A Conversation for The British Involvement in the American Civil War
Why Britain didn't intervene
Quelor Started conversation Jun 1, 2003
This is a very nice piece of work...especially considering you are an outsider looking in. I thought I might add one or two thoughts, if I may?
Along with Charles Adams another person strongly responsible for non-intervention was John Bright. While the nobility tended to favor the Confederacy (for a number of reasons, including pragmatic and racial) the working class supported the North. John Bright saw that the causes he was fighting for were inherently tied up to a Northern victory and did much to steel the worker's courage during the Cotton Famine of the early years. (Although, it seems the bumper crops of the two years leading up to the war also played a role in damping the loss of the cotton supply). As an aside, Karl Marx also thought this way and sent Lincoln a congratulatory note on his re-election in 1864.
Bright did much to keep the working class pro-Northern during the critical early years before the Emancipation Proclamation. So much so that he was greeted as a national hero during his visit after the war.
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Why Britain didn't intervene
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