Impact of Losing the Civil War on US Race Relations

[Andre Bolkonsky]

Basically a country is not recovering easily from a civil war and even at worst, that Mexico loses a battle largely at the beginning of the war would be enough for the country to question itself (Sorry English is not my first language and I have trouble sometimes with)

Thanks, I understand the second half of it now. But which country are your referring to with "recovering from civil war"? Mexico or USA?

General tip: Write shorter English sentences. In fact write them much shorter than you would in your native language. That will make what you write easier to understand.

I also did not understand you at first, Vaan.

Jodel is exactly correct. Shorter sentences. Easier to understand. As you practice, it gets much easier.

 

[vaan24]

I was talking about USA for the "recovering from civil war"

Tip: The problem of the French language tends to make long sentences in writing where English is more "direct"

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

I was talking about USA for the "recovering from civil war"

Tip: The problem of the French language tends to make long sentences in writing where English is more "direct"

Oui.

English tends to be small phrases, cunningly arranged, yielding very long sentences in many cases.

Back to topic:

Yes, assuming there is a CSA and and USA, there will be a period of debate over who has territorial rights to what.

What neither side will permit is a third party. Mexico would get slapped down hard by both sides if they attempted to cross the border. Of course, the Mexican Army is afraid of the Apaches, so they're content to stay where they are.

And, unless I'm sadly mistaken, Mexico and Cuba would be part of the CSA by the turn of the century.

 

[vaan24]

For Mexico, I doubt it, the European powers would not let that happen given the interests of France in this country.

And for Cuba (Spanish colony at the time), it is quite possible considering the situation of Spain at the time.

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

For Mexico, I doubt it, the European powers would not let that happen given the interests of France in this country.

And for Cuba (Spanish colony at the time), it is quite possible considering the situation of Spain at the time.

All it took for Louis-Napoleon to withdraw to Paris was the presence of Bill Sherman with 50,000 picked troops demonstrating on the Mexican American border. So I don't think anyone in North America is trembling at the sight of the Tricolor at this point. If that was NB Forrest with 50,000 troops coming across the border, they would sail away even faster.

And Spain? Thanks for the chuckle.

 

[HuzzButt]

Draws parallels to the saying "Europe can never forget the Jews for the holocaust". From skirt length to "not adhering to ones station in life" victim blaming is well established concept in psychology and sociology. Blaming the black minority for their misfortunes is already an established narrative in the American mind. Winning or loosing the Civil War doesn't necessarily change the prevailing White narrative about the blacks. The US would have been subject to the same type of pandering politics as it was in our Universe but without the influx of free black individuals. There would be no reason to, over the coming decades to pander to the black minority or the white minority fears for the black minority. Whether that's a good or bad thing is secondary to it not being a thing. Besides, even with the influx of blacks whom were easy to distinguish and estrange yourself from there was a much more pressing issue with the shifty Mediterraneans, Jews and Irish who posed a far more insidious threat by being indistinguishable from white people on the outside, but with souls led astray on the inside.

 

[keynes2.0]

The US would have been subject to the same type of pandering politics

That is categorically false because the people who pushed those politics would all be outside the country.

There is this great myth of american history that racism and race baiting politics just fell from the sky and came out of nothing. It is absurd. It's extensively documented how violent terrorism and political suppression created these political movements. Saying that the United States would still have politicalized racism without the south is like saying that the Roman Empire would have still had invasions without the barbarians or Europe would have had WWII without the Nazi's.

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

That is categorically false because the people who pushed those politics would all be outside the country.

There is this great myth of american history that racism and race baiting politics just fell from the sky and came out of nothing. It is absurd. It's extensively documented how violent terrorism and political suppression created these political movements. Saying that the United States would still have politicalized racism without the south is like saying that the Roman Empire would have still had invasions without the barbarians or Europe would have had WWII without the Nazi's.

Because the only nation in the entire history of the world to ever show a racist card is the United States.

Can we get a couple of Indians or a few South Africans in here to discuss British attitudes to race relations during the 19th Century, please?

 

[HuzzButt]

That is categorically false because the people who pushed those politics would all be outside the country.

There is this great myth of american history that racism and race baiting politics just fell from the sky and came out of nothing. It is absurd. It's extensively documented how violent terrorism and political suppression created these political movements. Saying that the United States would still have politicalized racism without the south is like saying that the Roman Empire would have still had invasions without the barbarians or Europe would have had WWII without the Nazi's.

I'm inclined to believe that the Protestant supremacists would not have emigrated to the south.

 

[Kovax]

The remaining United States would most likely have its black population continue to gradually assimilate culturally, and the existing racial and cultural divisions and animosities probably wouldn't exist to any significant degree. Basically, without the Reconstruction period, and the last vestiges of slavery in the north allowed to either die of more natural causes or be settled under more amicable terms than gunpoint, the polarized opposite extreme views wouldn't have developed and entrenched so heavily. Race probably wouldn't continue to be a significant issue past around WWI, in the same manner that it's not one today in Europe.

The CSA, however, would further ingrain its beliefs and legislate them into stone, leading to a long-term continuation of all of the inherent problems long after the rest of the world had moved on. This would continue to be a sticking point for any renewal of relations between north and south, and possibly the fuel waiting for a spark to ignite a second conflict. In that potential situation, unless the south had made large scale purchases of armaments and materials despite nearly world-wide condemnation (as an agricultural economy, it wasn't in a good position to industrialize on its own), the north would be in relatively even better shape than the first time around. The early southern victories in ACW I, before the far greater northern economic muscle historically tipped the balance the opposite way, wouldn't happen the second time around (ACW II) against a better prepared north facing obsolete southern equipment left over from the first war (much of which was produced in the north before that war).

 

[Yakman]

Decades after the civil war, southern organizations like the daughters of the confederacy started a massive propaganda effort to whitewash the southern cause and make slavery seem like a benign institution. This came after southern terrorists had been successful at forcing federal troops to leave the south in the late 1870s so that they could go around murdering any black people who tried to organize themselves politically. Racism was a political tool, by pushing racist narratives they could promote a political agenda at home and by promoting those views around the country they could avoid a backlash for making a farce of democracy. It was not inevitable that this campaign of organized racism would win, occasionally white populists in the south tried to ally themselves with black people. They failed because of the effectiveness of the campaign to disenfranchise the blacks but it wasn't a foregone conclusion that they would fail.

If the CSA had survived, it would have continued to practice chattel slavery for decades, well into the era of photography and the explosion of newspaper correspondents. Their efforts to depict slavery as a benevolent institution would have been as hollow as the Soviet efforts to claim their workers were more free then american workers. Just like the anti-communists used images of soviet breadlines, the anti-racists would use images of confederate chain gangs. The desire for magnanimity towards one's countrymen that gave tolerance to confederate apologists would have been completely absent. Black people from the south would be known as refugees, not fugitives. And while race relations in the north were never good before the civil war, they were certainly far less racist then the south. Things would have certainly been far more progressive.

Yup. And the abolitionists are still there in the North, screaming about "why didn't you arm the negro?!" and there's no southern votes that need a winning in the midterms, so no need to look the other way about what's going on in Louisiana.

I suspect that as the North continued to develop apace that there would have been continued conflict with the south over the issue of runaway slaves and northern reporting on the slavery question. it's easy to see a "remember the Maine" moment when some journalist from New York City is strung up by a lynchmob provoking a second war.

 

[Yakman]

I'm inclined to believe that the Protestant supremacists would not have emigrated to the south.

they certainly weren't doing it before the war.