The Civil war did not end with an armistice or treaty of any kind because a decisive victory was viewed by the north as necessary to prevent the south from establishing a sovereign government. Specifically, the Confederacy did want to negotiate and sign a treaty as such an action would establish the Confederate states as a unified pro-slave sovereign. The English and French intervention was seen as a measure of pro-Confederacy as the international influence was to establish a treaty and end the fighting.
To say the Civil War had to end with a military victory is to say the viewpoint of the north was primary to the point of a military victory. The south did not have to win militarily and as discussed, sought to establish a truce which would thus establish a standing Confederate government. The north was the only military force that sought to win a decisive military campaign and was the party that did not wish to consign the Union body politic to the Confederacy. A Confederacy win would have set the stage for a slave movement through into the north which likely would have turned the northern states into slave states.
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"Ending the Civil War".
The three different negotiation tactics attempted during the Civil War included “foreign mediation, unofficial contacts, and quasi-official conversations.” (No Peace without Victory, 494). Foreign mediation failed because of the Abraham Lincoln’s rejection of the tacit acceptance of a sovereign Confederacy. Each Britain and France established self-interest in their individual pursuits of an American peace treaty which would benefit each nation and leave America as two sovereign nations. Unofficial contacts did not work because of the leadership of Lincoln and the decisiveness of northern military victories over the south favored the north. Quasi-official conversations also did not work because the United States government refused to recognize the Confederacy. At this time, the U.S. government was an Abraham Lincoln staffed White House of Executive Administration.
