美國南北戰爭中，英法等國際列強各起了哪些作用？

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南北戰爭爆發的一個重要原因是南方奴隸主想把南方的棉花高價賣給英國的棉紡廠而從英國購回低價棉織品，所以想實行低關稅自由貿易政策，而北方的工廠主想低價購買南方種植園的棉花，而將自己生產的棉織品高價賣給南方，所以主張建立高關稅貿易壁壘。所以英國的工廠主在經濟利益上和南方奴隸主是一致的，英國政府也是更同情南方政府的。但是英國佬作為光榮孤立的創建者一向是待價而沽的，為了避免押錯寶，他們要求南方必須拿出像樣的決定性勝利才能提供實質性援助。然而南方始終未能獲得這樣的勝利，加之北方利用海軍優勢封鎖了南方的港口，英國如果不徹底和北方撕破臉皮的話就無法向南方提供任何實質性援助。

但是因為英國是最早廢除奴隸制的國家，所以英國的勞工階級卻是一邊倒的同情工業化的北方，而厭惡壓迫黑人的南方奴隸主，碼頭工人發動罷工拒絕為運往南方的貨物裝船，知識分子也口誅筆伐支持北方，國內民意也是英國政府不得不顧忌的。尤其是隨著後來北方連戰連捷，加上棉花種植在印度的大規模增加，英國棉紡廠對南方種植園的依賴越來越小，就更不會為南方出力了。

至於法國，拿破崙三世趁美國內戰無暇他顧之機，出兵墨西哥扶植奧地利大公馬克西米連建立了墨西哥帝國，直接威脅美國後院。但是卻陷入了墨西哥人民戰爭的汪洋大海之中，加之美國內戰結束，美軍陳兵邊界威脅法國，法軍只好從墨西哥撤退，最終以大公被墨西哥人槍斃的悲劇而告終。

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When Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address in 1863, he had broader aims than simply rallying a war-weary nation. Lincoln realized that the Civil War had taken on a wider significance—that all of Europe and Latin America was watching to see whether the United States, a beleaguered model of democracy, would indeed 「perish from the earth.」

In The Cause of All Nations, distinguished historian Don H. Doyle explains that the Civil War was viewed abroad as part of a much larger struggle for democracy that spanned the Atlantic Ocean, and had begun with the American and French Revolutions. While battles raged at Bull Run, Antietam, and Gettysburg, a parallel contest took place abroad, both in the marbled courts of power and in the public square. Foreign observers held widely divergent views on the war—from radicals such as Karl Marx and Giuseppe Garibaldi who called on the North to fight for liberty and equality, to aristocratic monarchists, who hoped that the collapse of the Union would strike a death blow against democratic movements on both sides of the Atlantic. Nowhere were these monarchist dreams more ominous than in Mexico, where Napoleon III sought to implement his Grand Design for a Latin Catholic empire that would thwart the spread of Anglo-Saxon democracy and use the Confederacy as a buffer state.

Hoping to capitalize on public sympathies abroad, both the Union and the Confederacy sent diplomats and special agents overseas: the South to seek recognition and support, and the North to keep European powers from interfering. Confederate agents appealed to those conservative elements who wanted the South to serve as a bulwark against radical egalitarianism. Lincoln and his Union agents overseas learned to appeal to many foreigners by embracing emancipation and casting the Union as the embattled defender of universal republican ideals, the 「last best hope of earth.」

A bold account of the international dimensions of America』s defining conflict, The Cause of All Nationsframes the Civil War as a pivotal moment in a global struggle that would decide the survival of democracy.

Don H. Doyle is the McCausland Professor of History at the University of South Carolina. The author of several books, including Faulkner』s County and Nations Divided, he lives in Columbia, South Carolina.

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