Why did Britain and France decide not to support the Confederacy during the civil war?
“Once the war with the United States began, the Confederacy pinned its hopes for survival on military intervention by Britain and France. The United States realized this as well and made it clear that recognition of the Confederacy meant war with the United States — and the cutoff of food shipments into Britain. The Confederates who had believed that “cotton is king” — that is, Britain had to support the Confederacy to obtain cotton — were proven wrong. The British instead focused more heavily on cotton and textiles produced in India or in Russia, with the French also ramping up production in Algeria. Notably, in the early years of the war, demand for textiles, and hence cotton, was weak. In time, the war and Union blockade of the South caused economic hardship in textile-producing areas of England such as Lancashire, which depended heavily on cotton exports from the seceding states; however, abolitionist sentiment among English workers ran counter to this economic interest in Confeder
