No, England didn't. The Confederacy hoped the Brits would support them. Much of their diplomacy was aimed at gaining recognition. The Brits played their cards pretty close the chest, waiting to see who would win. The Brits were willing to recognize the South despite British loathing and distaste for slavery, both working class (Marx noted this) and upper class -- if it was going to be a separate country. But of course the Brits didn't want to antagonize the Union if it was going to win either. There were several points where British recognition might have helped tip the scales, but it was not forthcoming. That doesn't mean that the Brits didn't use cotton, etc., produced by slavery from 1833 through 1860 (and what the blockade runners were able to get out), but that's not the same thing. I'm not attributing especially lofty motives to the Brits, they were playing great power politics. They would have recognized the South if they thought it had been in their interests. They just calculated, in the end, that it wasn't. However, few in any classes in England cared for slavery.
--- Carl Remick <carlremick at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/5/07, andie nachgeborenen
> <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > The Brits got rid of slavery by a combination of
> > common law -- it was always illegal in England --
> and
> > an Act of Parliament (1833) abolishing the slave
> > trade.
>
> Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the Brits
> merely outsourced
> slavery? After all, England supported the
> Confederacy during the US
> Civil War.
>
> Carl
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