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Foreign Issues

The American Civil War (1860–65) dominated foreign affairs during Lincoln's presidency as much as it did domestic issues. At the beginning of the war, the Confederacy expected, even counted on, British and French support and perhaps open intervention in the war. The South was the world's largest supplier of cotton, and southerners were convinced that the huge demand for cotton in Great Britain and France would mean that those countries would have to support the South in order to protect their own economies. Both the Union and the Confederacy sought European aid throughout the war.

However, both the United Kingdom and France developed alternative sources of cotton, specifically in Egypt and India, as southern cotton sat on docks and in the warehouses of the South rotting for lack of a market. King cotton turned out not to be so royal after all.