What if the Civil War never happened?

Answer 1

That depends on whether you mean what if the Southern states did not secede or what if the Union chose not to wage war to bring them back.

Michael Montagne

AnswerThere would still be slavery, and blacks would never have ever had a chance in the "real" world, like Martin Luther King Jr.

Actually, slavery as an institution would have ended eventually, it simply becomes economically unprofitable after a while. It isn't to say that the Confederacy wouldn't have enacted harsh segregation laws in its stead similar to those of South Africa under apartheid, assuming real world history kept up its course, the two nations probably would have formed an alliance, a Confederacy seeking to undermine the Union might have even joined up with Germany and the Axis in World War II.

Answer 2

We (United States)'d still be a colony of Great Britain. Maybe an extension or part of said country. Maybe the U.S. would be a battled-over area that would never be decided ownership of. Too many possibilities to effectively answer.

Answer 3

That depends on whether you mean what if the Southern states did not secede or what if the Union chose not to wage war to bring them back. In any case, it is purely conjecture.

My view is that if the civil war had not happened because the South did not secede, you would have had the number of free states slowly outnumbering slave states and laws being passed to limit are restrain slavery. Conversely, we would see Southern states issuing nullification declarations and there would be a legal fight for emancipation that would delay the pursuit of civil rights because of the fatigue of the legal fight. Certainly the South would be a much more important part of the US in terms of regional power and direction than it was for the century after the Civil War. However, I am of the belief that the South's secession was more or less inevitable.

On the question of the Union's possible choice not to engage in war with the newly independent Confederacy, we would have two very different countries. The CSA would eventually become a pariah agricultural state in much the way that Burma is today with a massive human rights issues. Additionally, the US South, being more conservative and a net recipient of federal aid today, would likely have collapsed into a third-world country due to its failure to industrialize and generate a modern economy.

Answer 4

If there was no US Civil War, it mens that there was no eleven state secession and no Confederate States of America. With that said, the likely scenario would have been this:1. As US President Lincoln promised, he had no intentions or legal authority to damage the instituion of slavery where it existed;

2. Lincoln may have tried to pass a Constitutional amendment abolishing slavery but in 1861 to 1865, there would not have been enough votes for an amendment;

3. Abraham Lincoln was elected to the US presidency because the powerful national political party, the Democratic Party was split three ways. Lincoln received 31% of the popular votes;

4. By 1864, the Democrats would have reunited and won the presidential election;

5. For economic reasons, slavery would have gradually, all on its own, abolish itself gradually; and

6. The US by 1868 would have been a world power equal to any power in Europe.

Answer 5

the british would win the war