[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Notice the "Red" states? Those are the ones that would have likely fallen into the economic and eventual political orbit of the Confederacy.
You keep picking states like "Ohio", and "Minnesota" that are still today rather liberal.
Whether they would have joined the Confederacy is not as likely, but Probably all the "Red" states shown on various electoral maps would have ended up being part of the Confederacy."

Total fantasy only possible because Lost Causers like DiogenesLamp negate the importance of slavery & abolition to Northerners.
But 100% acceptance of slavery was a precondition for admission to the Confederacy, and Northerners were just not going to do that.
Consider, for example, Kansas -- a Southern state populated by Northern immigrants who would not accept slavery, so it became a free state.
Likewise older Southern states like Missouri and Maryland in the 1850s received many new anti-slavery immigrants and so refused to join the Confederacy in 1861.

Further, economic "necessity" was just not there, as demonstrated during the war when normal commerce through New Orleans stopped.
What happened? Did the Western economy collapse?
No, instead of shipping their produce to New Orleans for export, Westerners used that newfangled contraption called a "railroad" connected by the first Internet, telegraph, to export & import what Westerners needed through Union ports.
By 1860 railroad connected every major city and was growing over 2,000 miles per year.

[DiogenesLamp]

Total fantasy only possible because Lost Causers like DiogenesLamp negate the importance of slavery & abolition to Northerners.

Slavery and Abolition wasn't important to Northerners, so long as slavery was far away in the South. They simply did not give a crap. The ones that did were kooks, not unlike the Nature Freaks or LGBT crowd nowadays. They were not a majority, they were a tiny vocal minority that most people ignored.

Northern opposition to slavery was mostly based on Labor and Wage concerns. It's not that they felt sorry for black people, it's that they didn't want free labor competing with them. They mostly hated black people and didn't want them near them.

Likewise older Southern states like Missouri and Maryland in the 1850s received many new anti-slavery immigrants and so refused to join the Confederacy in 1861.

Maryland was kept out of the Confederacy because Lincoln arrested all pro-confederate legislators. The Missouri countryside wanted to join the Confederacy, but the Big City Urban areas didn't. Their votes prevented it.

Further, economic "necessity" was just not there, as demonstrated during the war when normal commerce through New Orleans stopped. What happened? Did the Western economy collapse?

Nope. Lincoln shut off the Southern Commerce, and the Northern commerce through the Great Lakes and Chicago continued. That is entirely my point. By force you can stop other people from trading, and thereby create yourself a captured market.

That's what happened. It was one of the financial reasons Lincoln and his backers wanted and needed that war; To keep their businesses going as usual and to stop this upstart economic competitor that would have taken it away from them.

Further, economic "necessity" was just not there, as demonstrated during the war when normal commerce through New Orleans stopped. What happened? Did the Western economy collapse?

So you are saying that Southern Commerce up the Mississippi would have also taken away traffic from the railroad? So they were in effect economic competitors for the same market?

Wasn't Lincoln a corporate lawyer for the largest Railroad at the time?

Thanks for pointing that out.

[Wallace T.]

Had the South Carolina nullification crisis of 1832 led to secession of the cotton states, it is likely that Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri would have sided with the secessionists. The first waves of settlers of all these states were largely from Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina. Ohio had a considerable settlement of Pennsylvanians and New Englanders in the northern counties, so the Buckeye State was different from their counterparts in the Old Northwest. Michigan's earliest settlers were mostly New Englanders and Canadians, and the trade routes funneled largely into Montreal or New York, However, most trade in the Midwest went via the Ohio into the Mississippi, and New Orleans, not New York, was their major trading partner. The completion of the Erie Canal and, more importantly, the rail system effectively tied the Midwest to the Eastern seaports, especially New York.

Northeastern settlers were slower to pioneer than their Southern counterparts, but they filled the northern halves of Illinois and Indians, branching into Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota in the 1830s through the 1850s. They were supplemented by large waves of German and Scandinavian immigrants, who had no use for slavery and states' rights. By 1860, the South had effectively lost its business and cultural ties with the Midwest. The exceptions were those counties along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, where there were strong Copperhead sentiments.

[Wallace T.]

Had the South Carolina nullification crisis of 1832 led to secession of the cotton states, it is likely that Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri would have sided with the secessionists. The first waves of settlers of all these states were largely from Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina. Ohio had a considerable settlement of Pennsylvanians and New Englanders in the northern counties, so the Buckeye State was different from their counterparts in the Old Northwest. Michigan's earliest settlers were mostly New Englanders and Canadians, and the trade routes funneled largely into Montreal or New York, However, most trade in the Midwest went via the Ohio into the Mississippi, and New Orleans, not New York, was their major trading partner. The completion of the Erie Canal and, more importantly, the rail system effectively tied the Midwest to the Eastern seaports, especially New York.

Northeastern settlers were slower to pioneer than their Southern counterparts, but they filled the northern halves of Illinois and Indians, branching into Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota in the 1830s through the 1850s. They were supplemented by large waves of German and Scandinavian immigrants, who had no use for slavery and states' rights. By 1860, the South had effectively lost its business and cultural ties with the Midwest. The exceptions were those counties along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, where there were strong Copperhead sentiments.