The abolitionists of the North and the extreme anti-slavery friends in England, relatively few in number in both countries, still sounded the note of “slavery the cause of the war,” but got little hearing.  Nevertheless it was seen by thoughtful minds that slavery was certain to have a distinct bearing on the position of Great Britain when the war was concluded.  In May, 1861, Palmerston declared that it would be a happy day when “we could succeed in putting an end to this unnatural war between the two sections of our North American cousins,” but added that the difficulty for England was that “We could not well mix ourselves up with the acknowledgment of slavery[855]....”

Great Britain’s long-asserted abhorrence of slavery caused, indeed, a perplexity in governmental attitude.  But this looked to the final outcome of an independent South—­an outcome long taken for granted.  Debate on the existing moralities of the war very soon largely disappeared from British discussion and in its place there cropped out, here and there, expressions indicative of anxiety as to whether the war could long continue without a “servile insurrection,” with all its attendant horrors.

On July 6, 1861, the Economist, reviewing the progress of the war preparations to date, asserted that it was universally agreed no restoration of the Union was possible and answered British fears by declaring it was impossible to believe that even the American madness could contemplate a servile insurrection.  The friendly Spectator also discussed the matter and repeatedly.  It was a mistaken idea, said this journal, that there could be no enfranchisement without a slave rising, but should this occur, “the right of the slave to regain his freedom, even if the effort involve slaughter, is as clear as any other application of the right of self-defence[856].”  Yet English abolitionists should not urge the slave to act for himself, since “as war goes on and all compromise fails the American mind will harden under the white heat and determine that the cause of all conflict must cease.”  That slavery, in spite of any declaration by Lincoln or Northern denial of a purpose to attack it—­denials which disgusted Harriet Martineau—­was in real fact the basic cause of the war, seemed to her as clear as anything in reason[857].  She had no patience with English anti-slavery people who believed Northern protestations, and she did not express concern over the horrors of a possible servile insurrection.  Nevertheless this spectre was constantly appearing.  Again the Spectator sought to allay such fears; but yet again also proclaimed that even such a contingency was less fearful than the consolidation of the slave-power in the South[858].