Real question this time ...?

Question

England outlawed Slavery in 1833 yet still was a large buyer of Cotten from the Southern United States for the next 30 years. The assisted the Confederate States of America as best they could recieving ambassadors from the South and building the War Ships CSS Alabama and the CSS Shenandoah. They also supplied Sailors and equipment to the South. They did not enter the Civil War because of the offical govenment stance of neutraility. So my question is, Was the populace of England anti-slavery or were they amblivilant about the institution?

Answer 1

By July 1862 the supply of raw cotton to Britain had dwindled to one third of its pre-war level. Three quarters of the cotton mill workers were unemployed or on short time, and charity and the dole could not ward off hardship and restiveness in many Lancashire working class districts. The Chancellor of the Exchequor, Willian E Gladstone, feared there would be an outbreak of rioting unless something was done to relieve the distress. Gladstone favoured a British intevention to stop the war, thus improving the flow of cotton across the Atlantic.

Despite the hardships however, rather surprisingly, the attitute of British textile workers was not in general opposed to the conflict. An American Minister, Charles Adams, writing in December 1862, commented that whilst "the great body of the aristocracy and commercial classes are anxious to see the United States go to pieces", there was still a lot of sympathy among the middle and lower classes towards the struggle against slavery. There were, it must be admitted, a few demonstrations by the working classes but these seem to be aimed more at the British Government for the poverty and unemployment being suffered rather then against the Americans themselves. Support for the Union came also from leading radicals like Karl Marx and John Bright who saw the conflict as a Class struggle, and from Liberal interlectuals who saw the Southern states as a "power of evil" and an "enemy of progress".

Nor did the loss of cotton imports have a deferential effect on the British ecomomy. Workers in wool, flax, amrmaments, shipping and other industries actually benefited from the increased wartime trade.

The Confederacy rather shot itself in the foot at the beginning of the war by placing an embargo on the sale of raw cotton to England and France. Unfortunately the South had over-exported in 1860 resulting in English warehouses still being heavily stocked with cotton awaiting processing. By the time they changed their mind in 1862 and recommenced exports, the British had already obtained alternative supplies from Egypt and India. From then on the Union blockade would make it increasingly difficult for vessels to make the voyage.

Also, successive crop failures in Europe, at that time, made the importing of Grain more important for a while than the importation of cotton-The supply of American grain coming mainly from the Northern States of the Union.

Napoleon III of France toyed briefly the notion of recognising the Confederate States but would not commit to such an action unless the British did so also. This, of course, by the Confederates' idiotic attempt at Economic blackmail, had been made an impossible and unpopular concept to the English.

Answer 2

The British Commonwealth got above common wealth and entered Bill Gates Wealth from the abduction,transport and sales of the slaves to those repulsive colonists.
They also generated a very ugly but large profit from the manufacture and sales of Slave labor goods, cotton, minerals,spice,life and blood that they denounced in public but procured in private.
That was an ugly part of all history for all involved. It is an ugly reality that remains to this day.

Answer 3

It was a very different time. They were trading for cotton they needed. It was not their business whether or not the south still used slaves. It is only in recent times that governments have started to expect their trade partners to conform to their own ideals to a certain extent.