United Kingdom and the American Civil War
[4] Top British officials debated offering to mediate in the first 18 months, which the Confederacy wanted but the United States strongly rejected.
[5] In addition, at the outbreak of the American conflict, for both the United Kingdom and France the costly and controversial Crimean War (October 1853 to February 1856) was in the still-recent past, the United Kingdom had major commitments in British India in the wake of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, and France had major imperial ambitions outside of the Western Hemisphere, and was considering or had already commenced military ventures in Morocco, China, Vietnam, North Africa, and Italy.
Despite vehement protests from the US, Britain did not stop the sales of its arms and its shipyard (John Laird and Sons) from building two warships for the Confederacy, including the CSS Alabama.
[6] Known as the Alabama Claims, the controversy was partially resolved peacefully after the Civil War when the US was awarded $15.5 million in arbitration by an international tribunal only for damages caused by the warships.
[11] The Union's main goal in foreign affairs was to maintain friendly relations and large-scale trade with the world and to prevent any official recognition of the Confederacy by any country, especially Britain.
[citation needed] Other concerns included preventing the Confederacy from buying foreign-made warships; gaining European support for policies against slavery; and attracting immigrant laborers, farmers, and soldiers.
[citation needed]The issues of Oregon, Texas and the border between the United States and the British colonies had all been resolved, and trade was brisk.
[15][16] Of the 658 MPs sitting in the Commons in 1861, twenty one (3%) would join the Manchester headquartered, Confederacy supporting, Southern Independence Association, as would ten Lords.
[17] Others assert elites: the aristocracy and the landed gentry, which identified with the Southern planter class, and Anglican clergy and some professionals who admired tradition, hierarchy and paternalism.
The Union was favored by the middle classes, the religious Nonconformists, intellectuals, reformers and most factory workers, who saw slavery and forced labor as a threat to the status of the working man.
[citation needed] As for the government, Chancellor of the Exchequer William Ewart Gladstone, whose family fortune had been based on slavery in the West Indies before 1833, supported the Confederacy.Foreign Minister Lord Russell wanted neutrality.
Prime Minister Lord Palmerston wavered between support for national independence, his opposition to slavery and the strong economic advantages of Britain remaining neutral.
[citation needed] In the Western Hemisphere, as relations with the United States improved, Britain had become cautious about confronting it over issues in Central America.
The Russian Minister in Washington, Eduard de Stoeckl, noted, "The Cabinet of London is watching attentively the internal dissensions of the Union and awaits the result with an impatience which it has difficulty in disguising."
In 1861, Missouri had sought to extradite an escaped slave from Canada to face trial for a murder committed in his flight for which some in Britain falsely believed the punishment was to be burned alive.
[25][26][27] Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, announced in preliminary form in September 1862, made ending slavery an objective of the war and caused European intervention on the side of the South to be unpopular.
[citation needed] Gladstone opened a cabinet debate over whether Britain should intervene, emphasizing the humanitarian intervention to stop the staggering death toll, risk of a race war, and failure of the Union to achieve decisive military results.
[30][31][32] One historian estimated that these actions extended the Civil War by two years and cost 400,000 more lives of Union and Confederate soldiers and civilians.
On November 8, 1861, he fired twice across the bow of the Trent, sent a boat's crew aboard, seized the Confederate commissioners, and bore them off in triumph to the US, where they were held prisoner in Boston.
His letter of reply has become famous: I know and deeply deplore the sufferings which the working people of Manchester and in all Europe are called to endure in this crisis.
It has been often and studiously represented that the attempt to overthrow this Government which was built on the foundation of human rights, and to substitute for it one which should rest exclusively on the basis of slavery, was likely to obtain the favor of Europe.
Through the action of disloyal citizens, the working people of Europe have been subjected to a severe trial for the purpose of forcing their sanction to that attempt.
I hail this interchange of sentiments, therefore, as an augury that, whatever else may happen, whatever misfortune may befall your country or my own, the peace and friendship which now exists between the two nations will be, as it shall be my desire to make them, perpetual.There is now a statue of Lincoln in Manchester, with an extract from his letter carved on the plinth.
The swift recession of the high Confederate tide was as visible in Britain as in America, and in the end, Palmerston and Russell dropped any notion of bringing a mediation-recognition program before the cabinet.
The Union itself was not enough; the undying vitality and drive of Northern anti-slavery men must be brought into full, vigorous support of the war effort and so the United States chose to declare itself officially against slavery.
[28] William Ewart Gladstone, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and a senior Liberal leader, had accepted slavery in his youth; his family had grown wealthy through the ownership of slaves in the West Indies.
The United States at first only demanded vast reparations for "direct damages" caused by British-built commerce raiders, especially CSS Alabama.
After Palmerston's death, Prime Minister Gladstone agreed to include the US war claims in treaty discussions on other pending issues, such as fishing rights and border disputes.
In 1872, pursuant to the resultant Treaty of Washington, an international arbitration board awarded $15,500,000 to the US only for "direct damages" caused by British-built Confederate ships, and the British apologized for the destruction but admitted no guilt.
The resulting Reform Act 1867 enfranchised the urban working class men in England and Wales, thus weakening the upper-class landed gentry, who identified more with the Southern planters.
