The Russians sided massively with the Union, The Frogs were agonizingly on the fence, and the Brits only wanted cotton and gold. Had the Confederacy freed the slaves, they probably would have had Britain as an ally.
Now, damn it, how do we get States' Rights back on the damned table?
Had the Confederacy freed the slaves, they probably would have had Britain as an ally...
...maybe, who knows...but it would never have happened, the southron economy was too heavily invested in unpaid labor, which was expensive enough as it was without the doling out of wages...as for the brits aiding the cause, the only real possibility was for help in running the Union blockade, a bandaid remedy at best, and a fleeting one at that...
...hopefully people aren’t sitting around here in 2013 thinking that Victoria was going to dispatch entire British divisions to the fields of Virginia and Tennessee, in order to influence an internecine conflict having no real impact on her country...after all, cotton could be had from Egypt and other areas as well...
I believe that the Brits, and to some small extent the French were hanging back watching to see how it went with a hungry eye towards a (southern-fried) piece of the spoils.
As long as arms are not involved (as the Democrat Slavers did), what's stopping secession now?