at once, to shake hands with Mr Gladstone as one of themselves. When Gladstone first joined Palmerston's government in 1859, he had opposed further electoral reform, but he changed his position during Palmerston's last premiership, and by 1865 he was firmly in favour of enfranchising the working classes in towns. The policy caused friction with Palmerston, who strongly opposed enfranchisement. At the beginning of each session, Gladstone would passionately urge the Cabinet to adopt new policies, while Palmerston would fixedly stare at a paper before him. At a lull in Gladstone's speech, Palmerston would smile, rap the table with his knuckles, and interject pointedly, "Now, my Lords and gentlemen, let us go to business". Although he personally was not a Nonconformist, and rather disliked them in person, he formed a coalition with the Nonconformists that gave the Liberals a powerful base of support. American Civil War Shortly after the outbreak of the American Civil War Gladstone wrote to his friend the Duchess of Sutherland that "the principle announced by the vice-president of the South...which asserts the superiority of the white man, and therewith founds on it his right to hold the black in slavery, I think that principle detestable, and I am wholly with the opponents of it" but that he felt that the North was wrong to try to restore the Union by military force, which he believed would end in failure. Palmerston's government adopted a position of British neutrality throughout the war, while declining to recognise the independence of the Confederacy. In October 1862 Gladstone made a speech in Newcastle in which he said that Jefferson Davis and the other Confederate leaders had "made a nation", that the Confederacy seemed certain to succeed in asserting its independence from the North, and that the time might come when it would be the duty of the European powers to "offer friendly aid in compromising the quarrel." The speech caused consternation on both sides of the Atlantic and led to speculation that the Britain might be about to recognise the Confederacy." Gladstone was accused of sympathising with the South, a charge he rejected. Gladstone was forced to clarify in the press that his comments in Newcastle had not been intended to signal a change in Government policy, but to express his belief that the North's efforts to defeat the South would fail, due to the strength of Southern resistance. In a