Matthew Maury was an internationally famous oceanographer and geographer, who was, for a time, Superintendent of the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington DC.

Furthermore, Maury’s colonial interests were in Mexico, not Brazil. He was acquainted with the puppet Emperor Maximilian, and in the summer of 1865 he had no trouble persuading Maximilian to allow former Confederate soldiers and citizens to immigrate to Mexico.

Maximilian even appointed Maury to be the first, and last, Imperial Commissioner of Immigration.

The Mexican colonies collapsed and failed miserably within two years. Maury’s job was abolished, and he was forced to return to the United States.

There is no record of him having anything to do with the Brazil colonies.

The South, in the antebellum period, was vitally concerned to maintain the balance in the U.S. Congress between the number of free states and the number of slave states. As the Northern population grew much faster than did that of the South, the House of Representatives was dominated early on by the North. Therefore, the South sought to ensure that the balance between free and slave states in the Senate was maintained so as to prevent total Northern domination of Congress.

With the admission of California as a free state as a result of the compromise of 1850, the balance in the Senate was tipped in favor of the North. Therefore, during the 1850s, we see Southern politicians advocating all sorts of things to restore the balance. That’s why they supported, for example, the abandonment of the Missouri Compromise and the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which stated that the issue of slavery in the territories would be settled on the basis of popular sovereignty. And that’s also why they supported the acquisition of new territory, south of the border, which would be reserved for slavery.

However, an independent Confederacy would not need to be concerned about the composition of the United States Congress anymore. The entire reason why expansion was sought by Southern politicians in the 1850s would have simply disappeared.

It is true that the Confederates did intrigue in Northern Mexico during the war, seeking the separation of some of the northern Mexican states from that country. But there was a separate reason for that which would not apply to expansion to places like Cuba or Brazil, other supposed “Confederate targets” cited by Mr. Sass in his article. The acquisition of the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora would have given the Confederacy a Pacific coast and access to Asian trade markets. The port of Guaymas, in Sonora, was and is one of the finest natural harbors in the world. Confederate control of that harbor would have been highly advantageous to the Confederacy.

If Mr. Sass is going to claim that the Confederacy had some grand plan to conquer Latin America, it would behoove him to cite actual Confederate statements and plans made during the Civil War, and not the statements of Southern politicians before the war. There is little to no evidence that the Confederacy actually had any plans to expand elsewhere in Latin America, other than in northern Mexico as stated above. There wouldn’t have been a reason for that, since, being independent, the Confederacy would no longer have been concerned by the composition of the U.S. Congress.

The Civil War, as most wars in history, was fought for the money. Slavery only became an issue about half-way through it when it became politically expedient for Lincoln to abolish it.

Lincoln above all else wished to save the Union. Slavery meant nothing to him.

“My paramount object, is to save the Union, and not either destroy or save slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing the slaves, I would do it. If I could save the Union by freeing some and leaving others in slavery, I would do it. If I could save it by freeing all, I would do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because it helps save the Union.” — Abraham Lincoln

I am glad slavery was abolished, but please stop making the mistake of claiming the Civil War was about slavery.

He had none. He was president of the Union, but the Confederate States were a separate country at that point, recognized by others in the world (including the UK and France)This fact sheds light on two points most teachers try to gloss over.
1.) It technically was not a “Civil War” a civil war is a war between two factions within one country. This was a war between two separate countries. “The War Between the States” is the more accurate name. Of course, “The War against Northern Aggression” or “The War against Yankee Oppression” also work ;)
2.)Lincoln was not president of the COnfederacy, so he had no power over the CSA when he made his Emancipation Proclamation. It’s akin to Obama declaring that all British citizens are now Americans. He can say it until he’s blue in the face, but he is completely powerless to make it so, and no one is going to listen.
3.) Something I forgot to list, one would be well advised to look into the events leading up to the attack on Ft. Sumpter. Lincoln was not going to declare war. But he was not against pushing the South into a position where THEY had to fire the first shots. Then he could step in and declare open war. The South wanted to secede without fighting. The Northern forces outnumbered the Southern by a great degree and had all the major manufacturing plants. They were more numerous, and better armed and equipped. Yet the fighting still took 4 years and for a while it looked like the South would win. I