Warring Factions Quotes
There was some fear in the North that the shots fired by the Southern rebels, might encourage one or more of the European Powers to start a war with the United States. And if the Rebellion turned into a full scale Civil War, the South would surely encourage such acts be promising trade concessions in the export of Southern cotton. Seward’s confident and bellicose statement distressed some Union colleagues who feared that Seward might anger and provoke one of more of the machismo and nationalistic European Powers. However, if Seward was bluffing, the bluff worked. No country encroached on American interests during the Civil War. If he was not bluffing, he certainly, along with many others, understated the difficulty that the North would have putting down the Southern rebellion.
He was referring to Bosnia and other nations where civil war seems to break out over and over again—albeit much stimulated by outside forces.
