C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America secede from the Union to form the Confederate States of America (C.S.A.) after Republican Abraham Lincoln is elected president in the 1860 election, due to fears over the abolition of the ownership of Negro slaves. The C.S.A. engage with the Union in "The War of Northern Aggression"; following the Union victory in the Battle of Antietam, President Lincoln issues a revolutionary proclamation entitled the "Emancipation Proclamation," but—within this alternate history—the proclamation fails. Confederate President Jefferson Davis takes this opportunity to counteract the Proclamation and send politician Judah P. Benjamin to persuade the United Kingdom and France to provide military and
C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America shed light on the continuing existence of discrimination in American culture. Willmott, who had earlier written a screenplay about abolitionist John Brown, told interviewers he was inspired to write the story after seeing an episode of Ken Burns documentary "The Civil War". It was produced through his Hodcarrier Films. "C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America" is presented as if it were a British documentary being broadcast on Confederate television network, including fictional commercials between segments. It opens with a fictional disclaimer that suggests that censorship came close to preventing the broadcast, that its point of view might not coincide with