Why was the Confederacy unsuccessful in enlisting aid from foreign countries such as France, England, etc.?

Question

Why did these foreign countries ultimately decide not to sanction or recognize the CSA as a seperate country?

Answer 1

England and France had philosophical/political problems with slavery, but were about to throw in with the south when Lee crossed into Maryland in 1862. If things had gone better for the south during second Manassas, both of those nations would have recognized the Confederacy. When Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation soon after that (fall 1862, gave the South 100 days to free her slaves), that made the war itself one over slavery rather than secession, and ended forever any chance that England or France could support the rebels.

Lincoln had to wait to issue the Proclamation until the North was clearly gaining the upper hand in at least some areas, and the second battle of Manassas was the opportunity he had been waiting for. If McClellan had done something right after that besides waste more than a month of good marching weather demanding ever more supplies etc., like marched on Richmond which was wide open to him, the war would have ended in 1862.

Lincoln was finally forced to fire McClellan to get things moving again, but the lost opportunity was disastrous and resulted in a lot more death and destruction that need not have been.

Answer 2

The Confederacy did send diplomatic representatives to France & England, but they lacked skill as statesmen. Both countries withheld formal recognition of the CSA as a country, mostly because they didn't want to get involved in a war. Also, the men who most often dealt with and maintained relations with England after the Revolutionary War remained in the north. However, even though England wouldn't officially recognize the CSA, it was selling warships to and running blockades for the south so they could receive supplies since the north had cut them off. England would only accept cash for the ships, not being willing to extend credit to a rebel nation, and the south quickly depleted its store of gold, forcing it to become bankrupt. It would be nice to think that England, or any other country, would refrain from supporting the south on the basis of principle against slavery, but if this were true, they would not have stooped to profiting off the side that was fighting to keep slavery.

Answer 3

It was a risky decision at best for any nation to oficially recognize the CSA; by strict definition the CSA was a handful of states in rebellion against the United States--to recognize the CSA would have weakened diplomatic ties with the US at the very least and risked armed conflict with the US and its allies at the worst.
The US had more of everything: population, heavy industry, trading goods, money, and already-existing foreign trade agreements all across the globe.
The CSA had cotton and some other trading clout, but it also had slavery, which a sizeable portion of Europe had outlawed.
Consequently, most of the European nations adopted a wait-and-see policy toward the CSA. If the rebellion became successful, recognition and support would ensue. Otherwise,....
By the time a couple of years had gone by, the US had managed to strengthen its military command structure enough to start winning victories in the field and re-take rebellious territory. This was enough to deter other nations from seriously considering recognition.

Answer 4

These foreign countries did help the CSA as much as possible. The North maritime superiority blockaded the South. Anything that got thru had to run a blockade. England had a great demand for cotton and suffered because the demand was not met during the Civil War. The CSA could not be recognized as a country because they had not successfully seceded. They would had to win the Civil War first.

Answer 5

Well, I can only speak as to England.

English agriculture tended to be inefficient, in fact, that was one reason England got rid of its portectionist Corn Laws in 1839 These laws prohibited the import of grains. So, England had just gotten into the habit of importing grain from the US.

While the English did get a lot of cotton from the south, they also got a lot of grain which tended to come from the north. The English empire was able to get cotton from elsewhere (such as Egypt and India) but grain was something they needed from the US at the time due to crop failures in Europe--Potato Famine for example).

The US south largely depended on exports of cotton and tobacco, grain was grown further north in non-slave states.

Also a factor in why the grain was "northern" was the development of railroads that carried the grain to ports--most of the railroad development was in the north, so grain tended to flow northward to northern ports for export to England, whereas cotton was exported from the southern states' ports.

Basically England needed corn more than it needed cotton from the US.

Now at the same time the English cabinet was setting itself up to intervene on the side of the south, first over the Trent affair, where the North seized a British ship transporting commissioners from the south back to the CSA. Lincoln was smart however and apologized for the seizure and released the captives....eliminating a British cause for entering the war.

The British were happy to see the south succeed and secede, but it was not not hell-bent on the end of the Union. It was also playing it scrupulously correct about recognition of the south and there was a certain hesitancy to recognize rebellion--this made monarchies a bit conerned.

What finally kept the British out was that the war, which at first looked like the CSA would succeed started to turn against it with the battle at Antietem which showed that the south was not a hands down winner. Also Lincoln's emancipation proclamation was just as important because slavery was not popular in England and his freeing the slaves (in territory he didn't control) was a very popular thing for him to do over there.

Even though the civil war did cause shortages in the English textile mills the British working class remained favorable to the north because they opposed slave holding.

Answer 6

Probably it had to do with the distance between the America's and Europe, the fact that there where other sources of supplies and the cost where to high to warrant continued support for the South, but I think the biggest reason was two fold, first the British had outlawed Slavery in like 1819 and the English and the French were never sure enough who was going to win the war, the North or the South, to take sides. And the number one reason was that England and other European Nations like France were still busy fighting and out doing each other to get involved any tighter in the affairs of the faraway America's.

Answer 7

First, most countries that had at least some sympathy for the Confederacy were waiting to see if the fledgling nation was really viable.

Secon, in a nutshell slavery. Europe had already outlawed slavery. Russia had made it clear it supported the union in the war. English sentimetn was divided, primarily on the issue of slavery.

Answer 8

AT first the south had support but it was mostly verbal, then the north blockaded the south and no one could gain entry or exit the south. This was hard on the south for they did not have much in the way of textile mills and therefore even thou they produced a mad amount of raw materials they had no way to produce anything and without trade they couldn't well trade raw goods for say guns.

They needed more textile mills and also a better plan than just failing back and fighting a war of attrition.

Answer 9

Mainly because they were not a legal government, Lots of countries were afraid of getting involved in another war, so they were more diplomatic (Habsburg Peace Treaty)
But as a butom line it was not a safe bet. The north, was supposed to win, since they had the economical structure to last a war, not the same case in the south.

Answer 10

we would desire to continually provide up giving it via those international places government businesses. We would desire to undergo in suggestions that many harmless and a few no longer so harmless human beings go through in those areas. For humanitarian motives on my own they might desire to be helped and the British government would desire to have a say on how that's spent