Confederate States (Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum)

Confederate States of America Timeline: Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum OTL equivalent: Virginia, Western and Middle Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Oklahoma, and Arkansas
Flag Great seal
Motto:  Deo Vindice (Latin) ("Under God, Our Vindicator")
Anthem:  God Save the South
Location of the Confederate States
Capital		Montgomery
Other cities		Richmond; New Orleans; Miami; Jacksonville
Official languages		English (de facto)
Religion		Christianity; Irreligion; Judaism; Islam
Demonym		Dixie; C.S.
Government		Federal state; Presidential constitutional republic
-	President	Anthony G. Brown
-	Vice President	Beto O'Rourke
Legislature		Congress of the Confederate States
-	Upper house	Senate
-	Lower house	House of Representatives
Establishment
-	Independence from the United States of America	February 4, 1861
-	Treaty of New York	August 1, 1864
Population
-	estimate	101,812,000
Currency		Confederate States dollar (CS$) (CSD)
Time zone		various (UTC−4 to −10)
Internet TLD		.cs
Calling code		+1

The Confederate States of America is a federal republic situated in the northern part of the American continent. It is commonly called the Confederate States (C.S. or C.S.A.), or colloquially, Dixieland. The country consisted of twelve states which all of them is bordered with the United States of America to the north. The Confederate States also has a maritime border in the south with U.S. state of Cuba.

Politics and Government

Administrative Divisions

Flag + Name	Capital	Largest city	Population	Area (sq mi)
Alabama	Montgomery	Huntsville	5,024,279	52,419
Arkansas	Little Rock		3,013,756	53,179
North Carolina	Raleigh	Charlotte	10,453,948	53,819
South Carolina	Columbia	Charleston	5,124,712	32,020
Florida	Tallahassee	Jacksonville	21,570,527	65,758
Georgia	Atlanta		5,124,712	32,020
Louisiana	Baton Rouge	New Orleans	4,661,468	52,069.13
Mississippi	Jackson		2,963,914	48,430
Oklahoma	Oklahoma City		3,963,516	69,898
Tennessee	Nashville		4,247,852	27,659
Texas	Austin	Houston	29,183,290	268,596
Virginia	Richmond		8,654,542	42,774.2

History

Colonization (1609–1775)

The first landing in Jamestown

English colonization in the area that known today as the Confederate States was began by the London Company at Jamestown, on the James River in Virginia in May 14, 1607. In 1624, the Company's charter was revoked and the colony transferred to royal authority as a crown colony. As a crown colony, Virginia began to expand to the North and West with additional settlements. The majority of early English settlers were indentured servants, who gained freedom after enough work to pay off their passage. After Bacon's Rebellion, African slaves rapidly replaced indentured servants as Virginia's main labor force.

There were 20 English colonies in North America by 1775, 13 among them later rebelled against the British rule and formed the First Union of the United States of America. Those colonies were Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts Bay, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, North Carolina, and Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. By the 18th century, the American colonies were growing very rapidly because of the abundant supplies of food and low death rates which attracted a steady flow of immigrants.

American Revolution (1775–1783)

The resistance against the tax imposition by the British Parliament in late 1760s preceded the moment of American Revolution. The colonists felt the Parliament had no any rights to tax them since they have no any representation in the British Parliament. The colonists began to set up the militia, in a preparation for the war against the British Empire. They who rebelled against the British Empire called as the Patriots.

In 1774, the First Continental Congress was convened by the Patriot leaders from the Thirteen Colonies as a response for the Coercive Acts that was passage to repress the Boston Tea Party in 1773. The Congress called for a boycott for British trade, rights and grievances; and petitioned King George III of the Great Britain and Ireland for redress of those grievances. The appeal to the Crown had no effect, and the Second Continental Congress was convened in 1775 to organize the resistance to the British rule under one armed and diplomatic effort.

George Washington (1732–1799)

The independence of the thirteen colonies as the United States of America was declared by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776. With Virginia in the lead, the Southern colonies embraced the American Revolution. Under the command from General George Washington of Virginia, the Patriots waged a war against the Loyalist forces that lasted until 1783 when the United States and Great Britain were agreed to end the war by signed the Treaty of Paris. The treaty recognized the United States as an independent nation and its sovereignty over most territory east of the Mississippi River.

United States of America (1776–1865)

The Revolution provided a shock to slavery in the Southern states. Thousands of slaves took advantage of wartime disruption to find their own freedom. In addition, some slaveholders were inspired to free their slaves after the Revolution, including the first U.S. president, George Washington. In the upper South, more than 10 percent of all blacks were free by 1810, a significant expansion from pre-war proportions of less than 1 percent free. However, Southern state leaders were able to protect their sectional interests during the Constitutional Convention of 1787, preventing the insertion of any explicit anti-slavery position in the U.S. Constitution.

A plantation with the slaves working in during pre-Independence War era

By 1804 a North-South line over slavery emerged; it was called the Mason-Dixon Line, separating free Pennsylvania and slave Maryland. After a compromise between the North and the South, the constitution provided the representation in the House of Representatives would be in proportion to the relative state populations, including the slaves in the Southern states that not even had right to vote. This increased the power of Southern states in the Congress and the Supreme Court of the United States for decades, affecting national policies and legislation. The planter elite dominated the southern Congressional delegations and the United States presidency for nearly 50 years.

Despite compromises in 1820 and 1850, the slavery issues exploded in the 1850s. Following the Texas Treaty of 1845, the Yankees attempted to exclude slavery from gained territories in the Wilmot Proviso in order to end the Southern domination in the federal government. The Compromise of 1850 that aimed to resolve the problem, instead alarmed both the Northerners as adding new territory on the Southern side simply meant the expansion of slavery and the Southerners that viewed its as early steps toward abolition of slavery. By 1856, the Southern states had lost control of Congress, and was no longer able to silence calls for an end to slavery.

War for Southern Independence (1861–1865)

The Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, during the War for Southern Independence

By 1860, tensions between slave and free states worsened and mounted with arguments about the relationship between the state and federal governments, as well as bloodshed and violent conflicts over the spread of slavery into new states. Abraham Lincoln, candidate of the largely antislavery Republican Party, was elected president in 1860. As result, seven Southern states declared their secession and declared the independence of the Confederate States of America on February 9, 1861 with Robert Rhett was elected its first president.

After General Pierre Beauregard opened fire upon Union troops at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, the War for Southern Independence (or the War of Southern Secession as it known in the United States) began and four more slave states joined the Confederacy. The Independence War reached its stalemate in 1863 and after received the pressures from Radical Republicans and the abolitionists, the United States government recognized the independence of the Confederate States in August 1, 1864 with the signing of Treaty of Princeton in Princeton, Kentucky.

Postbellum era (1865–1905)

A new constitution was adopted in 1870. The 1870 Constitution of the Confederate States provides an executive presidency and a bicameral Congress, which consisted of an appointed Senate and a popularly elected House of Representatives. The President of the Confederate States is elected in a single five-year term, that can not be renewed immediately, by the electoral college. The president appoints the members of Senate who are recommended by the state legislatures every three years. In return, the president can only forms a government with the confirmation from the Senate.

While the 1870 Constitution prescribes democracy, at this period the Confederate States was governed by an oligarchy of rich planters and veterans of the Independence War. During its early years, the newly-independent country saw a range of warlords compete for power in each state. The politics of the Confederate States at that time was also dominated by strongmen who hold significant influences over the federal and state politics; the partisanship was very minimum. Leading political figures include Jefferson Davis (1867–1874), Simon B. Buckner (1874–1895) and William B. Bate (1895–1905).

Simon B. Buckner (1823–1914)

Following the War of Independence, the economy of the Confederate States was heavily devastated. It was only supported by the cotton trade with France and the United Kingdom. Plantation became the country's main source of income and when the cotton price decreased, the Confederate States suffered a period of economic stagnation. The Confederate States was badly hit by the Panic of 1873. Most states deep in debt, burdened with heavy taxes and, at worst, even went into the bankruptcy. At the risk of disunion, the martial laws were proclaimed by President Jefferson Davis, effectively suspending the federal and state constitutions.

In the middle of chaos, Davis was ousted by a non-violent coup led by Simon Bolivar Buckner in 1874. Buckner became provisional president until he partially repealed the martial laws and was constitutionally elected as president in 1879. Albeit governing ironhandedly, Buckner was popular among the citizens and portrayed in a benevolent light by the historians for his reform-oriented policies and the commitment for the financial responsibility by the federal government. His uninterrupted 12-year long presidency guaranteed the political and economic stability. He also established the post-war friendly relationship between the Confederate States and the United States.

James Stephen Hogg (1851–1912), the "Great Emancipator".

When the plantation-based economy became less lucrative by the late of 19th century, the call for industrialization became more widespread. Slavery, the primary defining principle of Dixie identity apart from its northern neighbors, had became obsolete with the collapse of plantation economy. There were several calls among the pro-industry politicians to gradually abolish slavery in order to be accepted into the international world order, especially by the abolitionist British Empire and the United States. During William B. Bate's administration, the large oil reserves were discovered in Oklahoma in 1897 and in the gulf coasts of Texas and Louisiana in 1901. The oil boom sparked steady waves of industrialization which drastically transformed the country's economy as well as its society.

By the start of 20th century, the Confederate States had entered a new phase as a modernized nation at par with the neighboring United States. In 1905, the Governor of Texas, James Stephen Hogg, a progressive at that time's standard and staunch supporter of modernization, successfully backed a constitutional amendment to the Texas constitution which abolishing the word of "slavery" in it. He felt the inclusion of the word and the related clauses will hamper foreign investment in his state. This step was later followed by other oil-producing states, including Oklahoma (1909) and Louisiana (1917). Oppositely, this constitutional move was opposed by a growing anti-big business, pro-white movement by politicians such as Benjamin Tillman and Coleman Blease, which later evolved as the National Party.

Modernization and industrialization (1905–1937)

The Lucas gusher at Spindletop, the first major gusher in Texas.

Foreign investment from the United States and Britain helped industrial centers to spurt in the states that had been formally abolished slavery as an institution, such as Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Florida, boosting their economies. Texas and Louisiana soon dominated the C.S. politics both population and economic strength wise. States with agricultural economies, specifically Virginia and Georgia, banded together to counter the influences of Texas and Louisiana in the legislature. Presidency was mostly alternated between politicians from these states or the ones who were supported by them until the 1960s.

However, infestation of boll weevils at the cotton-growing regions in the 1920s effectively destroyed the economies of agricultural states, weakening the political influences of the cotton barons at the federal government. As many plantations turned unprofitable, slave owning became financial burdens to the land owners who freed many of their slaves. The political hegemony of the cotton planters was quickly replaced by a populist alliance between white farmers and small businesses who equally detested the interests of industrial states and nominal emancipation of Black population at those territories.

Further readings