There never was, and probably never will be, a more interesting subject of political study than the present condition of America. Every problem of the past, and every political difficulty of the present, is there working itself out visibly before our eyes. Evils which have perplexed the nations since the dawn of history demand their instant removal, while every form of government from mob-rule to the closest oligarchy is asserting by force its right, not only to exist, but to become supreme. The comparative force of democracy and aristocracy, their relative power of remedying discovered mischiefs, their ultimate tendencies, and their common evils, are exhibited on a scale and with a rapidity which affords to mankind the opportunity of a political education such as it has not enjoyed since Greece was submerged under the Roman wave. And, amidst all these difficulties, the American people alone in history have to work out, not in the course of ages but at once, the problem which is older than any form of government now in existence, the extinction of human slavery.

 

—The Spectator of London, England, 28 December, 1861