not attacking the domestic institutions of Southern States.
English people did not know the American Constitution, and when told
that the North did not threaten to abolish slavery would answer "Why
not?" Many Englishmen, who might dislike the North and might have
their doubts as to whether slavery was as bad as it was said to be,
would none the less have respected men who would fight against it.
They had no interest in the attempt of some of their own seceded
Colonists to coerce, upon some metaphysical ground of law, others who
in their turn wished to secede from them. Seward, with wonderful
misjudgment, had instructed Ministers abroad to explain that no attack
was threatened on slavery, for he was afraid that the purchasers of
cotton in Europe would feel threatened in their selfish interests; the
agents of the South were astute enough to take the same line and insist
like him that the North was no more hostile to slavery than the South.
If this misunderstanding were removed English hostility to the North
would never again take a dangerous form. Lincoln, who knew less of
affairs but more of men than Seward, was easily made to see this. Yet,
with full knowledge of the reasons for adopting a decided policy
against slavery, Lincoln waited through seventeen months of the war
till the moment had come for him to strike his blow.

Some of his reasons for waiting were very plain. He was not going to
take action on the alleged ground of military necessity till he was
sure that the necessity existed. Nor was he going to take it till it
would actually lead to the emancipation of a great number of slaves.
Above all, he would not act till he felt that the North generally would
sustain his action, for he knew, better than Congressmen who judged
from their own friends in their own constituencies, how doubtful a
large part of Northern opinion really was. We have seen how in the
summer of 1861 he felt bound to disappoint the advanced opinion which
supported Fremont. He continued for more than a year after in a course
which alienated from himself the confidence of the men with whom he had
most sympathy. He did this deliberately rather than imperil the
unanimity with which the North supported the war. There was indeed
grave danger of splitting the North in two if he appeared unnecessarily
to change the issue from Union to Liberation. We have to remember that
in all the Northern States the right of the Southern States to choose