oing President,
Buchanan, whose term of office would not expire until March 4, 1861,
there were still some Southern leaders, like Jefferson Davis, seeking
either a complete surrender to Southern will, or advantages for Southern
security in case secession was accomplished. Buchanan appealed
hysterically to the old-time love of the Union and to the spirit of
compromise. Great congressional committees of both Senate and House of
Representatives were formed seeking a solution. Crittenden for the
border states between North and South, where, more than anywhere else,
there was division of opinion, proposed pledges to be given to the
South. Seward, long-time champion of the anti-slavery North, was active
in the Senate in suggestion and intrigue seemingly intended to
conciliate by concessions. Charles Francis Adams, early a Free Soiler,
in the House of Representatives Committee conducted his Republican
colleagues along a path apparently leading to a guarantee of slavery as
then established[62]. A constitutional amendment was drafted to this
effect and received Lincoln's preliminary approval. Finally Lincoln, in
his inaugural address, March 4, 1861, declared:

"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with
the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I
believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no
inclination to do so."

It should be no matter for surprise, therefore, that, as these efforts
were observed in Great Britain, a note of uncertainty began to replace
the earlier unanimity of opinion that the future of slavery was at stake
in America. This offered an easy excuse for a switch-about of sympathy
as British commercial and other interests began to be developed, and
even dismayed the ardent friends of the anti-slavery North. Meanwhile
the Government of Great Britain, from the very first appearance of the
cloud of civil war, had focused its attention on the point of what the
events in America portended to British interests and policy. This is the
business of governments, and their agents would be condemned as
inefficient did they neglect it. But did British governmental policy go
beyond this entirely justifiable first thought for immediate British
interests to the point of positive hope that England would find an
advantage in the breaking up of the great American Republic? American
opinion, both then and later, believed Great Britain guilty of this
offence, but such cri