Slavery
The Confederate States of America came into existence when seven of the 15 slave states protested the election of Republican president Lincoln, because his party had made clear its commitment to the containment of slavery geographically and the weakening of its political power. Republicans typically denounced the Slave Power. However slavery was the cornerstone of the South's plantation economy; yet it was repugnant to the moral sensibilities of most people in Britain, which had abolished slavery in its Empire in the 1830s. But up to the fall of 1862, the immediate end of slavery was not an issue in the war; in fact, some Union states (Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Delaware) still allowed slavery. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, by making ending slavery an objective of the war, had caused European intervention on the side of the South to be politically unappetizing. Pro-Southern leaders in Britain therefore spoke of mediation looking forward to peace, though they understood that meant the independence of the Confederacy and continuation of slavery.
Read more about this topic: Britain In The American Civil War
Famous quotes containing the word slavery:
“I remember the almost daily talks of my mother on the cruelty of slavery. I would say nothing to her, but I was thinking all the time that slavery did not seem so cruel. Master and Mistress Jennings were not mean to my mother. It was she who was mean to them.”
—Cornelia (1844–?)
“Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man’s nature—opposition to it, is [in?] his love of justice.... Repeal the Missouri compromise—repeal all compromises—repeal the declaration of independence—repeal all past history, you still can not repeal human nature. It still will be the abundance of man’s heart, that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)