lature attempted to withdraw the ratification; and in the year
succeeding the Republicans re-affirmed it.]

CHAPTER XX.

The civil war closed with ill-feeling amounting to resentment towards
England on the part of the loyal citizens of the United States. They
believed that the Government of Great Britain, and especially the
aristocratic and wealthy classes (whose influence in the kingdom is
predominant), had desired the destruction of the Union and had connived
at it so far as connivance was safe; they believed that great harm had
been inflicted on the American marine by rebel cruisers built in
English ship-yards and manned with English sailors; they believed that
the war had been cruelly prolonged by the Confederate hope of British
intervention,--a hope stimulated by the utterances of high officials
of the British Government; they believed that her Majesty's Ministers
would have been willing at any time to recognize the Southern
Confederacy, if it could have been done without danger of a European
conflict, the effect of which upon the interests of England could not
be readily measured.

Their belief did not wait for legal proofs or written arguments, nor
was it in any degree restrained by technicalities. The American people
had followed the varying fortunes of the war with intense solicitude,
and had made up their minds that the British Government throughout the
contest had been unfriendly and offensive, manifestly violating at
every step the fair and honorable duty of a neutral. They did not
ground their conclusions upon any specially enunciated principles of
international law; they did not seek to demonstrate, by quotations from
accepted authorities, that England had failed in this or in that
respect to perform her duty towards the American Government. They
simply recognized that England's hand had been against us, concealed
somewhat, and used indirectly, but still heavily against us. They
left to the officers of their own Government the responsible task of
stating the law and submitting the evidence when the proper time should
come.

Perhaps the mass of the people in no other country keep so close a
watch upon the progress of public events as is kept by the people of
the United States. If the scholarship of the few is not so thorough
as in certain European countries, the intelligence of the many is far
beyond that of any other nation. The popular conclusions, therefore,
touching the conduct of England,