Question #47032
1 Answer
The Emancipation Proclamation discouraged European intervention in the Civil War and encouraged freed slaves to enlist and aid the Union Cause.
Explanation:
The Emancipation Proclamation made it politically impossible for the European nations which had outlawed slavery to support the Confederacy that practiced slavery.
Both the British and the French depended on cotton from the south to fuel their textile industries. The Federal government of the Union had used punishing tariffs to both discourage the exportation of cotton to Europe and the importation of manufactured goods from Europe to the south. The tariff laws imposed by the north were designed to make the south trade exclusively with the north to the direct benefit of the north and the detriment of the south and Europe.
An independent Confederacy would have been of great economic benefit to Britain and France. Britain had military advisors with the Southern forces. The main purpose of these military advisors was to advise England if there was a good chance that the south could win if Britain intervened on the side of the South.
The British navy breaking the blockade of the southern ports by the Anaconda plan would have allowed the south to sale their cotton in exchange for desperately need military supplies. This would have extended the Civil War perhaps to the point that the North would have settled for a separate nation on its southern border.
The Southern forces throughout the war suffered from a Northern superiority in military equipment, repeating rifles, rifled artillery, ironclad ships, more and better muskets, more ammunition, and medical supplies. British intervention could have reversed this disadvantage for the South.
The Emancipation Proclamation made it politically impossible for France and England to support the South even thought it would have been to their economic benefit.
I hope that helps!
