This was known as 'the Angel of Death'
speech, from a famous passage which occurs in it. At the end he was
'overloaded with compliments', but the minister, who was hampered by
Russian intrigues with Napoleon, seemed deaf to all appeals, and Bright
again returned to the attack. Till the last days of the war, he
continued to raise his voice on behalf of peace; but his exertions had
told on his strength, and for the greater part of two years he had to
abandon public life and devote himself to recovering his health.

Six years later he was to prove that 'peace at any price' was no fair
description of his attitude. The Southern States of America seceded on
the question of State rights and the institution of slavery, and the
Federal Government declared war on them as rebels. This time it was not
a war for the balance of power, but one fought to vindicate a moral
principle, and Bright was strongly in favour of fighting it to a
finish. For different reasons most of our countrymen favoured the South,
but he appealed for British sympathy for the other side, on the ground
that no true Briton could abet slavery. He was the most prominent
supporter of the North, for long the only prominent one, but he
gradually made converts and did much to wipe away the reproach which
attached to the name of Englishmen in America, when the North triumphed
in the end. The war ended in 1865 with the surrender of General Lee at
Appomattox, and Bright wrote in his journal, 'This great triumph of the
Republic is the event of our age'.

But long before 1865 the question of Reform and of the extension of the
franchise had been revived. Gladstone might speak in favour of the
principle in 1864; Russell might introduce a Reform Bill in 1866; a year
later Disraeli might 'dish the Whigs'; and Whig and Tory might wrangle
over the question who were the friends of the 'working man', but Bright
had made his position clear to his friends in 1846. He began a popular
movement in 1849 and for the next fifteen years of his life it was the
object dearest to his heart. He was not afraid to walk alone. When his
old fellow worker, Cobden, refused his aid, on the ground that he was
not convinced of the need for extending the franchise, Bright himself
assumed the lead and bore the brunt of the battle. Till 1865 his main
obstacle was Palmerston, who since he took the helm in the worst days of
the Crimean War and conducted the ship of State into harbour, occupied
an impregna