Everyone acts as though the South was some sort of backwater and weak sister that would have been ripe for European exploitation. Nothing could be from the truth.
Geographically, the South was far larger than any European nation. Economically, it was doing quite well in 1860. It was the third most industrialized nation on earth with the third most railroad after the North and Britain. In Europe of the day, France couldn't even manage imperial ambitions in Mexico. Germany, was nothing more than a collection of weak principalities. Spain? Already tottering on the edge of imperial collapse. Russia? In a state of revolution and near revolution for the last half of the 19th Century.
Only England and the North could have dealt with the South economically and militarily in 1860. The South dismembered by European imperialists? No, far more likely that the Caribbean and North America down to the Isthmus of Panama would be part of the Confederate States of America.
