this particular regiment. When all was said and done, he was unable to identify any free Blacks associated with this regiment.

He tried to engage Mr. Kelley in a discussion of the regiment, what he sources of information were, etc. Mr. Kelley became shrill and was unwilling to allow anyone else to investigate his sources. This was, perhaps, because he mentioned one very old book to my friend who just happened to have access to it and read it. It did not contain any of the information Mr. Kelley said it did.

This says nothing about Cleburne, but I thought I'd mention it.

But the fact remains that several significant Confederate leaders did broker the idea of Freedom for military service.

http://www.civilwarhome.com/benjaminbio.htm



http://www.thewildgeese.com/pages/clebprop.html

Several prominent Confederate leaders played with the idea of arming slaves for two or three years and finally, when the Union army was at the gates of Richmond and the Confederate armies were crumbling, over strenuous, scathing objections, the Confederate Congress agreed to do so provided no explicit grant of freedom was mentioned in the law authorizing such use.

In objecting to the proposal, Howell Cobb famously said, "If slaves will make good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong."

One company paraded in the streets of Richmond. It never saw battle.

Cleburne and a few others were the extreme exception to the rule.

As an aside, I take issue with the notion that Jefferson Davis was in any sense "enlightened" on the subject of slavery. He's known for treating his own slaves rather well by the standards of the day, by which I am referring to his house slaves, but the bottom line is that they remained slaves, and Davis never had a single inclination to free them. Furthermore, some of those slaves worked as spies for the Union while in Davis' service, telling us pretty much all we need to know about what the enslaved thought of Davis' so-called enlightenment.

I'd say pretty much the same about Lee. His supposed opposition to slavery is little more than a fanciful myth. He resisted as much as anyone else the notion of arming slaves, until his manpower issues were so extreme that he was forced to consider the most radical options else admit defeat. Even then, he and other officers maintained that enslaved soldiers would be used primarily to fight black Union soldiers, an endeavor many Confederate soldiers felt was beneath them.

And I pointed out that there were indeed Southerners who raised this issue and whose loyalty were not seriously impugned. Though I do grant that General Cleburne lost any chance for advancement remaining a division commander fated to die in the Battle of Nashville.

As for your point of Jefferson Davis or Robert E. Lee being "enlightened", you are correct - they were not "enlightened". That was not the thesis of my argument.

I would lump them into the category of "pragmatic" in their support. Davis would have supported it only to the extent necessary to garner recognition and ultimately support from either Britain or France. Lee recognized the need for the troops in his organization. But in a similar vein, you could make a case that Lincoln was a "pragmatist" and far from "enlightened". My standard for "enlightened", especially for a politician, is probably closer to the post-Presidential works of John Quincy Adams.

Okay. I wasn't certain to which part of the post you were originally replying, but I'm not sure how your point counters it.

Patrick Cleburne was most definitely subjected to vicious attacks on his character for even suggesting the idea. Others fared better or worse depending on the circumstances, i.e. those most commonly associated with giving their tepid support to the notion of *arming slaves* were from areas hard-pressed by Union forces. They were out of options, and their friends and neighbors who were in the same situation were apt to agree, sometimes. Others argued that to arm a slave in the presence of Union solders was asking to be murdered.

Furthermore, the proposal was never, in any form, one for general emancipation, and the original point was centered on the possibility of eventual emancipation all across the Confederacy, not limited, possible emancipation to a very few. In fact, legally the law cited here in relation to potential emancipation did nothing but authorize the recruitment of soldiers "irrespective of color." Some slaveholders took it upon themselves to offer or sometimes suggest the possibility of emancipation in exchange for service, but in several of the Confederate states this was in fact illegal and thus a vaporous promise, which no doubt some slaveholders knew quite well.

In short, the subject of arming slaves is being conflated with the subject of emancipation. The two subjects were discussed by some in relation to each other by those in the Confederacy, but as was stated in the original point, slavery was considered a part of the Confederacy's "essential Southernness." The fact that emancipation never made it to the point of being enacted legally despite a compelling reason to do so underscores that notion rather than refutes it.

is that a system of paid and gradual manumission would have been instituted by the CSA's second president, Robert Lee.

I think he would have had the power to do it, and he certainly had the boldness to do it.

There's no way that slavery would continue today. It would have ended about the same time Brazil ended its system.

I'm pretty sure that Lee would have realized working out an orderly procedure for the system to end would have been his duty, and he would have done it.

In a victorious CSA, President Lee would have gotten what he wanted.

Lee believed (and stated) that slavery was the best possible relationship between the white and black races if they were to occupy the same continent. He felt it would eventually end, but that it was not man's duty to end it, but God's. God would end slavery in His own good time.

I don't see a lot of urgency to end slavery in Lee's lifetime in any of his writings or words. Furthermore, Lee avoided politics in most of its forms, so I am not even sure he would have run for President.

When musing about the end of slavery without war in the US while comparing it to its end in other places, we also must consider the influence the end of slavery in the US in reality had on those places. The end of slavery in Brazil, which you mentioned, was influenced by the end of slavery in the US. It's not a direct relationship that can be easily measured, but the relationship clearly exists.

But since political parties hadn't developed yet, and wouldn't have time to before the 1867 election, I think Lee would have been the default choice of the leadership since Davis couldn't run for reelection, and the voters since probably half the voters in the entire nation would have served under his victorious leadership. Looking at his famous almost relative George Washington, I don't think he would have run away from the task.

As far as urgency, I also agree.

I wouldn't expect anything urgent, but at the same time, I think there would be a recognition that something would have to be done. The CSA couldn't be a recognized and leading nation of the western world without some goal to get rid of slavery.

There would also be the problem of large parts of the nation which had been occupied for years before the victory, in New Orleans for instance or Norfalk or the North Carolina coastal region to name a few. It wouldn't be easy to go back to the old ways.

Anyway, my guess, and of course it's just a guess is that Lee would have seen it in the country's interest to set up some organized system of ending slavery.

Perhaps a date after which anyone born would become free on their 18th birthday, or a purchased gradual manumission with the money largely coming from the north.

Anyway, that's my guess.

I certainly don't see a scenario where slavery would continue to the year 2005.

First of all, political parties were well developed by 1867, so I'm not sure where that even comes from. The apparent lack of defined political parties in the South after the Civil War was due primarily to the result of the war itself. (In addition, the idea that organized political division didn't exist in reality is a myth, but that's a different subject.) Had that result been different, no reason exists to think that the old political divisions that had moved Southern politics prior to and during the 1860's would have been present in full force after that time.

As for the eventual end of slavery, I think I understand where this optimistic view of history originates, this idea that such a horrible institution couldn't possibly have continued into our modern, enlightened era. The so-called "progressive" school of historical thought sees all things as occurring according to a natural and positive progression of human development. This is the basis of much of American history as it is taught in our schools.

So, your opinion in understandable in that context.

What is not so understandable, to me, is why people who are able and willing to open their eyes to the world as it currently exists hold on to this optimistic view of who we are as a nation. It borders on a matter of faith that of course we would do the right thing eventually. How do we know that? Why do we assume it? Have we always done the right thing? Are we doing it now?

Slavery's younger cousin, sharecropping and the black codes, maintained itself well into the 20th century. When the economic incentive to maintain this institution faltered, the social system faltered as well and opened up an avenue for change. Until that time, without a war to enforce it, how would the history of slavery had been any different? Because we're the good guys? I hardly see it that way.

Slavery may well have ended by the 1940's due to the likelihood that it would no longer serve the economic interest it did. Although, we could quite easily imagine that along with slavery's demise came American gas chambers and rifle pits to rid ourselves of this no-longer-needed bit of "property."

Finally, let me be blunt about Lee. He didn't like black people and scarcely saw them as people at all. He was no more enlightened on racial matters than the people who terrorized blacks all across the country for a good century after the end of the Civil War. Indeed, in our real time-line, when he did lend his voice to politics, it was explicitly against any and all measures being taken to dismantle the slave system.

The sort of behavior in which those who terrorized blacks engaged -- burning, hanging, raping -- was beneath him personally as a "gentleman," but the behavior itself was not something he discouraged in those for whom such behavior was expected, those beneath him on the social scale. He in fact refused, directly, to discourage it both before, during, and after the war. Read some of the stories of what happened among Pickett's Division during the Gettysburg campaign prior to the battle, things that Lee fully sanctioned involving kidnapping blacks and selling them into slavery, killing them and their families if they resisted, and killing anyone else who tried to prevent what they were doing. Also read about the post-war meeting among former Union and Confederate leaders at White Sulphur Springs. The latter might shed some light on where Lee's political notions would have led, and it certainly does not given any credence to the idea that he would have worked on any level to dismantle the slave system.

parties in the CSA during the war or not? I'm even more confused than usual?

Yes I do understand that there were political parties fighting each other in elections in the USA at the time. And in England too, but what that would have to do with Lee getting elected President of the CSA I know not.

My contention is that there were not. While they would doubtless develop, I don't think there would be time between the end of the war and the 1867 Presidential election. Therefore, the candidate was likely to be a consensus pick well known and acceptable to the leadership and the masses. He would probably have been hand0-picked by President Davis himself. Who could that possibly be other than Lee?

No, clearly defined political parties had not developed as such in the CSA. I was not aware you were referring to the CSA alone. The phrasing was a little unclear, but perhaps I should have assumed this was the basis of your comment.

In any case, the lack of organized political parties did not equate to a lack of organized political division. (I now see that my comment saying this was a different subject wasn't.) Just in the Confederate Congress, political division was vicious and the coalitions fairly well defined. One problem the CSA government had throughout the war was coming to a consensus on anything, which often led Davis as President to throw aside the so-called states' rights doctrine entirely and impose his will in almost a dictatorial manner. This division was so bad that states within the CSA were already practicing de facto secession from the CSA itself. (This is a different subject. I personally do not believe the government was stable enough to survive a decade, if that.)

George Rable's _The Confederate Republic: A Revolution Against Politics_ gives a detailed analysis of the contrasts between the declared "nonpartisan" nature of Confederate politics and the practical application of political mechanisms in the Confederacy.

On the subject of Lee, before one could start an argument concluding that he would be chosen as Confederate President after Davis, one would first have to determine the circumstances of a Confederate victory. This, in fact, is where it gets extremely complicated.

Lee's fame and status in Southern mythology only truly took root after his death through the machinations of several former Confederate officers and politicians, most of whom had fought under him in the Virginia theater of the war. (See _Marble Man_ by Thomas Connelly for an overview.) He was well-known, naturally, but by mid-1863, was not exactly popular anywhere outside of Richmond and the surrounding areas. Prior to 1863, he was greeting as a mixed blessing. He'd saved Richmond but was also leading Confederate soldiers into battles with horrific casualties, using the Virginia and North Carolina countryside as supply source for his army while citizens across the Confederacy began suffering food shortages. After Gettysburg, he was the subject of scathing criticism.

The rest of the Confederacy was meanwhile becoming vastly irritated at the so-called Virginia bias within the army specifically and the allocation of resources generally. The situation was so bad in late 1863 that Jefferson Davis was urged to make a trip out West to try to calm the fears of prominent citizens of the Confederacy that they had been forgotten and left to the boots of Federal soldiers. His trip didn't do a lot of good and in many ways made things worse.

And so, we have the question of how the Confederacy wins. If they win in 1862, as many of the more reasonable counter-factual scenarios suggest, Lee is a hero of a battle in the East at the same time General Bragg or Beauregard or AS Johnston, depending on when this all happens, are heroes out West. When the time comes to choose a new President, 5 years later, does this matter, and doesn't it give organized political parties plenty of time to develop? Remember that the Republicans alone went from nearly dead on the heals of a failed election to the most powerful political party in the nation in the space of four years, just a little over two in reality.

If the Confederate victory happens in 1863 or later, how does it happen? Is it with or without Gettysburg. If the former, what do we make of what takes place in Mississippi? Is Vicksburg reversed as well? If not, and if the peace terms effectively reverse the military decision, are Westerners thankful or bitter toward the focus being placed on Virginia? If the Union victory at Vicksburg stands, then Texas and most the Mississippi Valley goes to the Union, how do Confederate power-brokers in the position of making these sorts of decisions see Lee's victory, and is their vision of it such that they see him as a savior?

Of course I don't expect answers to all these questions. I ask them merely to point out that the choice of Lee as President is not as clear as you seem to believe it would be.

Taking things in order and risking confusion.

If the war ended in 1862, say with the ANV routing the AOP at Second Manassas and following it right into Washington, then Lee would have been an even bigger hero than he was. If that had happened, anything that would have happened around Memphis would have shrunk to an afterthought.

I think the most likely scenario for Confederate victory was in 1864. After the tremendous successes of early 1864 in Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana and finally North Carolina, the war didn't look too bad for the CSA. In fact it was at this point, with the Red River Campaign a failure, reports of Fort Pillow reaching the north and then the surrender of the entire garrison of New Bern that Lincoln reportedly told his cabinet that he would likely not be reelected.

What if Johnston had done a better job holding Sherman up in the mountains of northern Georgia? With Grant stalled in front of Petersburg and Sherman stuck in the mountains with winter approaching, it's entirely likely that Lincoln loses his presidency and a Democratic takeover leads to a negotiated peace.

Here's a what if to ponder. What if Lee and Johnston had traded commands in early 64. That's what Longstreet was lobbying for while in eastern Tennessee. Would Lee's hard hitting style have maybe caught part of Sherman's army while it was separated from the rest trying to cross a mountain pass in northern Georgia? Would Johnston's mastery of fixed defensive lines but timidity of offense have served him better on the defensive in front of Richmond? Just a what if I've always pondered.

Anyway, to me that's the CSA's most likely path to independance once the fighting started.

PS - did you know one of Longstreet's few key staff members who served with him throughout the entire war was a certain Colonel Payton Manning? I figure it's got to be the same family. How many Payton Mannings can there be? There's a scene in Longstreet's memoirs where a cannon exploded above the staff at Chickamagua, and they thought Manning was writhing in his death throes, but he actually swallowed some food when the shot exploded and was choking on it. Laughs for everyone at the guy's troubles.

Back to your post.

I think Lee was more popular than you say. After the Seven Days, Second Manassas, Fredricksburg, the surrender of Harper's Ferry, Sharpsburg and especially Chancellorsville, I think his stock was pretty high. By then he had faced McClellan, Pope, McClellan again, Burnside and Hooker. When reading about Lee, I'm amazed that in an army and government full of backbiting and rife with petty disputes (again read Longstreet's memoirs to be amazed at how much crap he had time to be offended over), General Lee was respected by the soldiers and generals below him and the government above him.

As Former Governor and General Wise said late in the war, "You are the country to these men General Lee."

I also think more highly of Davis' leadership than most historians. For sure he faced severe tests.Governor Brown could only be called 'occasionally helpful,' if you were charitable. Governor Vance was a pain, but was loyal to the cause. The country was based on the idea of powerful states, and his armies were full of jeolosies and other such nonsense. The number of key commanders who were relieved of commands because of feuds with their superiors is pitiful and often at key times. It was up to Davis and Lee to smooth out the egos where needed as AP Hill feuded with Jackson and then Hood was arrested before Sharpsburg, and then McClaws was relieved in Tennessee as was Law. Davis had to find a way to restore the people to their commands without feelings being hurt.

Through it all, Davis travelled very frequesntly to see his soldiers and civilians in person. In fact he travelled much more than Lincoln did under much more difficult logistics. He also travelled to places where the morale was worst. He went to Atlanta after it was burned. He went to Mobile, he two years in a row visited the AOT.

When the country was separated in two the three separated states fought on with as much effort as they made before Vicksburg.

I give Davis credit for holding the country together as long as he did and keeping it fighting until there was nothing left to fight with. Not to say he didn't make mistakes. Who doesn't, but I don't see who would have done a better job as CSA President, and I certainly don't think anyone would have done a better job in charge of the ANV than Lee.

Anyway, that's my whatiffing for the night.

Not to pick nits, but in Burke Davis' book "To Appomattox," he quotes a diary of a soldier who talks of seeing a remarkable thing on the nine day flight from Richmond to Appomattox.

On the retreat he came upon a group of African-American Confedearte soldiers guarding a group of wagons which were trying to keep up with the army. He said he saw a troop of federal cavalry form up and attack the wagons. The guard formed a line and fought off the cavalry, but in a larger more determined charge, the cavalry later swept the guard aside and captured most of the soldiers and their wagons.

So, hardly a battle, but whatever you call it, skirmish or engagement, at least this group of African-American Confedeartes did see battle. I'd guess they probabaly were the same ones tht were paraded in Richmond before the city fell.

The vignette can be found on page 176 of the softcover edition.

The company of soldiers that had been officially mustered into Confederate service never saw a single minute of battle. This is documented fact.

That said, thousands (possibly tens of thousands) of African Americans saw battle from the Confederate side of the battle lines. And, there are many reports mentioning them.

Almost all of them were slaves. (Researchers have been able to clearly document less than a dozen actual African American soldiers in the Confederate army, some of whom "passed" as white.) From early in the war, the Confederate armies received sanction to impress or otherwise acquire the labor of slaves for a number of tasks that would free up white men for fighting. In addition, during the Gettysburg and Sharpsburg campaigns, elements of Lee's army kidnapped free blacks and escaped slaves in Maryland and Pennsylvania and sent them South into slavery. These columns of "contraband" were witnessed by many being led South during the army's retreat.

Union men who observed this phenomenon sometimes mistakenly believed they were seeing soldiers because some were armed; others were in the line of fire serving their owners in whatever capacity they'd been ordered or "volunteered" to do. They were not soldiers in any meaningful sense of the word, and they certainly were not recognized as soldiers by the Confederate government. You can also find an infamous story about Stonewall Jackson's African American brigade from a similar source, the diary of a soldier. What that soldier saw was blacks serving as cooks, teamsters, musicians, and in other similar capacities. They were not soldiers.

Clearly these black Confederates were in danger, and clearly many were courageous beyond all reason. The point, however, is what the Confederate government thought of them, and that government did not see them or treat them as soldiers.

"RM Doswell, a Virginia private, was on the muddy road with a dispatch when he saw a wagon train under the guard of Confederate Negro troops. "A singular sight to me," Doswell wrote.
The wagons were halted, and in the rear, no more than a hundred yards away, a Federal cavalry regiment was forming for a charge. The bluecoats fell into line on a hillside and galloped down on the wagons. The Negroes fired rapidly and drove them off.
While Doswell stared in admiration at the colored troops, the Union cavalry wheeled back into sight, this time in a determined charge that broke up the train and turned the vehicles from the road. The Negro soldiers were quickly captured."

Make of it what you like.

Seems like just an interesting little vignette at the very close of a giant war to me. Maybe it's all just a big lie or a conspiracy. Maybe it was just armed teamsters who had a pretty good amount of fight left in them at that late date. I'm sure there were many times during the war that A-A teamsters fought off some cavalry patrols. It does talk about the wagons running from the roads which implies the drivers were in the wagons and therefore not these guys.

Anyway, make of it as you will.

To me it qualifies as African American soldiers fighting for the Confederacy in this one small incident.

In the context of this larger discussion, how it qualifies to you personally is irrelevant. I made my comment about the bravery of these men and the dangers they faced deliberately. How *we* see them is one thing. How the Confederate government saw them is quite another, and that view is the basis of the discussion to which you originally replied.

The suggestion was made that the Confederate government had at least toyed with the idea of offering freedom to slaves for service with the Confederate army. My replies to this are based on the fact that no such program ever materialized officially and that the Confederate government as a whole was so dead-set on defending its "theory of slavery" that it would see its nation destroyed rather than change of its own will.

This is one, among many, of the ironies of the short life of the government that called itself the Confederate States of America. It had many, many opportunities to prove that it was fighting for something other than to maintain its economic and social system based on exploiting race-based slave labor. In each and every case, it refused to do that and in consequence itself sowed the seeds of the destruction of the system.

The bit about Davis is a bit of misinformation that certain historians have, for whatever reason, accepted uncritically. No one has been able to find any document positively stating he made any such noises. Give his known thoughts on the subject of emancipation, it is unlikely he ever even had the thought, much less voiced or printed it. In fact, when late in the war Lee reluctantly and belatedly suggested the possibility of arming slaves -- without mentioning freeing them for the service -- Davis was appalled at the thought but eventually agreed to it under very strict conditions.

As for the offer of freedom, the Confederate government had no authority for such, per their Constitution. There was a suggestion made a couple months before Lee's surrender that slave owners offer a grant of freedom for service, and *some* slave owners did so. But, they were not compelled by any law to do so. In all, a company or two were mustered into Confederate service based on this promise from slave owners.

There is a compelling discussing of this in the early chapters of _Been in the Storm So Long_ by Leon Litwack.

would have been over by the 1880's regardless of the outcome of the Civil War. It would become cheaper to use machinery rather than slaves, and to think that it would continue until today is just ridiculous.

Slavery, like civil rights later, was primarily about Southerners not wanting those assholes up north telling them what to do and to just leave them alone. There was no slave agenda, and in all likelihood, once it became economically (and politically) unfeasible, a lot of former slaves probably would have just been shipped back to Africa or allowed to go up north.

Japan did not "reject firearms," the samurai class did because it threatened their power. Contrary to what Hollywood thinks, by the early 1800's the samurai were hated by most everyone else, which is what eventually led to the Meiji Restoration in the second half of the century.

Unfortunately, the persistence of sharecropping belies the notion that machinery replaced the economic incentives of slavery any time in the 19th century. It was not until the 1920's, 30's, and 40's that machinery truly began to replace the need for a large, human labor force to work the fields in the South.

There's much more one could say on this, but I'll leave it at that for the moment.

Regarding the "slave agenda," by which I assume you mean the slaveholders' agenda, said agenda was most certainly a reality. It existed on several levels, primarily economic and social. As a simplified explanation, an enormous percentage of the South's wealth was in the form of human property, the loss of which, even without he wholesale destruction of large swaths of the South's already fragile infrastructure, would have destroyed the Southern economy. There was no easy path to emancipation from an economic standpoint save outright dollar for dollar compensation of slaveholders' assets. As it turned out, this sum would have been cheaper than the Civil War itself, but few foresaw that, and fewer still were willing to entertain the idea.

Probably more importantly, slavery formed the core of a unique social system that the slave-holding class used to exploit both black labor and the poor white classes. That is, it was a method of control for both the human property and the "white trash" of the South. This system was so entrenched it didn't end with abolition, although it took some creative playing with the laws, divisive political skills, and the willingness of a federal government to look the other way to maintain it in slavery's absence. The Populists, for example, were eventually rendered ineffectual due to the exploitation of this social system, which decreed that no matter how bad a white person's lot in life, at least he was better than a slave (black person) and so should not "rock the boat" and demand change. Whites were all too willing to sacrifice their own labor rights in favor of maintaining the racist social system.

I'll leave the discussion of Japan for another time.

slavery. The goal straight off, was to shock the North to an extent where the CSA would win their independence as quickly as possible. The biggest problem was Britian and France, without their support and recognition, the CSA could not gain legitimacy as a soveriegn nation. The biggest customers of Southern Cotton was not going to support them for one reason, Slavery, Britian abolished it years before, and I don't even remember the last time France had slaves in its colonies at that time.

If the South was able to hold off the Union a little longer, they probably would have traded slavery for political recognition, because they knew a protracted war with the Union would be disasterous for them. With the two Superpowers of the time pressuring the United States to give the CSA its soveriegnity, the United States wouldn't have had much choice. The CSA most likely would have started a program of gradual emancipation over a period of 20 years or so. Though I strongly doubt they would be enlightened about it, at most blacks would be relegated to the status of residents of the country, not citizens, with restricted movement and freedom. As long as they aren't outright owned by anyone, France and Britian wouldn't have cared, and neither would most of the United States at the time.

Not to mention that even though they would be a new nation, recognized by even the United States, doesn't ensure peace between them. For one, the CSA would be sorely lacking in industrial might, and could not rely on outside support indefinately, so they would have to industrialize to some extent, that would have weakened slavery right there. So no, slavery would not have survived for long in the CSA if they gained their independence, it would have been a combination of fear of becoming a pariah state worldwide and competeing with the United States in industry and arms that would have ensured Slavery's doom. It wouldn't have become a paradise of enlightened thought by any means, instead it would have resembled more like South Africa during Aparthied in how it treated blacks.

If the CSA and USA existed next to each other today, I don't think life would be that different.

Instead of Canada and the US being friendly democracies, there'd be three.

The US is much stronger than Canada, it would be stronger than the CSA too.

I think trade would be heavy, foreign affairs would be close.

The CSA would be a regional power, maybe as strong as France, and would be aimed toward the Caribbean. New Orleans would be a world trade center for the Caribbean and South America.

I really don't think the world would be that different overall.

as a Virginian, I'm cringing.... if this sort of movie gathers steam...

I won't give my dollar towards a movie glorifying the greatest treason ever wrought against the U.S.

from the description it looks like the "CSA" is in for a roasting..

http://www.reel.com/movie.asp?MID=138890&Tab=reviews&CID=13

on further reading, it was written by an African-American.

blood we ever spilled, our own.

It was the cover shot for the book.

written by author Harry Turtledove called The Guns of the South that is about this very theme.

Here's a synopsis: January 1864--General Robert E. Lee faces defeat. The Army of Northern Virginia is ragged and ill-equipped. Gettysburg has broken the back of the Confederacy and decimated its manpower.

Then Andries Rhoodie, a strange, man with an unplaceable accent approaches Lee with an extraordinary offer. Rhoodie demonstrates an amazing rifle: its rate of fire is incredible, its lethal efficiency breathtaking--and Rhoodie guarantees unlimited quantities to the Confederates.

The name of the weapon is the AK-47...

The book is extremely entertaining. Plus it gives an interesting look at what the CSA would look like after they won the war.

Check it out. I guarantee you'll enjoy it.

My favorite Turtledove book.

I think his after Civil War series that followed it were among his weakest efforts though.

For a series I like his World War II series best, but for a single book, no question, Guns of the South.

Regarding the post-Civil War series he's currently doing, I rather like it, mostly because its plot doesn't revolve around an ex deus machina mechanism.

Also, the recent books are in various ways an indictment of what's taking place in this country today. Jake Featherston's "Freedom Party" and the shouts of "Freedom!" hit quite close to home with the more radical elements of the modern Republicans.

up on it because I think somewhere in the third book, he decided to screw the story and just try out some of his social ideas.

What if I did a Hitler story, I could see him saying. I'll make them the Nazis, yup, there's the corporal - he'll be Hitler alright. Oh yeah, Lincoln will be the socialist, the slave revolt will be communists -- gotta have Jews.

I think he lost his story and went a different direction.

As a loyal reader of is, I felt like he took advantage of me. It all seemed pretty masturbatory to me if that makes any sense.

It seemed he was just indulging his own thoughts without following a well planned out story.

That probably sounds stupid, but that's the way I felt while I was reading it. I gave up on the series and I'm a very loyal reader of his.

Now the WWII series has been great in my opinion, and the ending paragraph of this last book was about as clever as any book I've ever read. Though come to think of it, Turtledove was stroking himself there too.

Hmmm.

I think you're right about that, in that I believe it was his intention from the beginning to suggest that had the Civil War gone the other way, the potential existed in America for a Hitler type to rise to power somewhere here. The way he did that strains some logic, and perhaps he gets a bit too cutesy with the historical analogies, even to the extent of making Featherston Freedom Party member #7.

I did a semi-formal review some time ago of _How Few Remain_, the prequel to the series, and I indicated a number of problems with it. Lincoln as a socialist strikes me as completely wrong, and from military perspective, the battle of the Ohio, or whatever it was called, involving "Stonewall" Jackson was really rather amateurishly put together. The stalemate hinges on the inability of the armies to maneuver, a foreshadowing of WWI, yet somehow that goes out the window in the final pages as Jackson miraculously discovers the ability to maneuver. Jackson's meeting with Frederick Douglas, while having the potential to be poignant, wasn't done well either I don't think. It was only there to show where things would be going.

That was really my problem with it. He essentially telegraphs the entire major plot of what has come since, but with that in mind I don't think it's fair to say it wasn't thought out. He intended this from the beginning.

And, having said all that, I still find it entertaining mind candy. I won't claim it is excellent or try to persuade you from your opinion of it. To each his own. At least I think we can agree on _Guns of the South_.

Harry Turtledove's Guns of the South and his alternate-history "American Front" series about the US fighting the Confederates during World War One are different stories--the authro said so.

I gave a passing glance at a Civil War history that included a Confederate constitution. While many of us know that the Confederate Constitution protected slavery and opposed tariffs, it also gave a number of powers to the Confederate government that did not appear in the US Constitution. Many of those powers are the ones that "fibbertarians" and "strict constructionists" want stripped from our US federal government in order to fulfill their political fantasies.

The fact that so many Southerners were already skeptical about the tenets of "strict constructionism" back in the early 1860's might make a useful bludgeon to use on twenty-first century "fibbertarians" in these times.

Which powers are you referring to?