There is a presentiment in the North that recognition cannot be delayed, and this proclamation is aimed, not at the negro or the South, but at Europe." _Bell's Weekly Messenger_ believed that it was now "the imperative duty of England and France to do what they can in order to prevent the possible occurrence of a crime which, if carried out, would surpass in atrocity any similar horror the world has ever seen[933]." "Historicus," on the other hand, asked: "What is that solution of the negro question to which an English Government is prepared to affix the seal of English approbation[934] ?" Mason, the Confederate Agent in London, wrote home that it was generally believed the proclamation was issued "as the means of warding off recognition....
It was seen through at once and condemned accordingly[935]." This interpretation of Northern purpose in no sense negatives the dictum that the proclamation exercised little influence on immediate British governmental policy, but does offer some ground for the belief that strong pro-Southern sympathizers at once saw the need of combating an argument dangerous to the carrying out of projects of mediation.

Yet the new "moral purpose" of Lincoln did not immediately appeal even to his friends.

The _Spectator_ deplored the lack of a clean-cut declaration in favour of the principle of human freedom: "The principle asserted is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States." ...

"There is no morality whatever in such a decree, and if approved at all it must be upon its merits as a political measure[936]." Two weeks later, reporting a public speech at Liverpool by ex-governor Morehead of Kentucky, in which Lincoln was accused of treachery to the border states, the _Spectator_, while taking issue with the speaker's statements, commented that it was not to be understood as fully defending a system of government which chose its executive "from the ranks of half-educated mechanics[937]." Similarly in America the emancipation proclamation, though loudly applauded by the abolitionists, was received with misgivings.

Lincoln was disappointed at the public reaction and became very despondent, though this was due, in part, to the failure of McClellan to follow up the victory of Antietam.