Your USA/CSA political faction during Civil War?

[HillGoose]

Pretend that you are the age you are today, except during the Civil War, so no hindsight. Use your avatar state as your state, pretend like your area was completely under control of the claimed nation for the whole conflict (as in, if you live in New Orleans, for instance, use the Confederacy even though New Orleans was captured in 1862) As Tennessee, I would be Confederate, as someone with a New York avatar would be Union. If you're West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, New Mexico or Arizona you can be either. Oklahoma is considered Confederate. International can choose either side that they would have supported.

[Classic Conservative]

Radical Republican, like every one of my ancestors at the time.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Considering my ancestry—I believe my family first set foot in the America’s during the 1870’s, but let’s handwave that—I would likely have been some white trash Vallandinghamite, or some white trash Lincolnist. There were certainly a number of very pro-abolition Mid-Westerners, but I don’t know if they were dirt poor Irish Americans in rural Ohio/Indiana/Illinois. Had my ancestors settled in the South, it seems easy to imagine them either as ultra-Christian abolitionists in some random Tennessee Unionist bastion, or as morally ambivalent white trashy mowed down by Union guns in Kentucky.

[darklordoftech]

Radical Republican. Slavery had to be stopped.

[junior chįmp]

I probably would have been Confederate for the pure sake of edginess

[Young Conservative]

Radical Republican; Slavery had to be stopped swiftly and traitors punished severely. 
.

[Dr. MB]

Radical Republican; Slavery had to be stopped swiftly and traitors punished severely. 
.

[Kingpoleon]

One of my ancestors was poisoned because he was going to the secession convention to vote against secession. A second one was a captain for the Union. This captain had a son who was a Confederate wagon driver. Probably a Union soldier.

[bagelman]

As myself, probably Radical Republican like most other uptimers.

As my ancestors, I suppose Republican of some sort. Major caveat applies: both sides of my family come from the same county which voted narrowly for Douglas in 1860. Dunno if any ancestors lived there yet. They might have been New Englanders. I know little about any ancestors that live in the US during this time.

[TDAS04]

I don't think my Norwegian ancestors or any of my ancestors arrived in the US before the 1870s, but most Norwegian-Americans were staunchly antislavery and pro-Union.  In any case, looking back from my position today with my modern values, the Radical Republicans were clearly the good guys.

[JA]

Radical Republican; Slavery had to be stopped swiftly and traitors punished severely. 
.

[RINO Tom]

During the war and during Reconstruction would have been different answers, IMO.  As an Illinois Republican (which I imagine I still would have been), I think I would be very, very supportive and proud of President Lincoln and therefore supportive of his plans for reunification, putting me in the "Moderate Republican" camp.  However, during Reconstruction and after his death, I think my faith in the South to make progress post-slavery would have evaporated.

[RogueBeaver]

Sorta like Tom, pro-War Lincoln moderate while he lived, Radical after his death.

[TheLeftwardTide]

Confederate: Extremely anti-Confederate, guerrilla against CSA control.

I would hopefully be trying to do what Paris did only a few years later.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

Probably option 7, though some of my ancestors were Southerners who fought in the Union Army, none fought for the CSA.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

In Britain the opinion of the working class (and although I am middle class, most of my ancestors were not) and much of the middle class were fiercely pro-union to the extent it confounded plans of the British elite to push for recognition of the CSA and even intervention in the war.

[darklordoftech]

In Britain the opinion of the working class (and although I am middle class, most of my ancestors were not) and much of the middle class were fiercely pro-union to the extent it confounded plans of the British elite to push for recognition of the CSA and even intervention in the war.

I know that the British elite favored the CSA because Britain was the Antebellum South's primary customer (slavery meant that cotton cost less), but I wonder why the British working class favored the union.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

A lot of the British working class seemed to directly see the Confederacy - aristocratic, elitist and exploitative as akin to their own country's rulers. Especially as it increasingly became defined as synonymous with slavery, which was seen as an utterly backward practice in the country by then (even by the most conservative Tories, who enjoyed making the Americans with their talk of liberty look like hypocrites).

There were pockets of pro-confederate sympathy, especially in the port city of Liverpool, which was hugely hit by the unionist blockade of cotton, but overwhelmingly the public remained favourable to the Union, especially after the Emancipation Proclamation. It was actually quite a self-sacrificing move, enough for Lincoln himself to declare tribute to the workers of Manchester.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

My ancestors on my mother's side are from a rather Republican part of rural NE PA. My maternal grandfather seems to be descended from New England Calvinists, while my maternal grandmother is German Lutheran. From what I gather they have a long tradition of being Republicans. My father's family has much more Democratic tradition, being from a Catholic family in upstate New York with a likely Irish ancestry, though there is less information there.

Since we moved to NC so my dad could find work, the type of manufacturing jobs he worked in (or their 19th century equivalents) would be non-existent in NC (not to mention having to compete with slave labor), but rather prevalent in PA and NY, so we never would have moved.

Though often under appreciated in discussions, one of the things that helped elect Lincoln was the combination of Fugitive Slave Law and finally Dred Scott, bringing the fear that slave labor could be brought into free states in competition with wage earning workers. This likely would have motivated my father to vote for Lincoln, but I can also see him becoming anti-war very quickly and probably voting for Democrats in 1862 and McClellan in 1864.

As for myself, probably a moderate Republican, concerned about the danger of the continued existence of slavery, and supportive of the Protectionist policies of the GOP.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

A lot of the British working class seemed to directly see the Confederacy - aristocratic, elitist and exploitative as akin to their own country's rulers. Especially as it increasingly became defined as synonymous with slavery, which was seen as an utterly backward practice in the country by then (even by the most conservative Tories, who enjoyed making the Americans with their talk of liberty look like hypocrites).

There were pockets of pro-confederate sympathy, especially in the port city of Liverpool, which was hugely hit by the unionist blockade of cotton, but overwhelmingly the public remained favourable to the Union, especially after the Emancipation Proclamation. It was actually quite a self-sacrificing move, enough for Lincoln himself to declare tribute to the workers of Manchester.

I read an interesting book a few years ago about the lengths that Lincoln's diplomats and spies went to, to stir pro-US sentiment among the British working classes.

[Former President tack50]

For the Union, I'd be an Anti-War/Confederate Sympathizer (Copperhead Democrat). However for the Confederacy I'd be a Pro-Surrender Unionist, but not guerrilla kind instead.

Basically I'd just want peace at any price. Civil wars are the most tragic of wars, people killing their fellow countrymen, their own neighbours and friends, just for political disagreements.

[Illiniwek]

Likely being a Catholic immigrant in the North, I'm not sure I would have been a Republican, but I would have aligned with the Radical movement in the North.

[bagelman]

A lot of the British working class seemed to directly see the Confederacy - aristocratic, elitist and exploitative as akin to their own country's rulers. Especially as it increasingly became defined as synonymous with slavery, which was seen as an utterly backward practice in the country by then (even by the most conservative Tories, who enjoyed making the Americans with their talk of liberty look like hypocrites).

There were pockets of pro-confederate sympathy, especially in the port city of Liverpool, which was hugely hit by the unionist blockade of cotton, but overwhelmingly the public remained favourable to the Union, especially after the Emancipation Proclamation. It was actually quite a self-sacrificing move, enough for Lincoln himself to declare tribute to the workers of Manchester.

I feel cheated that this wasn't mentioned at all during history class. The textbook's reason for the British not supporting the CSA was that they found a better source of cotton by colonizing India.

[jaichind]

I am in NY.  Copperhead Democrat.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Radical Republican during the war. During Reconstruction I'd be in favor of the amendments and civil rights legislation but against heavy-handed military occupation.