Halfway through the war, he clearly just got fed up and said โoh youโre afraid Iโm taking your slaves away? Well surprise motherfuckers, Emancipation Proclamation!โ
The Emancipation Proclamation was a genius move to guarantee that GB would not enter the war on the side of the Confederacy, which was being considered. Lincoln, by raising the bar of the Union cause from preservation of the union to a moral question about slavery guaranteed that Britain, who had just outlawed slavery itself, could not join to support the side that was fighting to preserve the institution. It's just one of many examples of Lincoln's genius and pragmatism.
There's also the whole business about westward expansion and competing plans for First Nations. Probably a bit more influential in the end, than some sea captain halfway across the world saying 'Enh. You're British enough.'
Before the war, Britain had impressed thousands of American sailors. Had any country done something similar to Britain, it would have been more than enough to provoke the British to war. It was not something to be taken lightly then or now.
The American diplomats had brought it up with the British almost as soon as the war started. Jonathan Russell, the American charge d'affaires in London, made a peace offer to the British only a few months after the war began that involved repealing the Orders-in-council restricting American trade with Europe and ending impressment. The British had already repealed the Orders, so they were in no mood for making other concessions, particularly on impressment, which the British saw as vital for their war effort against Napoleon. In the words of Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh, "No administration could expect to remain in power that should consent to renounce the right of impressment, or to suspend the practice, without the certainty of an arrangement...to secure its object.โ
In 1814, Napoleon was defeated for the first time, so the point of impressment was moot, as it was no longer something the British needed to engage in. After that, President Madison asked that the demand to end impressment be dropped, as concessions had been made elsewhere and there was no longer reason to believe the British would engage in impressment any further, in addition to the fact that the British were particularly resistant to such a demand. That is why impressment was not in the Treaty of Ghent. However, it had still been an important demand up until that point and the general scholarly consensus is that it was one of the major reasons that led to the War of 1812.
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u/CharsOwnRX-78-2 Jul 11 '24
Halfway through the war, he clearly just got fed up and said โoh youโre afraid Iโm taking your slaves away? Well surprise motherfuckers, Emancipation Proclamation!โ