Exploring the most important 55 months in American history
OTD 165 YEARS AGO: Confederate envoys seek to garner foreign support but faced opposition due to foreign hostility toward slavery. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward declares U.S. commitment to preserving the Union and warns the foreign powers not to recognize Confederate independence.
By the end of 1860, several proposals to keep the Union intact have been proposed, including the complex compromise plan from Senator John J. Crittenden. But none of these proposals seem to be popular enough for both North and South to support.
The last annual message of James Buchanan’s presidency acknowledges that North and South are “now arrayed against each other.” He offers suggestions on how to resolve the crisis, but he leaves both sections dissatisfied.
Charles Francis Adams, U.S. minister to Great Britain, threatens war unless the British honor their neutrality and stop construction on a warship allegedly being built for the Confederacy.
The leaders of Great Britain express new reluctance to recognize Confederate independence, and Emperor Napoleon III of France proposes foreign mediation between the two warring factions.
U.S. officials protest the construction of a ship at Liverpool that escapes British jurisdiction and later becomes the feared commerce raider C.S.S. Alabama.