ation demanded from
him, and he has done no more[1240]."

This was to tread gently; but more exactly and more boldly the real
reaction of the press was indicated by _Punch's_ cartoon of a phoenix,
bearing the grim and forceful face of Lincoln, rising from the ashes
where lay the embers of all that of old time had gone to make up the
_liberties_ of America[1241].

During the months immediately preceding Lincoln's re-election English
friends of the South had largely remained inactive. Constantly twitted
that at the chief stronghold of the _Southern Independence Association_,
Manchester, they did not dare to hold a meeting in the great Free Trade
Hall[1242], they tried ticket meetings in smaller halls, but even there
met with opposition from those who attended. At three other places,
Oldham, Ashton, and Stockport, efforts to break the Northern hold on the
manufacturing districts met with little success[1243], and even, as
reported in the _Index_, were attended mainly by "magistrates, clergy,
leading local gentry, manufacturers, tradesmen, and cotton operatives,"
the last named being also, evidently, the last considered, and
presumably the least represented[1244]. The Rev. Mr. Massie conducted
"follow up" Northern meetings wherever the Southern friends ventured an
appearance[1245]. At one town only, Oldham, described by _The Index_ as
"the most 'Southern' town in Lancashire," was a meeting held at all
comparable with the great demonstrations easily staged by pro-Northern
friends. Set for October 31, great efforts were made to picture this
meeting as an outburst of indignation from the unemployed. Summoned by
handbills headed "_The Crisis! The Crisis! The Crisis!_" there
gathered, according to _The Index_ correspondent, a meeting "of between
5,000 and 6,000 wretched paupers, many of whom were women with children
in their arms, who, starved apparently in body and spirit as in raiment,
had met together to exchange miseries, and ask one another what was to
be done." Desperate speeches were made, the people "almost threatening
violence," but finally adopting a resolution now become so hackneyed as
to seem ridiculous after a description intended to portray the misery
and the revolutionary character of the meeting:

"That in consequence of the widespread distress that now
prevails in the cotton districts by the continuance of the
war in America, this meeting is desirous that Her Majesty's
Government sho