president Abraham Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation would be issued in January 1863 making abolition of slavery in the Confederacy a war goal. Since support of the Confederacy now meant support for slavery, there was no longer any possibility of European intervention. However, the British working class were quite overwhelmingly pro-Union. In the end, although Britain could survive without Southern cotton, the North's meat and grain was more important to feed the UK's urban population, especially as a series of bad harvests had affected British agriculture in the late 1850s to early 1860s. Meanwhile, the British sold arms to both sides, built blockade runners for a lucrative trade with the Confederacy, and surreptitiously allowed warships to be built for the Confederacy. The warships caused a major diplomatic row that was resolved in the Alabama Claims in 1872, in the Americans' favour. Empire expands In 1867, Britain united most of its North American colonies as Canada, giving it self-government and responsibility for its internal affairs. Britain handled foreign policy and defence. The second half of the 19th century saw a major expansion of Britain's colonial empire in Asia and Africa as well as the Pacific. In the "Scramble for Africa", the boast was having the Union Jack flying from "Cairo to Cape Town." Britain defended its empire with the world's dominant navy, and a small professional army. It was the only power in Europe to have no conscription. The rise of the German Empire after 1871 posed a new challenge, for it (along with the United States) threatened to take Britain's place as the world's foremost industrial power. Germany acquired a number of colonies in Africa and the Pacific, but Chancellor Otto von Bismarck succeeded in achieving general peace through his balance of power strategy. When William II became emperor in 1888, he discarded Bismarck, began using bellicose language, and planned to build a navy to rival Britain's. Boer War Ever since Britain had taken control of South Africa from the Netherlands in the Napoleonic Wars, it had run afoul of the Dutch settlers who further away and created two republics of their own. The British imperial vision called for control over the new countries and the Dutch-speaking "Boers" (or "Afrikaners") fought back in the War in 1899–1902. British historian Andrew Roberts argues that the Boers insisted on keeping full control of both their two small republics, allowing no role whatever