1863 Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freed blacks in the Confederacy
As if in rebuttle to Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation the Catholic French conquered the Mexican Republic, installed a Catholic as Emperor of Mexico (Maximillian von Hapsburg, a Catholic from Austria's royal family), and stationed 50,000 Catholic French troops there. These troops were right on the Confederacy's border, and threatened to intervene on the Confederacy's behalf.
Robert E. Lee then invaded the North and fought at Gettysburg he did so with the tacit support of 50,000 Catholic French soldiers in Mexico, and another 11,000 British troops up in Canada.
Czar Alexander sent two naval squadrons into Northern Union ports, one to San Francisco in the west, and another to New York City in the East. Because the British and French were already embroiled in conflicts with (Orthodox) Russia in Europe, they backed down. Czar Alexander II saved Abraham Lincoln and his anti-slavery cause. The "Great Emancipator" (Lincoln) was saved by the "Reformer Czar" (Alexander II) who, incidentally, had already emacipated the Russian serfs back in 1861. Indeed, the 1860s were a momentous sweep of freedom across the whole globe for millions of souls.