n's long-asserted abhorrence of slavery caused, indeed, a
perplexity in governmental attitude. But this looked to the final
outcome of an independent South--an outcome long taken for granted.
Debate on the existing moralities of the war very soon largely
disappeared from British discussion and in its place there cropped out,
here and there, expressions indicative of anxiety as to whether the war
could long continue without a "servile insurrection," with all its
attendant horrors.

On July 6, 1861, the _Economist_, reviewing the progress of the war
preparations to date, asserted that it was universally agreed no
restoration of the Union was possible and answered British fears by
declaring it was impossible to believe that even the American madness
could contemplate a servile insurrection. The friendly _Spectator_ also
discussed the matter and repeatedly. It was a mistaken idea, said this
journal, that there could be no enfranchisement without a slave rising,
but should this occur, "the right of the slave to regain his freedom,
even if the effort involve slaughter, is as clear as any other
application of the right of self-defence[856]." Yet English
abolitionists should not urge the slave to act for himself, since "as
war goes on and all compromise fails the American mind will harden under
the white heat and determine that the _cause_ of all conflict must
cease." That slavery, in spite of any declaration by Lincoln or Northern
denial of a purpose to attack it--denials which disgusted Harriet
Martineau--was in real fact the basic cause of the war, seemed to her as
clear as anything in reason[857]. She had no patience with English
anti-slavery people who believed Northern protestations, and she did
not express concern over the horrors of a possible servile insurrection.
Nevertheless this spectre was constantly appearing. Again the
_Spectator_ sought to allay such fears; but yet again also proclaimed
that even such a contingency was less fearful than the consolidation of
the slave-power in the South[858].

Thus a servile insurrection was early and frequently an argument which
pro-Northern friends were compelled to meet. In truth the bulk of the
British press was constant in holding up this bogie to its readers, even
going to the point of weakening its argument of the impossibility of a
Northern conquest of the South by appealing to history to show that
England in her two wars with America had had a comparatively easy time
i