Its first effect was to restore courage and confidence to Northern supporters in the upper classes.

Bright had welcomed emancipation, yet with some misgivings.

He now joined in the movement and in a speech at Rochdale, February 3, on "Slavery and Secession," gave full approval of Lincoln's efforts.
In 1862, shortly after the appearance of Spence's _American Union_, which had been greeted with great interest in England and had influenced largely upper-class attitude in favour of the South, Cairnes had published his pamphlet, "Slave Power." This was a reasoned analysis of the basis of slavery and a direct challenge to the thesis of Spence[962].

England's "unnatural infatuation" for a slave power, Cairnes prophesied, would be short-lived.

His pamphlet began to be read with more conviction by that class which until now had been coldly neutral and which wished a more reassured faith in the Northern cause than that stirred by the emotional reception given the emancipation proclamation.