In this same month the _Spectator_ thought it was "idle to strive to ignore the very centre and spring of all disunion," and advised a "prudent audacity in striking at the cause rather than at the effect[880]." Three weeks later the _Spectator_, reviewing general British press comments, summed them up as follows: "If you make it a war of emancipation we shall think you madmen, and tell you so, though the ignorant instincts of Englishmen will support you.

And if you follow our counsel in holding a tight rein on the Abolitionists, we shall applaud your worldly wisdom so far; but shall deem it our duty to set forth continually that you have forfeited all claim to the _popular_ sympathy of England." This, said the _Spectator_, had been stated in the most objectionable style by the _Times_ in particular, which, editorially, had alleged that "the North has now lost the chance of establishing a high moral superiority by a declaration against slavery." To all this the _Spectator_ declared that the North must adopt the bold course and make clear that restoration of the Union was not intended with the old canker at its roots[881].
Official England held a different view.

Russell believed that the separation of North and South would conduce to the extinction of slavery since the South, left to itself and fronted by a great and prosperous free North, with a population united in ideals, would be forced, ultimately, to abandon its "special system." He professed that he could not understand Mrs.Stowe's support of the war and thought she and Sumner "animated by a spirit of vengeance[882]." If the South did yield and the Union were restored _with_ slavery, Russell thought that "Slavery would prevail all over the New World.

For that reason I wish for separation[883]." These views were repeated frequently by Russell.
He long had a fixed idea on the moral value of separation, but was careful to state, "I give you these views merely as speculations," and it is worthy of note that after midsummer of 1862 he rarely indulged in them.

Against such speculations, whether by Russell or by others, Mill protested in his famous article in _Fraser's_, February, 1862[884].
On one aspect of slavery the North was free to act and early did so.
Seward proposed to Lyons a treaty giving mutual right of search off the African Coast and on the coasts of Cuba for the suppression of the African Slave Trade.