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King Cotton was a slogan summarizing the strategy used during the American Civil War by the Confederacy to show that secession was feasible and there was no need to fear a war by the United States. The idea was that control over cotton exports would make an independent Confederacy economically prosperous, ruin the textile industry of New England, and—most importantly—would force Great Britain and perhaps France to support the Confederacy militarily because their industrial economies depended on Southern cotton. The slogan was widely believed throughout the South and helped in mobilizing support for secession: by February 1861, the seven states whose economies were based on cotton plantations had all seceded and formed the Confederacy (C.S.A.). Meanwhile, the other eight slave states, with little or no cotton production, remained in the Union. To demonstrate the power of King Cotton, Southern cotton merchants spontaneously refused to ship out their cotton in early 1861; it was not a government decision. By summer 1861, the Union Navy blockaded every major Confederate port and shut down over 95% of exports. Since the British mills had large stockpiles of cotton, they were not immediately injured by the boycott; indeed the value of their stockpiles soared. For Britain to intervene meant war with the U.S. and a cutoff of food supplies. About one fourth of Britain's food supplies came from United States, and American warships could destroy much of British commerce, while the Royal Navy was convoying ships full of cotton. The British never believed in King Cotton, and they never intervened. Consequently, the strategy proved a failure for the Confederacy — King Cotton did not help the new nation, but the spontaneous blockade caused the loss of desperately needed gold. Most important, the false belief led to unrealistic assumptions that the war would be won by European intervention if only the Confederacy held out long enough.〔Frank Lawrence Owsley, ''King Cotton Diplomacy: Foreign relations of the Confederate States of America'' (1931)〕 ==History== The American South is known for its long, hot summers, and rich soils in river valleys making it an ideal location for growing cotton. By 1860, Southern plantations supplied 75% of the world's cotton, with shipments from Houston, New Orleans, Charleston, Mobile, Savannah, and a few other ports. The insatiable European demand for cotton was a result of the Industrial Revolution which created the machinery and factories to process raw cotton into clothing that was better and cheaper than hand-made product. European and New England purchases soared from 720,000 bales in 1830, to 2.85 million bales in 1850, to nearly 5 million in 1860. Cotton production renewed the need for slavery after the tobacco market declined in the late 18th century. The more cotton grown, the more slaves were needed to pick the crop. By 1860, on the eve of the American Civil War, cotton accounted for almost 60% of American exports, representing a total value of nearly $200 million a year. Cotton's central place in the national economy and its international importance led Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina to make a famous boast in 1858: Confederate leaders made little effort to ascertain the views of European industrialists or diplomats until the Confederacy sent diplomats James Mason and John Slidell in November 1861. That led to a diplomatic blowup in the Trent Affair.〔Ephraim Douglass Adams, ''Great Britain and the American Civil War'' (1924) (online ) ch 7〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「King Cotton」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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