How plausible is a Confederate victory in the ACW?

Percentage-wise chance of a CSA victory?


  • Total voters
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The cited statements are evidence that people who didn't like Disraeli called him Jewish names.
Did you read them? They weren't just calling him names: in many cases, they were saying he behaved differently- in a fundamentally un-English way- because of his Jewish heritage, despite the fact he was an Anglican and born in Britain. Comments such as those, made today, would earn the commenter a visit from the police on the grounds of hate speech.
We have two data points.
To be fair, we have two data points which you provided. I could have easily provided more when I first posted: I didn't do so because I thought it was so patently obvious that there was anti-Semitism at the top echelons of British society that they weren't necessary. For instance, the fact that the first practicing Jew was elected in 1848 but was unable to take the Christian oath to be admitted to the Commons; the House of Lords rejected Jewish Disabilities bills four times before he was allowed to take a modified version of the Oath in 1858, thirty years after Catholic emancipation. Disraeli spoke in favour of the Jewish Disabilities Bill when it was first proposed, as did Bentinck; however, the rest of the Conservative leadership voted against it, to a man. All the speeches against it are up there in Hansard for you to have a look at:

the very gentleman whom we saw in his turban under the gallery three or four evenings ago, Rango Bapojee, the vakeel of the late Rajah of Sattara, might as fitly take his place amongst us as the Jew—or at all events the gentleman with the peaked cap, the Parsee from Bombay, Manochjee Cursetjee, whom we all remember in England two or three years ago... exactly as one who has, at all events, pledged himself on the Gospels to discharge his duty on the true faith of a Christian—might presume to do. (Sir Robert Inglis, Conservative, Oxford University)
He felt that there was such a preponderance of evil over good in this measure, that the House would be justified in refusing their assent to it...He dreaded the passing of such a measure as this, not merely as one which gave admission to the Jew, but to all classes of infidels. (George Bankes, Conservative, Dorset)
however the Protestant and the Roman Catholic might differ, there was the common bond of Christianity to unite them; and in that bond the Jew could not concur...this was a measure calculated to shock the religious feelings of the country, and to act as an impediment to the progress of the happiness and prosperity of our people. (Henry Goulburn, Conservative, Cambridge University)
He intended no insult to the Jews in asserting that they were unfit to legislate or interfere in the affairs of a Christian nation (John Plumptre, Conservative, East Kent)
They were about to take into their councils those who had no sympathy for Christianity... If they did this, they might as well let in Mahomedans and Hindoos. (Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, Conservative, North Devon)
the Jews were dispersed over all the nations of the earth; that members even of the same family owed allegiance to different sovereigns, and this must necessarily weaken their attachment to the particular nation in which for the time they happened to be. (Hon. Charles Law, Conservative, Cambridge University)
there were suspicious facts connected with Judaism... Their desire and hope were for territorial power and dominion in that eastern land which they still regarded as their birthright. Every Sabbath-day they prayed for their restoration to the land of their fathers; and the sentiment that formed the common bond of union between the Jews of England, America, and Sweden, was, that they were the rightful territorial possessors of the soil of Palestine... he should object to any concession to the Jews of our present vantage ground, small as it might be. (Alexander Hope, Conservative, Maidstone)
a considerable number of his constituents had petitioned the House strongly against the proposed measure... the argument for the admission of every infidel, ay, of every atheist, was irresistible, if admission was to be given to those who, like the Jews, openly—with the best means of information, with the fullest knowledge—most obstinately, and by profession, rejected the Christian religion. (Charles Newdegate, Conservative, North Warwickshire)
The admission of the Jews to Parliament was totally opposed to the Christianity of our country and of its Parliament...The House was called upon to decide whether it should henceforth consist of those only who believed in the Saviour, or whether it should consist also of those who decreed him to be a liar and an impostor. (Viscount Drumnanrig, Conservative, Dumfriesshire)
He might say, however, that this country was yet Christian; but if this measure passed, and Jews were admitted into Parliament, that could be said no longer. It would be gross hypocrisy on the part of a Jew to join in the prayers which were daily read in that House; and if this measure were adopted, he considered that, from that time forward, no man should ever dare, in the British Parliament, to pronounce the name of Christ. (Henry Drummond, Conservative, West Surrey)
concede what we may, maintain what we will, the distinction must exist immeasurable and eternal between those who look upon the cross of Christ as the fit punishment of a convicted malefactor, and us who, amid all our differences and all our faults, still cling to that cross as our best hope of happiness here, and our only hope of happiness hereafter. (Augustus Stafford, Conservative, North Northamptonshire)
why should you alter it now? Simply because a Jew is prevented by it from taking his seat; one who, however great his wealth, or respectable his character, does still not belong to our nation, but is a member of one which is scattered all over the world, and of whom there are not more than 40,000 in this country. If you alter this oath to suit a Jew, you will next be proposing to do away with the prayers which are offered up daily in this House, because he says that he cannot join in them. (Lord Burghley, Conservative, South Lincolnshire)
They were asked—and here mark the distinction—not merely indeed to admit Jews into our Legislature, but so to alter its Christian character, that, as a consequence, not merely Jews, but members of every description of faith, however cruel and barbarous, might of right take their places amongst them. (Alexander Cochrane, Conservative, Bridport)
a Jewish minority in this House, in the midst of a Christian majority, would be probably more zealous and earnest for their own religious tenets than they were before—and whether the Legislature was found to be very anxious for such a confirmation or reinvigoration of the Jewish faith, he would leave to the hon. Member for Pontefract himself to determine (Viscount Mahon, Conservative, Hertford)
The Jew had a separate creed and a separate interest; he was a citizen of the world, who had no land of his own, unless it should please God in his providence to restore him. He was governed by a rule of life perfectly distinct from all their notions of law and liberty; and if such was the fact, how could they say that he should be admitted? (Spencer Walpole, Conservative, Midhurst)

Because Bentinck and Disraeli had supported Jewish emancipation, the former was forced to step down and the latter was considered ineligible for leadership in the Commons. The role passed to Lord Granby, who resigned a month after his appintment because he felt himself unable to fulfil it. Rather than give the leadership to a Jew, the party continued for the rest of the session without a leader. The party was subsequently run by a triumvirate of Granby, Disraeli, and J.C. Herries- keeping the Jew in a minority, despite the fact that one of the triumvirate has admitted he's incompetent- until this arrangement fell apart and leadership was grudgingly transferred to Disraeli.

The MP in question was Lionel de Rothschild. Having been denied his seat in Parliament, he was later denied a peerage because of his Jewish origins. His son was granted one in 1885, becoming the first Jewish member of the House of Lords. Lionel had been careful to give his son the most thoroughly British upbringing he could manage, though this was not always successful. For instance, when the Rothschilds and the Lawsons (both Jewish families) attempted to make their way into respectable landed society via yeomanry commissions in the Royal Bucks Hussars, this earned the regiment the nickname of "the Flying Foreskins". It's this casual, ubiquitous anti-Semitism that leads me to conclude that Judah P. Benjamin's heritage would have counted against him.

Incidentally, in the light of Disraeli's struggle to have his talents recognised, would you like to revise the following statement?
Disraeli was enormously successful in British politics as the leader of the Conservatives. He moved, quite successfully, in the highest social and political circles.
recognizing it as a sovereign state was on the table until the failure at Antietam, but was possible as far as Gettysburg before the Union proved it wasn't going to be pulled into a stalemate.
Recognising it as a sovereign state was on the table for one very brief period, and only if the rest of Europe were on side and if the South had agreed to mediation while the North refused. There wasn't any other move to recognise the South, unilaterally or otherwise.
1864 is a typo for the record, and I mean 1863, Gettysburg is the last option for any form of mediation. However the above is certainly true that any direct recognition of the Confederacy has certainly faded as an option post-Antietam.
What you said was:
Palmerston himself was quite optimistic about the idea and providing a diplomatic solution until 1863.
Which of Palmerston's public or private utterances leads you to believe that he was "quite optimistic about the idea and providing a diplomatic solution" outside the window I cited? Palmerston is clear what he feels about diplomatic solutions: it would be like trying to make it up between Heenan and Sayers in the third round.

we should be perfectly justified in acknowledging the independence of the Southern States, provided only that that independence had been—in the words which he used—"firmly and permanently established."... The South American Republics were not acknowledged till a great many years after they had practically achieved and obtained their independence. There was a war between them and Spain—separated by the wide Atlantic from her revolted subjects—and unable with any degree of power to re-establish her authority over them; and, I believe, it was nearly fifteen years—certainly a great many years—before their independence was acknowledged. (Lord Palmerston, 18 July 1862)
 
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