During its four-year existence, the Confederate States of America actively sought official recognition and aid from European powers, particularly Britain and France. Despite the Confederacy's efforts at diplomacy, the European states in large part refused to recognize or aid the Confederacy, for a combination of economic and humanitarian reasons. Recognizing the Confederacy meant conflict with the Union and associated economic costs, such as loss of Northern grain and Northern import markets as well as potential involvement in an expensive war. Moreover, abolitionist sentiment, ascendant in Europe, was mobilized on behalf of the Union by President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. These considerations outweighed the European powers' interest in Southern cotton. No European states recognized the Confederacy, although Britain did aid the Confederacy's blockade running.
Diplomatic Relations Between the Union and Confederacy
The United States government considered the Southern states to be in rebellion and refused to grant formal recognition of the Confederacy as a sovereign state. Sovereign status was important in terms of the rights and obligations accorded to a government under military and international law, so nonrecognition had important implications for the South.
The Union maintained that the Confederacy was a rebellion rather than a legitimate government throughout the war. In fact, the U.S. government never actually declared war on the Confederacy, instead merely expressing a need to recapture federal forts and suppress an ongoing rebellion, as in Lincoln's proclamation on April 15, 1861. Lincoln's calls for troops referenced an “insurrection” or “rebellion” rather than war with a hostile nation. Mid-war parlays between the two sides occurred without formal political recognition despite the fact that laws of international war governed military relationships on the ground.
By contrast, the Confederacy declared their sovereignty and considered the Union a hostile, invading nation. Immediately following the Battle of Fort Sumter, the Confederate Congress proclaimed, "... war exists between the Confederate States and the Government of the United States, and the States and Territories thereof… .” Formally, the state of war was restricted to exclude the Union states and territories that allowed slavery, although Confederate rangers did carry out operations there throughout the war.
The legal status of the Confederate States of America remained a subject of controversy after the war. In 1869, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. White that Texas's declaration of secession was legally null and void. Arguments on behalf of the Confederacy's sovereign status and the legality of secession were published by Jefferson Davis, former president of the Confederacy, and Alexander Stephens, its former vice president. Particularly notable was Davis's book The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government.
Confederate Diplomacy in Europe
After the war with the United States began, the Confederacy pinned its hopes for survival on military intervention by Britain and France. The Confederates relied on European interest in Southern cotton exports, believing that “cotton is king.” The Confederate government sent repeated delegations to Europe, although historians give them low marks for their poor diplomacy. James M. Mason went to London and John Slidell traveled to Paris. They were unofficially interviewed, but neither secured official recognition for the Confederacy.
Throughout the early years of the war, British Foreign Secretary Lord John Russell, Emperor Napoleon III of France, and, to a lesser extent, British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston, showed interest in recognition of the Confederacy or at least in mediation of the war. The Confederacy was seen internationally as a serious attempt at nationhood, and European governments sent military observers to assess the de facto establishment of independence. Unfortunately for the Confederacy, the European countries also had economic incentives not to aid the Confederacy. Moreover, the military situation worsened for the Confederacy. Abolitionist sentiment provided a third disincentive to recognize the Confederacy throughout Europe.
The Confederacy had overestimated British demand for Southern cotton. In fact, Britain had stocks to last more than a year and had been developing alternative sources of cotton, most notably India and Egypt. Moreover, Britain had much to lose by recognizing the Confederacy. Even before Fort Sumter, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward had made clear the Union's intention to declare war on nations recognizing the Confederacy. A war with the United States would be costly to Britain, resulting in the immediate loss of American grain shipments, the end of exports to the United States, and the seizure of billions of pounds invested in American securities. War meant higher taxes, another invasion of Canada, and full-scale attacks on the British merchant fleet.
Moreover, the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam undermined the Confederacy's claims to be on the verge of victory. Shortly after Antietam, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, shifting the war from a mission to preserve the Union to a mission to free the slaves. This shift mobilized abolitionist sentiment, which was ascendant in Europe, on behalf of the Union.
The "San Jacinto" Stopping The "Trent"
The Trent Affair involved the illegal boarding of a British ship in an attempt to enforce the Union's blockade of the Confederacy. Britain reacted strongly and for a moment seemed likely to aid the Confederacy; however, tensions soon cooled.