xxxii INTRODUCTION 



since 1814 and the British Government ever 

 since 1832 have been popular governments, in 

 which the general feeling of the nation has been, 

 though more evidently in the United States than 

 in Britain, the ultimately decisive factor in 

 international relations. One would like to as 

 cribe much weight to this factor, for it would be 

 reassuring as to the pacific tendencies of democ 

 racies in general. But the facts are not all one 

 way. Let us consider them. It is clear that 

 if the government of Britain had been as pop 

 ular in 1776 as it was in 1876 the North Amer 

 ican colonies would not have been alienated as 

 they unhappily were, and also clear that in 1862 

 the existence of a wide-spread sympathy for the 

 Northern States among the British masses im 

 mensely diminished the risk that the British 

 Government might yield to the persuasions of 

 the French Emperor and might thus, in recog 

 nizing the independence of the Southern Con 

 federacy, find herself in a conflict with the 

 North. 1 But on every occasion since 1814 in 



1 A well-known writer, General von Bernhardi, observes in his recent 

 book, Germany and the Next War (p. 94 of English translation) : &quot; England 

 committed the unpardonable blunder, from her point of view, of not 

 supporting the Southern States in the American War of Secession.&quot; 

 What the Prussian general calls an &quot;unpardonable blunder&quot; was the 

 scornful refusal of the British nation a practically unanimous refusal 

 to take advantage of the divisions in a kindred people and set back the 

 cause of human freedom. 



