7 score and 6 years ago today forces of the Confederate States of America fired upon Fort Sumter of the United States of America, from which the state of South Carolina, where the fort was placed, had seceded.
The War to Prevent Southern Independence had begun.
The Old World's views of that war are quite interesting. Some sources are:
- Europe and the American Civil War
- Thomas J. Dilorenzo: European Views of the War To Prevent Southern Independence
- The Acton-Lee Correspondence
- Jordan et al.: Europe and the American Civil War (differs from the source above, out of print)
The South was aristocratic. The pre-1861 order in those United States was a decentralized order. There was much European sympathy with the South.
Among all the "Civil War Reenactment" groups that exists there is actually one reenacting the European perspective, namely the Société d'Europe.
One could wonder whether the North's eventual use of the "slavery card" simply was a move to prevent European intervention. If so, it seems to have worked quite well. The Old World stayed out of the conflict. It stayed out at its own peril.
The New World did not stay out when there was a conflict in the new half a century later. Ironically, it was a Virginian, Woodrow Wilson, who was to be at the helm.
Intervention in the economy. Intervention by war at home. Intervention by war abroad.
Having created the intervention level of the Progressive Era, isn't it the most natural thing in the world to go tell other peoples how to be free?
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