was Sumner. The
American Government, however, admitted the justice of the British demand
and the envoys were released.

Relations with the United States now became a burning issue in
English politics. There were three distinct groups in Parliament. The
representatives of the aristocracy, whether Liberals or Conservatives,
in the main sympathized with the South. So did most of the large
manufacturers whose business interests were affected by cotton. Great
bitterness grew up among the Northerners against both these groups,
partly because in the past many of their members had condemned slavery
and had said scornful things about America for tolerating it. To these
Northerners the Englishmen replied that Lincoln himself had declared
the war was not over slavery; that it was an ordinary civil war not
involving moral issues. Nevertheless, the third Parliamentary group
insisted that the American war, no matter what the motives of the
participants, would, in the event of a Northern victory, bring about the
abolition of slavery, whereas, if the South won, the result would be
the perpetuation of slavery. This third group, therefore, threw all its
weight on the side of the North. In this group Lincoln recognized his
allies, and their cause he identified with his own in his letter to
English workmen which was quoted in the previous chapter. Their leaders
in Parliament were Richard Cobden, W. E. Forster, and John Bright.
All these groups were represented in the Liberal party, which, for the
moment, was in power.

In the Cabinet itself there was a "Northern" and a "Southern" faction.
Then, too, there were some who sympathized with the North but who felt
that its cause was hopeless--so little did they understand the relative
strength of the two sections--and who felt that the war was a terrible
proof of the uselessness of mere suffering. Gladstone, in later days,
wished to be thought of as having been one of these, though at the time,
a famous utterance of his was construed in the North as a declaration
of hostility. To a great audience at Newcastle he said in October, 1862:
"We may have our own opinions about slavery; we may be for or against
the South; but there is no doubt that Jefferson Davis and other leaders
of the South have made an army; they are making, it appears, a navy; and
they have made, what is more than either--they have made a nation."

The Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, wished to intervene in the American
war an