"
Two weeks later, the _Economist_, while still maintaining the justice of
the Northern cause, though with lessened vigour, appealed to the common
sense of the North to refrain from a civil war whose professed object
was unattainable. "Everyone knows and admits that the secession is an
accomplished, irrevocable, fact.... Even if the North were sure of an
easy and complete victory--short, of course, of actual subjugation of
the South (which no one dreams of)--the war which was to end in such a
victory would still be, in the eyes of prudence and worldly wisdom, an
objectless and unprofitable folly[319]." But by the middle of June the
American irritation at the British Proclamation of Neutrality, loudly
and angrily voiced by the Northern press, had caused a British press
resentment at this "wilful misrepresentation and misjudgment" of British
attitude. "We _do_ believe the secession of the Slave States to be a
_fait accompli_--a completed and irreversible transaction. We believe it
to be impossible now for the North to lure back the South into the Union
by any compromise, or to compel them back by any force." "If this is an
offence it cannot be helped[320]."
The majority of the London papers, though not all, passed through the
same shifts of opinion and expression as the _Economist_; first
upbraiding the South, next appealing to the North not to wage a useless
war, finally committing themselves to the theory of an accomplished
break-up of the Union and berating the North for continuing, through
pride alone, a bloody conflict doomed to failure.
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