ies; they will be greatly
swayed by their own interest, and the two Republics must be
weighed, not by their professions or their previous history,
but by the conduct they pursue and the position they maintain
among the Powers of the earth. Their internal institutions
are their own affair; their financial and political
arrangements are emphatically ours. Brazil is a slave-holding
Empire, but by its good faith and good conduct it has
contrived to establish for itself a place in the hierarchy of
nations far superior to that of many Powers which are free
from this domestic contamination. If the Northern Confederacy
of America evinces a determination to act in a narrow,
exclusive, and unsocial spirit, while its Southern
competitor extends the hand of good fellowship to all
mankind, with the exception of its own bondsmen, we must not
be surprised to see the North, in spite of the goodness of
its cause and the great negative merit of the absence of
Slavery, sink into a secondary position, and lose the
sympathy and regard of mankind."

This to Northern view, was a sad relapse from that high moral tone
earlier addressed to the South notifying slave-holders that England
would not "stultify the policy of half a century for the sake of an
extended cotton trade[79]."

The _Economist_, with more consistency, still reported the violence and
recklessness of the South, yet in logical argument proved to its own
satisfaction the impossibility of Northern reconquest, and urged a
peaceful separation[80]. The _Spectator_, even though pro-Northern, had
at first small hope of reunion by force, and offered consolation in the
thought that there would still remain a United States of America
"strong, powerful and free; all the stronger for the loss of the Black
South[81]." In short from all quarters the public press, whatever its
sympathy, united in decrying war as a useless effort doomed to failure
if undertaken in the hope of restoring the Union. Such public opinion,
however, was not necessarily governmental opinion. The latter was indeed
more slow to make up its mind and more considerate in expressing itself.
When it became clear that in all probability the North would fight,
there was still no conception, any more than in the United States
itself, of the duration and intensity of the conflict. Indeed, Russell
yet hoped, as late as the end of January, t