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Karl Marx, who was residing in Britain at the time, also wrote much on the topic. He had nothing but withering criticism of mainstream/elite British attitudes for the war, namely the downplaying the importance of slavery in the formation of the Confederacy. He, unlike his more socially acceptable contemporaries, also deeply admired Lincoln. Many pieces published in prominent periodicals, like The Economist, painted him as a wily and double-dealing politician. One could understand that interpretation given the compromises he was desperately trying to make with Southern states to prevent the outbreak of war, but it gave prominent Brits an excuses to dismiss the sincerity of his anti-slavery rhetoric after the war broke out. (Lincoln himself was also being deeply transformed by the savagery of war. He would come to believe the carnage was divine punishment for the sin of slavery.) Marx would have none of it. He called out the hypocrisy of those who in the years prior condemned American slavery but would not support the cause of Lincoln and the Union because it didn't have an unblemished history of being totally and consistently anti-slavery. The claim regarding the effectiveness of "Confederate propagandist networks" is overstated, though. People across Britain were divided on the issue, even across political camps and ethnic groups (e.g. Irish and English). To be clear, by "divided", I don't mean that people necessarily individually ambivalent. There were some staunch supporters on both sides. There were also multiple reasons for preferring one side over another, too. Slavery was just one issue. Another was potential weakening the Monroe Doctrine. (During the Civil War, France under Napoleon III invaded and conquered Mexico, and Spain re-colonized what would become the Dominican Republic.) Others were access to raw materials, support for wars of national unity (European nationalists admired Lincoln, as would Hitler decades later), etc. |
I'm not sure what you're referring to here. AFAIK between his inauguration and the outbreak of war Lincoln had basically no interaction with any of the Southern states.