Effects of Emancipation
From the beginning of the war, the Union recieved mixed reaction over the justifications of its cause to fight the South, preserving the Union. Some considered such action overbearing and tyrannical. Others questioned the need for senseless bloodshed and proposed outside mediation to intervene. Even some abolitionist groups, who would have supported a break-down of the structures supporting slavery in the United States, shied away from supporting armed conflict as a solution, arguing for a pacifist approach to resolve these issues.
Late 1862 marked the beginnings of a shift in the tone of the conflict. Thus far, it appeared the Civil War was bogged down in a bloody stalemate, and rumblings from Europe suggested that frustration over the instablity and economic impacts of the American conflict might provoke calls for forced mediation between North and South. A moderate breakthrough in the form of the Confederate Army's retreat from the Battle of Antietam gave what President Lincoln considered enough of a victory from which to propose his long-brewing plan for emancipation. First presented in September of that year, the official enactment of the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, and its subsequent association with the Union cause going forward, made waves within European society.
At first, reactions were mixed on both sides of the Atlantic, not exactly the result hoped for by U.S. leadership. Alongside apathetic responses to the Proclamation, some in Britain and the Confederacy responded with skepticism or derision of Lincoln's move to bring the issue of slavery to the forfront. There were doubts that the Union would be able or willing to carryout this plan of emancipation, and some considered it a desperate gamble to present the Union cause in such a way as to win the war for international sympathy.
Such doubts were not unfounded. The Proclamation itself had no direct legal power in achieving the emancipation of slaves held in the South, though it would inspire many who fled to Union lines to attain freedom. Neither did it enforce such a policy upon slave-holding territories still within the United States. Only with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment after the war did slavery end entirely. However, as the war continued into its last years, international attitudes increasingly favored the Union cause. European governments were less inclined to intervene against a cause that would end an insitution found unpopular by many. Despite initial Cofederate derision, the effect of the Proclamation ultimately dealt a severe blow to their attempt to win through diplomacy.