these first issues of the Reviews for 1861, there
was frequently put forth the "Southern gentlemen" theory.

"At a distance of three thousand miles, the Southern planters
did, indeed, bear a resemblance to the English country
gentleman which led to a feeling of kinship and sympathy with
him on the part of those in England who represented the old
traditions of landed gentility. This 'Southern gentleman'
theory, containing as it did an undeniable element of truth,
is much harped upon by certain of the reviewers, and one can
easily conceive of its popularity in the London Clubs.... The
'American,' so familiar to British readers, during the first
half of the century, through the eyes of such travellers as
Mrs. Trollope, now becomes the 'Yankee,' and is located north
of Mason and Dixon's line[60]."

Such portrayal was not characteristic of all Reviews, rather of the Tory
organs alone, and the Radical _Westminster_ took pains to deny the truth
of the picture, asserting again and again that the vital and sole cause
of the conflict was slavery. Previous articles are summed up in that of
October, 1863, as a profession of the _Westminster's_ opinion
throughout: "... the South are fighting for liberty to found a Slave
Power. Should it prove successful, truer devil's work, if we may use the
metaphor, will rarely have been done[61]."

Fortunate would it have been for the Northern cause, if British opinion
generally sympathetic at first on anti-slavery grounds, had not soon
found cause to doubt the just basis of its sympathy, from the trend of
events in America. Lincoln had been elected on a platform opposing the
further territorial expansion of slavery. On that point the North was
fairly well united. But the great majority of those who voted for
Lincoln would have indignantly repudiated any purpose to take active
steps toward the extinction of slavery where it already existed. Lincoln
understood this perfectly, and whatever his opinion about the ultimate
fate of slavery if prohibited expansion, he from the first took the
ground that the terms of his election constituted a mandate limiting his
action. As secession developed he rightly centred his thought and effort
on the preservation of the Union, a duty imposed by his election to the
Presidency.

Naturally, as the crisis developed, there were many efforts at still
another great compromise. Among the friends of the outg