When the discussion of the causes of the war is broadened from slavery to address tariffs, federalism, and several other issues they are still commonly looked at from the perspective of political philosophy in a domestic context but the American conflict existed in an international context with several external actors. England had both a trade policy at the time of attempting to eliminate other industrial competitors leaving them as the world’s source of manufactured goods and a broader strategic objective of trying to break larger land based civilizations into “statelets”. The latter was in response to a perceived threat from larger civilization states that were not heavily trade dependent and had vast natural resources along with potentially much larger populations. This primarily targeted Russia in what was referred to as “The Great Game” but the potential of a united Germany, which would not form into a modern nation state until 1871, and an expanding America also posed potentially existential threats.
British Strategic Objectives and Risks
Britain’s foreign policy strategy looked out far into the future and generally established a course that remained highly consistent over time. English Historian Sir John Seeley discussed the threats posed by larger land based states in two widely read course lectures in 1883 that advocated British expansion:
“If the United States and Russia hold together for another half century, they will at the end of that time completely dwarf such old European States as France and Germany, and depress them into a second class. They will do the same to England, if at the end of that time England still thinks of herself as simply a European State, as the old United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, such as Pitt left her. It would indeed be a poor remedy, if we should try to face these vast states of the new type by an artificial union of settlements and islands scattered over the whole globe, inhabited by different nationalities, and connected by no tie except the accident that they happen all alike to acknowledge the Queen’s authority.” Sir John Robert Seeley. The Expansion of England (1)
While the lectures were given in 1883, the ideas conveyed here were established well before that time and are a consistent theme throughout. Seeley’s lectures address both strategies of encouraging the breakup up of large states and forming a coalition of British colonies in a commonwealth which was also done. The British Commonwealth and the idea of a global commonwealth, however, is very different from a natural civilization state or nation in that it is a legal entity that is not bound by culture or history. This would over time evolve into the neo-liberal globalist “rule based order”[1]
England was further threatened by an emerging technology, railroads. They could control the sea and were the world’s dominant maritime power but they couldn’t control over land routes which were increasing throughout this period along with their cargo carrying capability. In some regions railroads could make maritime shipping routes obsolete so long as they weren’t disrupted by wars. In a paper authored by Sir Halford Mackinder for the Royal Geographic Society he later described the problem railroads posed to the British empire observing the “The railroad will allow large land masses to be controlled from within” and that this could render “naval power and access futile”. (2)(3) He then went on to further explain the economic impact saying, “In the matter of commerce it must not be forgotten that ocean-going traffic, however relatively cheap, involves the four-fold handling of goods – at the factory, at the export wharf, at the import wharf, and at the inland warehouse for retail distribution; whereas the continental railroad truck may run direct from the exporting factory to the importing warehouse.” (3)
U.S. Ambassador to England Charles Francis Adams addressed the desire to break up America in a letter to Seward in August of 1862 stating, “The predominating passion here [in England] is the desire for the ultimate subdivision of America into many separate States which will neutralize each other,” wrote Adams to Seward on August 8, 1862. British politician and Member of Parliament Sir Edward Bulwer-Leyton had previous predicted that America would be broken up into at least four pieces with, “happy results for the safety of Europe” and went on to say that as long as the states remained united it “hung over Europe like a gathering and destructive thunder-cloud. But in proportion as America shall become subdivided into different States… her ambition will be less formidable to the rest of the world.” Some British politicians and newspapers even went so far as to call for the annexation of some American states, generally focusing on areas of New England. On January 3rd of 1860, the London Morning Post, which was the favored press outlet for Prime Minister Lord Palmerston, called for the restoration of British rule in America observing that British Canada would be in a strong position to annex fragments of the United States. The first target was to be Portland Maine stating that, “On military, as well as commercial grounds, it is obviously necessary that British North America should possess on the Atlantic a port open at all times of year…” (4) (5 p. 58) It then went on to encourage Maine to secede and join Canada voluntarily.
An Ongoing Trade War with the North
Empires establish colonies typically as suppliers of agricultural products or raw materials to the mother land however; New England and the northeast developed manufacturing economies putting them in competition with England especially after the initial industrial revolution. The southern states had a developing yet still minimal manufacturing economy (6) but provided agricultural products to both the northern states and England and also provided a market for goods produced in these places. The South fit the classic colonial model of being an agricultural colony but because of the comparative volume of commerce, it was more tied to England than the northern states economically. This has led some to observe that England effectively re-colonized the South without the trouble and expense of governing it.(4)(7) Lord Robert Cecil summed this up in addressing the British parliament 1862 saying, “[T]he Northern States of America never can be our sure friends… because we are rivals, rivals politically, rivals commercially. We aspire to the same position. We both aspire to the government of the seas. We are both manufacturing people, and in every port, as well as at every court, we are rivals to each other. … With respect to the Southern States, the case is entirely reversed. The population are an agricultural people. They furnish the raw material of our industry, and they consume the products which we manufacture from it. With them, therefore, every interest must lead us to cultivate friendly relations, and we have seen that when the war began they at once recurred to England as their natural ally.”(4) The New England states were not only most similar to Britain economically but also culturally which would later become another card to play in the re-colonization of America during the next war (8).
The conflict regarding trade between the northern colonies/states and the mother country had a long history and there was much more to it than simply “protecting infant industries” until they could become competitive. The founders generally favored free trade and many had a concern that protectionism would favor industrialists and bankers over an agrarian society which was, of course, proven to be true. British trade policies were not based on “free trade” but were a national industrial policy that took different forms at different times and places. Prior to the revolution the British Trade and Navigation Acts (1660, 63, 72) sought to directly block the colonies from manufacturing and required all shipping to and from the colonies to go through British ports and pay duties. By 1677 there was a 10 to 1 trade imbalance between the colonies and England which remained until the revolution. Even during the revolution it was 3 to 1 (4). Later British trade strategy would evolve towards capital controls and selective dumping that targeted foreign producers.
During the revolution American manufacturing expanded due to inability to get imports but after the end of the war in 1783 the British started dumping goods at prices the American producers couldn’t match (4). Independence as opposed to creating opportunity and prosperity caused the economy to sink even lower as the result of a trade war that only one side was fighting. The Articles of Confederation are assailed for not providing adequate centralization or federal authority but a more fundamental specific issue was that it didn’t provide a means to deal with a trade war and stop deindustrialization. As the constitution was being formed most of the founders, while still seeing free trade as an ideal, were adopting the position that protective tariffs were necessary to deal with Britain. James Madison said in a speech to congress in 1789 that “commerce ought to be free” but then went on to explain that that only works if everybody plays by the same rules saying: “If America was to leave her ports perfectly free, and make no discrimination between vessels owned by her citizens and those owned by foreigners, while other nations make this discrimination, it is obvious that such policy would go to exclude American shipping altogether from foreign ports, and she would be materially affected in one of her most important interests.” Fisher Ames, who took part in the Convention, stated that, “the present Constitution was dictated by commercial necessity more than by any other cause. The want of an efficient government to secure the manufacturing interests, and to advance our commerce, was long seen by men of judgment and pointed out by patriots solicitous to promote our general welfare.” (4) (9 p. 17) The problem with implementing this policy however was that it would largely benefit one section at the expense of the other(s).
After the trade war of 1783 there were successive rounds of dumping and tariffs that pitted the British system against what would become Henry’s Clay’s American System. The next incident of strategic dumping was in 1816. Lord Brougham declared in the House of Commons that, “It is well worthwhile to incur a loss… to stifle in the cradle those infant manufactures in the United States which the war has forced into existence.” (7) (10 p. 249) Lincoln advisor Henry Carey observed that the British control markets through a combination of military actions (citing the Opium Wars), economic / financial crisis, duties, dumping campaigns, and government subsidized product development. A British parliamentarian affirmed this stating, “It was idle for us to endeavor to persuade other nations to join with us in adopting the principles of what was called ‘free trade’. Other nations knew, as well as the noble lord opposite, and those who acted with him, what we meant by ‘free trade,’ was nothing more nor less than, by means of the great advantages we enjoyed, to get a monopoly of all their markets for our manufacturers, and to prevent them, one and all, from ever becoming manufacturing nations.” (4)(11 p. 159) Henry Clay’s explanation of the American System in 1851 is as follows:
“Two systems are before the world; the one looks to increasing the proportion of persons and of capital engaged in trade and transportation, and therefore to diminishing the proportion engaged in producing commodities with which to trade, with necessarily diminished return to the labor of all; while the other looks to increasing the proportion engaged in the work of production, and diminishing that engaged in trade and transportation, with increased return to all, giving to the laborer good wages, and to the owner of capital good profits…
One looks to pauperism, ignorance, depopulation, and barbarism; the other in increasing wealth, comfort, intelligence, combination of action, and civilization. One looks towards universal war; the other towards universal peace. One is the English system; the other we may be proud to call the American system, for it is the only one ever devised the tendency of which was that of elevating while equalizing the condition of man throughout the world.” (12)(13)
The concept of an American system was never appealing to the South for a number of reasons. One was the idea of a national bank along with “improvement projects”, which tend to become political rewards and transferred tax revenue to the North. The major reason though appears to be that the North was not believed to have enough demand for Southern products to take the place of England as the primary consumer. In the book “Cotton is King” from 1856 this belief is addressed although not definitively quantified and the quotes cited in this regard were from some time prior to the war. (14)
In looking at the events leading up to the war, it’s fairly easy to establish that England had a desire and intent to break up the American Union but establishing exactly what they did, when they did it, and assessing how effective these actions were is admittedly more difficult. In the case of motivating action on the part of the South it results in a search for quotes that generally lack direct authority and offer plausible deniability. In the case of the North, however, there is one path that is obvious and persistent and that is the Unitarian church. While this institution originated in Eastern Europe it really took root in England in the late 1700’s amongst the English liberal elite and spread to France during the French Revolution and then to America. Northern political activists in the decades leading up to the war were overwhelmingly Unitarian and they were prolific writers largely controlling the press at the time. They were also typically wealthy with many being independently wealthy thanks to generational family wealth leaving them to pursue political and literary pursuits. During this time Congregationalists were splitting with the most affluent and influential taking their time and resources to the Unitarian side (15 pp. 5-15). They were a tiny denomination confined to the North East that had no more than three percent of the population as followers even in this specific region (16). The social causes they championed were also not widely popular with abolition having a following of less than 2% in 1860 (17 p. 46). Prohibition was the most popular and longest living reform movement which may have been able to claim 10% of the population as active advocates. Despite their lack of general popularity, they were vastly influential and would largely write the history of this time period. They provided a direct conduit for English liberalism and German rationalism to spread amongst the upper crust of the northern population. While it may be difficult to establish a direct tie between the British government and the Unitarian movement, it formed the initial bond between the English political class and American Anglophiles and drove the developing sectional conflict.
Confederate Recognition and the Trent Affair
Before and during the war Britain appeared to dangle official recognition in front of the Confederacy but it was a vague promise that became based on “battlefield success” of which the Confederacy had a good deal of through the first two years of the war (4). In August of 1861 three Confederate envoys met with British Foreign Secretary John Russell and were told that England would only consider recognizing the Confederacy after “the fortune of arms shall have more clearly determined the respective position of the two belligerents” (4). From the perspective of the Confederacy this would have seemed like moving target that couldn’t be completely defined. During the war the British were largely responsible for providing the Confederacy a modern and fairly effective navy and even manned some of the ships. They also provided some technical support like aiding in the building of a gunpowder mill in Augusta, Georgia. On the other hand, the British consistently sought alternative sources for Southern cotton and had retained large reserves. The cotton exports from cotton producing states actually peaked before the war and were destined to decline as more producers entered the market.(6)
An interesting event that merits mentioning was the Trent Affair of October 1861 when Confederate ambassadors James Mason and John Slidell were traveling to Europe on board the RMS Trent when it was intercepted by the Union Warship the San Jacinto which took the two Confederate diplomats hostage. Mason was to be ambassador to Britain and Slidell to France. This was a highly provocative and difficult to explain act that was used by England as justification to deploy 11,000 troops to Canada. Britain actually threatened that war would be declared unless an apology was provided and the captain of the Union ship was then made to appear as if he had acted on his own (18). The Confederate ambassadors were eventually released on January 1st and were picked up by a British ship. Why was this risk necessary in the first place? Although not entirely provable, many believed at the time and believe today that the Confederacy was ready to bargain away slavery for recognition and in this respect would be distinctly different from the Union that would still allow it.
Historian Rod O’Barr researched several pieces of evidence strongly indicating that it was thought at the time that the Confederate envoys were prepared to make such an offer for recognition and tangible military support. The week that Mason and Slidell were to arrive in England a British newspaper “The Spectator”, which was anti-Southern, published a detailed account of a secret treaty offer, “the Confederacy have offered England and France a price for active support. It is nothing less than a treaty securing free trade in its broadest sense for fifty years, the complete suppression of the import of slaves, and the emancipation of every negro born after the date of the signature of the treaty….” (18) O’Barr further cites an entry in the diary of Ambassador Charles Francis Adams from February 17, 1862 “A visit from Bishop McIlvaine, who came to tell me the result of a conversation he had held at breakfast with Sir Culling Eardley this morning, that gentlemen had apprised him of the existence of rumors that Mr Mason had brought with him authority to make large offers towards emancipation if Great Britain would come to the aid of the confederates. He even specified their nature, as for example, the establishment of the marriage relation, the restoration of the right of manumission, and the emancipation of all born after a certain time to be designated.” (18)
In looking at the role slavery had played as a moral topic in international diplomacy of this period, which was at best minimal, this would have created an awkward and difficult scenario for the Union to navigate. Slavery was not seen as a significant topic by Europeans that were closely monitoring the developing conflict. Charles Dickens wrote, “The northern onslaught upon slavery is no more than a piece of specious humbug disguised to conceal its desire for economic control of the United States” (19). Karl Marx echoed this in his own style saying, “The war between the North and South is a tariff war. The war is, further, not for any principle, does not touch the question of slavery, and in fact turns on the Northern lust for power” (19). To the broader public, however, the issue was highly visible and was a constraint on decision makers. If the Confederacy had at this stage offered to trade slavery for recognition, could the British and French have turned down this offer even if they really wanted to? Lincoln, perhaps not wanting to wait for an answer to that question, presented a proposal on March 7, 1862 for compensated emancipation without provisions for colonization and went about trying to sell the idea. In the modern news cycle this may have seemed like a significant time lag but in that time this could be considered a timely response given the time it took to cross the Atlantic. This was a distinct change from his previous positions and involved political risk because while the northern factory workers generally supported tariffs, they opposed abolition for fear of causing a migration to the north.(18)
France, Austria, and Mexico
England was not the only foreign actor involved in all of this. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte became emperor of France in a coup in December of 1851 that overthrew France’s Second Republic. Napoleon was supported by the British and from that point forward France increasingly became a compliant client state to the British. France invaded Mexico and placed Austrian Archduke Maximilian on the throne ousting liberal anti-cleric Benito Juarez. Juarez was supported by the American or Union government while Maximilian and his French sponsors were supported by Catholic monarchists which were a substantial portion of the population in Mexico. France moved 40,000 (7) troops into Mexico which was a sizable number but not large in respect to the Union and Confederate forces or the size of the territory being contested.
While there were common interests between the Confederacy and the French the French would prove to be fickle and dangerous potential allies. Louis Napoleon had plans to annex large sections of southern land which he had made known on several occasions. He is quoted as having said he intended to,” establish a French Gibraltar at Key West, to seize Florida, Louisiana, and the Gulf Coast, and to bring the Mexican Empire under French domination,” according to Alexander Tarsaïdzé in Czars and Presidents (1958). This was part of a larger scheme referred to as the “Grand Design” in “Blue and Grey Diplomacy” by Howard Jones whereby the United States was to be split into three regions (North, South, and West) while Texas and Louisiana would become part of a Mexican / French Empire. In 1863 the French consuls in Galveston and Richmond were caught trying to organize a rebellion against Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederacy.
Russia Supports the Union to Maintain Anglo-American Conflict
The other significant international player that is commonly overlooked is Russia. England and Russia were permanent adversaries in what was referred to as “the Great Game” due principally to Russia having large land armies in Asia that could threaten British interests in the Middle East and India. Britain had also consistently blocked Russian access to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean principally by propping up the collapsing Ottoman Empire. Russia had just lost the Crimean War in 1856 to an alliance of European nations with the potential intervention of Austria acting as the probable deciding factor in driving Russia into capitulation. Russia had a long standing strategy of playing England against America but England was dangling incentives for Russia to fall in line with their plan of forced arbitration to resolve the American conflict and partition the country. Tsar Nichols summed the historical relationship between Russia and America in 1839 by saying, “Not only are our interests alike but our enemies are the same”(4) (20). The British were offering the Russians a free hand to deal with a forming Polish revolt, a greater role in deciding the government of newly formed Greece, and other concessions and the Russians appeared to give an ear to this while also communicating with the Americans . Russian diplomat Eduard de Stoeckl wrote to Prince Gorchakov in January of 1860 regarding the “approaching dissolution of the American Union” saying that the British American rivalry had “been the best guarantee against the ambitious projects and political egotism of the Anglo-Saxon race” (4)(21 p. 85). The Tsar ultimately agreed with this position and concluded that maintaining the American Union was “essential to universal political equilibrium” (4)(22 p. 350). From October of 1863 through the end of the war the Tsar would deploy the Russian fleet in San Francisco and New York. They never were directly involved in hostilities but they provided a significant deterrent to the British and French that extended beyond Naval war and included the potential of an expanded war in Europe or Asia. Secretary of State Seward and Lincoln managed this situation effectively amplifying the potential scope of Russian involvement.
During the Lincoln administration the US bought Alaska from Russia which brings up some interesting questions on the intent of this. A rail route from the American East and Midwest all the way to Russia and central Asia with a short sea crossing would have been possible but a major engineering undertaking to be sure. Britain had shown little interest in British Colombia prior to that time and promised the residents of British Colombia amongst other things a rail line to eastern Canada (12). At the time there was a real possibility that British Columbia would become part of the United States and a key hurdle to overcome was the transfer of private Hudson Bay company land, which made up most of what is now Canada, into federal control (12). Britain would eventually be the strategic winner with regard to Canada blocking economic cooperation between the United States and Russia.
International Banking, Greenbacks, and the Banking Act of 1863
International intrigue wasn’t limited to trade and industry but included finance which was probably more significant following the war and provided for the European powers a sort of “Plan B” for financial control of the American states if military disunion failed. Otto von Bismarck stated the common objective of division but from the perspective of international finance: “The division of the United States into federations of equal force was decided long ago before the Civil War by the high financial powers of Europe. These bankers were afraid that the United States, if they remained in one block and as one nation, would attain economic and financial independence, which would openly upset their financial domination of Europe and the world. Of course, in the “inner circle” of finance the voice of the Rothschild’s prevailed. They saw an opportunity for prodigious booty if they could substitute two feeble democracies, burdened with debt to the financiers…in place of a vigorous republic sufficient unto herself. Therefore, they sent their emissaries into the field to exploit the question of slavery and to drive a wedge between the two parts of the Union…The rupture between the North and the South became inevitable; the masters of European finance employed all their forces to bring it about and to turn it into their advantage” (23 p. 374) In the years ahead of the war, France and England had grown relatively stronger and the American states weaker (4). The states had wrestled with the question of a national bank that would be tied to the European central banks as is the case today, since its founding. Under Jackson, the USB had its charter revoked and the national debt went to zero (23). In response to this the international bankers cut off funding of the US government in 1842 putting the country into a recession (23). A debt free, financially independent America was not in the interest of the international banking community and war provides opportunity to the few at the expense of the many. As war took hold, the London bankers generally supported the Union while the British government and the French bankers supported the Confederacy (24). The renowned Lehman family made vast sums smuggling guns to the South and cotton to the North. By 1861 the nation was again $100 million in debt(24). The Rockefeller family was also to get its start during the War Between the States when J.D Rockefeller as partner of Clark and Rockefeller parlayed a small initial investment into a sum large enough to start Standard Oil transporting food and supplies for the Union Army.(25 pp. 50-56)(26 pp. 69-83)
The Union initially partially financed the war effort in 1861 by issuing $150 million in “greenbacks” which were bills of credit deemed to be legal tender without the involvement of a private bank. By the end of the war $432 million in greenbacks had been issued. The European bankers saw this and similar actions taken by other governments since, as a threat to their very existence. The London Times, which was the paper of record for international finance, wrote: “If that mischievous policy, which had its origins in the North American Republic, should become indurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off its debts and be without debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous beyond precedent in the history of civilized governments of the world. The brains and the wealth of all countries will go to North America. That government must be destroyed, or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe” (24). What good this would have done in terms of breaking foreign financial ties was completely undone, however, by the Banking Act of 1863 which was almost more than the international banking community could have hoped for effectively converting all currency as debt owed to the bank. This created nationally chartered banks that were similar to a national bank except that there were many instead of just one. These nationally chartered banks would purchase treasury bonds and then turn them back to the treasury in exchange for “United States Bank Notes” which were declared to be legal tender. The bank’s net cost was zero and it also eliminated competing currencies (23 p. 388). A communiqué sent from the Rothschild investment house in London to an associated firm in New York boasted, “The few who understand the system will either be so interested in its profits or so dependent upon its favors that there will be no opposition from that class while, on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending…will bear its burden without complaint” (23 p. 389).
Related to the Banking Act of 1863, the war created the first American financial dynasty although it proved to be short lived. Jay Cooke, who was a businessman from Ohio who was living in Philadelphia at the time, along with his brother Henry, who was the publisher of a leading Republican newspaper in Ohio, supported Salmon P. Chase to become Secretary of the Treasury in the Lincoln administration (27). This support and lobbying included a $100,000 contribution to Chase (a vast sum at the time)(27). In return for this, Chase granted the newly establish Cooke investment banking firm a monopoly in underwriting the entire federal debt. Leveraging their wealth and power, and the fact that the Republicans completely controlled Congress after the South seceded, Cooke and Chase were able to craft what was in effect a private national banking system. Under this system the multiple national banks could only expand credit in relation to federal bonds they owned and the bonds had to be purchased from Jay Cooke(27). Cooke & Co. continued this monopoly after the war and was extremely influential in post-war Republican administrations. Cooke met his fate in the panic of 1874 and went bankrupt. He was replaced by the Morgan financial dynasty which was formed in the 1830’s when Americans George Peabody and Junius Morgan set a banking firm in England to deal with American railroad securities. Peabody and Morgan almost went bankrupt in 1857 but were bailed on by a huge loan of 800,000 pounds from the Bank of England (the equivalent of half a billion pounds in 2000).(28 pp. 300-1)
An Existential Conflict for the South AND the North
It’s fairly clear that the war for the South was an existential conflict that ended the last Christian Agrarian society and would make it in effect an agricultural colony for decades to come. Eventually some industry would relocate to the South from the North, most notably the textile mills but this was a slow process. The region would also be asset stripped by absentee financial interests much like areas of the world that were colonized by western powers. For the North, on the other hand, to absorb the cost and human losses of a prolonged conflict, it would indicate that it was also seen as an existential conflict as well. Northern industry could not have survived the breakup of the union and were already reaching a crisis point.
The northern cities in particular were extremely volatile with mass immigration, cultural conflicts, widespread poverty, crime, and an unstable and teetering economy. Riots and social unrest were always a very real possibility and the encouragement of people to move west (“Go West young man and grow with the country”) was in part intended to act as a relief valve. Historian and author Gene Kizer documented these conditions in his book “Slavery was not the Cause of the War Between the States”. Georgia Supreme Court Judge Henry L. Benning stated in November of 1860, “The North cut off from Southern cotton, rice, tobacco, and other products would lose three fourths of her commerce and a very large proportion of her manufacturers. And thus those great fountains of finance would sink very low… Would the North in such a condition as that declare war against the South?” (29 p. 35) The Chicago Tribune echoed this in December of 1860 stating, “In one single blow foreign commerce must be reduced to less that on-half what it now is. Our coastwise trade would pass into other hands. One half of our shipping would lie idle at out warves…Our manufactories would be in utter ruins…millions of our people would be compelled to go out of employment” (29 p. 56) Many northern newspapers were either in favor of secession or simply assumed secession would happen peaceably until they became aware of the economic implications which were not theoretical or associated with a future time period but were immediate. In New York City, which was culturally distinct from New England and western New York State, there was a movement to secede from New York State. Mayor Fernando Weed described the situation as being too “gloomy and painful to contemplate” and went on to say, “When disunion has become a fixed and certain fact, why may not New York disrupt the bands which bind her to a venal and corrupt master…to a people and a party that have plundered our revenues…”
Ultimately in the case of the Revolutionary War, foreign intervention would decide the outcome. In the case of the Civil War (War Between the States) lack of foreign involvement determined the outcome. Does this, then, provide a conclusive and complete explanation of the war – not necessarily? The people of the time period were probably more aware of some of these foreign and monetary policy issues and the dangers of central banks and complex foreign alliances than people are today but banks and foreign governments couldn’t directly cause the war; they could only facilitate it. Specific industries, generally those that supply the military, may profit from wars even to the point of supplying all sides of a conflict, but they cannot create the underlying issues driving it. External actors can encourage conflict but can’t, by themselves, initiate it. How then should causes of major geo-political events like this be assessed? The most objective way is to start with how the event was triggered then expand to its immediate causes as perceived by people living in the time period and work outward from there. Anything else amounts to investigating people to find a crime as opposed to investigating a crime to find those responsible.
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Bibliography/Notes
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[1] The British concept of Empire that was over time shared with other western nations goes against the historical concept of Empire that tried to preserve and integrate local culture. The modern western idea of empire must eradicate local cultures.
