He wrote in his "Diary," "I declare that to me the more orderly, methodical, and perfect the arrangements for economizing slave labour ...

are, the more hateful and odious does slavery become[118]," and in his letter of May 8, from Montgomery, having witnessed an auction sale of slaves he stated: "I am neither sentimentalist nor Black Republican, nor negro worshipper, but I confess the sight caused a strange thrill through my heart.

I tried in vain to make myself familiar with the fact that I could, for the sum of $975, become as absolutely the owner of that mass of blood, bones, sinew, flesh and brains as of the horse which stood by my side.
There was no sophistry which could persuade me the man was not a man--he was, indeed, by no means my brother, but assuredly he was a fellow creature[119]." This was hard printing for the _Times_, in its new advocacy of the South, and Russell's description was made much of by the _Westminster Review_ and other publications that soon began to sound again the "issue" of slavery[120].

Yet the _Westminster_ itself in the same article decried the folly of the Northern attempt at reconquest.

So also thought even John Bright at the moment, when expressing himself privately to friends in America[121].
Slavery, then, still remained an issue before the British public, but of what use was it to upbraid the South, if a new world State were in fact born?
And if a State in power, why not give it prompt recognition?
The extreme British anti-slavery opponents feared that this was just what the Government was inclined to do, and with promptness.