Marx, Engels, and the British Stance on the U.S. Civil War

The United States’ Civil War was one of the most impactful moments in global history, causing ripples that originated along the North American Eastern Coast but would end up shaking every continent – especially Europe. As Americans turned on Americans to protect or defeat the institution of slavery, the economic elite around the globe carefully calculated which course of action would be most safe and profitable. In this same time period, Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels wrote on the conflict covering everything from the intricacies of the Union military tactics to the application of leftist theory to the concepts of slavery and forced labor. Particularly, the pair commentated on the state of affairs in the United Kingdom as Britain pondered which side it would publicly support and economically condone. Over the many decades that have passed since then, many Marxist and progressive scholars have also used the theories of Marx and Engels to extrapolate claims further reaching than those directly made by the philosophers during their lifetimes. rough examining the contemporary writings of Marx and Engels on the topic and applying their theories to the events, it is revealed that the motivations of capitalism undermined any morality of the British aristocracy and shaped their response to the US Civil War as well as the war itself.