This is Western Civilization.
My name is Dr. Long.
This video is entitled The International Impact of the American Civil War.
When Americans think of the American Civil War, which took place from 1861 to 1865, we
typically think of this as a very important war for the United States, and that’s certainly
true.
But we don’t generally consider that it was also very important for world history
as well on a broader scale.
Historians have recently come to see the American Civil War as a conflict that had great global
implications, and this video will largely rely on the works of two historians who make
this argument – C.A. Bailey’s 2004 book The Birth of The Modern World – 1780 to
1914 advances this argument, and especially Don H. Doyle’s 2014 book The Cause of All
Nations – An International History of The American Civil War.
So in historiography this is becoming a new trend, emphasizing the international impact
of the American Civil War.
One of the biggest wars in the Western world in the middle of the 19th century was the
American Civil War – again, from 1861 to 1865.
This war pitted the Union, the Northern states, against the Confederacy, the Southern states.
Abraham Lincoln, the President of the United States, first and foremost waged a war to
preserve the Union.
He made this clear on numerous occasions.
Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, waged a war to gain independence from the
Confederacy and to preserve slavery.
The Confederate constitution, for instance, explicitly protected the right to own black
slaves, and numerous Confederate documents make clear the importance of slavery for the
Confederacy.
In the early years of the war, the Confederacy won enough battles that it appeared it might
win the entire war.
The Confederate government also used diplomacy in an effort to win recognition and military
support from Britain and France.
The South produced 75 percent of the world’s cotton – King Cotton, as it was known, was
primarily grown in the South and was essential to the textile industries of Britain and France.
The British and French were anxious to continue to have access to Southern cotton.
Fearing that if their supply of cotton was cut of it would lead to a downturn in their
economies, mass unemployment, and disruption in the textile industries.
Some in Britain and the French governments also hoped the Confederacy would win as this
would divide the United States, helping keep Britain and France powerfully on the world
stage.
Also, conservatives in Britain and France, who favored monarchy and unequal social arrangements
in general – and this especially included French ruler, Napoleon III – favored the
Confederacy seeing it as more similar to a monarchal government.
Pro-monarchy forces believed a Confederate victory in the war would strike a blow against
republicanism in Europe.
Indeed, pro-monarchy forces in Europe believed that a Confederate victory would show that
the experiment of the American republic was a failure, that in turn would discredit the
entire idea of republicanism and would bolster monarchy.
On the other hand, liberals in Europe, who favored republics – with constitutions;
elected legislators; civil liberties; and more equality – including an end to slavery
– favored the Union.
So Europe was divided – some who favored the Confederacy, others who favored the Union.
Now liberals in Europe were actually a bit cooler towards the Union at first because
Lincoln did not make ending slavery an explicit goal of the war.
After 1863, with the Emancipation Proclamation however, liberals in Europe became more favorable
towards the Union and more favorable towards ending the war with a Union victory.
Both European conservatives and liberals closely followed the American Civil War in the press.
In Europe the Civil War was seen as a test as to whether or not a republic could really
work – one that if the Americans would pass would strengthen the hands of those who favored
more democratic societies in Europe.
Historian Don Doyle in his 2014 book The Cause of All Nations, An International History of
the Civil War, argues that Europeans paid very close attention to the events of the
U.S, Civil War.
The European press, as I mentioned, closely followed the war and prominent Europeans were
in communication with Lincoln and Confederate president, Jefferson Davis.
Now this included important figures of the day – such as journalists; economists; and
philosopher and socialist-thinker Karl Marx; as well as Italian nationalist leader Giuseppe
Garibaldi.
For his part, Garibaldi was an extremely famous individual in his day, and he had played a
key role in the unification of Italy in 1862 – an event which also shook up Napoleon
III’s government in France and made Britain and France more hesitant to support the Confederacy
militarily in 1862.
Garibaldi was widely regarded as an exceptional military leader; Lincoln even tried to recruit
him as a general in the Union army in 1862, but Garibaldi – who was a strong opponent
of slavery – declined, stating that the Union had not strongly announced its opposition
to slavery in 1862 and therefore he could not serve under it.
As the Civil War wore on, the Union’s big advantage in men; material; and industry allowed
it to ground down the South and ultimately win the war.
1863 was an especially important year as the Union won major victories at the Battle of
Gettysburg and the Battle of Vicksburg in July of 1863.
Now this resulted in the division of the Confederacy down the Mississippi River and it made it
very difficult for the main Confederate army in Virginia, under Robert E. Lee, to go on
the offensive again.
The Civil War was the bloodiest in American history with over 600,000 deaths.
The result of this war was huge for the United States.
The Union was held together; the federal government gained more power; the Civil War greatly stirred
American nationalism; it held the country together with Union victory; and the United
States would become a major player on the world scene by the late 19th and early 20th
century.
America’s place in the global scene would not have been possible if the Union had not
won the Civil War.
The Civil War, perhaps most importantly, resulted in the end of slavery in the United States.
This also helped the international anti-slavery cause, with Brazil ending slavery in 1888.
This was the last major nation to end slavery.
The end of slavery in the United States thus had an influence even on Brazil.
In Europe, supporters of republicanism rejoiced at Union victory, as it gave them hope against
monarchy in their own countries.
French artist Frederic Auguste Bartholdi was inspired by the Union victory as well as a
visit to New York City and this inspired him to make the Statue of Liberty, which the governor
of France gave to the United States in 1886, and of course, it’s important to the United
States today.
In addition to simply dividing the United States, part of the reason that the British
and French considered getting involved in the Civil War to help the Confederacy was
because the war might cut off their textile mill supplies of cotton.
However, they did adapt.
During the war, the British and French actually found new sources of cotton outside the American
South, namely in Egypt and in India.
So this led to economic changes in Egypt and India as the British and French turned away
from the American South to get their cotton supply from Egypt and India.
In the long run this hurt Southern states.
They were very dependent on cotton – cotton exports – for their money.
At the end of the Civil War, as the British and French had new sources of cotton in India
and Egypt, this caused global cotton prices to fall between 1865 and 1900.
Now this had a dramatic impact on ordinary Southerners, and because Southerners – both
black and white – continued to grow cotton after the Civil War, but with global cotton
prices falling – due to competition from India and Egypt – this meant that farmers
in the South increasingly saw their wages drop with these dropping cotton prices.
So these developments on the international cotton market contributed to economic misery
for many ordinary Southerners, both black and white, in the decades following the Civil
War.
When the Civil War began in 1861, France – under the rule of Napoleon III – realized that
the United States was distracted with this large war.
In the meantime, Mexico had fallen deeply into debt, primarily debt to foreign creditors.
Napoleon III used Mexico’s debt to foreign creditors as a pretext to invade Mexico in
1861.
The French military would land in Mexico, take over the government, and install a new
ruler – Maximilian.
Now Maximilian was the brother of Franz Joseph of Austria, and he was then appointed the
emperor of Mexico.
Napoleon III justified this invasion and the new rule of Maximilian the III because of
Mexican debt, but his ultimate ambition was to install a government he could control in
Mexico and possibly use that to control the rest of Central America in what he thought
might be a French-led Latin empire.
Now this would have made a European power – in this case France – a major power
in the Americas again in the Western Hemisphere.
This obviously contradicted the Monroe Doctrine on which the United States, in the 1820s,
had pledged to block any further European interference in the Americas.
For their part, Mexicans did not appreciate the French invasion.
Mexican nationalists resisted the French and they fought a war there with France.
France got bogged down fighting in Mexico and ultimately would lose.
When the Civil War ended France was forced to withdraw and a new government fell apart
with Maximilian executed, leaving Mexico to rule itself again in 1867, and this was a
tremendous embarrassment to Napoleon III, losing this war in Mexico.
The Mexican holiday of Cinco de Mayo – by the way – comes from their conflict with
France, which it was to celebrate an occasion of Mexican victory over the French.
The American Civil War strained relations between the United States and Britain as well.
This reminded the British that in the event of war the United States might decide to invade
Canada, which was directly under Britain as a colony.
In part to prevent such an invasion in the future, in 1867 the British government gave
Canada a dominion status.
Now this dominion status, as it was called, made Canada an independent, self-governing
nation with close economic and political ties to Britain.
Technically, the monarch of Britain is also the monarch of Canada, although the Canadian
government, which is elected by its people, actually governs Canada.
Canada had slowly developed its own democratic institutions over time, and Britain – in
1867 – wanted to make it independent to possibly prevent an American invasion and
annexation.
This dominion status that Canada received in 1867 was likewise used later for other
heavily settled British territories, such as Australia; New Zealand; and South Africa.
As the British pulled back from direct control of Canada in 1867 – largely because of the
tensions with the United States over the American Civil War – the United States also purchased
Alaska from Russia that same year, in 1867 – and this was another sign of the withdrawal
of the European empires from the Western Hemisphere, from Britain and Canada; France and Mexico;
and in 1867 again – Russia selling Alaska to the United States.
So let’s make a few concluding points.
The American Civil War, fought from 1861 to 1865, was primarily an American event that
had huge consequences for the United States, one of the most dramatic events in American
history.
Nonetheless, it also had a tremendous global impact.
It shook up the textile industries in Europe and the world cotton market.
It had an impact in Britain, France, India, and Egypt.
Pro-monarchy and pro-republican forces in Europe closely followed the Civil War, and
the Union’s ultimate victory was seen as vindicating republicanism.
The end of slavery in the United States was also a boost for the international anti-slavery
movement, influencing Brazil to end slavery as well in 1888.
The direction the American Civil War took likewise influenced Mexico and Canada, and
in the end it helped both of these nations ensure their independence from European control.
The dominion status that Britain gave Canada in 1867 was a model for how other British
colonies were granted independence as well, again – New Zealand; Australia; and South
Africa.
So in the end, the American Civil War really was the cause of all nations, as historians
Don H. Doyle has titled his book.
So I’ll end with that note.
Thanks for watching.