Abraham Lincoln's tribute to the "working men of Manchester" who opposed slavery.

 

The English novelist Charles Dickens said the American Civil War was about dollars and cents. Dickens didn't like slavery, yet he almost came close to supporting the Confederate side during the American Civil War.

The Republican, Abraham Lincoln, was not a supporter of the abolitionist, John Brown, and the Democrats, were then unashamed advocates of the extension of slavery. The idea of secession or separation first arose among abolitionists who were confronted with Confederates who wanted to extend their chattel system, into new territories, thus implicating the entire Union in their system. The Fugitive Slave Act, legalized the recovery of human property from 'free' states. Almost all whites during that period feared most black people and many black slaves were not sympathetic to anti-slavery organizations, that wanted to free them and then deport them to Africa. The Confederacy had opened hostilities on the avowed basis of upholding slavery, which meant in turn, that the Union would be forced to tackle negro emancipation whether its leadership wanted to or not.

Many English textile workers, particularly in Lancashire, did support the boycott of cotton from the Southern States of the U.S. during the American Civil War. This support was driven by a strong anti-slavery sentiment and a belief that ending slavery was more important than the economic hardship caused by the boycott. Karl Marx, helped to organise a boycott of southern slave-picked cotton among British workers.

The Times newspaper had hoped for the defeat of Abraham Lincoln and the wreckage of the American experiment. The Economist newspaper wrote: "The assumption that the quarrel between North and South is a quarrel between Negro Freedom on the one side and Negro Slavery on the other, is as impudent as it is untrue."

In 1863, the U.S. President wrote to the "working men of Manchester" thanking them for their anti-slavery stance. Lincoln's words were later inscribed on the pedestal of his statue that can still be found in Lincoln Square, Manchester. Lincoln praised the workers for their selfless act of "sublime Christian heroism, which has not been surpassed in any age or in any country."