The _London Press_ indulged in similar speculation, though from the angle of a Canadian annexation of the Northern States, whose more sober citizens must by now be weary of the sham of American democracy, and disgusted with the rowdyism of political elections, which "combine the morals of a horse race, the manners of a dog fight, the passions of a tap-room, and the emotions of a gambling house[75]." Probably such suggestions had little real purpose or meaning at the moment, but it is interesting that this idea of a "compensation" in Canada should have been voiced thus early.

Even in the United States the same thought had occurred to a few political leaders.

Charles Sumner held it, though too wise, politically, to advance it in the face of the growing Northern determination to preserve the Union.

It lay at the bottom of his increasing bitterness toward his old friend Charles Francis Adams, now busy in schemes intended, apparently, to restore the Union by compromise, and it led Sumner to hope for appointment as Minister to England[76].
The chief organ of British upper-class opinion, the _Times_, was one of the first to begin the process of "face about," as civil war in America seemed imminent[77].

Viewed from the later attitude of the _Times_, the earlier expressions of that paper, and in truth of many British journals, seem merely the customary platitudinous British holding up of horrified hands at American slavery.