Similarly in America the emancipation proclamation, though loudly applauded by the abolitionists, was received with misgivings.  Lincoln was disappointed at the public reaction and became very despondent, though this was due, in part, to the failure of McClellan to follow up the victory of Antietam.  The elections of October and November went heavily against the administration and largely on the alleged ground of the President’s surrender to the radicals[938].  The army as a whole was not favourably stirred by the proclamation; it was considered at best as but a useless bit of “waste paper[939].”  In England, John Bright, the most ardent public advocate of the Northern cause, was slow to applaud heartily; not until December did he give distinct approval, and even then in but half-hearted fashion, though he thought public interest was much aroused and that attention was now fixed on January 1, the date set by Lincoln for actual enforcement of emancipation[940].  In a speech at Birmingham, December 18, Bright had little to say of emancipation; rather he continued to use previous arguments against the South for admitting, as Vice-President Stephens had declared, that slavery was the very “corner-stone” of Southern institutions and society[941].  A few public meetings at points where favour to the North had been shown were tried in October and November with some success but with no great show of enthusiasm.  It was not until late December that the wind of public opinion, finding that no faintest slave-rising had been created by the proclamation began to veer in favour of the emancipation edict[942].  By the end of the year it appeared that the Press, in holding up horrified hands and prophesying a servile war had “overshot the mark[943].”

Soon the changing wind became a gale of public favour for the cause of emancipation, nor was this lessened—­rather increased—­by Jefferson Davis’ proclamation of December 23, 1862, in which he declared that Lincoln had approved “of the effort to excite a servile insurrection,” and that therefore it was now ordered “all negro slaves captured in arms be at once delivered over to the executive authorities of the respective States to which they belong, to be dealt with according to the laws of said State.”  This by state laws meant death to the slave fighting for his freedom, even as a regular soldier in the Northern armies, and gave a good handle for accusations of Southern ferocity[944].

Official opinion was not readily altered, Lyons writing in December that the promised January proclamation might still mean servile war.  He hoped that neither Lincoln’s proclamation nor Davis’ threat of retaliation would be carried into effect[945].  Russell regarded the January 1 proclamation as “a measure of war of a very questionable kind[946].”