Why did Britain and France decide not to support the Confederacy during the war?

Answer 1

Both Britain and France were already indirectly supporting the Confederate cause by freely supplying arms, materials and even ship building.... as they both were also selling same to the Union to the first and highest bidders. Many of the European countries found this to be a profitable enterprise making money off our regional conflict.

The overhead issue was more so of official political recognition of the Confederate States as an independent sovereign nation, which it claimed to be. The US Federal government lobbied aggressively against this because they referred to the Confederacy as an internal rebellion or insurrection of states within the Union and refused to recognize the Confederate government as an independent entity of any sorts. Europe, then, would be supporting an insurrection inside of Another Country or that of another sovereign nation.

Several European countries including these two pondered that question. Most were just sitting idle awaiting the outcome or some assurance that the Confederacy would become a nation. One of the primary reasons for the Confederate offensive actions in 1862 and 1863 that if successful would show they could.

The Federal government also placed a great deal of political pressure on these European governments not to do so.. The Trent Affair was about as close as it could get to gain Britain's attention when the US seized and held a British flagged ship in its blockade of the southern ports. Britain didn't like that too much and even went as far as sending Canadian and British troops to the Northern US border... The US now possibly causing a war with Britain and being invaded via Canada, released the British vessel. Otherwise most of Europe decided not to formally decline to assist the Confederacy, they just sat quietly idle to wait it out; in no hurry to give consent to a formal political recognition of the Confederacy.