Describe The Relationship Between North And South

While a relatively minor issue, the American capital’s location highlights how central the USA-CSA relationship would have been in any subsequent history. A negotiated separation may well have preserved the deep economic interdependencies between north and south, avoided and contained the passions expressed during the Civil War, and allowed for a form of peaceful coexistence. Even in this most favorable case, however, Richmond would likely have been fertile ground for European powers seeking to constrain the northern states. At the same time, strong abolitionist sentiment in the north would have continued. Enduring slavery in the south could well have provoked considerable political tension if not armed skirmishes along the border if committed northern activists attempted to maintain and expand the Underground Railroad for escaped slaves or even to foment rebellion inside the CSA. This could well have led to war sooner or later.

Had this happened, the two new neighbors would have started with a much more tense and bitter relationship. And while the north would have been militarily and economically dominant, the south would have had important leverage of its own—including, for example, control of the Mississippi River Delta and therefore of the river trade that proved so important in developing the American Midwest. The CSA would also have been in a better geographical position to exercise influence in the Caribbean Sea, though it would have needed a major naval construction program to succeed at this. Some leaders in Richmond might have seen this as strategically essential, however, to protect the southern states’ access to international markets and to block U.S. or European navies from the Gulf of