Why did Great Britain and France decide not to get involved in the Civil War after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation?

Lincoln's proclamation redefined the purpose of the war. It added a moral dimension to a war that had been officially about preserving the Union by destroying the rebellion. In short, it established that a result of the war would be the destruction of slavery. Given this fact, France and especially Great Britain would, by intervening in the war or recognizing the Confederacy, be supporting slavery in the eyes of many of their own people. Slavery...

Lincoln's proclamation redefined the purpose of the war. It added a moral dimension to a war that had been officially about preserving the Union by destroying the rebellion. In short, it established that a result of the war would be the destruction of slavery. Given this fact, France and especially Great Britain would, by intervening in the war or recognizing the Confederacy, be supporting slavery in the eyes of many of their own people. Slavery was deeply unpopular among many influential English people (the nation having abolished slavery in its own right a few decades earlier) and the Emancipation Proclamation made the cause of the Confederacy morally repugnant. But in many ways, it reaffirmed what many British people were already thinking. Southerners had thought that the war, and the blockade that resulted, would bring about a "cotton famine" in Europe that would drive Britain and France, under the goading of wealthy and influential manufacturers, to intervene to stop the war or at least lift the blockade. This never really happened, though, partly because larger than normal cotton exports in the years before the war had led to surpluses. The mills in places like Manchester never stopped running. When shortages did occur, they were at least partly offset by cotton raised in India and other places in the British Empire. There were some in both nations who favored the Confederate cause, and a few incidents involving the blockade did lead to ill will between the Union and Great Britain, but forces advocating neutrality in the American conflict were always strong in Great Britain. So Lincoln's decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation sealed the decision to stay out of the conflict for both Britain and France.