... Some day, with
scarcely any notice, we may receive tidings that an armistice has been
agreed upon and preliminaries of peace have been signed[331]." John
Bright's paper, the _Morning Star_, argued long and feverishly that
Englishmen must not lose sight of the fact that slavery was an issue,
and made appeal for expressions, badly needed at the moment, of
pro-Northern sympathy[332]. To this _John Bull_ retorted:
"Nothing can be clearer than this, that black slavery has
nothing whatever to do with this Civil War in America.... The
people of America have erected a political idol. The
Northerners have talked and written and boasted so much about
their Republic that they have now become perfectly furious to
find that their idol can be overthrown, and that the false
principles upon which the American Republic is built should
be exhibited to the world, that their vaunted democracy
should be exposed as a mere bubble or a piece of rotten
timber, an abominable and worthless tyranny of the sovereign
mob[333]."
Here was an early hint of the future of democracy as at issue[334].
_John Bull_, the "country squire's paper," might venture to voice the
thought, but more important papers were still cautious in expressing it.
W.H. Russell, privately, wrote to Delane: "It is quite obvious, I think,
that the North will succeed in reducing the South[335].
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