But Antietam gave Lincoln the victory he needed to issue his Emancipation Proclamation. By injecting an end to slavery into the Union war effort it ended forever the possibility of European intervention on the side of the confederacy. Without that intervention the confederacy was doomed.
“By injecting an end to slavery into the Union war effort it ended forever the possibility of European intervention on the side of the confederacy. Without that intervention the confederacy was doomed.”
The concept of “sealing fate” is an abstract one, and invites debate about forests and trees on many levels. Certainly, the South needed outside aid to counter the population and industry of the North. However, given these shortcomings, one might reasonably say that the Confederacy’s fate was sealed before the war began. It is hard to believe that the British would have intervened fiercely enough on the behalf of a slave-nation, with or without the Emancipation Proclaimation.