he negro question to which an English Government is
prepared to affix the seal of English approbation[934]?" Mason, the
Confederate Agent in London, wrote home that it was generally believed
the proclamation was issued "as the means of warding off recognition....
It was seen through at once and condemned accordingly[935]."

This interpretation of Northern purpose in no sense negatives the dictum
that the proclamation exercised little influence on immediate British
governmental policy, but does offer some ground for the belief that
strong pro-Southern sympathizers at once saw the need of combating an
argument dangerous to the carrying out of projects of mediation. Yet the
new "moral purpose" of Lincoln did not immediately appeal even to his
friends. The _Spectator_ deplored the lack of a clean-cut declaration in
favour of the principle of human freedom: "The principle asserted is
not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own
him unless he is loyal to the United States." ... "There is no morality
whatever in such a decree, and if approved at all it must be upon its
merits as a political measure[936]." Two weeks later, reporting a public
speech at Liverpool by ex-governor Morehead of Kentucky, in which
Lincoln was accused of treachery to the border states, the _Spectator_,
while taking issue with the speaker's statements, commented that it was
not to be understood as fully defending a system of government which
chose its executive "from the ranks of half-educated mechanics[937]."

Similarly in America the emancipation proclamation, though loudly
applauded by the abolitionists, was received with misgivings. Lincoln
was disappointed at the public reaction and became very despondent,
though this was due, in part, to the failure of McClellan to follow up
the victory of Antietam. The elections of October and November went
heavily against the administration and largely on the alleged ground of
the President's surrender to the radicals[938]. The army as a whole was
not favourably stirred by the proclamation; it was considered at best as
but a useless bit of "waste paper[939]." In England, John Bright, the
most ardent public advocate of the Northern cause, was slow to applaud
heartily; not until December did he give distinct approval, and even
then in but half-hearted fashion, though he thought public interest was
much aroused and that attention was now fixed on January 1, the date set
by Lincoln for act