However, the North’s initial lack of enthusiasm for emancipation made people doubt the Union's commitment to abolition. The preservation of slavery was a chief concern of the southern states in the years leading up to secession, which went against widespread anti-slavery sentiment in Britain. Ultimately, British popular opinion was not decidedly pro-North or pro-South at the start of the Civil War. More recently, historians such as Duncan Campbell and Richard Blackett have challenged this simplistic depiction, arguing that divisions over the American Civil War in Britain were much less clear-cut. Britain's workers and its radical middle classes, on the other hand, were seen as staunch Unionists who believed the North was a champion of democracy. According to this view, Britain's politically conservative aristocracy tended to support the Confederacy, due to the supposedly shared sensibilities of the English landed gentry and southern planters. Many have argued that political and class allegiances determined British support for either the North or the South. Historians have long debated the success of Confederate attempts to influence British opinion during the Civil War. Through these tactics, southern leaders hoped to force both political and popular opinion in Europe to support the Confederate cause. They relied both on conventional diplomatic lobbying and on more controversial policies, such as withholding cotton, which was the South's main export to Britain. Despite this lack of recognition, Jefferson Davis and other southern leaders were confident in their ability to secure support from Britain and other foreign powers. This Declaration recognized the Confederacy's status as a belligerent faction, but not as a sovereign nation. In May 1861, the British government issued a Declaration of Neutrality to signify its official stance on the American Civil War.
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