rn sentiment. In August he was
writing in letters of the "good cause[116]." But Browning was a rare
exception and it was not until the Civil War had been under way for many
months that men of talent in the non-political world were drawn to make
comment or to take sides. Their influence at the outset was
negligible[117].

In spite of press utterances, or literary silence, alike indicative of
a widespread conviction that Southern independence was assured, there
still remained both in those circles where anti-slavery sentiment was
strong, and in others more neutral in sympathy, a distaste for the
newly-born State as the embodiment of a degrading institution. Lincoln's
inaugural address denying an intention to interfere with slavery was a
weapon for the friends of the South, but it could not wholly still that
issue. Even in the _Times_, through the medium of W.H. Russell's
descriptive letters, there appeared caustic criticisms. He wrote in his
"Diary," "I declare that to me the more orderly, methodical, and perfect
the arrangements for economizing slave labour ... are, the more hateful
and odious does slavery become[118]," and in his letter of May 8, from
Montgomery, having witnessed an auction sale of slaves he stated:

"I am neither sentimentalist nor Black Republican, nor negro
worshipper, but I confess the sight caused a strange thrill
through my heart. I tried in vain to make myself familiar
with the fact that I could, for the sum of $975, become as
absolutely the owner of that mass of blood, bones, sinew,
flesh and brains as of the horse which stood by my side.
There was no sophistry which could persuade me the man was
not a man--he was, indeed, by no means my brother, but
assuredly he was a fellow creature[119]."

This was hard printing for the _Times_, in its new advocacy of the
South, and Russell's description was made much of by the _Westminster
Review_ and other publications that soon began to sound again the
"issue" of slavery[120]. Yet the _Westminster_ itself in the same
article decried the folly of the Northern attempt at reconquest. So also
thought even John Bright at the moment, when expressing himself
privately to friends in America[121].

Slavery, then, still remained an issue before the British public, but of
what use was it to upbraid the South, if a new world State were in fact
born? And if a State in power, why not give it prompt recognition? The
extre