They recognize America as the stronghold of republicanism.

If they can bring it into disrepute here, they know that they inflict upon it the deadliest blow in Europe[1325]." On the opposing side were other writers.

Tremenheere argued the inapplicability of American institutions to Great Britain[1326].

The theoretical bases of those institutions were in some respects admirable but in actual practice they had resulted in the rule of the mob and had debased the nation in the estimation of the world; bribery in elections, the low order of men in politics and in Congress, were proofs of the evils of democracy; those in England who clamoured for a "numerical" rather than a class representation should take warning from the American experiment.

Occasionally, though rarely, there appeared the impressions of some British traveller who had no political axe to grind[1327], but from 1850 to 1860, as in every previous decade, British writing on America was coloured by the author's attitude on political institutions at home.