Europe's View of the Causes of Southern Secession

1stvermont

Corporal
Joined
Oct 22, 2016
Europe's View of the Causes of Southern Secession

This is not an area I have much knowledge on and would like to know if what I have learned is generally true. That Europe regarded the causes southern secession from a states rights/ tariff perspective.


-London Times, November 7, 1861

[T]he contest is really for empire on the side of the North, and for independence on that of the South, and in this respect we recognize an exact analogy between the North and the Government of George III, and the South and the Thirteen Revolted Provinces. These opinions…are the general opinions of the English nation.”

-British Lord Action Correspondence with Robert E Lee
I saw in State Rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy.”

I was told in the book The glittering illusion: English sympathy for the Southern Confederacy [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0895265524/?tag=civilwartalkc-20]

Shows that the vast majority in Europe at the time of the civil war believed the war was over either tariffs or states rights. Englishman Sir John Dalberacton convinced many in England to feel sympathy for the CSA because he said they were fighting a tyrannical government and defending states rights. English statesman Richard Cobden said in December 1861, the British “are unani-mous and fanatical”; that subject was free trade.


So what was Europe's opinion?
 
Back
Top