ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the analysis of a self-admitted parliamentary failure, John Stuart Mill, who also asserted that his strongest feelings were engaged in the Civil War. The 1850s in Britain are often remembered as a period of unrivaled peace and prosperity, especially when considered in contrast to the reform-driven anxieties of the early 1830s and the social disasters of the hungry forties. There were, however, significant crises throughout the decade. In the aftermath of the revolutions of 1848, France backslid into despotism with the 1851 coup dtat engineered by Napoleon III. After the election in November 1860 of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, the Southern states began to carry out their threats of secession from the Union. British politicians found themselves under intense pressure, from both the North and the South, to choose sides in the coming war.
