When, on December 20, 1860, that State in solemn convention declared the dissolution "of the Union now existing between South Carolina and the other States, under the name of the 'United States of America,'" and when it was understood that other Southern States would soon follow this example, British opinion believed and hoped that the rupture would be accomplished peaceably.

Until it became clear that war would ensue, the South was still damned by the press as seeking the preservation of an evil institution.

Slavery was even more vigorously asserted as the ignoble and sole cause.

In the number for April, 1861, the _Edinburgh Review_ attributed the whole difficulty to slavery, asserted that British sympathy would be with the anti-slavery party, yet advanced the theory that the very dissolution of the Union would hasten the ultimate extinction of slavery since economic competition with a neighbouring free state, the North, would compel the South itself to abandon its beloved "domestic institution[51]." Upon receipt of the news from South Carolina, the _Times_, in a long and carefully worded editorial, took up one by one the alleged causes of secession, dismissed them as inadequate, and concluded, "...

we cannot disguise from ourselves that, apart from all political complications, there is a right and a wrong in this question, and that the right belongs, with all its advantages, to the States of the North[52]." Three days later it asserted, "The North is for freedom of discussion, the South represses freedom of discussion with the tar-brush and the pine-fagot." And again, on January 10, "The Southern States expected sympathy for their undertaking from the public opinion of this country.
The tone of the press has already done much to undeceive them...." In general both the metropolitan and the provincial press expressed similar sentiments, though there were exceptions.