ambassador, could have shown lord john russell, the foreign secretary, in private to say domestically in america we can only talk about the war in terms of the union. right. >> guest: but as you and i know, this is a war, ultimately, about slavery. >> host: right. which eventually they do saw, but it takes a while. >> guest: it took two years, and that's a very long time in a war. >> host: absolutely. on the other hand, lincoln sent anti-slavery consuls to britain, one of the leading abolitionists was sent over to bristol, i think. and lincoln, who was a very shrewd guy, saw that sending an abolitionist as a counsel, not an ambassador, would actually help to appeal to british public opinion. so there were these sort of cross-currents going on where some people are talking about slavery, and some people are not talking about slavery. but one of the very interesting things in if your book is your tracing out of how british sympathizers of the confederacy kept saying, oh, you know, if confederacy wins, they're going to abolish slavery. in other words, nobody was willing to defend slavery

ambassadors, could have shown lord john russell in private saying we can only talk about the war in termsf the union, but, no, as you and i know, this is a war ultimately about slavery. >> host: which they do say, but it takes awhile. >> guest: two year, and that's a long time in the war. >> host: absolutely. on the other hand, lincoln sent anti-slavery consuls to england. one of the leading abolitionists of illinois was sent over to bristol, i think, and lincoln, a shrewd guy, saw that sending an abolitionist as a consul, not ambassador, would help appeal to british public opinion. there was sort of strange cross-currents going on with some people talking about slavery and others not talking about slavery, but one of the very interesting things in your book is tracing out how british sympathizers of the confederacy kept saying, oh, you know, if the confederacy wins, they abolish slavery. no one was willing to defend slavery. in fact, if the confederacy is independent, britain will then pressure them to abolish slavery. >> guest: yes. that was a prevalent opinion. in fact, the leading bri