GDG- Re: Defeat of AoP, Recognition by Britain

[cameron2 at optimum.net]

Britain would almost certainly, at least IMO, have recognized the Confederacy had it been victorious in the war, and the US itself been forced to accept the fact of disunion and recognize the former states as a now independent country.  The British may have found the fact the Confederacy was a slaveholding country distasteful, but, that would not in and of itself have prevented diplomatic and trade relations.  And the US could hardly have objected, if it had already been forced to recognize southern independence, especially since Britian would certainly not have been the only country to extend recognition.  But, the British were never going to risk its diplomatic and trade relations with the US by recognizing the Confederacy as long as hostilities existed.