George Douglas Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll

George Douglas Campbell, Duke of Argyll (1823-1900) was a nineteenth-century British aristocrat, scholar, politician. He served in Henry Temple Palmerston's Cabinet as Lord Privy Seal from 1855 to 1865, and during the American War of Secession. A rock-ribbed enemy of slavery, the Duke of Argyll strongly opposed Palmerston's decision to extend diplomatic recognition and military protection to the Confederate States in 1862, weakening US President Abraham Lincoln's bitter complaint that the British aristocracy believed "a slaveocracy's better'n no 'ocracy at all".