North Atlantic Trade in the Mid-Nineteenth Century: A Case for Peace during the American Civil War

Over the past decade, a new trend in American Civil War scholarship has emerged, with historians using a transnational framework to illustrate how the war was part of larger global trends.¹ Unfortunately, the diplomatic history of the era has stagnated over the past three decades and has narrowly focused on the British perspective.² The last time historians looked at relations with France was in Lynn Case and Warren Spencer’s monumental 1970 work.³ There is not a single English-language monograph discussing relations with the German states.⁴ Scholarship on Latin America and Asia is almost nonexistent.⁵ Importantly, diplomatic historians have recently challenged the assumption that relations between Great Britain and the United States were hostile and could have resulted in war. These peace factors have largely been diplomatic or solely related to public opinion.⁶ One aspect of peace in international relations remains unexplored, however: international trade.

To be sure, historians have long integrated aspects of economic policy into their works, but they continue to focus narrowly on three topics. The European need for cotton and corn has attracted much scholarly attention; however, these arguments are largely based on political debates and speeches. Recently, historians have proposed that financial ties between the North and Great Britain and the power of London as a political, economic, financial, and mercantile center undermined the power of King Cotton in Great Britain. This essay suggests another economic component. Trade explains why the European powers maintained strict neutrality during the Civil War. This essay addresses some long-held assumptions about the international economic ramifications of the war. Confederate cruisers had a minimal impact on trade and shipping during the conflict. Most importantly, thanks to diversified trade portfolios, some European powers adjusted quickly to the events in North America. Therefore, European merchants did not suffer from the war in North America. Neither cotton nor corn was king; trade with the northern states was the monarch that the southern states failed to dethrone during the Civil War.

A major aim of this article is to introduce trade data from a series of long overlooked sources from the United States, Great Britain, France, and the two German trade ports of Hamburg and Bremen. This article uses the annual Report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the Commerce and Navigation, which, like the reports from the other four countries, chronicles the general trade activities, the individual commodities exchanged, and a summary of navigation. For Great Britain, the most important commercial power in the world and unquestioned largest trade partner of the United States, it uses the Annual Statement of the Trade and Navigation of the United Kingdom with Foreign Countries and British Possessions, published by the Board of Trade. For France, it utilizes the Tableau Général du Commerce de la France avec ses Colonies et les Puissances Etrangères, issued annually by the Administration des Douanes. The analysis for the German states is limited to the two main trade ports of Bremen and Hamburg, which dominated German world trade. For Bremen, the Tabellarische Uebersicht des Bremischen Handels issued by the Behörde für die Handelstatistik is used, and the Tabellarische Uebersicht des Hamburgischen Handels authored by the Handelsstatischen Bureau provides some insights into Hamburg’s trade relations.

In 1858, South Carolina senator James H. Hammond laid the foundation for the King Cotton argument. In a Senate speech, he challenged, “What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years? I will not stop to depict what every one can imagine, but this is certain: England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her, save the South. No, you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is king.”⁷ Ever since the first diplomatic historian, James M. Callahan spoke about it, King Cotton has been a powerful tool to explain European interests in the American Civil War.⁸ In 1931, Frank Owsley’s classic King Cotton Diplomacy laid the scholarly foundation...