There was NO CHANCE that Georgia, Florida, North and South Carolina or Virginia would EVER agree to turn themselves over to a foreign power.
The people wouldnt necessarily have had to surrender their citizenship to a European power. They merely couldve granted enough sections of their states to convince the Euro's to claim & occupy the properties as their own, forcing the Union to negotiate with both the Europeans
AND the South simultaneously. The Union may have asserted that land grants made by the Confederacy was illegal but the Europeans couldve deployed troops there and challenged the Union to risk war. The fact of the matter is that the Union (nor the Confederacy for that matter) wasnt strong enough alone to defeat England, France, Belgium and Spain simultaneously.
The WHOLE point of leaving the US was to be INDEPENDENT. Georgia was so rabid over it it would not allow the Confederacy to use its State troops and resisted allowing them to recruit in the State. They continued this policy all the way to the end.
Perhaps many stubborn fanatics would not have compromised even by the end of 1863 but the course they were on was already doomed and they were going to be occupied or killed anyway. However there was a possible chance that this diplomatic ploy if properly exercised couldve been tried.
The claim that somehow these States would have welcomed being absorbed by a European power is foolish on its face.
Not necessarily. Was occupation by the Union better for Southerners than say France or Spain? Several thousand Southerners fled to Brazil after the war and their descendants are estimated to be 60,000 strong and remain there now for example-
http://www.patsabin.com/lowcountry/confederados.htm
Further if They had the US would simply have waged war on those European states. As for the claim that Britain could out Ironclad the North, look again Britain had 4 Ironclads in 61 and one more in 63. The US would simply have built more Ironclads of the Ocean going variety if Britain had waged war against the US. And they would have out built the British.
The Union may have tried to wage war on the Europeans but was the Union strong enough to tangle with all of them at the same time??!! Of course not! I think you might have fallen for the Myth of Union Invincibility Syndrom.