all these troubles, but Palmerston would not allow her to proceed
to the point of breaking the peace. From 1861 to 1865, while the
Civil War was being fought out in America, his government was
prompt to recognize the belligerent status of the Confederacy,
and to favor the South by allowing privateers like the "Alabama"
to be built and manned in English ports. But the actual break
with Mr. Lincoln's government did not come, and the old Whig
statesman lived to see the South overpowered.

Through the middle reaches of the century the political power in
England remained for the most part in the hands of the Whig,
latterly called Liberal, ministries. The impulse for reform--
political, economic, and social--had spent itself before 1850,
and the older statesmen who guided the public policies had no
sympathy with the demands for radical legislation, church
disestablishment, universal suffrage, and what not, which came up
from many parts of the nation. With the death of Palmerston, and
the retirement of Russell, a new era was inaugurated, and new
actors stepped to the front of the stage.


GLADSTONE AND DISRAELI


At the head of the Liberals was William Ewart Gladstone, who in
his younger days had followed his master, Peel, out of the old
Tory lines into the camp of the free traders, and had been
Russell's chief lieutenant, and Palmerston's financial minister
for the last half-dozen years. He was a man of splendid
intellectual power, sterling morality, an adept at parliamentary