My "what if" for the day...

[madinmaryland]

What if the CSA had managed to strike a truce with the Union in 1863?

How would the two antagonistic nations dealt with each other over the following years. What would the alliances have been with the powerful nations in Europe.

Interesting things to ponder.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. ~

:popcorn:

[madinmaryland]

2. I know that you are hungry, but what do you think??

:D

[Tuesday Afternoon]

3. I think I'll have another beer --

:beer:

[madinmaryland]

6. Nice post, Norm Peterson!!

[asdjrocky]

4. There's a great movie that tries to answer that question-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EViGaTSnqRw

[madinmaryland]

5. I think it would be a republican mecca. Sarah Palin would have been

the half governor of Alabama.

[QC]

7. And what if my aunt had balls?

Would she be my uncle?

[Cirque du So-What]

16. Yes

Your favorite one at that! :hide:

[QC]

18. Only if she was a stud.

:rofl:

[raccoon]

8. I think the CSA would be more like a banana republic than it is now.

Even in the US Empire's glory days of the 1950's and 1960's, the South had nothing like the large middle class that existed in other states where they had unions.

Of course, that's why many companies relocated to the South--and still do.

[madinmaryland]

10. I suppose the South could have become a nation of cheap labor,

based on slave labor and other types of coerced labor.

As I said upthread, it would have been a republican wet-dream as far as labor laws went.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

9. The same way it is today?

:shrug:

[madinmaryland]

11. Heh!

To imagine that Virginia would have gone to a black American! I hope Jefferson Davis is spinning in his bed in hell!

[T Wolf]

12. check out - if you haven't already, Harry Norman Turtledove.

He is ".. an American novelist, who has produced works in several genres including alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy and science fiction."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Turtledove

He has a series on what happens when the civil war does not end as the history books tell you.

[madinmaryland]

13. Heh! I have read most of his novels.

Interesting "what-ifs" about an alternate end to the civil war.

[iamthebandfanman]

14. war would have found a way to be the resolution..

it always does.

they never would have peacefully lived side by side, truce or no truce.

[Cirque du So-What]

15. It would not have ended well

Any truce would be an uneasy one - doomed to eventual failure. Look at the atrocities committed against soldiers and civilians on both sides when the factions were both still 'American.' After a couple generations, residents of the other sovereign nation would come to be viewed as 'dirty furriners' - no longer deserving of even a modicum of civility or compassion. Eventually, it would require defeat on the order of Germany at the end of WWII to cease hostilities. The Confederacy and its citizenry got off 'easy' by realizing defeat and subsequent re-integration back into the United States as it happened. It would have been much more devastating for them if the Union had to go back in a second (or third) time.

[PufPuf23]

17. The CSA were aristocratic while the North was secular social democratic

Just like WWI/WWII, one cannot tell today who "won".