I agree that slavery is itself civil war, and feeds every other kind of war (from the slave-patrol conscript system, Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, the war on Mexico, the designs on Cuba, Bleeding Kansas, sending the Marines into Boston to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, Harper's Ferry, etc. etc. etc.); and you're right about the Confederacy necessarily being a garrison state; on the other hand, I think that in the nonce, it would have found its military, militia, pattyrollers and slave-catchers increasingly unsustainable once they were no longer subsidized by the North. All the things you mentioned would have course be potential powderkegs, although I'd say it's also important to keep in mind that the borders of the Confederacy would not necessarily have reached up to the Upper South if not for Lincoln's decision to invade -- since the mustering of the Army seems pretty clearly to be what pushed the secession votes over the edge in Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Arkansas, which would substantially change the Realpolitik considerations for Lincoln (about the occupation of Maryland, etc.). It would also on the one hand, reduce the ability of the rump Union to act as a new haven for fugitive slaves (if they are still trying to accommodate the Upper Southern slave governments), but, on the other, would also strongly reduce the Gulf States' military ability to sustain slavery within their own territory, or to seize territory to the west. It may well be that their remaining in the Union would become an increasingly untenable project if things went as I hope they would (i.e., towards increasing anti-slavery sentiment, the non-enforcement or repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act, etc.) but even there, it would be an interesting question to see what would happen in the states with the largest centers of white anti-slavery / anti-planter sentiment and generally the softest, least-consolidated pro-slavery opinion among the planter elite (e.g. in Tennessee and Virginia). In either case, I suspect that the Gulf states would be significantly destabilized by a flood of fugitive slaves (much as happened anyway, in the event), rebellions, and maroon communities aided by Northern abolitionists. They no doubt would have taken this as a casus belli against the North, but on the other hand they would in that case be even more ill-equipped to sustain any kind of border fight, even with partisan support, than they turned out to be.
As for what the secessionists expected to happen, I strongly suspect that depends a lot on the folks in question -- the ideology of the planter elite in the states that would most likely be staging grounds for a northward attack, tended to be the least inclined towards overt expansionism; the Gulf State fire-eaters tended to be the most hotheadedly expansionist but also the most likely to actually have some kind of genuine ideological interest in secessionist ideas and an ideology of independent regional identity, and I think in general the least interested in grand plans of conquering the North (although they may well have had their eyes on D.C. and ultimately expected an end-game in which the Feds would have to beat a humiliating retreat to a rump Union capital above the Mason-Dixon line, and their bottom-line commitment to the expansion of slavery may well have had an objective tendency towards forcing a number crises, regardless of their intentions, if they had ever managed to gain any significant political influence of the CSA apparat); meanwhile Davis and the rest of the political class that took over administration of the CSA were hawkish but overwhelmingly dominated by a fair amount of cold ambition. If anything I expect that the most likely flashpoints with the Feds, if there had been no immediate invasion and if they were not wholly occupied with the disaster that administering their existing slave empire was almost certain to become, would be over the status of the border states (as you mention), but probably even more over control of and access to the Western territories.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2013-03-24 10:38 am (UTC)I agree that slavery is itself civil war, and feeds every other kind of war (from the slave-patrol conscript system, Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, the war on Mexico, the designs on Cuba, Bleeding Kansas, sending the Marines into Boston to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, Harper's Ferry, etc. etc. etc.); and you're right about the Confederacy necessarily being a garrison state; on the other hand, I think that in the nonce, it would have found its military, militia, pattyrollers and slave-catchers increasingly unsustainable once they were no longer subsidized by the North. All the things you mentioned would have course be potential powderkegs, although I'd say it's also important to keep in mind that the borders of the Confederacy would not necessarily have reached up to the Upper South if not for Lincoln's decision to invade -- since the mustering of the Army seems pretty clearly to be what pushed the secession votes over the edge in Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Arkansas, which would substantially change the Realpolitik considerations for Lincoln (about the occupation of Maryland, etc.). It would also on the one hand, reduce the ability of the rump Union to act as a new haven for fugitive slaves (if they are still trying to accommodate the Upper Southern slave governments), but, on the other, would also strongly reduce the Gulf States' military ability to sustain slavery within their own territory, or to seize territory to the west. It may well be that their remaining in the Union would become an increasingly untenable project if things went as I hope they would (i.e., towards increasing anti-slavery sentiment, the non-enforcement or repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act, etc.) but even there, it would be an interesting question to see what would happen in the states with the largest centers of white anti-slavery / anti-planter sentiment and generally the softest, least-consolidated pro-slavery opinion among the planter elite (e.g. in Tennessee and Virginia). In either case, I suspect that the Gulf states would be significantly destabilized by a flood of fugitive slaves (much as happened anyway, in the event), rebellions, and maroon communities aided by Northern abolitionists. They no doubt would have taken this as a casus belli against the North, but on the other hand they would in that case be even more ill-equipped to sustain any kind of border fight, even with partisan support, than they turned out to be.
As for what the secessionists expected to happen, I strongly suspect that depends a lot on the folks in question -- the ideology of the planter elite in the states that would most likely be staging grounds for a northward attack, tended to be the least inclined towards overt expansionism; the Gulf State fire-eaters tended to be the most hotheadedly expansionist but also the most likely to actually have some kind of genuine ideological interest in secessionist ideas and an ideology of independent regional identity, and I think in general the least interested in grand plans of conquering the North (although they may well have had their eyes on D.C. and ultimately expected an end-game in which the Feds would have to beat a humiliating retreat to a rump Union capital above the Mason-Dixon line, and their bottom-line commitment to the expansion of slavery may well have had an objective tendency towards forcing a number crises, regardless of their intentions, if they had ever managed to gain any significant political influence of the CSA apparat); meanwhile Davis and the rest of the political class that took over administration of the CSA were hawkish but overwhelmingly dominated by a fair amount of cold ambition. If anything I expect that the most likely flashpoints with the Feds, if there had been no immediate invasion and if they were not wholly occupied with the disaster that administering their existing slave empire was almost certain to become, would be over the status of the border states (as you mention), but probably even more over control of and access to the Western territories.