Yet at bottom it was emancipation that brought this reasoning public to seek in such works as that of Cairnes a logical basis for a change of heart.

Even in official circles, utterances previously made in private correspondence, or in governmental conversations only, were now ventured in public by friends of the North.
On April 1, 1863, at a banquet given to Palmerston in Edinburgh, the Duke of Argyll ventured to answer a reference made by Palmerston in a speech of the evening previous in which had been depicted the horrors of Civil War, by asking if Scotland were historically in a position to object to civil wars having high moral purpose.

"I, for one," Argyll said, "have not learned to be ashamed of that ancient combination of the Bible and the sword.

Let it be enough for us to pray and hope that the contest, whenever it may be brought to an end, shall bring with it that great blessing to the white race which shall consist in the final freedom of the black[963]." The public meetings in England raised high the hope in America that governmental England would show some evidence of a more friendly attitude.

Lincoln himself drafted a resolution embodying the ideas he thought it would be wise for the public meetings to adopt.