The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100,
February, 1866, by Various

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Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866

Author: Various

Release Date: April 8, 2007 [EBook #21009]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY ***

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THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

_A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics._

VOL. XVII.--FEBRUARY, 1866--NO. C.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by TICKNOR AND
FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.

Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved
to the end of the article.

ENGLISH OPINION ON THE AMERICAN WAR.

The great events which took place in the United States between the first
election of President Lincoln and the accession of President Johnson
excited an amount of party-spirit in England greater than I recollect in
connection with any other non-English occurrences, and fairly
proportionate even to that supreme form of party-spirit which the same
events produced in the States themselves,--the party-spirit which, in
hostile and closing ranks, clenches teeth and sets life at nought,
seeing no alternative, no possibility, save this one only, to carry its
point or die. "I am a Northerner," and "I am a Southerner," were, during
the war, phrases as common on Englishmen's lips as "I am a Liberal" or
"a Conservative," "I am a Protectionist" (this, indeed, has about become
obsolete) or "a Free-Trader." It would be very far from correct to say
that this party-spirit has yet subsided in England; highly important
questions, personal and political, remain in ample abundance to keep it
lively; but we have at any rate reached a point at which one may try to
discuss the past phases of our partisanship, not in the temper of a
partisan. My endeavor in the following pages w