on[853]. Later, when news of the
French offer at Washington had been received, the Government was
attacked in the Lords by an undaunted friend of the South, Lord
Campbell, on the ground of a British divergence from close relations
with France. Russell, in a brief reply, reasserted old arguments that
the time had "not yet" come, but now declared that events seemed to show
the possibility of a complete Northern victory and added with emphasis
that recognition of the South could justly be regarded by the North as
an "unfriendly act[854]."

Thus Parliament and Cabinet were united against meddling in America,
basing this attitude on neutral duty and national interests, and with
barely a reference to the new policy of the North toward slavery,
declared in the emancipation proclamations of September 22, 1862, and
January 1, 1863, Had these great documents then no favourable influence
on British opinion and action? Was the Northern determination to root
out the institution of slavery, now clearly announced, of no effect in
winning the favour of a people and Government long committed to a world
policy against that institution? It is here necessary to review early
British opinion, the facts preceding the first emancipation
proclamation, and to examine its purpose in the mind of Lincoln.

Before the opening of actual military operations, while there was still
hope of some peaceful solution, British opinion had been with the North
on the alleged ground of sympathy with a free as against a slave-owning
society. But war once begun the disturbance to British trade interests
and Lincoln's repeated declarations that the North had no intention of
destroying slavery combined to offer an excuse and a reason for an
almost complete shift of British opinion. The abolitionists of the North
and the extreme anti-slavery friends in England, relatively few in
number in both countries, still sounded the note of "slavery the cause
of the war," but got little hearing. Nevertheless it was seen by
thoughtful minds that slavery was certain to have a distinct bearing on
the position of Great Britain when the war was concluded. In May, 1861,
Palmerston declared that it would be a happy day when "we could succeed
in putting an end to this unnatural war between the two sections of our
North American cousins," but added that the difficulty for England was
that "_We_ could not well mix ourselves up with the acknowledgment of
slavery[855]...."

Great Britai