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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (8355)	3/13/2001 8:14:47 PM
From: thames_sider	Respond to of 82486

The British traded with the North. They also had trade with the south but that was limited by the North's blockade (not by British unwillingness to trade). Debatable point... The aristocracy and gentry, still powerful in the UK at that time and dominating the media, had far stronger sympathies and similarities (and ties) with the slave-owning landowners of the Confederacy (and Lincoln, at the time, had not committed to abolish slavery): and the Confederacy, after all, was the side fighting for its own freedom from 'foreign rule'... However, the older ruling classes in the UK no longer controlled the mercantile/trading faction, which had far more dealings and similarity with the more industrial North; not to mention the sympathies of the (mainly non-voting) working classes of the time. Parliament went for a 'neutral' stance... as our then PM said, "for God's sake, let us, if possible, keep out of it." Wonderful imperial ethics in action. OTOH, if the merchant faction had seen more potential profit from the South, then possibly they might not have supported the North... I dread to think. Incidentally, the British Navy had a policy of having at least twice the force, plus some, of the next two largest naval powers in the world combined (this lasted until the early 1900's, when the spread and scale of industrialisation finally made it impractical, and in terms of effective capability was probably finished earlier when the Dreadnought class became widespread). Had the UK taken active part on either side, then given the use of that side's bases the blockade might not have counted for much... in hindsight, I'm glad that didn't happen. <g>