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re: Had the South won would New Orleans be the largest/most populated city in the US?
Posted on 10/20/17 at 9:15 pm to Tunasntigers92
Posted on 10/20/17 at 9:15 pm to Tunasntigers92
Atlanta just like it is now
Posted on 10/20/17 at 9:21 pm to Doc Fenton
Do you think the Confederate States of America would have remained an entity or that some of the states would have gone their separate ways?
Posted on 10/20/17 at 9:30 pm to PetroBabich
Hard to say, but I'm inclined to think that most states would have returned to the USA after a few decades. The core coastal states may have stayed together as a confederacy, but as for the other states that joined after Fort Sumter, that was mostly just solidarity with their fraternal Southern states and not wanting to be forced by the USA to go to war against them.
People think confederalism is unstable, and it sorta is, but the loosely aligned medieval German principalities of the Holy Roman Empire lasted for centuries. Then again, an international moral campaign would surely have been waged by Anglo-American civilization against LA, MS, AL, GA, & SC. It would probably have become the 19th century version of South Africa and Southern Rhodesia. Eventually, I think all 11 states would have returned to the USA after 3-4 decades. Moreover, it would be a USA that would not be as centralized as the one we have today, because the 14th Amendment would not have passed the way it did in reality.
People think confederalism is unstable, and it sorta is, but the loosely aligned medieval German principalities of the Holy Roman Empire lasted for centuries. Then again, an international moral campaign would surely have been waged by Anglo-American civilization against LA, MS, AL, GA, & SC. It would probably have become the 19th century version of South Africa and Southern Rhodesia. Eventually, I think all 11 states would have returned to the USA after 3-4 decades. Moreover, it would be a USA that would not be as centralized as the one we have today, because the 14th Amendment would not have passed the way it did in reality.
Posted on 10/20/17 at 10:05 pm to Tunasntigers92
New Orleans has always had a problem with corruption.
Think of the 1884 World's Fair. The U.S. government selected New Orleans as a host site because of its wealthy cotton commerce and prosperous trade with South and Central America. It was also a huge peace offering to reunite the country by priming one of the South's major cities. The feds wrote a big fat check for New Orleans, as did the state.
The city blew the money in no time, and had to beg for seconds, which it got, to make it work.
The fair still ended in a financial loss, and the treasurer in charge of the whole thing was found to have pocketed huge sums of cash, and fled the country.
New Orleans was never a good steward of U.S. law, policy, and regulation, and probably never will be, to its own demise.
Think of the 1884 World's Fair. The U.S. government selected New Orleans as a host site because of its wealthy cotton commerce and prosperous trade with South and Central America. It was also a huge peace offering to reunite the country by priming one of the South's major cities. The feds wrote a big fat check for New Orleans, as did the state.
The city blew the money in no time, and had to beg for seconds, which it got, to make it work.
The fair still ended in a financial loss, and the treasurer in charge of the whole thing was found to have pocketed huge sums of cash, and fled the country.
New Orleans was never a good steward of U.S. law, policy, and regulation, and probably never will be, to its own demise.
Posted on 10/20/17 at 10:09 pm to NC_Tigah
quote:New Orleans was the natural center for the oil industry, and oil people from that era would have told you so.
Houston
It had the river, a state full of oil, with easy offshore access, and a government that let anything go environmentally.
But, New Orleans got greedy, tried to bilk the companies for all they were worth to line pockets, and oil companies found a much better situation in Texas in the long run.
Houston's rise coincided with the demise of New Orleans for a reason.
Posted on 10/20/17 at 10:44 pm to Tunasntigers92
Nope. NOLA is way to limited in land space to become the largest city.
Posted on 10/20/17 at 11:15 pm to Bayou_Tiger_225
(no message)
This post was edited on 5/31/22 at 12:05 pm
Posted on 10/20/17 at 11:24 pm to Tunasntigers92
quote:
Had the South won would New Orleans be the largest/most populated city in the US?
no
NYC was a very large population center at the time and its location on the hudson and being a clear shot to europe makes it ideal
Posted on 10/20/17 at 11:30 pm to Tunasntigers92
As a New Orleanian an that has lived in Atlanta (3.5 yrs) and Houston (6 mos); both cities would be larger than NOLA even if the south had won.
The north would have stopped sending goods downriver if the south had won and we would have been a backwater. East-west rails would have been the arteries of commerce. Charleston, Miami and Houston might have ended up as the biggest ports.
The north would have stopped sending goods downriver if the south had won and we would have been a backwater. East-west rails would have been the arteries of commerce. Charleston, Miami and Houston might have ended up as the biggest ports.
Posted on 10/21/17 at 12:28 am to Tunasntigers92
If the old money had accepted the wives of the new money oil baws is the 70's and 80's New Orleans would be 3 million strong and we would still have our historic markers.
Posted on 10/21/17 at 8:37 am to dat yat
quote:
As a New Orleanian an that has lived in Atlanta (3.5 yrs) and Houston (6 mos); both cities would be larger than NOLA even if the south had won.
Why? Because you happened to live there in recent years when they were nice?
We're talking about cities developing from a starting point 150 years ago, so I'm not sure how relevant recent personal experiences are. People think of the current state of New Orleans corruption, but New York was worse than New Orleans about that in the 19th century. New York was also really bad about organized crime from the 1940s through the 1970s.
quote:
The north would have stopped sending goods downriver if the south had won and we would have been a backwater.
Are you kidding!? Hell, KY & MO probably would have started a 2nd Civil War had Congress tried to stop them from sending goods down river, and the big business interests in Chicago and New York (who were the main drivers behind the Northern political movement for negotiated peace in the first place) would have never allowed it anyway.
quote:
Charleston, Miami and Houston might have ended up as the biggest ports.
No. There is no reason at all why Miami would be any bigger than it is today, and Charleston was in no position to compete with New Orleans, except as a potential auxiliary. It might have played the role of Boston to NO's New York.
Houston was of course geographically destined to become a big energy port city, but that was way off into the future back in 1860, and Houston would still have to play catch-up to the leading financial centers for the cotton, commodities, and energy markets. Had the South won, those commodity futures markets for the South would have undoubtedly been in New Orleans, rather than in Chicago.
Houston would still have emerged as a leading port city for commodity trading in the mid-20th century, but the capital of the energy markets would have been solidly entrenched in New Orleans by then. It's very difficult to dislodge a financial center once it's been established, due to the economics of agglomeration.
Potentially, New Orleans could have been more like London or Singapore or Hong Kong in that respect.
Going back to the 1860 census, and taking New York & Brooklyn as a single city, then New Orleans was 5th in population at 169k, and Chicago was 8th at 112k. Then Charleston was 21st at 41k, and Atlanta was 98th at 10k. Houston was not even in the top 100, having less than 5,000 citizens, and Miami in the pre-AC days was even smaller, having a population less than 100 people until very late in the 19th century.
Posted on 10/21/17 at 8:49 am to Bayou_Tiger_225
quote:
Bayou_Tiger_225
Damn. Looks like you drew the dreaded anchor.
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