In some ways, this is not a new thing. People have been writing diplomatic histories of the e the conflict ended. I think a combination of the centennial rethinking of what 19thcentury globalization is. And our current context in which americans are rethinking what it means to be part of a larger world in a postcold war era has generated a lot of rich scholarship in the last decade or so that situates the u. S. Civil war in a broader context. We are fortunate to have three young and excellent scholars who are going to help guide us through this. We look forward to our questions at the end. I will start here to my left, assistantson is professor of history at sacred heart university. Proud to acknowledge he is a High School Scholarship student some time ago. His research focuses on finance during the American Civil War and his first book Global Financial markets and civil war era is slated for publication in 2020. Left of him is andre fleche, a professor of history. His first book, the revolution of 1861, the American Civil War in the age of nationalist conflict, published by unc press, received the Southern History Association award in 2013. At the end is andre zimmerman. The author of alabama and africa, the german empire and the globalization of the new south, and the editor of marx and engels writings on the civil war. He is currently working on a history of the u. S. Civil war as an international workingclass rebellion. This is understanding the first time the institute has hosted a panel the looks at the global civil war. A lot of exciting things we can share. We know a lot about the civil war. You guys are aware of the lot of dynamics of the civil war. What about people outside of the United States in 1860 . What are some of the other things that were competing for headlines in Something Like the london times, probably the most widely circulated newspaper at the time. What are some of the things that are happening to help contextualize the conflict that we are here to talk about . The short answer is a lot. It obviously depends on a particular time. If you pull up a random london times, they may be able to speak about some other ones in the western hemisphere. Its the political machinations, the soap operas of europe. They seem to embroil these writings. The u. S. Is competing in this sense of the civil war. Spilled tolot of ink discuss the war, not only on the military front and various political implications as well. It is competing but it is taking up a surprising amount of space when you look at some of these papers. And they emphasized two developments that were really important in the 1860s. First, the rise and development of nationalism in europe, which in some ways near the debates that americans were having about the future and nature of nationalism in the United States. Secondly, a reinvigoration of colonialism around the world. At this time, european powers were pushing into south east asia, the far east, and also the western hemisphere. The major powers of europe are very interested in the civil war because they viewed the United States as a competitor in the western hemisphere. When the war broke out, you have three major empires that still had a stake in the western hemisphere. Great britain, the french empire and the spanish empire. With the United States disintegrating, there was an opportunity for european powers to take advantage. As you know, the United States had just come off a big victory in 1848 in the mexican war by adding california and the southwest, which is by no means for seeing the european powers thought the u. S. Was going to wind up power and to ocean power. Up theirsh shored claims to parts around the honduras nicaragua coast. All world powers the passage to the pacific is going to be key. Both for europe and that United States. Just as Abraham Lincoln is being inaugurated the spanish empire, which had been receding in the new world there is no doubt he is taking advantage of the chaos in the United States to move back into the new world. This was the moment for the french. In the 1850s through a coup detat took power in france. He was very much committed to reestablishing a french empire, not just in algeria, but in the western hemisphere. He was not an admirer of the United States. He has visited the United States when he was a young man. Maybe not surprisingly, from a french perspective, he found americans to be greedy, materialistic, and uncultured. He did not want to see them dominating the western hemisphere so he developed his grand design, the invasion of mexico, which unfolded first with the cooperation of spain and Great Britain in the first your of the civil war and then extending throughout the first half of 1860s. In europe, we are seeing italian unification as the war is breaking out, a nation unifying. There is quite a bit on european minds at this time. One angle that is not often talked about but really important in this question is the european communist movement, particularly karl marx and frederick engels. They were fascinated by the American Civil War. For two reasons, as part of the european revolutions of 1848 in 1849, the communist leak, there was the organization they wrote the communist manifesto for, played an Important Role in helping to turn that into a communist or socialist revolution. It failed and it did not work and they had to go into exile. A lot of them went into exile in the United States. As many of you may know, one in 10 Union Soldiers had been born in a only a tiny percentage of them were communists. They were all members of the communist leak. They include important officers, the missouri artillery officer. I think even more substantially they were more interested in seeing how is it . How can we overthrow the despotism of private property . Where other than slavery is private property more important . They began to look at the civil war. They were really inspired by it. For them, the context wasnt what was happening at the same time but a series of revolutions that included 1848, the u. S. Civil war, that would include the Paris Commune and future revolutions they were hoping for. We used to talk about the having relative peace busting out under the auspices of the british empire. The picture is one that is filled with revolution and violence and concern. Maybe that is a segue into thinking a little bit about how it is that worth unfolding in america during this time, played out to europeans and other audiences. What do they make of these sorts of processes and dynamics. What did they think the civil war was all about . The civil war comes at a moment when the entire world is debating two important debating two important questions. First of all, this is a world of empires and monarchies. You have the United States, which is claiming to represent this idea of republican government. We dont mean the Republican Party. The idea of a Representative Government. Is that really the future of the world as the United States claimed . The second big question is what is the future of labor . Does slavery have a place in the modern economy . Are we going to shift to a capitalist economy based on wage labor . Certainly in the americas you have some countries experimenting with contract labor. Laborers asinese indentured servants. None of these things have been worked out. I think its really important to understand the degree to which people are watching and sorting through these issues, certainly for european liberals the , existence of the United States was a reaffirmation that a Representative Government was possible. At the same time european conservatives, aristocrats, they would have been perfectly happy to see the United States split in two. It would have made their position much stronger in the americas. And of course, the confederacy become the most powerful and prosperous slave economy in the world. I think these are some of the issues people are paying attention to and trying to work out. From another perspective, looking at radical opinion in both europe and africa, one of the difficult thing for radical intellectuals to understand is they understood the war to be a war about slavery. Certainly that was quite explicit. They were very confused understandably by the statements from lincoln and the government that this was not a war to end slavery, not a war to interfere with slavery. One wellknown story is the italian revolutionary was asked to become a general in the union army. He said he would if they could declare ending slavery in nigeria, someone named Robert Campbell had gone to what is today nigeria with the black abolitionist martin delaney. He wrote about the civil war. Like a lot of the africanamerican press and the International Black press, there was a sense of dismay. Why isnt the union fighting slavery . Why is mcclellan promising to return enslaved people to their captors. A third thing is the government of liberia was looking at lincolns wellknown plans, colonization plans to deport free africanamericans from the United States. While most people of african descent recognize this as rooted in racism, the government of liberia was saying please do that and send the africanamericans to liberia because we would like to have them here. Bit,st to add on a little i think it mirrors about what they are getting at, one great withle of this frustration it not syncing up, particularly 26, 1863, is march you have 3000 workingclass londoners who are uniting, rallying together in a city that has a lot of ties to the south because of money tied up in kotten. They are rallying and, essentially, the whole function of the meeting is to say, finally, emancipation proclamation, word has crossed the atlantic. We heard about workers rallying in the north, its undeniable they side more with free labor identity. They are working contrary to their interest what we heard about workers rallying in the north, they are working contrary to their interest. Its undeniable they side more with free labor identity, thats contrary to whats going on the south. It ties into the german states as well. Maybe we can build on that. A lot of people outside the United States who are really interested, following the newspapers. The things marx and others are writing. One thing scholars have thought about that we know, a great question, what is going to get other powers involved, to actually do something with the war . To either recognize the confederacy how is it the different groups of people chose, if they chose, the side they were going to pull for in this . Is there anybody wants to take up that thorny question . At least when it comes to europe, something i can speak to is money talks. For a lot of these wealthy financiers, they wanted to hedge their bets. Theyre taking a look and seeing how the war is playing out. Many folks in london are deeply tied into that cotton connection, as i already mentioned. So they arent really necessarily excited about the prospect of certainly a unification, maintaining the union, but openly supporting on the part of the british government. Its telling, at the end of the war, all the stories coming out, british members of parliament, other kind of wellheeled folks, supporting the south. It kind of gets into, by similar token, you can talk about the financial connection in france. And so, the confederacy is actually successful in floating a loan in europe, through a french bank. The United States never does that. They sell loans abroad, but never have a loan directly sent out through a bank in europe. Its looked at in a different light, when you realize the daughter of erlinger is marrying john slidell, the confederate ambassador. So i have to feel that hes doing his daughter and future soninlaw perhaps a future a little favor. Immediately the same day he , floats the loan, he buys the exact same amount in union debt. At various exchanges throughout the country. Playing both sides. Prof. Thomson playing both sides. You have a lot of folks who are playing both sides. I pointed that as a classic example. Theres a lot of hemming and hawing, and of course, we dont have a transatlantic cable. It is down at this point. It existed prior to the war, but is out of commission at the time of the war. So best case scenario, looking at three weeks for news to come over. It becomes very problematic, wondering what is going on and how that is impacting prospects, and in turn has some of these governments may consider or not consider recognizing the confederacy, or providing full support to the United States government. It is such a great question. You are probably familiar the way the question has traditionally been taught, to emphasize the importance of the slavery question. Generally we teach that. We teach that because the union was antislavery, Great Britain, france, other european powers simply were not going to get involved on behalf of the confederacy because their populations were opposed to slavery. But recently, as david is emphasizing, we have been asking, is that really true . Did these governments respond to Public Opinion in that way . Was the slavery issue coloring their judgments . First and foremost, we have to say that Great Britain and france, the two powers most that most likely could have made a military impact on the war, simply did not want to back a loser. They were not going to get involved and make a decision to recognize the confederacy or support the confederacy, unless they were convinced the confederacy would win. Because if they back the confederacy, and the confederacy loses, they have an enraged United States on their hands with the capability to threaten the canadas, to threaten the caribbean. They were still having this tension between selfinterest of nations and the humanitarian question of slavery. Maybe i can answer the about the foreign powers at work in the civil war in a slightly different way. One thing many People Living in the United States recognized, or thought or believed at least, was that the institutions, traditions, and ideas of the United States were incapable of fighting or ending slavery where it already existed. Certainly, thats in fact a debatable question, but that is certainly how every president had interpreted it up to that point, including president Abraham Lincoln. There are two populations that are very interesting who drew on foreign powers, although they were not necessarily engaged with governments. The first, enslaved people themselves. Not necessarily black abolitionists, but people whose words are preserved for example in the interviews in the 1930s by the Works Progress administration. They had been support they had been fighting against slavery long before 1861, but they certainly continued and expanded their fight after 1861. And one of the ways kind of the the nonu. S. Ways that people of african descent could think about history and politics and social change was afrocentrism, and through particularly, very important in the United States, the figure of moses, who was a biblical figure but interpreted, we know through many textural resources, as an african political leader and user of magic who was able to emancipate his people and lead them out of the land of egypt, the land of bondage. There were a lot of africanamerican political traditions by enslaved people, the less prominent africanamerican antislavery activists, who relied on a form of magic called conjure in order to fight slavery, to inspire their fight to slavery, and more broadly having a concept of history that was not just endless generations of slavery in the United States, but african liberation. A second group, which i mentioned already, where the the european americans, particularly germanamerican communists, who said what is not important is not private property, but what is important is democracy. Unlike the conception of the United States, democracy and private property are antithetical, so lets fight for democracy and not worry about constitutional niceties. Or the traditions of the United States. Lets worry about kind of international democracy. They were, you could say, foreign powers, but they were very rooted in the United States, but not in the Political Institutions of the United States at the time. You guys want to jump in . Ok. Prof. Schoen well, what do we gain from studying the International Contacts we are talking about . Is this basically just adding on to the traditional story, the narrative account that we have of the civil war . Is this, are we just broadening the scope, but basically the same processes that are in play that determine the cause and the course and outcome of the war, are still the same . Or, does thinking about it from these different perspectives fundamentally change the narrative that we typically have of what the civil war was about . Prof. Fleche i dont think, we we are all going to disagree on this one, maybe. But it is important, crucial to shift that fram