Some External Interests
CHAPTER VI
SOME EXTERNAL INTERESTS
While thus the Republican administration was efficiently serving the domestic interests of the nation, there were other matters of commanding importance which required attention in our relation to other countries. The Civil War itself profoundly affected our foreign relations. While the attitude of most of the nations was entirely correct the government of one was persistently unfriendly, while that of another was unsympathetic and permitted itself to be used greatly to the disadvantage of the United States.
Never in all its history was American diplomacy more sorely taxed than it was in the first half of the war to maintain friendly relations with Great Britain and at the same time to vindicate the rights and honor of the nation; and never did it more victoriously acquit itself. The geographical situation of various British colonies and the commercial activities of the British Empire gave that power peculiar interest in the struggle and made it natural that the southern states should look to it for aid. The adoption of the protective tariff system in the United States bore hardly upon British trade and industry and caused for a time a strong turning of British sympathy toward the free trade Confederacy. There was probably never any danger of British intervention. But British recognition of Confederate independence would have been a serious injury to the United States, while British aid to the
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