Liverpool merchants profited from the slave trade until the British Parliament abolished it in the British Empire in 1807. Liverpool's close links with the Southern states of America, where most of the slave plantations were located, continued, with raw cotton being imported through Liverpool to supply the Lancashire cotton mills.
Outbreak of Civil War
When the American Civil War broke out, Britain remained officially neutral. However, British sympathies generally lay with the North because of the continued existence of slavery in the South. Sentiment in Liverpool was less straightforward and powerful merchant traders were sympathetic to the Southern cause. Although there were also many supporters of the North in the city, champions of the Confederacy made the most impact. For a time Liverpool came to be popularly associated with support for the South in a way that no other British city was.
Liverpool and Lancashire felt the direct consequences of the Civil War as the Northern navy blockaded the Southern ports. Cotton imports were halted, Liverpool's trade was disrupted and the Lancashire mills laid off thousands of workers. | 
