The Slavery Problem in the Diplomacy of the American Civil War

Abstract

O NE OF THE CENTRAL concerns in studies of the diplomacy of the American Civil War has been the relative importance of the slavery question in the determination and conduct of European-American relations. Most scholars agree that for various purely domestic reasons, the federal government initially chose not to present the American conflict abroad as an antislavery crusade. One school of historians argues that as the war progressed, this tactic became increasingly self-defeating. By emphasizing the preservation of the Union and not highlighting the moral differences between the Union and Confederate causes, the federal government lost liberal and working-class support in Europe, thus permitting conservative governments, whose leaders despised American democracy as much as they disliked southern slavery, to adopt programs that aided the Confederacy. Only after Lincoln committed the United States to the immediate aboliton of slavery in the South did the tide of European opinion turn and force European officials to retreat to a more neutral posture.'