The slavery controversy in America had, in short, come to be regarded in
England as a constant quarrel between North and South, but of no
immediate danger to the Union. Each outbreak of violent American
controversy produced a British comment sympathetic with the North. The
turmoil preceding and following the election of Lincoln in 1860, on the
platform of "no extension of slavery," was very generally noted by the
British press and public, as a sign favourable to the cause of
anti-slavery, but with no understanding that Southern threat would at
last be realized in definite action. Herbert Spencer, in a letter of May
15, 1862, to his American friend, Yeomans, wrote, "As far as I had the
means of judging, the feeling here was at first _very decidedly_ on the
side of the North[34] ..." The British metropolitan press, in nearly
every issue of which for at least two years after December, 1860, there
appeared news items and editorial comment on the American crisis, was at
first nearly unanimous in condemning the South[35]. The _Times_, with
accustomed vigour, led the field. On November 21, 1860, it stated:

"When we read the speech of Mr. Lincoln on the subject of
Slavery and consider the extreme moderation of the sentiments
it expresses, the allowance that is made for the situation,
for the feelings, for the prejudices, of the South; when we
see how entirely he narrows his opposition to the single
point of the admission of Slavery into the Territories, we
cannot help being forcibly struck by the absurdity of
breaking up a vast and glorious confederacy like that of the
United States from the dread and anger inspired by the
election of such a man to the office of Chief Magistrate....
We rejoice, on higher and surer grounds, that it [the
election] has ended in the return of Mr. Lincoln. We are glad