Mayor Abel Haywood, a representative for workers from [[Manchester]], England, wrote to Lincoln saying, "We joyfully honor you for many decisive steps toward practically exemplifying your belief in the words of your great founders: 'All men are created free and equal.'"<ref>Quoted in {{cite book|author=James Lander|title=Lincoln and Darwin: Shared Visions of Race, Science, and Religion|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QaTnoZ_uYlUC&pg=PA221|year=2010|publisher=Southern Illinois University Press|page=221|isbn=9780809329908}}</ref> The Emancipation Proclamation served to ease tensions with Europe over the North's conduct of the war, and combined with the recent failed Southern offensive at [[Battle of Antietam|Antietam]], to remove any practical chance for the Confederacy to receive foreign military intervention in the war.<ref>{{cite book|author=Kevin Phillips|title=The Cousins' Wars: Religion, Politics, Civil Warfare, And The Triumph Of Anglo-America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-tsir90xfo4C&pg=PA493|year=2000|page=493|isbn=9780465013708}}</ref>
However, in spite of the Emancipation Proclamation, arms sales from British firms and dealers to the [[Blockade runners of the American Civil War|Confederacy through blockade running]] continued, with the knowledge of the British government.<ref>{{cite book|title=America the Great|url=https://wwwbooks.google.com/books/edition/America_the_Great/2BL2AwAAQBAJ?hlid=en&gbpv=12BL2AwAAQBAJ&dq=blockade+running+Britain+1863+Emancipation+Proclamation&pg=PA1169&printsec=frontcover|author=Edward Hawkins Sisson|date=June 22, 2014|page=1169|publisher=Edward Sisson}}</ref> The Confederacy was able to sustain the fight for two more years largely thanks to the weapons supplied by British [[blockade runner]]s. As a result, the blockade runners operating from Britain were responsible for killing 400,000 additional soldiers and civilians on both sides.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/historians-reveal-secrets-of-uk-gunrunning-which-lengthened-the-american-civil-war-by-two-years-9557937.html|title=Historians reveal secrets of UK gun-running which lengthened the American civil war by two years|author=David Keys|date=24 June 2014|work=[[The Independent]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=The Confederate Blockade Runners|url=https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1933/april/confederate-blockade-runners|author=Paul Hendren|date=April 1933|publisher=[[United States Naval Institute]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=American Civil War viewpoints: It was British arms that sustained the Confederacy|url=https://www.military-history.org/blog/it-was-british-arms-that-sustained-the-confederacy-during-the-american-civil-war-peter-tsouras.htm|author=[[Peter G. Tsouras]]|date=March 11, 2011|publisher=[[Military History Matters]]}}</ref><ref name="NJGT">{{cite thesis|url=https://prism.ucalgary.ca/server/api/core/bitstreams/fce3cc3a-b506-4cf1-a42b-4f939db75ac5/content#page=14|title=Between King Cotton and Queen Victoria: Confederate Informal Diplomacy and Privatized Violence in British America During the American Civil War|author=Beau Cleland|page=2|publisher=[[University of Calgary]]|quote=British resources were, in fact, essential to the rebellion’s survival. In the face of a blockade that after 1861 made direct imports nearly impossible, the overwhelming majority of the arms and supplies that the Confederacy received from abroad passed through British colonies en route from Europe, usually on British-flagged ships, consigned to British merchants, and paid for with cotton that followed the same path out of Southern ports. Without the advantage provided by British (and to a far lesser extent, Spanish) colonies, the Confederacy had no prayer of military victory. The colonies were unsinkable, unassailable refuges in an enemy-controlled sea.}}</ref>
