Debtor diplomacy

"Drawing on the unused archives of London banks and the papers of statesmen on both sides of the Atlantic, Jay Sexton illuminates our understanding of mid-nineteenth-century American foreign relations by highlighting how financial considerations influenced the formation of foreign policy and functioned as a peace factor in Anglo-American relations. Sexton also analyses a crucial, but ignored, dimension of the Civil War - the efforts of the North and the South to attract the support of British and European financiers. Though foreign contributions to each side failed to match the hopes of Union and Confederate leaders, the financial diplomacy of the Civil War shaped the larger foreign policy strategies of both sides and contributed to the preservation of British neutrality and the ultimate defeat of the Confederacy."--Jacket.