There have always been people who trade on discontent, and would find their occupation gone were it removed. But to represent such motives as animating the majority of Trade Union delegates was a gross exaggeration; and it was both unfair and unjust to draw so hard and fast a distinction between the rank and file of the working classes and those whom they chose to represent them. The weakness of _Punch's_ position was severely tested during the war of North and South in America and the Lancashire cotton famine, of which that war was the cause. Just as _Punch_ failed to recognize the existence of idealism in the leaders of the North, and consistently maligned and misrepresented Lincoln until his death, so he failed to render justice to the idealism of the cotton operatives, who espoused a cause which was not only unpopular and unfashionable, but the promotion of which entailed the maintenance of that blockade which caused widespread distress and misery in Lancashire. _Punch's_ attitude towards America in the earlier stages of the conflict showed a complete inability to comprehend the great issues involved, and an impartial dislike of both sides tempered by a sentimental leaning towards the South. It must be remembered that at this time the cause of the South was favoured by nearly all classes, that it appealed to Mr. Gladstone; that the Duke of Argyll and John Bright were almost the only statesmen who backed the North; and that amongst London newspapers of any weight the _Spectator_ stood almost alone on that side. _Punch's_ reading of the war at the close of 1861 is shown in the cartoon which represents King Cotton as Prometheus, bound with the chains of Blockade, and with the American Eagle preying on his vitals. The verses which accompany the picture emphasize the suicidal folly of the eagle, but the question of slavery or the Union is not even mentioned. A fortnight later the point of the "other [Cotton] Kings" is explained by another cartoon in which John Bull, addressing the combatants, says, "If you like fighting better than business, I shall deal at the other shop." Here the verses drive home the _argumentum ad pocketum_ in the crudest way. Cousin Jonathan is told not to be an ass, or "bid Mrs. Britannia stop ruling the wave":-- We'll break your blockade, Cousin Jonathan, yet, Yes, darn our old stockings, C. J., but we will. And the cotton we'll have, and to work we will set Every Lancashire hand, every Manchester mill. We're recruiting to do it--we'll make no mistakes: There's a place they call India just over the way; There we're raising a force which, Jerusalem, snakes! Will clean catawampus your cruisers, C. J. [Sidenote: "_Distressed Millionaires_"]