e Northern States, as was but natural,
seeing that the success of the North would mean the abolition of that
system of slavery which was to her heart and to her conscience incapable of
defence or of palliation.

I had paid my first visit to the United States not many years after the end
of the Civil War--a visit prolonged for nearly two years and extending from
New York to San Francisco and from Maine to Louisiana. I had therefore a
good deal to tell Lady Russell about the various experiences I had had
during this my first visit to the now reunited States, and the lights which
they threw for me on the origin and causes of the Civil War.

I may say here that Lady Russell was always very anxious that the public
should fully understand and appreciate the attitude taken by her late
husband with regard to the Civil War. In a letter written to me on October
20, 1879, Lady Russell refers me to a speech made by her husband on March
23, 1863, and she goes on to say:

It shows unanswerably how strong was his opinion against the recognition of
the Southern States, even at a moment when the tide of battle was so much
in their favour that he, in common, I think, with most others, looked upon
separation as likely to be the final issue. As long as the abolition of
slavery was not openly announced, as he thought it ought to have been, as
one of the main objects of the war on the part of the Federals, he felt no
warm sympathy with their cause. But after President Lincoln's proclamation
it was quite different, and no man rejoiced with deeper thankfulness than
he did at the final triumph of the Northern States, for no man held slavery
in more utter abhorrence.

I have thought it well to introduce this quotation just here because it is
associated at once with my earliest recollections of Lady Russell, and at
the same time with a subject of controversy which may almost be said to
have passed out of the realms of disputation since that day.

The American States have now long been absolutely reunited; there is no
difference of opinion whatever in this country with regard to the question
of slavery, and yet it is quite certain that during the American Civil War
a large number of conscientious, humane, and educated Englishmen were
firmly convinced that the American Republic was about to break in two, and
that the sympathies of England ought to go with the rebelling Southern
States. It is well, therefore, that we should all be reminded of Lor