A few northern states wanted to separate from the rest of the US but the US government didn’t. They wanted everything to stay as it was. Then the northern states started to fight against their separation which was sorta like a rebellion. After four years of fighting the war finally ended, and the northern states won. Even tho the war was only in the states Britain and even France felt it. Although they were both neutral to it. At the time textiles industry was also growing in Britain but they didn’t have any cotton for it. The only place that had them were the southern states. When Britain tried to get a hold of the cotton they were blocked by the union ships. So a few Britain investors built blockade runners. They were fast ships made for smuggling cotton into Britain. in November 1861, an American warship caught on of these runners and on board the runner called Trent that got caught there were 2 British agents. They were imprisoned. Britain got pissed and threatened to attack if they didn’t let the agents go. this introduced tension between the two countries.

Manifest destiny was the idea of the United states expanding.

The Fenian raids were small attacks that came from Irishmen that called themselves fenians. They thought that if they could capture a few colonies they could hold a ransom. They wanted Ireland to have a better life then what they already had. After all the raids more and more people wanted the BNA colonies to unite and have a real defence.

The BNA colonies witnessed attacks on them and saw that they had no defence, no help what’s so ever. And after the attacks more people had the desire to unite. For them to unite was to be safe. And really who doesn’t want to be safe…?