AMERICAN CIVIL WARIN THE INTERNATIONAL

COMMUNITY

The Great Republican Experiment

Cynthia Szwajkowski, Ph.D.Cynthia@tpsnva.org

THE CONTRADICTION TAKES US TO CIVIL WAR

WILBERFORCE INTRODUCED A BILLTO END SLAVERY IN BRITAIN AND ITS COLONIES EVERY YEAR BEGINNING IN 1790.

HE SUCCEEDED IN 1833

BUT THE WORLD’S LABORERS LOOKED TO THE FREE NORTH TO SAVE “THE GREAT REPUBLICAN EXPERIMENT”

British Poor LawsCould even separate Women from their children

THE GREAT REPUBLICAN DREAM VS. COTTON &

ARISTOCRACY

The South

Aristocratic roots shared with England’s ruling elite – Palmerston sympathetic

Tight trade relationship

DEPENDENT ON BRITISH GOODS - $200 million worth of

goods to South during warEnfield rifle for both sides. Increasingly go to Remington & Colt during war.

Shoes for South

Uniforms for South

CSS Alabama built in Liverpool

Rams built for South in England

U.S. made legal claims against G.B. for abuse of neutrality

KING COTTON

In 1858 Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina replied to Senator William H. Seward of New York:

"Without the firing of a gun, without drawing a sword, should they [Northerners] make war upon us [Southerners], we could bring the whole world to our feet. What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years? . . England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her. No, you dare not make war on cotton! No power on earth dares make war upon it. Cotton is King."

KING COTTON

Southern plantations generated three-fourths of the world's cotton supply.

The states that entered the Confederate States accounted for 70 percent of total US exports, and the Confederate leaders believed that this would give the new nation a firm financial basis.

BLOCKADE

Now therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States...have further deemed it advisable to set on foot a blockade of the ports within the States aforesaid, in pursuance of the laws of the United States and of the Law of Nations in such case provided. For this purpose a competent force will be posted so as to prevent entrance and exit of vessels from the ports aforesaid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Blockade_connecticut_plan_civil_war_cartoon.jpg

What went right with Cotton Diplomacy?

LANCASHIRE COTTON FAMINE

400,000 workers lost their jobs

England under Palmerston & France under Louis Napoleon close to intervening on the Confederate side

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Cotton_famine_life_magazine_manchester.jpeg

Mass Starvation in British Cotton Mills

Brought the beginning of the British Social System & a more humane approach than the Poor Laws

Caused Britain to turn to Indian cotton

DEPRIVATION

The starving in the British cotton mills led to the world’s first welfare programs.

NONETHELESS, MOST of the workers supported THE GREAT REPUBLICAN EXPERIMENT.

What went wrong with Cotton Diplomacy?

1860 – Bumper crop – Glut on world market EMBARGO deprived South of cash to buy weapons, etc. Southerners found the embargo too painful, and they cooperated in running more than 1 ½ million bales of cotton through the northern blockade. Cotton successfully grown in Egypt & IndiaBritish textile workers act against self-interest & SUPPORT THE NORTHEMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION

Gettysburg Address, Nov. 1863

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure…

It is rather for us the living, to here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last measure of devotion-that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom.

KING CORN

U.S. INCREASED EXPORT OF GRAIN TO G.B. DURING THE WAR

BRITISH FOUND THEMSELVES MORE DEPENDENT ON U.S. GRAIN THAN ON ITS COTTON

CORN WINSSee documents. Lincoln & the workingmen of Manchester

1863 George Griswold carried donated bacon, bread, rice, corn, 15000 barrels of flour

Extract of the Address from the Working People of Manchester to His Excellency Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America. Public

Meeting, Free Trade Hall, Manchester, 31 December 1862.

"...the vast progress which you have made in the short space of twenty months fills us with hope that every stain on your freedom will shortly be removed, and that the erasure of that foul blot on civilisation and Christianity - chattel slavery - during your presidency, will cause the name of Abraham Lincoln to be honoured and revered by posterity. We are certain that such a glorious consummation will cement Great Britain and the United States in close and enduring regards."

LINCOLNExtract of the President Abraham Lincoln's letter in response to the Working

People of Manchester 19 January, 1863

"...I know and deeply deplore the sufferings which the working people of Manchester and in all Europe are called to endure in this crisis. It has been often and studiously represented that the attempt to overthrow this Government which was built on the foundation of human rights, and to substitute for it one which should rest exclusively on the basis of slavery, was unlikely to obtain the favour of Europe.

"Through the action of disloyal citizens, the working people of Europe have been subjected to a severe trial for the purpose of forcing their sanction to that attempt. Under the circumstances I cannot but regard your decisive utterances on the question as an instance of sublime Christian heroism which has not been surpassed in any age or in any country. It is indeed an energetic and re-inspiring assurance of the inherent truth and of the ultimate and universal triumph of justice, humanity and freedom.

"I hail this interchange of sentiments, therefore, as an augury that, whatever else may happen, whatever misfortune may befall your country or my own, the peace and friendship which now exists between the two nations will be, as it shall be my desire to make them, perpetual."

The George Griswold Arrives in Mersey from NY, February, 1863

The statue of Abraham Lincoln in Manchester, England

On the grounds of the Ewa Plantation School just west of Honolulu stands a bronze statue of a young Abraham Lincoln with ax in hand, forearms rippling after splitting logs. Fifteen years before Hawaii became a state in 1959, school officials unveiled this statue, a symbol of Lincoln’s popularity in Hawaii during the American Civil War, when many Hawaiians enlisted in the Union Army and Navy despite the kingdom’s official neutrality.

On the grounds of the Ewa Plantation School just west of Honolulu stands a bronze statue of a young Abraham Lincoln with ax in hand, forearms rippling after splitting logs. Fifteen years before Hawaii became a state in 1959, school officials unveiled this statue, a symbol of Lincoln’s popularity in Hawaii during the American Civil War, when many Hawaiians enlisted in the Union Army and Navy despite the kingdom’s official neutrality.

HAWAII & LINCOLN

Strong antislavery sentiment motivated a substantial number of Hawaiians to serve in African American military units, supporting the Union cause against the seceding slave-holding South. These views, plus Lincoln’s personal relationship with Hawaiian ruler, King Kamehameha IV, strengthened Hawaiians’ affection for the American president.

GEORGE GRISWOLD DOCKS AT LIVERPOOL

February 1863200 boxes of bacon50 barrels of pork500 bushes of corn500 barrels & boxes of breadRice13,216 barrels of flour…

GREETED BY A GREAT CONCOURSE OF PEOPLE

In 1865, shortly after Lincoln’s assassination, the Honolulu newspaper Ka Nupepa Kuokoa expressed the sorrow of the Hawaiian people at the death of what it called the “people’s friend.” It argued that “no parallel for this great crime can be found in the world’s history since the Crucifixion.”

On Lincoln’s birthday,

Ewa’s students place leis

around the statue.

STUDENTS:

FIND LINCOLN STATUES THROUGHOUT THE U.S. & THE WORLD

EXPLAIN WHY

RUSSIA

1863 – WARSHIPS IN NY & SAN FRANCISCO HARBORS FOR THE WINTER

U.S. TOOK THIS AS A SIGN OF FRIENDSHIP

1867 – TSAR ALEXANDER II SELLS ALASKA

Check used to purchase Alaska, $7.2 million

PRUSSIA

PRUSSIAN OBSERVER FREEMANTLESee Killer Angels

Danish War – 1863Austro-Prussian War 1866

FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR – 1871

UNIFICATION OF GERMANY& TOTAL WAR