No quality is so hard to appreciate, until it succeeds, as patience; and for two years Lincoln was patient, and few understood.
England and France were inclined to recognise the Confederacy. The English point of view was not one which reflected any glory on the nation. Lord Palmerston said, “We do not like slavery, but we want cotton.” And a poem in Punch expressed the general point of view, against which only a few Englishmen protested—
“Though with the North we sympathise,
It must not be forgotten
That with the South we’ve stronger ties,
Which are composed of cotton,
Whereof our imports mount unto
A sum of many figures;
And where would be our calico
But for the toil of niggers?”