Abraham Lincoln quarterly. [Vol. 3, no. 2]

74 ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY
It was this that caused the most widely spread distrust of
Lincoln in Britain. Late in 1862 the Archbishop of York
thought that it was too late to abolish slavery and end the war
by a restoration of the Union; and as late as April, 1863, the
Bishop of Natal, South Africa, wrote to that energetic Englishman, T. B. Potter, founder, organizer and secretary of
the Emancipation Committee (later, Society) of Britain:
"the horrible letter of President Lincoln"-it was Lincoln's
letter to Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune-"in
which he said that he would maintain slavery wholly or partially if that would help him to maintain the Union, makes
me very distrustful of the spirit which really animates the
governing Party of the Northern States." Notice that this fine
and logical foundation of Lincoln's domestic policy led to
the belief in many British circles that he was only a political
opportunist. Well, he certainly was a political opportunist.
He had to be. But those British circles were badly wrong in
thinking he was only that!
All this, however, does not explain, still less excuse, the
deplorable excesses of prejudice, bad faith, vituperation and
ill manners to which the London Times and many other London papers carried their dislike of Lincoln. The provincial
press was much better,-except strangely enough in Scotland,
where the tart and pompous Edinburgh Review was one of
the worst offenders. (All I can say for the Edinburgh Review
is that it was no ruder to Lincoln than it had been to the English poets' poet, John Keats; though it was a pity that Byron
was no longer alive to wreak vengeance by another attack on
Scotch Reviewers!) It is as well that Americans today should
also remember, when they recall the bad behavior of the bulk
of the London press towards Lincoln, that these same British papers were hissed and booed at public meetings throughout Britain. That is why I said earlier that the press was not
at this time all-powerful in securing political decisions of