I'm verry sorry if it comes across as harsh,
@Gannt the chartist, but at this point I must ask you to actually read what I have written (which you have apparently not done), and kindly refrain from falsely claiming I have made statements which I have not made. I really enjoy debating details to the point of utter obscurity, but I truly do my best to accurately quote others and respond to what they say. But if you insist on completely misrepresenting what
I say, claiming I said things that I never said, discussion sadly loses all interest to me.
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No you have made an assertion that in the event of a not war Britain would recognise the confederacy.
Where you get the gall to make this claim, I cannot comprehend. You made incorrect claims before, in your last post, and I then corrected you by directly quoting my own statement. If you have been attentive, you must by now have read it twice. I will quote it a second time, so you can read it a third time. Or, which is far more likely, so you can finally read it for the first time, instead of misrepresenting my statements.
This is what I said:
At this point, there are two conflicting claims regarding the status of the CSA. Battle has not yet erupted. Legally, as far as foreign powers are concerned, the CSA is a political entity, although not a country as yet. It's in limbo, so to speak. Unlike in OTL, there is no war yet. Negotiation, possibly with arbitration, is still in the cards. For foreign powers to accept the Union navy's power to tax their vessels when trading with Southern ports would mean that they accept that the Union is right. It means choosing a side.
Trading with the CSA, contrarily, implies no such thing. You can trade with anyone. To choose their side, you'd have to recognise them as a country. Foreign powers are, as yet, doing no such thing. This is why Britain, France and all the rest of the world will most certainly refuse to accept mr. Lincoln's ambitious plans of boarding their vessels. If he tries, he is at war. And he knows it. OTL's Trent Affair proves that he might 'test the waters', but will back down when war threatens. Which it will. This in turn means that he can only board and tax Confederate vessels. The Confederates will understand that, no doubt. They will no doubt do their utmost to make deals with foreign merchants, so those will make their foreign vessels available for the purposes of trade between the Confederacy and the world at large.
Read it, please. Especially the bolded part. Read that part one more time, please. And then come back to me about your claim that I have said that "Britain would recognise the Confederacy". I have argued the
opposite, namely that trading with the CSA does
not imply recognition. It never has. That's not how international law works, or has ever worked. Simply put: whatever the USA believed about secession and its nonexistence, that's not what foreign powers had to believe. The USA was immensely helped in coming to exist by the fact that France had zero interest in Bitain's opinions on secession, after all. So please stop presenting the US view as if it
had to also be the British/French/etc view.
You have repeatedly shown an unwillingness to uncouple Union beliefs and actual facts. I have pointed this out before. You claim:
Until they do they are not in fact a state merely the disgruntled losers in an election.
There is no Union, there is the United States of America, a country recognised and with whom the UK have several treaties and a long standing and friendly relationship.
They have no reason to do so to recognise the Confederacy. This from the outside is a disputed election.
...but that is based on your misinterpretation of international law and international relations. The very act of secession means that this is no longer just a disputed election. This is either an illegal rebellion,
or it is the creation of a new state. It's clear that the USA believes the former, but the CSA believes the latter. The fact that the USA believes one thing doesn't make that thing the truth. Britain is neutral, and will not interfere. Yes, they enjoy friendly relations with the USA. Just to be clear: 'friendly relations', in international law, only means 'not actively hostile with'. It doesn't mean you have to be all buddy-buddy. Britain can maintain friendly relations with the USA and still trade with the fledgling CSA. Whether the USA then wants to break off friendly relations is its own business, but I rather doubt it.
The simple fact is that internationally speaking, there are two competing claims regarding the seceded states, and unless Britain is going to choose the Union side explicitly (which they historically didn't), they can trade with the CSA happily until a blockade is put in place (and they historically
did so). That doesn't require any kind of recognition of the CSA's nationhood. Britain will not choose the USA's side. Britain will do what it did in OTL: remain neutral while events unfold, forbid any interference by either side with its merchant vessels, and respect a blockade if it is instituted. But observe that until the blockade was laid down in OTL, British vessels went to and from the CSA blithely, not paying tarriffs, and Lincoln wasn't stupid enough to try to hinder them. He didn't want to try the tarriff enforcement in OTL, but was left with very little choice. Thankfully for him, Southern hotheadedness gave him a
casus belli before he had to.
The fact that he was even willing to consider the tarriff enforcement, which could only be truly gainful if applied to foreign vessels, shows how deperate he was. Because he had to know that it would lead to a declaration of war. The CSA was stupid enough to start shooting, and that gave the USA grounds for raising an army and getting a blockade going. But my whole premise is that the CSA
refuses to start shooting. The claim that Lincoln would just "find an excuse" is bogus. If he had one, he'd have planned to use it in the days just before Ft. Sumter in OTL. He didn't. His OTL backup plan involved
antagonising the most powerful empire on earth. That alone shows how desperate he must have been.
If he finds some way to trick the Southerners into starting hostilities, that's great for him. That's what happened in OTL, and as I explicitly mentioned before, that will mean things play out roughly the same, just a bit later. As soon as the armies are marching and the blockade is being laid down, Britain will respect that blockade in order to maintain neutrality in the armed conflict. But until that time, Britain will trade with the CSA,
without recognising the CSA. That last part is what you seemed to object to,
even though it's OTL. The problem for Lincoln becomes finding a way to spark hostilities. You claim it would be easy, I claim the South wasn't exlusively populated by imbeciles. In an ATL where "don't rise to the bait" is the entire basis of their strategy, and it's working out great for them, there is no reason to suddenly become stupid. They know they can outlast Lincoln under the existing circumstances
unless he can start a shooting war. For that reason, I argue that in the scenario presented here, time is on the CSA's side. As long as they keep their fingers of the triggers, Lincoln is actually powerless. Any pesky goading he engages in makes him look weak and mean. It only gives the CSA more legitimacy in the only place the counts: the courts of the world's great empires.
There is absolutely no reason for the CSA to do anything at all, except trade and wait. Just trade and wait... until Congress begins to really feel the pain, and orders Lincoln to the negotiating table.
