British public, also, was largely hopeless of any change in the
institution of slavery, and its own active humanitarian interest was
waning, though still dormant--not dead. Yet the two nations, to a degree
not true of any other two world-powers, were of the same race, had
similar basic laws, read the same books, and were held in close touch at
many points by the steady flow of British emigration to the
United States.

When, after the election of Lincoln to the Presidency, in November,
1860, the storm-clouds of civil strife rapidly gathered, the situation
took both British Government and people by surprise. There was not any
clear understanding either of American political conditions, or of the
intensity of feeling now aroused over the question of the extension of
slave territory. The most recent descriptions of America had agreed in
assertion that at some future time there would take place, in all
probability, a dissolution of the Union, on lines of diverging economic
interests, but also stated that there was nothing in the American
situation to indicate immediate progress in this direction. Grattan, a
long-time resident in America as British Consul at Boston, wrote:

"The day must no doubt come when clashing objects will break
the ties of common interest which now preserve the Union. But
no man may foretell the period of dissolution.... The many
restraining causes are out of sight of foreign observation.
The Lilliputian threads binding the man mountain are
invisible; and it seems wondrous that each limb does not act
for itself independently of its fellows. A closer examination
shows the nature of the network which keeps the members of
this association so tightly bound. Any attempt to untangle
the ties, more firmly fastens them. When any one State talks