CHAPTER XVIII. THE KEY-NOTE OF BRITISH ATTITUDE

     "It is always the same story. With us there is no level of 
     society. Men stand on a long staircase, but the crowd 
     congregates near the bottom, and the lower steps are very 
     broad. In America men stand upon a common platform, but the 
     platform is raised above the ground, though it does not 
     approach in height the top of our staircase. If we take the 
     average altitude in the two countries, we shall find that the 
     American heads are the more elevated of the two[1360]."

A comparison of dates shows that the unanimity of conservative and aristocratic expression on the failure of American democracy and its lesson to England was most marked and most open at the moment when the Government was seriously considering an offer of mediation in the war. Meanwhile the emancipation proclamation of September, 1862, had appeared. It did not immediately affect governmental attitude, save adversely to the North, and it gave a handle for pro-Southern outcry on the score of a "servile war." Indeed, the radicals were at first depressed by it; but when months passed with no appearance of a servile war and when the second emancipation proclamation of January, 1863, further certified the moral purpose of the North, a great element of strength was added to the English advocates of democracy. The numerous "addresses" to Lincoln exhibited both a revived moral enthusiasm for the cause of anti-slavery and were frequently combined with a laudation of American political institutions. The great mass-meeting at Exeter Hall, January 29, 1863, was described by the correspondent of an American paper as largely deriving its strength from the universal dissatisfaction of the lower orders of the English people with their existing conditions under the Crown:

     "The descendants of the Roundhead commoners, chafing under 
     the limitations of the franchise, burdensome taxation, the 
     contempt with which they are regarded by the lords of the 
     soil, the grievous effects of the laws of entail and 
     primogeniture, whereby they are kept poor and rendered liable 
     to starvation and pauperism - these have looked to America as 
     the model democracy which proves the poor man's capacity for 
     self-government." The meeting was called for seven o'clock 
     but at half after five the hall was filled, and at six 
     crowded. A second hall was filled and outdoor meetings of two 
     thousand people organized in Exeter Street. "All 
     working-class England was up in arms, not so much against 
     slavery as against British oligarchy[1361]."