Talk:Diplomacy of the American Civil War

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Article: "Every nation was officially neutral throughout the American Civil War, and none recognized the Confederacy. That marked a major diplomatic achievement for Secretary Seward and the Lincoln Administration."

The declarations of neutrality were not an achievement for the Lincoln Administration.

McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 388 (my emphasis):

"Lincoln had proclaimed the rebels to be insurrectionists. Under international law this would deny the Confederacy status as a belligerent power. But the North's declaration of a blockade constituted an act of war affecting neutral powers. On May 13 Britain therefore declared her neutrality in a proclamation issued by the Queen. This would seem to have been unexceptionable--except that it automatically recognized the Confederacy as a belligerent power. Other European nations followed the British lead. Status as a belligerent gave Confederates the right under international law to contract loans and purchase arms in neutral nations, and to commission cruisers on the high seas with the power of search and seizure. Northerners protested this British action with hot words....But northern protests rested on weak legal grounds, for the blockade was a virtual recognition of southern belligerency. Moreover, in European eyes the Confederacy with its national constitution, its army, its effective control of 750,000 square miles of territory and a population of nine million people, was a belligerent power in practice no matter what it was in northern theory. As Lord Russell put it: 'The question of belligerent rights is one, not of principle, but of fact.'

Northern bitterness stemmed in part from the context and timing of British action. The proclamation of neutrality came just after two 'un-official' conferences between Lord Russell and the Confederate envoys.." -BorderRuffian 9 May 2016 — Preceding unsigned comment added by BorderRuffian (talk • contribs) 14:00, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I removed the offending sentence. Rjensen (talk) 07:19, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

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A bold view

This article seems to be making some bold claims with few checkable sources. Comments? --Pete (talk) 21:10, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

US Diplomats who died during the war

After I deleted Heusken from the list due to him dying months before the beginning of the war, User:Maurice Magnus brought to my attention that other diplomats listed as having died during the war actually died after the end of the war. I consider this issue debatable. While there is no doubt about when the American Civil War began (the Battle of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861), the war didn't have a proper end but just kind of slowly fizzled out. Thus, the article American Civil War currently has the end of the war at May 26, 1865 and justifies it with contemporary references to a "last rebel army" disbanding. However, the same article's section "End of the War" mentions that the last Confederate commander, Stand Watie, surrendered on June 23, the CSS Shenandoah was the last surrender on November 6 (though this is commonly said to have been a delayed surrender long after the war ended), and Andrew Johnson declared the war over on August 20, 1866 (though I never saw a source claiming that the war ended past 1865).

Personally, I think that the list is of little interest and would remove it completely anyway. Sure, they involve American diplomats and they (sort of) died during the American Civil War. But none of these deaths affected diplomatic relations between the US and other countries. Dying in a shipwreck, from disease, or even killed by angry natives while making it to "civilization" were rather common concerns for a diplomat in the mid-19th century. But I understand if others disagree.--Menah the Great (talk) 16:24, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

I agree with everything that Menah the Great says here, particularly that the list should be removed. Suppose that we allow a few days for an editor who finds the list worthwhile to defend it. If none does, then I'll delete it. Is that reasonable? Maurice Magnus (talk) 16:39, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

I've taken it out after seeing statements unsupported by the linked sources. The original text seems to have been copied wholesale from a Reddit post which contained numerous errors (such as claiming that Funchal, Madeira was part of the Spanish Empire; it's been always part of Portugal), and the source added after the fact. Menah the Great (talk) 17:55, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Fake sources in Morocco section

Beware! The Morocco section was created with the two sources credited to Selamat and Routledge. I used Google Translate on the first which appears to be a Malaysian paper on workplace safety. The latter is a book on Islamic mysticism which seems a bizarre place to talk diplomacy.

There are, of course, published sources on the "Tangier affair", like Cornwell's "The History of the Tangier Difficulty", the author of the Smithsonian Magazine article that I quoted to replace some weird statements from the first text (like claiming Semmes was "chief Confederate diplomat in the area"). It'll probably need to be rewritten entirely.

I cannot find published information on the Mogador incident, however.Menah the Great (talk) 17:28, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Done.--Menah the Great (talk) 08:44, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Ambiguity in Ireland section

This phrase is ambiguous: "a propaganda campaign in Ireland that was intended to dissuade the population from emigrating to America during the war and promote sympathy for the Confederacy." It could mean that the propaganda campaign was intended to promote sympathy for the Confederacy, or it could mean that it was not -- that the propaganda campaign was intended to dissuade the population from emigrating because its emigrating would promote sympathy for the Confederacy.

If the former is correct, then it could be changed to "a propaganda campaign in Ireland that was intended BOTH to dissuade the population from emigrating to America during the war and TO promote sympathy for the Confederacy." (Of course, I would not capitalize those two words in the article.)

If the latter is correct, then "thereby" should be inserted before "promote sympathy." Maurice Magnus (talk) 21:53, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

It was intended to do both. On the one hand to convince the Irish that the society of the South was friendlier to them than the North; on the other, to stop Irish from migrating to America until the war ended, because the Union blockade already made migration to the South impossible, and all Irish migrating in wartime were going to the North and feeding bodies to the Union Army.--Menah the Great (talk) 23:22, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

Are you planning to say that, or should I work on it? Maurice Magnus (talk) 23:57, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

Done.--Menah the Great (talk) 00:17, 11 March 2025 (UTC)