What if Lincoln had declined Siam’s war elephants?

... ok you don't seriously think the elephants were the actual reason for large scale international intervention, do you? Because I think the... unpleasantness brought down on the African American population after the attempted mass escapes and uprisings in response to the Emancipation Proclamation might have had something to do with it. Only a humanitarian horror on that scale could have so swiftly turned global opinion against the Southern Insurrection so quickly and convinced the Union to allow Europe to intervene in what was, diplomatically and legally speaking, a purely domestic affair.

The only definable difference I'm sure we'd see is a different animal symbol for the Republican Party. The elephant, not being present in the Americas, would never have come up without those elephants bringing about Grant's nickname as "The American Hannibal" (champion of the "Africans") and the beasts being such a prominent sight in Washington during the post-war decades of Republican political ascendancy.

/r/HistoryWhatIf Thread