The first debate which he had the chance to attend at the Union was on October 28th, 1862, the motion being: "That the cause of the Northern States is the cause of humanity and progress, and that the widespread sympathy with the Confederates is the result of ignorance and misrepresentation." The discussion gained in actuality from the fact that the President of the Union was Mr. Everett, son of the distinguished literary man who had been America's representative in London, and was at this time Secretary of State in the Federal Government. But the South had a notable ally. Mr. George Otto Trevelyan, author of some of the best light verse ever written by an undergraduate, was still in residence, though he had before this taken his degree; and he shared in those days the sentimental preference for the South. Dilke reported to his grandfather: "Trevelyan's speech was mere flash, but very witty." "Mere flash" the freshman was likely to think it, for he shared his grandfather's opinions, and gave his first Union vote for the North--in a minority of 34 against 117. "Very witty" it was sure to be, and its most effective hit was a topical allusion. The Union Society of those days had its quarters in what had originally been a Wesleyan chapel--a large room in Green Street, the floor of which is now used as a public billiard saloon, while the galleries from which applause and interruption used to come freely now stand empty. There had long been complaint of its inadequacy; Oxford had set the example of a special edifice, and as far back as 1857 a Building Fund had been started, which, however, dragged on an abortive existence from year to year, a constant matter of gibes. 'Can the North restore the Union?' Mr. Trevelyan asked. 'Never, sir; they have no Building Fund'; and the punning jest brought down a storm of applause. But when Mr. Trevelyan, after a year spent in India, came back to England and to Cambridge gossip in the beginning of 1864, he learnt that this despised Building Fund had been taken seriously in hand, that one undergraduate in particular was corresponding with all manner of persons, and that this Union also was going to be restored. That was how the present Sir George Trevelyan first heard the name of Charles Dilke. Even in his earliest term Dilke soon passed out of the rôle of a mere listener and critic. The Commissioners of the International Exhibition of 1862 were then being sharply criticized, and on November 25th "a man of the name of Hyndman" (so the undergraduate's letter described this other undergraduate, afterwards to be well known as the Socialist writer and speaker) moved "a kind of vote of censure" upon them. It was natural enough that Sir Wentworth Dilke's son should brief the defence, and among the papers of 1862 is a bundle of "Notes by me for Everett's speech." Next he was trying his own mettle; and opposed a motion "that Prince Alfred should be permitted to accept the throne of Greece." His own note is: