In an era where the politics of Europe was still largely dominated by the landed aristocracy, and fears of popular revolutions sweeping across the continent (such as the aborted Revolutions of 1848) still gripped the political ruling class, the American Civil War was seen almost as a godsend. A vindication of reactionary assumptions about the dangers and inherent volatility of democracy.

And while Great Britain had what one could regard as a semi-democratic government, it’s liberal parliamentary government led by Prime Minister Lord Palmerston took a largely pro-Confederate stance, owing both to market demands for Southern cotton and lingering official animosity to the still nascent American republic, until the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation when public hostility in Britain towards the institution of slavery pressured Palmerston’s government to back off from support for the South and adopt a non-interventionist policy.