France and the American Civil War

Issues such as slavery; the Trent affair, which involved Britain; and the economic impact on the French cotton industry did not influence the editors.

However there were cotton imports from India and from the Union, and also government-sponsored public works projects to provide jobs for unemployed textile workers.

[3] The French government considered the American war a relatively minor issue while France was engaged in multiple diplomatic endeavors in Europe and around the world.

[4] Mercier advised the French government to be ready to establish "immediate" diplomatic ties should Confederate survival appear certain, but also wanted to protect France from retaliation after "premature recognition".

However, he made offers to Napoleon III that in exchange for French recognition of the Confederate States and naval help sent to break the blockade, the Confederacy would sell raw cotton to France.

[6] Count Walewski and Eugène Rouher agreed with him, but British disapproval and especially the Union capture of New Orleans in the spring of 1862 led French diplomacy to oppose the plan.

In 1864, Napoleon III sent his confidant, the Philadelphian Thomas W. Evans, as an unofficial diplomat to Lincoln and US Secretary of State William H. Seward.

[7] After the Emancipation Proclamation and change in favor towards the Union among the French public,[5] Mercier forwarded a proposed joint mediation with Great Britain and Russia to end the war,[8] beginning with a joint armistice with the reasons being the suffering of the Southern people, the harmful economic impact of the war on Europe, particularly the cotton market, and the seeming impossibility of the two sides independently reaching a quick end to the conflict.

[4] In keeping with its official neutrality, the French government blocked the sale of the ironclad CSS Stonewall prior to delivery to the Confederacy in February 1864 and resold the ship to the Royal Danish Navy.