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Joined: 12/8/2006
From: Mobile, AL
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The real danger was that Confederate military success would lead to Britain and France recognizing the Confederacy's right to exist. This would entitle the Confederacy to some rights and priveledges not extended to mere rebels. Following recognition, Britain, France and perhaps Austria or Russia could approach the United States with an offer to broker a negotiated peace which would essentially give the CSA its independence.
Problems:
1) When the South won battles it looked like they didn't need help, and when they were losing it seemed help would do no good.
2) Britain was dependent to a large degree on Northern grain, largely because her traditional European sources were hit by drought.
3) Other than a chance to stick a thumb in Yankee Doodle's eye there was really nothing in it for Britain and France. THe Confederacy promised a low tariff and commercial advantages plus a bountiful supply of cotton. That was nice, but not much when set against the expense of raising troops and waging war.
4) Slavery. The South was absolutely not going to emancipate, having left the Union and waged war to prevent the possible chance that a Republican President might someday do something to hinder the expansion of slavery. Fighting a war to defend the right to own slaves was a large political hurdle for any British government. Unless the North made some offensive act, Britain would not casually jump that hurdle.
5) Given past interventions in Italy and the Crimea, and current involvement in Mexico, France would do nothing alone. The British government could not be seen to be following a French lead. And so, without Britain taking the lead, France would do nothing.
6) Lincoln probably would not have yielded to British and French pressure short of war and/or a revolt in Congress. In all likelihood the US would have gotten a dose of 'eagle fever' and fought on harder than ever. Aside from saltpeter there wasn't much the US needed to import, and it probably could have mustered two or three times the army it actually did. The domestic economy would have been ruined (since those men were running the factories, mines and farms) but the example of the French Revolution shows what can be done when existence is at stake.
Pluses:
The Trent affair was the only real chance of war between Britain and the US. Had Prince Albert died earlier, or not exercised such personal control over the communiques, or had Lincoln (or Adams, the ambassador to Britain) been less deft or Seward less discreet, the incident could have erupted in war. Whether the North could have kept up a war on two fronts I do not know, but Britain would have found it impossible to adequately garrison Canada without a mass mobilization of troops. That would have required a great deal of time and much of Canada might be overrun before mobilization could be finished.
European intervention was the only way many Southerners saw to offset Northern numbers, money and material. The fact is that the South deluded itself as to the leverage it actually possessed and refused to see that Britain and France were not much interested in making war when they had little to gain. The fact that the South urgently needed European help became, in many minds, their right to demand it. This attitude did not play well in London and France, and Southern diplomats accomplished very little.
In the Revolution, France did not assist the US to promote liberty but fought a war against a traditional rival to avenge the loss of Canada. There was no world power who hated the US the way that France then hated Britain.
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“The optimist proclaims we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true." - James Branch Cabell
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