THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 229 



this spirit longed for the preservation intact 

 of the American Union as the model of a great 

 and prosperous democracy. Those who dreaded 

 the approach of democracy were quick to see in 

 the American war a proof of its weakness and 

 futility. 



When, in the course of 1864, the strangling 

 and crushing of the Confederacy by the terrific 

 power of the North became pretty clearly a 

 matter of time alone, Southern sympathy in 

 England ceased to manifest itself. Politicians 

 and scholars who had portrayed with eloquence 

 and learning the inherent vices of democracy 

 and the impossibility of its application in the 

 government of large populations, abandoned in 

 silence the field of political theory and prophecy. 

 The complete triumph of the North in the spring 

 of 1865 was attended by a great impetus to the 

 radical propaganda of Bright and his Manchester 

 followers. The Whig and Tory aristocracy were 

 badly discredited, and with the death of Lord 

 Palmerston lost their ancient control over the 

 government. For three years, indeed, Earl Rus 

 sell and the Earl of Derby maintained the 

 nominal succession of the old order, but Glad 

 stone and Disraeli were the real representatives 

 of the actual controlling power, which lay in a 



