But that this issue had any vital bearing on the quarrel between the American sections was never generally voiced in England.

Rather, British comment was directed to the lesson, taught to the world by the American crisis, of the failure of democratic institutions in _national power._ Bright had long preached to the unenfranchised of England the prosperity and might of America and these had long been denied by the aristocratic faction to be a result of democratic institutions.

At first the denial was now repeated, the _Saturday Review_, February 23, 1861, protesting that there was no essential connection between the "shipwreck" of American institutions and the movement in England for an expanded franchise.

Even, the article continued, if an attempt were made to show such a connection it would convince nobody since "Mr.Bright has succeeded in persuading a great number of influential persons that the admission of working-men into the constituencies is chiefly, if not solely, desirable on the ground that it has succeeded admirably in America and has proved a sovereign panacea against the war, taxation and confusion which are the curses of old Governments in Europe." Yet that the denial was not sincere is shown by the further assertion that "the shallow demagogues of Birmingham and other kindred platforms must bear the blame of the inference, drawn nearly universally at the present moment, that, if the United States become involved in hopeless difficulties, it would be madness to lower the qualification for the suffrage in England." This pretended disclaimer of any essential relation between the American struggle and British institutions was not long persisted in.

A month later the _Saturday Review_ was strong in contemptuous criticism of the "promiscuous democracy" of the North[1330].