This collection of essays addresses the role of foreign affairs in the American Civil War. It argues that foreign relations held far more significance for the war's outcome than is generally recognized. Particular emphasis is given to the policies that Union president Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward adopted to ward off European recognition of Confederate independence—including their reluctance to enforce the Monroe Doctrine—and why the South's “King Cotton” diplomacy never achieved the results that Confederate founders expected when they created their new nation. The auth ... More

This collection of essays addresses the role of foreign affairs in the American Civil War. It argues that foreign relations held far more significance for the war's outcome than is generally recognized. Particular emphasis is given to the policies that Union president Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward adopted to ward off European recognition of Confederate independence—including their reluctance to enforce the Monroe Doctrine—and why the South's “King Cotton” diplomacy never achieved the results that Confederate founders expected when they created their new nation. The authors probe the economic, ideological, cultural, and geopolitical factors in the Confederate failure to earn recognition from a single foreign power and why dangerous international incidents such as the “Trent affair” and the Confederate raid from Canada on St. Albans, Vermont, failed to bring about European involvement in the war. The book addresses the international complications of the Union blockade, considers the impact on British public opinion of public addresses in England by former southern slaves, assesses Union and Confederate reactions to French emperor Napoleon III's intervention in Mexico, and treats the impact abroad of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. The book suggests that the war's outcome inspired liberal and reform movement all over the world and that Civil War diplomatic issues still hold relevance in modern times.