This essay focuses on Giuseppe Mazzini’s opinion of the United States. The author reconstructs Mazzini’s initial doubts and reservations about the United States and his condemnation of slavery but, also, his vindication of the burgeoning American democracy, as well as his attempts to find American political partners to be involved in European revolutions. The author argues that the Union’s victory and the abolition of slavery played a crucial role in encouraging Mazzini to endorse the United States as the rising great republican power. The author states that in this context Mazzini conceived the plan of an international democratic alliance for the promotion and defense of democracy in Europe to be guided by the United States as a "leading-Nation." Although a failure, this plan reveals the really global scope of the Civil War as well as the role of this conflict in shaping the idea of a common Euro-American commitment to the development and protection of democracy.
Keywords: Mazzini, Lincoln, Mazzinianism, Risorgimento, American Civil War, Republicanism