Was the outcome of the Civil War the beginning of the end for the American civilization?

Interesting question but ultimately I believe that the timeframe allows for too many factors to then arise that could have changed history in unforseen ways. So for a what if scenario, thoroughly possible, but is it for certain? Hardly.

Weird way of looking at it. No, it was not the beginning of the end. A strong central government is the only way the United States can function as an entity.

Also, it ended slavery, which I happen to think was very vital to our union.

Your primary supposition is that the US would not have entered WWI. But if the CSA had not waged war against the Union, the Union would have remained strong, and with the industrial revolution, would have been in the same position in 1915/16. The CSA would be asking for readmittance to the Union, it’s an interesting but moot debate if they would have been accepted.

The Union states would have believed in a strong Federal Government, their is no evidence that the Congress could not muster the votes for a declaration of war after the Lusitania sinking.

The Civil War was certainly a change in the growth of the US. But you could argue that not having the Revolutionary War would have resulted in a different world. Of course that is true. Just as it is true that not having the Civil War would have resulted in a different United States. How different is up for lots of what if novels. Viewing these changes as a decline is what is the decline, negative thinking always compounds itself. These events occurred, we must move on, regroup, implement the better strategies for getting along with each other and be wary of any one person gaining so much over others.

As for the lack of a Civil War leading to non-involvement in The Great War, let’s consider: The southern states secede and spend many years trying to build trade with the Union North and with South American countries and with Caribbean island countries. Texas would likely have seceded I keep wanting to say re-seceded and become part of Mexico, California would be Spanish or Mexican, Oregon, Washington and Alaska would be Russian/Chinese/Japanese, and that would likely have resulted in Idaho, Utah and portions of Nevada as well as the western and mountainous parts of Montana, Wyoming and Colorado being a blend of Russian/Chinese/Japanese and Native American. Western Canada would also be that blend. Quebec would be Free French. The Great Lakes would become toxic quagmires for all the shipping and steel processing wastes. —just as easily the Lakes would have become the restricted province of the 400.— The Union North would be from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River(maybe only the Ohio). They would have voted to help the English fight off the Huns, that tide could have gone either way. Would Russia have become Communist? Would Australia have been an English Colony? Would they have become independent? Would India still be a Colony?

So many what ifs, so little literary skill…

@DaphneT Why do you suppose that the western United States would have left the Union? California had been a state since 1850; Oregon by 1859. The Russians had abandoned their right to the fur trade in the lower 48 by 1824, and left Fort Ross in California by 1841. Californians that had come west with the Gold Rush had no affinity with Mexico, but were mostly from New England.

@zenvelo, probably because secession would have been a rampant theme in all the news outlets. But you’re right, I wasn’t getting all my dates lined up. I was just trying to think of the strongest cultural and economic influences that would have been prevalent around the period of the Civil War without opening a history book, sorry

Even if the post-gold-rush Californians were from New England, California would have still considered secession since it would have been discussed for months before and after the fact. At some point the movers and shakers would have realized that a Southern secession would have endangered their gold. And those people were serious movers and shakers, compared to today’s politicians. Maybe the gold rush was the point of decline of the American civilization? yes I know that’s disconnected, but I still haven’t pulled out the history books, sorry We could just as easily say that the Louisiana Purchase was. Or Seward’s folly. Or the invention of the telegraph. So many points in history could have pushed the American civilization along a different path. Those points are seemingly innocuous events now, but could have been something completely different.

;)And now my head hurts historically, ...

Actually, I think the question is not posed properly. There is a strong possibility that without the Civil War and an end to slavery, the “American Civilization” would have been a curious observation of de Tocqueville, and never flourished in quite the manner it did.

No. It was actually the beginning of America being civilized, what with the abolition of slavery.

Since America was not civilized at the time of the Civil War, a lack of the Civil War would not have changed that.

I had started to have hopes that America might achieve civilization sometime this century, but the proliferation of guns has made that unlikely to happen any time in the next millennium.

Thanks so much for the opportunity to trade wild, unsubstantiated broadsides across the cultural divide. Any time you want to join side of truth, peace and light, come on over. Chuck your gun in the forge on the left before you enter, though.

Maybe without American entry into WW I, the Germans would have won. Without war reparations and with newly acquired territory, they might have felt that they were well placed to press their advantage. Maybe they could have done this without the Nazis and without chasing away much of their intelligentsia. This would have allowed them to develop nuclear weapons first and to easily take over the world.