The Myth of the Confederacy

The Myth Of The Confederacy

"Had the Confederate States of America been a human being rather than a nation, its tombstone might have read, "Born: Montgomery, Alabama, Feb 10th 1861; Died (of a theory): Irwinville, Georgia, May 10th 1865", and been recorded as a statistic of infant mortality. The life of the fledgling state - the "Other" America, as it were - was short indeed, its lifespan numbering but fifty-one months. Of those, all but two were spent at war." (Lee) In the 135 years that have passed since peace was restored, the events of the civil war has been dissected and discussed endlessly. We are able to know what took place during those years. This paper however will focus on "what-might-have-been".

What would have happened had Lincoln refused to fight? How would history have shaped had Beauregard pressed home his advantage after the first battle of Bull Run, taken Washington and captured the Union government? One could very easily hold the opinion that, in this event, the date of death of the Confederacy is likely to have been merely delayed. "Within itself, the Confederacy carried the seeds of its own demise." To understand this we must look at the Confederate States of America in four areas; those of geography, economics, politics and population. We know that at its largest, the CSA comprised the land area of all the eleven states which seceded from the Union. We know too that a further four slave states - the "border states" of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware - remained politically within the Union, though not necessarily in sympathy with its ideals. Had the Confederacy been granted its independence, it is likely that one or more of these states would have changed their allegiance from Washington to Richmond. (Wiley) There are many possible in/out combinations of those states, but, regardless of whichever finally came about; this could only affect the shape and not the nature of the border between the USA and the CSA. From El Paso in the south-west to Cape May in the north-east, the Confederacy would have shared a continuous border with the Union of approximately two thousand miles (Grimsley/simpson). The CSA would have been on the wrong side of that border, cut off from the benefits of the westward migration which had been taking place for the past two decades and which, within the next two, would link the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. There is no doubt that the move West would have continued. Indeed, it may well have proceeded at even greater speed with no war to slow its progress.

A fully independent Confederate States of America, therefore, would have been forced to remain largely within the boundaries it occupied at the time, unable to expand its landholding without crossing a border into another sovereign nation. That act alone would have caused the Confederacy to lose whatever goodwill it may have attained around the world, goodwill which would have been vital to the new nation's survival. (Wiley)

In the event of gaining its independence, the Confederacy's first concern would have been the hasty re-establishment of cordial relations with their former countrymen in the North. How well they achieved this, however, would have depended largely on the exact terms on which the "Two Americas" parted company. The Confederacy's economic base had always been Agriculture, with Industry in a minor role. Until 1861 this had not mattered too greatly, for supplies of manufactured goods had been readily available from the North. Unfortunately, the Union would now have become a separate nation from the Confederacy, able to impose whatever tariffs and sanctions it wished upon its rebellious neighbor. That it would have done so is virtually certain as the issue of import tariffs had been a bone of contention between the two sides for many years. Anything the South produced would, overnight, have become "imported foreign goods" while the North could charge whatever price it wished for any goods it may supply (Rubin). They would have been superbly placed to wage economic war where military skills had failed.

Certainly, an independent Confederacy would probably have retained the goodwill of its traditional trading partners, Britain and France, whose own textile industries would, economically, have been no less dependent

upon Southern cotton than before. One thing the Confederacy could not do, however, was to bring Europe any closer physically than it already was. Three months would still be necessary for a merchant to complete the round trip and nothing could change that. Europe, therefore, for the Confederacy, could only be a long term base for future prosperity and unable to supply its short-term requirements. The South's immediate needs, therefore, would have to be fulfilled from short-term profits so that it could begin building its own industries and make itself economically independent from the North (Grimsley/simpson). Its only source of short-term profit in the required amounts would have been cotton.

Politically, the Confederacy was also very much at a loss. It appears, that secession took place at a time when the United States was possibly at the most politically confused

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