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H|tandard Library Cdition
AMERICAN STATESMEN
EDITED BY
JOHN T. MORSE, JR.
IN THIRTY-TWO VOLUMES
VOL. XXIX.
THE CIVIL WAR
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
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American Statesmen
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
BY HIS SON
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
2 enersiie Drom
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
Che Viverside Press, Cambridge
1900
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Copyright, 1900,
By CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.
Copyright, 1900,
By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
All rights reserved. —
ffép1- 1947 HILDEBRANDT
PREFACE
TWENTY-SEVEN years have now elapsed since
Mr. Adams returned from Europe, after the
Geneva arbitration of 1872, in which he ren-
dered his last considerable public service, and it
lacks a few days only of thirteen years since his
death. No use whatever has hitherto been made
of his papers. Though neither in bulk nor in
interest equal to the accumulations left by John
Adams or by John Quincy Adams, these have
none the less a distinct value, shedding, as they
do, much contemporaneous light on a period and
a struggle which, not improbably, will hereafter
be accounted the most momentous in American
history. Mr. Adams was not an active letter-
writer, or systematic collector of material; but
he preserved all his correspondence, together
with copies of his own letters, and for over fifty
years, from the time he entered Harvard, he
kept a diary, in which there is scarcely a break.
The time has now come when this material
may fairly be used. The following sketch is,
therefore, in part a preliminary study, and in
vi PREFACE
part the condensed abstract of a larger and more
detailed work already far advanced in prepara-
tion. If narrated by another than himself, no
matter how skillfully, the career of Mr. Adams
would offer not much of interest. One brief
volume would amply suffice to do full justice to
it. It so chanced, however, that he has told his
own story in his own way; the story of a life
some of which was passed in a prominent posi-
tion, at a great centre, and during a memorable
period. This story he has told, too, very simply
and directly; but, necessarily, in great detail.
When a public character thus gives an account
of himself, and what he did and saw, and how
he felt, not autobiographically, but jotting it all
down from day to day as events developed, he
must be given space. In such case, through a
too severe condensation the biographer is apt to
substitute himself for the man. It has so proved
with Mr. Adams; and yet in the larger publica-
tion but a small portion of the material he left
will be used.
The present sketch is chiefly biographical. In
it only now and then does Mr. Adams speak for
himself. The work hereafter forthcoming will
be made up in a much greater degree of extracts
from his diary, letters, and papers, with only
such extraneous matter as may be deemed ne-
PREFACE Vii
cessary to connect the narrative, and to throw
light upon it by means of developments since
made, explaining much which was to him at the
time he wrote obscure or deceptive.
Get AA.
November 11, 1899.
CONTENTS
. BrrtH AND EDUCATION .
. Earzuy LIFe .
. THe MAssAcuusEtts LEGISLATURE
. THe “ Boston Wuic”
. Tae FREE-Som Party .
. THe Ess or THE TIDE
. Toe AntTE-BELLUM CONGRESS
. THe AWAKENING
. THE PROCLAMATION OF BELLIGERENCY
. SEWARD’s FoREIGN WAR PANACEA .
. Tar TREATY OF PARIS .
. Tue Trent AFFAIR
. A Bout witH THE PREMIER.
. THe Corron FAMINE .
. THe Crisis 0F RECOGNITION
. THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION .
. THe ALABAMA AND THE “ LarRp Rams”
. THe YEARS OF FRUITION
. THE GENEVA ARBITRATION
. Crosinc YEARS . ; 4 P
INDEX A ; F , ; : :
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ILLUSTRATIONS
CHARLES Francis ADAMS. . .. . . . ~ Frontisptece
From a photograph by Whipple in the possession
of Charles Francis Adams, Esq.
Autograph furnished by Mr. Adams.
The vignette of Mr. Adams’s home, Quincy, Mass.,
is from a photograph. Page
Lorp Joun RussELL. . . arent « Wa pacing 148
From a photograph by Elliott and Fry.
Autograph from a MS. in the Library of the Bos-
ton Atheneum.
oGHARD COBDEN. ..-.-. +... + facing 264
From a photograph in the possession of his daugh-
ter, Mrs. James Cobden Unwin.
Autograph from the William Lloyd Garrison MSS.,
Boston Public Library.
OREO ks kw eo Lfcing 882
From a photograph by Elliott and Fry.
Autograph from a MS. in the Library of the Bos-
ton Athenzum.
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
CHAPTER I
BIRTH AND EDUCATION
THOUGH born in Boston, and, until he was
over fifty, passing all his maturer life under New
England influences, Charles Francis Adams was
of mixed Northern and Southern descent.
Pure English on both sides, without a trace, so
far as can be ascertained, of Scotch or Irish,
much less of continental ancestry, race charac-
teristics went with him in the blood, —a factor
of no inconsiderable moment in his public life.
But while through his father he came of the
genuine New England stock, — the Aldens of
Plymouth, and the Shepards, Quincys, Nortons,
Boylstons, and Basses of the Massachusetts Bay,
—on the maternal side he was a Johnson of
Maryland. Of this family Governor Thomas
Johnson was, in Revolutionary times, the head.
An ardent patriot and close personal friend of
Washington, he was afterwards not only ap-
2 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
pointed by the first President an associate jus-
tice of the Supreme Court, but later was ten-
dered the chief justiceship ; which position he
declined. A large family, during Revolutionary
times the Maryland Johnsons were well repre-
sented in the Continental army ; but one brother,
Joshua, twelve years the junior of Governor
Thomas, had in early life established himself
as a merchant in London. When the trans-
Atlantic troubles broke out Joshua Johnson
removed to France, taking up his abode at
Nantes, where he acted as agent of the Mary-
land colony. After the peace of 1783 he went
back to England; and, in 1785, under the Con-
federation, was appointed American consul at
London, being the first to hold that office. He
lived in a house near Tower Hill; and J. Q.
Adams, then representing the United States at
the Hague, though recently appointed and con-
firmed as minister to Prussia, records in his
diary that, at 9 o’clock on the morning of July
26, 1797, he went “ to Mr. Johnson’s, and thence
to the Church of the parish of All Hallows
Barking, where I was married. ... We were
married before eleven in the morning, and im-
mediately after went out to see Tilney House.”
Louisa Catherine, the second of Mr. Johnson’s
five daughters, was, on this occasion, the other
party to the ceremony.
BIRTH AND EDUCATION 3
In 1801 J. Q. Adams returned to America.
Settling in Boston, he began, rather than re-
sumed, the practice of his profession as a law-
yer; and, in February, 1803, being then a mem-
ber of the Massachusetts State Senate, he was
chosen by the legislature United States senator.
In 1806 he was further appointed the first
Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at
Harvard. Holding these two positions, now so
curiously incompatible, he lived, in 1807, in a
frame house which long stood opposite the Com-
mon, on the southwest corner of Tremont and
Nassau, as Boylston Street was then called, being
on part of the present site of the Hotel Touraine.
Here, on Tuesday, August 18, 1807, his third
child, a son, was born; and nearly four weeks
later, on Sunday, September 13th, the father
wrote: ‘My child, born the 18th of last month,
was this afternoon baptized by Mr. Emerson, and
received the name of Charles Francis, — the
first of which I gave him in remembrance of
my deceased brother, and the second as a token
of honour to my old friend and patron, Judge
Dana.” The Mr. Emerson here mentioned was
then the settled minister of the First Church of
Boston, and father of Ralph Waldo Emerson,
at the time a child of four years. The “ de-
ceased brother,” Charles, a third son of John
Adams, had died in New York in December,
£ CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
1801. The connection with “Judge Dana”
was more remote, and there was about it a plea-
sant sentimental significance. In 1807 Chief
Justice Dana had, only about a year before, re-
tired from the Supreme Court of Massachusetts ;
but twenty-seven years earlier J. Q. Adams,
then a boy still in his fourteenth year, had ac-
companied him on a futile diplomatic errand
to Russia, acting as his secretary and French
interpreter. This remote Revolutionary recol-
lection now bore fruit in a family name.
On August 10, 1809, two years after the
diary entry above referred to was made, John
Quincy Adams, having in 1808 resigned his seat
in the Senate and shortly after been appointed
by President Madison first minister of the
United States to Russia, left Boston, and, driv-
ing “over Charles River Bridge to Mr. William
Gray’s wharf in Charlestown, there went on
board his ship Horace, Captain Beckford, fitted
out on a voyage to St. Petersburg direct.”
With him went the young Charles Francis, a
child not yet two; and “ eight full and eventful
years’ were to elapse before, a lad of ten, he
was again to see his native town. His educa-
tion during those years was of a very desultory
character, first in his father’s house at St.
Petersburg and later in an English boarding-
school. In Russia, French was not only the
BIRTH AND EDUCATION 5
court language, but the language of society ;
and, curiously enough in the case of Americans
at that time, both Mr. and Mrs. Adams had
passed much of their childhood in France, — he
at Paris, she at Nantes. They, therefore, en-
joyed the inestimable advantage, placed as they
then were, of perfect familiarity with French ;
and French thus became the child’s native
tongue, that which he talked in preference to
any other. After his return home, in 1817,
close upon forty-four years were to elapse be-
fore he was again in Europe; but when, in
1871-72, he served on the Geneva Arbitration,
he had occasion to appreciate at its full value
that childish familiarity with French acquired
more than half a century before.
At the close of April, 1814, J. Q. Adams left
St. Petersburg, under instructions from his gov-
ernment to take part in the peace negotiations
with Great Britain, shortly afterwards entered
upon at Ghent. Mrs. Adams remained, with her
child, in Russia until the following winter,
awaiting instructions from her husband. The
correspondence between father and son, which
was to continue until the death of the former,
now began, and has still an interest, revealing,
as it does, the kindlier, more domestic, and less
austere features of the older man’s character.
For instance, from Amsterdam in June, 1814,
6 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
he writes to the child, not yet seven, describing
how much he had wished his three boys with
him in his travels of late, and adding this
graphic little pen-and-ink genre sketch of
Holland : —
“Jt is a very curious and beautiful country
to see, especially at this season. It is all smooth
and level as the floor of a house; a constant
succession of green pastures, covered with multi-
tudes of sheep and cattle, and intersected with
canals upon which the people travel in large
covered boats drawn by horses. I am sure it
would be a pleasure to you to see the little boys,
in large breeches, big enough to make you two
suits of clothes, and wooden shoes, and black
round wigs, and pipes of tobacco in their
mouths; and the little girls, with petticoats
stuffed out like an umbrella, coming half down
their legs, and blue stockings, and slippers with-
out heels, flapping at their feet as they walk
along.”’
Presently it became evident that J. Q. Adams
was not to return to St. Petersburg; so Mrs.
Adams, breaking up the establishment there, set
out to join her husband somewhere in western
Europe, exactly where she did not know; for
the times were troublous, and means of commu-
nication poor. ‘Taking with her the boy, now
in his eighth year, and accompanied only by a
BIRTH AND EDUCATION 7
servant, she left St. Petersburg in her travel-
ing carriage, and found her way in midwinter
across Europe, then filled with the troops of
the allied armies on their way home after the
abdication of Napoleon, and finally joined her
husband in Paris on March 238, 1815, at the
beginning of the famous “ Hundred Days.” It
was a Thursday when she drove up to the hotel
in Paris, and Napoleon, fresh from Elba, had on
the previous Monday been borne in triumph up
the steps of the Tuileries in the arms of his old
soldiers, delirious with joy. The journey had
been long and trying; but Mrs. Adams was
quite equal to the occasion, for she delighted in
movement, and never felt so well or so happy as
when inside of a traveling carriage. They re-
mained at Paris until the middle of May, when
J. Q. Adams, who had then been appointed to
the English mission, crossed over with his family
to London, arriving there just three weeks be-
fore the day of Waterloo. When they started
for England, Napoleon had not yet left Paris,
and Charles Francis always afterwards had a
vivid recollection of looking up, a boy in the
surging crowd, and seeing the Emperor as he
stood in the familiar clothes on the balcony of
the Tuileries, acknowledging the acclamations
of the multitude below.
The next two years were passed in England,
8 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
where J. Q. Adams was at last rejoined by his
two elder sons, from whom he had been six years
separated. John, the second, and his young
brother Charles were sent to a boarding-school
at Ealing, kept by a Dr. Nicholas, where they
made a rough and simultaneous acquaintance
with English boys and with the Latin grammar,
taught, as that grammar in English schools then
was, itself in Latin. It was just after the close
of the war of 1812-15, — indeed, the battle of
New Orleans and the brilliant engagement in
which the Constitution captured the Cyane and
Levant had occurred only a few months before,
and within the year; so it was in no degree to
be wondered at that the two young “ Yankees”
did not find their position peculiarly pleasant.
The school was a large one, there being in it
some two hundred and fifty boys, and on one
occasion at least the two Adamses would seem
to have had distinctly the advantage; for, in
writing to his mother, J. Q. Adams, referring to
the school-life, tells her that Dr. Nicholas was
“highly diverted with a repartee of John’s to
one of the boys, who asked him slyly, whether
he had ever been at Washington. No: (said
John), but I have been at New Orleans.” In
August, 1815, General Scott, fresh from Niagara
and Chippewa, was in London. Of course he
visited Mr. Adams; and the old soldier never
BIRTH AND EDUCATION 9
afterwards forgot the fact that, when he was
dining at Mr. Adams’s house, young Charles
Francis spoke up suddenly, and asked him to
tell about his battles in Canada, for use at
school. More than twenty years later, while
walking with his father through the capitol at
Washington, Mr. Adams met General Scott,
who recalled the incident, illustrating thereby,
as Mr. Adams thought, his well-known personal
vanity ; though it would have seemed natural
enough, and in no way peculiar to Scott, that,
within three months after Waterloo, an Ameri-
ean officer should feel gratified to find his name
and exploits familiar as household words in the
mouth of a boy of eight in England.
Singular as it may appear, like the French of
his infancy at St. Petersburg, this experience at
the Ealing boarding-school was of very appre-
ciable value to Mr. Adams half a century, later,
indeed was a most important educational factor.
It caused him to understand the English char-
acter. He had come in contact with it as a child
in the absolutely natural life of an English
school; and when, as a man, he came in contact
with it again, an insight did not have to be ac-
quired. It had, on the contrary, already been
bred, probably beaten, into him; and he acted
unconsciously upon it. He was in a degree to
the manner born; for, though he retained no
10 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
pleasant memories of the English character or
of English boys, he and they had been brought
up together in one nursery.
In 1817, at the beginning of the first admin-
istration of Monroe, J. Q. Adams, after cight
years’ residence in Europe, was recalled to Amer-
ica. Landing in New York with his parents in
August, the young Charles Francis was taken
immediately to Quincy, where, when his father
a month later went to Washington to assume
his duties as secretary of state in the Monroe
cabinet, he remained in charge of his grand-
mother, Mrs. John Adams. Mrs. Adams was
then in her seventy-third year, and died thir-
teen months later; but never, to the end of Mr:
Adams’s life, did the impression her character
then made on him fade away. Older than he,
and now almost grown up, his two brothers,
during their father’s absence in Russia, had
been left under her care; and in later life Mr.
Adams used to describe his own surprise, shortly
after he got home in 1817, at seeing his big
brothers actually burst into tears as they tried
to exculpate themselves when their grandmo-
ther, because of some trifling misconduct, had
occasion to rebuke them. At the time he could
not understand the feeling of affection and rev-
erence with which they regarded her; though
a little later he himself fully shared in it. Her
BIRTH AND EDUCATION 11
death brought with it a change, as complete as
it was sad and indescribable, in both the moral
atmosphere and the physical surroundings of the
house at Quincy; but not until twenty years
afterwards did the publication of her letters
make apparent to others the cause of the vener-
ation with which her descendants looked up to
her, and the grounds of her influence over them.
Immediately after his return to America Mr.
Adams entered the Boston Latin School, of
which Benjamin Apthorp Gould had then been
for three years head master, and came under
that teacher’s inspiring personal influence.
From childhood upwards a matured, self-con-
tained character, he was apparently somewhat a
favorite with Mr. Gould, of whom he always
afterwards spoke with the utmost respect, while
the Latin School and its traditions stood high in
his estimation; so high indeed that, as matter
of course, he in due time sent to it his own two
eldest sons in their turn, with results, to them
at least, the reverse of satisfactory. Entering
Harvard in 1821, when scarcely fourteen, Mr.
Adams graduated in 1825.
CHAPTER II
EARLY LIFE
AFTER graduation, Mr. Adams passed some
years at Washington; living in the White
House then presided over by his mother, mixing
in the society of the place, observing the course
of events, and noting down his impressions
of the eminent public men of the period, —
Randolph, Jackson, Clay, and Webster. In
the autumn of 1828, however, Mr. Adams left
Washington and went back to Boston, there, as
it proved, to take up his residence for the next
thirty years. Mr. Webster, in the full swing of
his great powers, had advised him that, as things
then were, the law was “a man’s only course; ”
and Mr. Adams, reflecting on this advice, made
up his mind that “ the proper course [for him]
to adopt [was] to make the law a profession, so
as to rise in character; and, if anything better
should present, to take it, provided it [was]
really better.’ So, with this in view, he en-
tered the office of Mr. Webster as a student in
November, 1828. His studies do not seem to
have been of long continuance, for, on the 6th
EARLY LIFE 13
of the following January, being then in his
twenty-second year, he was admitted to practice
as an attorney; and, six months later, on Sep-
tember 5, 1829, he was married, at the family
residence in Medford, to Abigail Brown, the
youngest child of Peter Chardon Brooks, of
Boston, whose other daughters were the wives,
the one of Nathaniel L. Frothingham, then and
long after, in succession to William Emerson,
with one brief intervening ministry, pastor of
the First Congregational Church ; the other, of
Edward Everett.
Beginning in December, 1859, and closing in
November, 1872, the active public life of Mr.
Adams was confined to almost exactly thirteen
years ; and to the history of those years, and the
share he took in their events, this biography
will be mainly devoted. Not that the earlier
period lacked interest, or interest having an his-
torical bearing, but it was mainly in connec-
tion with others, or with great political move-
ments then in the more incipient stage. For
instance, between 18380 and 1846, the life of
Mr. Adams was inseparably interwoven with
the career of his father, and, in reality, not less
essential to that career than influenced by it.
Indeed, the memorable record made by J. Q.
Adams from 1832 to 1846 would not have been
possible had it not been for the cooperation and
14 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
quiet support he received from his son, whose
own direct influence on public questions was
meanwhile hardly perceptible. Yet at the be-
ginning the son had strenuously opposed the
reéntry of the father into public life. ’
When, through the election of General Jack-
son, J. Q. Adams was retired from the presi-
dency, he was in his sixty-second year. Accord-
ing to all precedent he thus found himself, in
the full enjoyment of his great powers, relegated
to what was known as “a dignified retirement.”
Meanwhile, adapted to public life, he had an
insatiable craving for it. Accustomed to it,
from it he derived that enjoyment which ever
strong man derives from the exercise of his
muscles, intellectual or physical. His son now
wanted J. Q. Adams, with the examples of
Washington, Jefferson, and Madison before him,
quietly to accept the situation, and devote his
remaining years to literary pursuits and philo-
sophical meditation. To the father this pro-
spect was not alluring; for though, by accident
of birth, some forty years the elder man of the
two, he was in combativeness of disposition con-
siderably the younger, and in feelings the less
mature. Accordingly, on the first opportunity
that offered, he plunged once more into the po-
litical current; nor did he again emerge from it.
As is well known, he sank in the swim.
EARLY LIFE 15
Meanwhile when in 1830 he, an ex-Presi-
dent, accepted the nomination for Congress ten-
dered him from what was then known as the
Plymouth district, he took the chances heavily
against himself; for at that juncture he was
passing through a severe ordeal. During the
previous twenty years his career had been one
of almost unbroken success. Minister to Russia
during the close of the Napoleonic period, nego-
tiator of the treaty of Ghent, minister to Great
Britain after the war of 1812-15, secretary of
state for eight years and President for four,
he had passed on from one position to another
with a regularity and firmness more sugges-
tive of European than American public life. In
private, too, he had been sufficiently prosper-
ous. His sons had grown up and chosen their
professions; two of them were married; his
estate, though not large, sufficed for his needs.
Suddenly, beginning with the autumn of 1828,
calamity succeeded calamity. Defeated by Jack-
son in the election of that year, hardly had he
been retired from the presidency when he lost
his oldest son, suddenly and while on the way
to Washington. Five years later another son
died. Through the unfortunate business ven-
tures of the latter the father had become pecu-
niarily involved; and thus, between 1830 and
1835, he was confronted at once by political de-
16 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
feat, domestic affliction, and financial ruin. The
situation, in every aspect bad, was made appre-
clably worse by the fact that the remaining son
so disapproved of the father’s return to public
life that the two were for a time “not upon
terms of perfect cordiality.”
The elder man, however, bore up bravely ;
and, from the spring of 1835, affairs gradually
assumed a more cheerful aspect. The father’s
course had then unmistakably vindicated itself.
He had demonstrated that he was right, — that
he understood himself and the situation. So
far as he was concerned, the problem of what
we are to do with our ex-Presidents did not
eall for further consideration. This particular
ex-President had developed the capacity to take
care of himself; and thenceforth not only did
remonstrance cease on the part of the son, but
the feeling which gave birth to it changed, as
rapidly as silently, into one of pride, loyalty,
intense approval, and earnest cooperation. The
cooperation, too, was essential. ‘The financial
tangle had to be unsnarled ; and, while perfectly
tractable and quick to adopt any needful mea-
sures of economy, J. Q. Adams could not educate
himself to business methods or to those details
incident to the care of property. One of the
commonly whispered charges against him dur-
ing his later years and after his death was an
EARLY LIFE 17
alleged inclination to parsimony,—a well-de-
veloped tendency to New England thrift. The
fact was that, by reason of incorrigible care-
lessness in private monetary matters, he escaped
ruin and want—the fate of his predecessor
Monroe — only through prudent management
on the part of his son, who, in 1835-36, practi-
cally, though with that gentleman’s consent, put
the ex-President under financial guardianship.
Though his establishment was a modest one, J.
Q. Adams, from that time to the end of his life,
rarely lived within his income; of which his
paltry pay of $1500 or $2000 per annum as a
member of Congress was an essential part. The
increasing value of such real estate as he owned
in Boston and Washington gradually relieved
him from any pressing embarrassment; but
throughout his congressional career it was solely
due to the wholesome oversight thus exercised
over him that J. Q. Adams was able to remain
in public life. But for it he would have faded
out in financial straits.
Thus vicariously doing his share in public
life, Mr. Adams turned his attention more and
more to literary, historical, and, incidentally,
to political topics. The ‘North American Re-
view ” was then the recognized medium through
which New England culture found expression ;
and towards that medium Mr. Adams naturally
18 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
turned. Between the years 1829 and 18438
the “North American” was edited first by
Alexander H. Everett, a brother of Edward,
and then by Dr. John G. Palfrey, subsequently
the historian of New England, Dr. Palfrey suc-
ceeding Mr. Everett in 1835. The Review was
then a vigorous, well-written, high-toned ‘* quar-
terly,”’ modeled on the “ Edinburgh,” of which it
was an unpartisan and consequently somewhat
colorless American echo. In fact, as compared
with its great Scotch prototype, it was slightly
suggestive of the play of “* Hamlet,” the part of
the Prince of Denmark, in that case personified
by Francis Jeffrey, being omitted. To it Mr.
Adams, first and last, contributed in all seventeen
papers, filling more than four hundred and fifty
printed pages, and dealing ordinarily with topics
more or less connected with American history,
such as the lives of Thomas Hutchinson and
Aaron Burr, the Madison Papers and the North-
eastern Boundary. Beginning in the January
number of 1831, with a review of James Gra-
ham’s “ History of the United States,” first
published some three years before, and then
little known in America, he closed in the num-
ber for July, 1846, with an article on the * Let-
ters of the Earl of Chesterfield.”
During all these years, as long before, the
papers left by John Adams were still lying
EARLY LIFE 19
bundled up in the boxes to which, in repeated
processes of removals, they had been con-
signed, — a vast, unsorted, miscellaneous accu-
mulation. It was part of the son’s plan, only
slowly and very reluctantly abandoned, that
J. Q. Adams should put these papers in order,
and prepare from them a biography of his fa-
ther ; for, all his life, Mr. Adams labored under
the delusion that J. Q. Adams, preéminent as
a controversialist and for drawing state papers,
had also great literary capacity. Fortunately
J. Q. Adams understood himself much better
than his son understood him; and, greatly to
the discomfiture of the latter, he evinced the
utmost indisposition to having anything to do
with the John Adams papers or controversies.
His son could not account for this indifference ;
and yet it seems explicable enough when he
records how his father one day, made impatient
by his solicitude, exclaimed upon “ the weariness
of raking over a stale political excitement.”
There was, in truth, in J. Q. Adams a great
deal of human nature. Yielding to its im-
pulse, he was now again involved in the politi-
cal movements at Washington, taking, as his
astonished son wrote, ‘‘as much interest as if he
was a young man.” So, yielding to the influ-
ence of the stronger and more active mind, the
son himself next became concerned in questions
20 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
of the day, and for a time ceased to occupy
himself with the family papers and contributions
to the “* North American.”
Curiously enough, the mutations of “ this
whimsical world,” as he called it, had, during
the congressional session of 1835, brought J. Q.
Adams into the support, at once vigorous and
dramatic, of his victorious rival, now for the
second time President. Towards Jackson, per-
sonally, his feelings had undergone no ameliora-
tion. The Tennessee frontiersman, soldier and
politician, offended him from every point of
view. “A barbarian and savage, who could
scarcely spell his own name,” he had, as Presi-
dent, violated both principle and precedent, de-
grading “the offices of the heads of depart-
ment into mere instruments of his will.” On
the other hand, J. Q. Adams entertained deep-
seated, almost passionate, convictions on certain
fundamental points of national policy and con-
stitutional construction ; and upon these points
he now found the “ barbarian and savage,” who
had supplanted him, standing forth as the un-
mistakable champion of the policy for which he
had labored and the construction in which he
believed, with his own friends and natural allies
united in an opposition purely political. The
issues were three in number: — South Carolina
nullification, known as *“‘ Calhounism ;”’ the com-
EARLY LIFE 21
plication with France arising out of the non-
payment by that country of the indemnity for
spoliations provided for in the convention of
1831 between the two countries; and, finally,
the constitutional issue between the President
and the Senate over the executive power of ap-
pointment to, and removal from, office. As
respects these issues J. Q. Adams felt strongly.
To quote his own language in a confidential
letter to his son:—‘“I cannot reflect [upon
these three subjects] in the aspect which they
now bear, and in which they will probably be
presented at the ensuing session of Congress,
without deep concern and inexpressible anguish.
It will be impossible, after the part that I have
taken with regard to two of them—the im-
pending foreign and domestic war — for me to
dodge either of the questions. I led the House
upon both of them in the last session. I can-
not shrink from advising the House concerning
them at the next.”
To two of these three issues, — those involv-
ing the probability of “foreign and domestic
war,’ —it is unnecessary here to refer, for
their further consideration by the father did not
involve the son. It was otherwise with the third
issue, that arising out of the participation of the
Senate, through its power of confirmation, in
the patronage, aud, by means of the patronage,
22 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
in the most intimate executive functions of the
government. J. Q. Adams had himself been
President ; and, as President, he had grown to
look with deepest apprehension on the tendency
of the Senate, one branch of the legislative
body, to arrogate authority to itself. His ex-
perience and sagacity thus led him early to fore-
cast what has since developed into a great con-
stitutional evil, from that day to this of steady,
portentous growth. So, for the moment putting
aside the issue with France, and even nullifica-
tion, as matters of minor consequence, — ** The
Patronage Bill,” he wrote to his son, “is that
upon which my feelings and my apprehensions
are most intense. I can grind it to impalpable
powder before any tribunal but that of Whig
federalism, nullification, and ochlocracy; but
that is precisely the combination against which
I have to contend.” Perhaps it would have
been as intelligible if, instead of “* Ochlocracy,”
J. Q. Adams had here used the modern substi-
tute for that term, ‘“ Democracy ;” but he was
at the moment writing, not for publication, but
familiarly. So, using such words and figures
as first suggested themselves, he went imstine-
tively back to the harassing, nerve-destroying
trials of his own administration; and, in terms
of invective as vehement as they were charac-
teristic, proceeded to give his view of the slow
EARLY LIFE 23
genesis of this measure, and of its subtile and
dangerous character as interfering with the con-
stitutional allotment of functions. The history
of the now forgotten Patronage Bill of 1835 can
be briefly told.
In view of the wholly unprecedented course
pursued by Jackson in his distribution of offices,
— the introduction in fact of the modern “ spoils
system” into our politics, -— Mr. Calhoun, dur-
ing the nullification excitement of 1835, reported
a measure calculated to reduce the political in-
fluence exerted by the Executive through its
control of the public patronage. Unfortunately,
however, this result, very desirable in itself, was
reached through what Mr. Adams held to be the
even more pernicious evil of making one branch
of the legislative body a participant in the con-
trol of that patronage. If this theory obtained,
he saw clearly enough — he was told by his own
experience — that office-peddling between the
President and the Senate would become a recog-
nized system, to the lasting deterioration of each
asa branch of the government. In the ripeness
of time, as history shows, exactly that result
came about. Driving at once to the heart of
this issue, Mr. Adams saw the thing in all its
remote and latent bearings. Unfortunately, Mr.
Webster, in his dislike and deep distrust of
President Jackson, had -in the session of 1835
24 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
made a speech in support of the Calhoun “ Pat-
ronage Bill,” in which he indicated a dissent
from the construction given to the Constitution
in 1789, by which the power of removal from
office was exclusively conceded to the President.
His position was unquestionably not in the line
of Federalist doctrine or authority; and, in as-
suming it, he incurred the outspoken wrath of
Jackson’s predecessor. After describing and de-
nouncing, with a vehemence almost ludicrous,
the combination — Calhoun, Clay, Webster, and
White — which, on February 21, 1835, carried
this measure through the Senate, he thus went
on in his letter to his son: “The most utterly
inexcusable [of this combination] because the
most glaringly treacherous to his own professed
principles is Webster. He is the only Federalist
of the gang. The Constitution was the work
and the highest glory of the Federal party. The
exposition of it which declares all subordinate
executive officers removable by the President
was the hard-earned victory of the Federal ‘party
in the first Congress. Without it the Constitu-
tion itself would long since have been a ruin;
and now Daniel Webster, the Federal Pharisee
of the straightest sect, brought up at the feet of
Gamaliel, betrays at once to nullification and
Bentonism his party and his country, — tells
the world that James Madison blundered in not
EARLY LIFE 25
knowing that by the Constitution of the United
States the appointing power was vested in the
President and Senate, that the executive power
is no power at all, that no man can tell what is
or is not executive power, and that Congress, if
they please, may make a secretary of state or an
attorney-general for life.
“¢ Semper ego auditor tantum ? numquamne reponam ?’”?
It is open to question whether J. Q. Adams
here stated the position of Mr. Webster quite as
accurately as he quoted Juvenal’s famous line ;
but, however this may be, the fierce denuncia-
tion produced its effect on his son. The seed
this time fell on fertile soil. Once when the
younger Oliver Wendell Holmes was discussing
some revolutionary views of philosophy with
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the transcendentalist
advised the neophyte, in bringing out his ideas,
to “strike at a king!’ —nothing less than de-
throning the Stagyrite himself should satisfy.
So, in this case, the younger Adams, then
twenty-eight years old, and eager to distinguish
himself, was incited by his father to assail on a
vital constitutional issue the great ‘“ Defender
of the Constitution,’ then fresh from his tri-
umph over Hayne.
J. Q. Adams returned to Quincy early in
June, 1835, and, during the months which fol-
26 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
lowed, his son went to work, making, with his
assistance and suggestions, a thorough study of
the constitutional questions involved in the * Pat-
ronage Bill.” The results, read by his father,
were “returned with commendation more than
enough,” and appeared during the summer in a
series of communicated articles printed simulta-
neously in the columns of the ‘ Boston Advo-
cate”? and the ‘ Centinel.” In the autumn,
after careful revision, they were published in
pamphlet form, under the title, boldly appropri-
ated from Burke, of “* An Appeal from the New
to the Old Whigs, by a Whig of the Old
School.” This effort of his younger days Mr.
Adams always afterwards looked back upon
with peculiar satisfaction ; and more than forty
years later, when, under the administration of
General Grant, the same question again pre-
sented itself for discussion and copies of his
pamphlet were in some request, after looking it
over he laid it down, remarking on its vigor,
and expressing the belief that he could not then,
in his later and riper life, have done it so well.
When published it was by some attributed to the
father. “Mr. Woodbury” (then secretary of
the treasury), wrote J. Q. Adams from Wash-
ington at the end of the following November,
“told me that he had read it, and that it was
unanswerable. He said that he had perhaps
EARLY LIFE 27
voted [the other way] upon Mr. Benton’s pro-
posed bill in 1826, but that the question had not
been discussed upon its true principles. He said
that no one could read the pamphlet without
being convinced of the true intent of the Consti-
tution. [said the pamphlet had been erroneously
ascribed to me. I had not written a line of it,
but I told him who was the author.” This
denial was hardly necessary ; for the produc-
tion, though in point and. vigor well worthy of
the supposed author, bore none of his ear-marks,
It was distinctly a better piece of work than he
was capable of at that time and upon that topic;
for, while in no way lacking in spirit and ear-
nestness, it was more comprehensive, calmer in
style, and, from the literary point of view, bet-
ter ordered. There was in it less of that vehe-
mence of tone, that eagerness for controversy
and wealth of invective, which always marred
the productions of the father, and which also,
curiously enough, instead of being mitigated by
years, grew ever upon him.
To return to the son’s pamphlet: no reprint
of the “ Appeal from the New to the Old
Whigs” has ever been called for; but at the
time and since, whenever the allocation of pow-
ers under the federal Constitution has been in
discussion, copies have been in request. Even
so late as 1897, — sixty-two years after its pub-
28 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
lication, — a brief note was received by a mem-
ber of Mr. Adams’s family, from one of the
Justices of the Supreme Court of the United
States, saying that the old question was once
more before that tribunal, that he had in vain
sent to the Congressional Library for a copy of
the pamphlet, and asking if one. could not be
procured for him at Quincy. Though it caused
no noticeable sensation, —the Patronage Bill
of 1835 having then: already become a yester-
day’s political excitement, — the Appeal when
published was remarked upon for its research,
its grasp of principle and vigor of statement,
bringing the author, among other letters, one of
kindly commendation from ex-President Madi-
son.
The “ Appeal from the New to the Old
Whigs” thus secured for Mr. Adams what he
then deeply hungered for, —a degree of personal
recognition ; for, in entering upon life, he found
himself overweighted by the great reputation of
his grandfather and his father, while the latter
also overshadowed him by instant prominence.
The acts and utterances of the preceding gen-
erations were ever on the lips of men, and they
had neither knowledge nor expectation of that
then rising. So when Mr. Adams thought “ to
play off his own bat,” as Lord Palmerston would
have expressed it, people, naturally enough,
EARLY LIFE 29
attributed the strokes to the veteran in the game.
‘They say it is from my pen, but my father’s
brain,” the younger man wrote of the “ Appeal,”
in 1835; and, indeed, it was not until he was
over fifty that Mr. Adams fairly succeeded in
asserting his right to be considered as something
more than the son of his father.
The great political issue of his generation,
the issue over African slavery, the agitation of
which, really beginning to make itself felt only
in 1835, was not to culminate for twenty-five
years, had not up to this time (1835) apparently
attracted the notice of Mr. Adams; at least,
he makes no mention of it. The publication
of the “ Liberator” was begun in 1831, and
in October, 1835, Garrison was mobbed in
Boston. At that time he represented nothing
but an idea, — the first faint movement of an
awakening public conscience ; but it is curious
to notice the instinctive correctness with which
the great slave-power and its affiliations divined
impending danger. Not guided by reason, their
anger and alarm were out of all proportion to
the apparent menace; but at the first whisper
of attack they, like some fierce wild beast of
prey scenting harm from afar, bristled up sav-
agely and emitted an ominous growl.
On the other hand, the gradual growth of
the anti-slavery sentiment, the arousing of the
30 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
Puritanic, New England conscience not less in-
grained in Mr. Adams than in his father, as
from time to time now set down in his record,
is an instructive study, suggestive of what was
then quite generally going on. On August
20th, just two months before the Garrison mob,
he notes: “The town is full of the abolition
projects and the meeting to be held to counter-
act them. ‘This takes place to-morrow night at
Faneuil Hall; the application is signed by most
of our respectable citizens. I am glad I have
nothing to do with it.” A few days later, Sep-
tember 8th, speaking of one of a series of com-
munications he was then making to a newspaper,
he says: “ The last takes up the recent excite-
ment about slavery and abolition, a subject |
which it might be wiser not to touch.” Of the
Garrison mob, six weeks afterwards, he merely
remarks that, “among other things, we have
had a mob to put down abolitionists, as if the
country was not going to pot fast enough with-
out extraordinary help.’’ Then presently : “ The
news from Washington is that the question of
slavery is driving everything else out of view.
My father has opened upon it, rather to my re-
gret though not to my surprise. The excitement
seems to be so intense as to threaten the worst
consequences.” A month later comes the de-
spairing groan: “ My father at Washington is
EARLY LIFE 31
in the midst of a painful struggle, which his
unfortunate permanency in public life brings
upon him. My judgment was not mistaken
when I dissuaded him from it. But, as he is in
it, I must do my best to help him out.” This
resolve on the part of the son was certainly
commendable ; though it is to be feared that,
if the father had been able to find no other
resource in the difficult position in which he
had then placed himself, his danger would have
been extreme. Fortunately, on this, as on divers
subsequent occasions, he proved quite sufficient
in himself; and when, a few weeks later, he
emerged in triumph from the conflict, with the
floor of the Representatives Hall strewed thick
with discomfited opponents, the son could only
remark: “It is singular how he continues to
sustain himself by the force of his mere abil-
ity.” From that time forward, however, the
* T-told-you-so ” refrain was no longer heard.
The anti-slavery educational footprints are
next found in entries like the following: “ Fin-
ished this morning Dr. Channing’s pamphlet
upon slavery. It is certainly a very powerful
production, and worthy of deeper consideration
than it has yet been in the way of receiving.
Our fashion here is to vote a man down at
once without hearing his reasons. This saves
much trouble, and dispenses with all necessity
32 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
for argument. Dr. Channing may not be wise
to encroach upon a political field, but what he
says may have much weight without considering
the author.” The man, so far as he had now
got, showed the influence of environment, — it
was still questionable “ propriety ” on the part
of a minister of the church of Christ to express
any views on man’s property in man! By the
following July he himself had begun to write
on the subject in the ‘ Boston Advocate.” “ In
my own opinion it is the best thing I ever wrote ;
but whether it will meet with much approbation
in the world is more than doubtful to me.” A
few months later, when his sentiments were
asked for, he said: “* While I entirely dissented
from the abolition views respecting the District
of Columbia, I was yet clearly in favor of dis-
cussion, and would by no means give to the prin-
ciple of slavery anything more than the tolera-
tion which the Constitution has granted.” This
position certainly could not be regarded as ex-
treme. Events, however, moved rapidly. His
father next had, “as usual, fallen into a great
trouble,” rousing ‘ the passions of the Southern
members to the boiling point.” This was the
somewhat famous occasion when Mr. Adams,
from his place in the House of Representatives,
inquired of the Speaker as to the disposition
which would, under the rules of that body, be
EARLY LIFE 33
made of a petition purporting to come from
slaves. The result of the contest thus precipi-
tated was again extremely disastrous to the as-
sailants of Mr. Adams, who found themselves
badly scalded at his hands by the overflow of
their own “ boiling passions ;” and two days
later the son wrote: ‘*The uproar in Congress
has ceased, and my father has carried the day.
I hope he will use his victory in moderation.”
The months then rolled on, and in November,
1837, came the news of the Alton riot with the
brutal murder of Lovejoy. It was the legiti-
mate outcome of the Garrison mob of two years
earlier, and the distant forerunner of border
ruffian outrages twenty years later; it was also
fuel to the kindling flame. Even when young
Mr. Adams was a cold man outwardly, and not
quick to move; but once fairly in motion he
was apt to be impetuous. Accordingly, when
now the Boston city fathers undertook to refuse
the use of Faneuil Hall on the application of
Dr. Channing and others for a public meeting
to protest against mob-rule even in Illinois, Mr.
Adams wrote: “ The craven spirit has got about
as far in Boston as it can well go. I had a warm
argument in Mr. Brooks’s room with two or
three of my [wife’s] connections there. They
are always of the conservative order, and I can-
not often be.” The following day, after listening
34 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
to a sermon in which he traced a disposition to
deprecate the excitement over “the case of this
Lovejoy,” he met one of his brothers-in-law, who
intimated some degree of sympathy with his
views; and, recording this surprising fact, he
insensibly made use of a form of speech subse-
quently very familiar: ‘“ We are not all broken
in to the cotton interest then.”
The following Friday the Faneuil Hall meet-
ing was held, — the meeting at which Wendell
Phillips, then a young man of twenty-six, made
his memorable first appearance as a public
speaker. Mr. Adams went :— ‘The hall was
very full, and not much time was needed to show
that two parties existed in it. Dr. Channing
was speaking when I went in. He looked to
me somewhat agitated and anxious; but his
manner was slow and drawling, which produces
more effect in the pulpit than here. His speech
seemed to be a kind of justification of himself
in moving the public meeting and in preparing
the resolutions, which he said he expected and
wished to be known [as his] here and every-
where. He was followed by G. S. Hillard, who,
in a brief and well-turned speech, explained the
ground of the public meeting. Thus far things
were quiet; but Mr. James T. Austin thought
proper to put in a bar to the proceedings. It
did not seem clear to me what good object he
EARLY LIFE 35
could have had, for he produced no substantial
course, and limited himself to insulting the mo-
tives and proceedings of the abolitionists. This
was easily enough done in a city corrupted heart
and soul by the principles of slavery, and with
a@ majority present almost ready to use force to
bear him out, if necessary, right or wrong. His
argument was that the mob of Alton was justi-
fied by the case. Lovejoy was acting against the
safety of the people of Missouri, in a place on
the border of the State where the law of that
State could not touch him; that, the laws of
two States thus conflicting, in a case of immi-
nent danger the people rose up in their might
and decided for themselves. ‘They did in this
case no more than our ancestors, who threw
overboard the tea in Boston harbor, — and who
thinks of censuring them for a riot? The fact
of a clergyman’s falling only showed that a
clergyman was out of his place when meddling
with the weapons of the flesh, and that he died
as the fool dieth. The course of the abolition
party was like that of a man who should insist
on the liberation of the wild animals of a mena-
gerie. Such was the substance of a speech in
Faneuil Hall in 1837 of the attorney general
of Massachusetts, applauded at every sentence
by a large and powerful party of respectable
men! I confess my nerves did not stand it very
36 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
well; and, from that moment, I went with the
meeting. A young Mr. Phillips followed with
some very spirited and ready remarks, which
were too stinging not to arouse the feeling of
the opponents, and more than once I thought
strong symptoms of a riot to be impending.
But he finished quickly, and Mr. Bond got up
with a mild view of the whole course of pro-
ceeding, full of moderation and good practical
sense. The resolutions were then voted, though
not without opposition, and adjourned. On the
whole, it was the most excited public meeting I
was ever present at; and, I confess, nothing
could exceed the mixed disgust and indignation
which moved me, at the doctrines of the learned
expounder of mob law.”
As they worked up their new theory for put-
ting, through riot, a stop to discussion, “ the
friends of law and order” were at that time
manufacturing anti-slavery sentiment rapidly.
So a fortnight later Mr. Adams noted that his he-
reditary and college associate and friend, young
Edmund Quincy, had ‘“ come out a warm aboli-
tionist, his letter being published in the ‘ Libera-
tor,’ and he having made a speech last evening ;”
and added, with a touch almost of sadness:
‘ ] wish I could be an entire abolitionist; but
it is impossible. My mind will not come down
to the point.” So the result showed. In that
EARLY LIFE 37
contest he had his place; but not amid the sharp
spattering fire of the skirmish line. His place
was just behind that fire, in the front rank of
the solid, advancing array of battle. To this
conclusion he himself had evidently come when,
during the following spring, he passed a month
in Washington. The fraudulent ‘ Cherokee
Treaty ” was then under debate. One day he
wrote: “News from Philadelphia of the de-
struction by a mob of the hall lately erected
for free discussion. Such is the nature and ex-
tent of American liberty ;’’ and, shortly after-
wards, speaking of the House of Representatives:
*“ We heard first General Glascock, and then
Mr. Downing, a delegate from Florida, the lat-
ter violent and savage. A strong proof of the
debased moral principle of the House may be
found in the fact that such a speech as this
could be listened to with even tolerable patience.
It is slavery that is at the bottom of this. I
am more satisfied of the fact every day I live;
and nothing can save this country from entire
perversion, morally and politically, but the pre-
dominance of the abolition principle. Whether
this will ever take place is very doubtful. I
have not much hope.” Then on May 29th, be-
ing still in Washington, he adds: “ Much talk
of an insurrection of the blacks, supposed to be
about to break out at eleven o’clock this night,
38 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS ©
instigated by an abolitionist from New York or
elsewhere. ‘The alarm of the whites sufficiently
shows the horrors of the slavery system, without
the need of exaggeration. Their fears magnify
their own danger, and this produces all the vio-
lence they dread. I imagine the whole story
grows out of a very small affair; but such is
the character of the whites that it may not im-
probably lead to bad consequences. My mother
and the family are always apprehensive at such
times of the possible direction of the public feel-
ing against my father, for having taken so much
part in the matter. I hope she has no cause.”
Slavery, however, did not yet occupy the
mind of Mr. Adams to the exclusion of all other
political topics. That time was coming; it had
not yet come. Questions connected with cur-
rency and revenue were meanwhile under con-
stant discussion,— for those were the days of
the battle over the United States Bank, Jack-
son’s removal of the deposits, the sub-treasury
scheme, and the devastating commercial panic
of 1837-38. Upon all these topics, now abso-
lutely devoid of interest, Mr. Adams was an
active thinker and constant contributor to the
newspapers. Series after series of articles from
his pen appeared in the ‘“ Boston Centinel”’ and
*“* Advocate ;”? and that they attracted so little
attention, failing to take the world at once by
EARLY LIFE 39
storm, was to him, as to most other ambitious
young writers before and since, matter for sur-
prise, and almost, if not quite, of grievance.
As an interlude in these occupations Mr.
Adams, having at last abandoned in despair all
hope of interesting his father in that sacred
duty, was slowly overhauling the family manu-
scripts; and while doing so, he came across the
yellowing files of Revolutionary correspondence.
“ A packet I opened,” he wrote one day, “ con-
tained the love letters of the old gentleman in
1763-66, just before his marriage. They were
mostly written during the three or four weeks
when he went up to Boston to be inoculated for
the smallpox. The subject is, of course, an odd
one for lovers, but they both seem so honest and
simple-hearted in discussing it.’ And again:
“ With what a mixture of feelings do I look
over these old papers. They contain the secret
history of the lives of a single couple. Joy and
sunshine, grief and clouds, sorrow and storms.
The vicissitudes are rapid, the incidents are in-
teresting. Happy are those who pass through
this valley with so much of innocence. Vice
stains no one of these pages.” At last the
father, evidently in consequence of the talk of
the son over what his researches had brought
to light, suggested to him the idea of writing
a biography of his grandmother. “I do not
40 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS ©
know that this would be beyond my ability,”
Mr. Adams modestly wrote; and so he set to
work upon it.
Early in May, 1840, the copy for the “ Let-
ters of Mrs. Adams” was submitted to James
Brown, then the leading publisher of Boston,
who at a glance took in the value of the pro-
posed book, and “ strongly recommended going
right on;”’ so it went to press at once. In Au-
gust the memoir of Mrs. Adams, which was to
accompany it, was completed, and the hesitating
author submitted it to his wife; who, with more
frankness than literary discernment, pronounced
it “wordy and conceited, and recommended its
being wholly cut down and written over;”
whereat, observed Mr. Adams, “I go on rather
under discouragement.” The “ discouragement ”
was, under the circumstances, not unnatural, but
fortunately proved uncalled for. Published
early in October, the success of the ‘ Letters ”
was immediate and, for a book of the kind in
those days, phenomenal. The first edition was
exhausted almost at once, and a second of fif-
teen hundred copies was called for, which was
eagerly taken up as fast as it came from the
press; for, of the first batch of two hundred
copies, nearly all were sent away ‘‘to supply
orders from the South, and the remainder were
sold [over the counter] before twelve o’clock.”
EARLY LIFE 41
Deeply gratified as he was at the success of
this his first literary venture, Mr. Adams would
have been more gratified yet could he have read
the subsequent diary record of his father; for
J. Q. Adams was not a demonstrative man, and
rarely, except when communing with himself,
gave expression to his inmost feelings. So
now, on Sunday, September 27, 1840, he wrote
that, attending, as was his wont, divine service
in the afternoon, whereat a certain Mr. Motte
preached upon the evidences of Christianity
from the text, John xx. 31, “ my attention and
thoughts were too much absorbed by the vol-
ume of my Mother’s Letters which my son has
published, and of which he sent me this morn-
ing acopy. An admirable Memoir of her life
written by him is prefixed to the Letters, and
the reading of it affected me till the tears
streamed down my face. It disabled me for all
other occupation, and the arrears of this diary
and the sermon of Barrow were forgotten.”
CHAPTER III
THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE
THOUGH now in his thirty-fourth year, Mr.
Adams had'up to this time evinced no desire to
enter active public life. A nomination to the
Massachusetts legislature was offered him in
1839; but, though equivalent to an election, he
had declined it. Governor Everett, Isaac P.
Davis, a warm political and personal friend of
Mr. Webster, and Robert C. Winthrop, then
speaker of the Massachusetts House of Repre-
sentatives, all spoke of this to J. Q. Adams,
expressing their regret ; and he earnestly remon-
strated with his son. It was too late to recon-
sider the matter that year; but when, in 1840,
a nomination was again offered him, yielding to
the very distinctly expressed wish of his father,
Mr. Adams accepted. It was the year of the
famous 1840 “ Log Cabin” and ‘“ Hard Cider”
presidential campaign — probably the most ridic-
ulous, and, so far as political discussion was con-
cerned, the lowest in tone, the country has ever
passed through. As its result, Martin Van
Buren was voted out of the presidential chair,
THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE 43
and William Henry Harrison into it,—for the
period of one month. He was then succeeded
by John Tyler. In this campaign Mr. Adams
acted with the Whig party; in 1836 he had
voted for Van Buren, though “horrified” by
that gentleman’s support, in the Senate, of “ the
bill to suppress incendiary publications.” He
had then looked upon the New Yorker “as a
choice of evils;”’ and it shows the rapid advance
of the anti-slavery sentiment in the mind of Mr.
Adams, that he now, four years later, wrote:
“ Mr. Van Buren bids fair to have in the free
States but the seven electoral votes of New
Hampshire. So much for ruling the North by
party machinery. So much for the Northern
man with Southern principles. May this year’s
experience bea lesson to all future politicians
who sacrifice the interests that ought to be most
dear to them, for the sake of truckling to slave-
holders.”
The representatives from Boston to the Mas-
sachusetts General Court, some forty in number,
were in those days elected on a general ticket,
the utterly pernicious district system not having
yet been substituted for the original New Eng-
land town representation; and the complete
groundlessness of the lamentations Mr. Adams
was at this period of his life wont to indulge in
over supposed family and personal unpopularity
44. CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
must have dawned on his mind when, three days
after the election, he wrote: ‘‘The ‘Daily Ad-
vertiser’ of this morning tells us that I have
received the highest number of votes on the
ticket for representatives.” A few days later
came a letter from his father, written just after
reaching Washington. It closed with this para-
graph: “ You are about to enter on the career
which is closing upon me, and I feel much more
solicitude for you than for myself. You have
so reluctantly consented to engage in public life,
that I fear you will feel too much annoyed by
its troubles and perplexities. You must make
up your account to meet and encounter opposi-
tion and defeats and slanders and treacheries,
and above all fickleness of popular favor, of
which an ever memorable example is passing
before our eyes. Let me entreat you, whatever
may happen to you of that kind, never to be dis-
couraged nor soured. Your father and grand-
father have fought their way through the world
against hosts of adversaries, open and close, dis-
guised and masked; with many lukewarm and
more than one or two perfidious friends. ‘The
world is and will continue to be prolific of such
characters. Live in peace with them; never
upbraid, never trust them. But — ‘don’t give
up the ship!’ Fortify your mind against dis-
appointments — zequam memento rebus in arduis
THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE 45
servare mentem,— keep up your courage, and
go ahead !”’
Mr. Adams remained five years a member of
the Massachusetts legislature, — three in the
House of Representatives, two in the Senate.
In those days its individuality had not been
wholly reformed out of the constitution of Mas-
sachusetts, and the House still represented the
towns, as the Senate did the counties, of the
Commonwealth. Both were elected annually,
and by a majority vote; the House being a
large popular body of some four hundred mem-
bers, while the Senate numbered only forty.
As the delegations from the large cities and
towns were chosen on a general ticket, more or
less men of prominence, especially from Boston,
were almost sure to be sent to the lower house,
while the Senate was apt to be made up of mem-
bers having at least a county reputation. The
narrowing influence of the district and rotation
systems was yet to make itself felt.
As Mr. Adams wrote, when first mentioned
in connection with it, the place of a representa-
tive in the Great and General Court of Massa-
chusetts is ‘“‘one of little consequence ;” and
yet it is not too much to say that his election to
that place in 1840, at the age of thirty-three
years, was the turning point in his life. The
educational influence of his subsequent legisla-
46 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS >
tive service was immense, — that of Harvard
College and of the law were, for him, as nothing
to it; for this took him out of himself, brought
him in hard contact with others, widened his
vision, developed his powers, gave him confi-
dence in himself. He ceased to be wholly in-
trospective and morbid ; becoming less of a stu-
dent, he grew to be more of aman. Gradually
and insensibly he came to realize that no preju-
dice, either personal or because of family, really
existed towards him; but, on the contrary, the
great mass of the community actually felt an
interest in him and a kindliness to him because
of his name and descent, — an interest and a
kindliness which, had he himself possessed only
a little of the sympathetic quality, had he been
only a degree less reserved in nature and repel-
lent in manners, would have found expression,
then and afterwards, in ways which could not
have been otherwise than grateful to him.
As the self-assigned limit to this form of pub-
lic service was in 1845 drawing to a close, Mr.
Adams wrote: ‘ After all, the legislation of one
of our States is a fatiguing business, — there is
a very large amount of small topics of detail.
As a school of practice it may answer very well
for a time, but perseverance in it has a tendency
to narrow the mind at last by habituating it to
measure small things. I have endeavored as
THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE 47
far as possible to avoid this effect by keeping
myself on topics of general concern.” This was
strictly true; and not without ground did he,
for his own satisfaction, record a belief that his
legislative action had influenced the course of
political events, and given him a certain degree
of reputation, not only in Massachusetts but in
the country at large. ‘“ My position, and I may
say it here [in my diary] without incurring the
charge of vain-glory, has been earned by hard
and incessant labor, in opposition to popular
opinion and to the overshadowing influence of
my father. ‘The records of the State show that
during the five years I have not been wholly
idle. The report on the [northeastern] boun-
dary, the passage of the districting bill, the
repeal of the remnant of the slave code, the
protest against the salary bill, the report and
law on the Latimer case, the policy concerning
Texas, and this South Carolina matter will re-
main to testify for me when Lam gone. In all
of them my belief is that the same general prin-
ciples will be visible.” Finally, on the 26th of
March, 1845, the day upon which the last legis-
lature in which he ever sat was prorogued, refer-
ring to the close of its business, he exultingly
wrote : “ My resolutions placing the Whig party
and the State on the basis of resistance to slav-
ery in the general government, passed the House
48 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
by a vote of five to one, and constitute, as it
seems to me, a fair termination of all my labors.
No proposition of mine has failed since I have
been there ; nor have I on the whole committed
any error deserving to degrade me in my own
estimation or that of the public. My defects of
temper and excessive impetuosity have now and
then brought me into error, which I have re-
pented. I parted company with the other sen-
ators with feelings of regret and good-will.”
The record was indeed creditable, and, for
a State legislature, in some ways remarkable;
for five of the seven subjects which had chiefly
occupied his attention, and in respect to which
the final statute-book record had taken its shape
from him, involved national issues which have
left their mark on history. These were (1) the
question of the northeastern boundary, settled
by the Ashburton treaty of 1842; (2) the law
authorizing the marriage of persons of differ-
ent color; (8) the Latimer fugitive slave case ;
(4) the controversy arising out of the expulsion
of Mr. Hoar from South Carolina by the mob
of Charleston ; and (5) the resistance to the an-
nexation of Texas. All of these questions are
now past history,— all save only mere prelimi-
naries, remote educational stages, to the great
conflict of twenty years later: but, at the time,
they had their importance; and each of them
THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE 49
has left its literature, now rarely disturbed, —
and, when disturbed, exciting only a languid
interest. One day in the early summer of 18338,
Mr. Adams busied himself in sorting over and
arranging the accumulation of pamphlets in the
mansion at Quincy. ‘A large collection,” he
wrote; “many good ones, and many very flat,
stale and unprofitable. Perhaps it is one of the
most singular subjects we have to speculate on,
the feeling with which one examines the effu-
sions, personal, political, and miscellaneous of
past times. All dead and buried in the tomb
of the Capulets. All the evidences of the rest-
lessness of the human mind.” To these have
since been added Mr. Adams’s own discussions
of the several issues, then very burning, which
have just been enumerated. They here call for
no further mention.
CHAPTER SLY
THE ‘* BOSTON WHIG ”’
“ WEDNESDAY, 20 May, 1846:— Went up
by agreement to see Mr. Palfrey, and consult
with him about the matter of the newspaper.
We finally decided on calling a meeting of those
who may be considered as likely to favor the
measure, for Saturday morning at 10 o’clock.”
“ Saturday, 23d May, 1846 : — Called at the
State House on Mr. Palfrey,! and went with
him up to Lobby No. 13, where were assembled
the persons I had suggested as fit to be con-
sulted at the present crisis. Stephen C. Phil-
lips, John G. Palfrey, Charles Sumner, Henry
Wilson and myself. I laid before them the
state of my negotiation with the printers, and
the terms which had been drawn and accepted.
Much discussion ensued. Mr. Phillips seemed
more doubtful of the expediency of the project
than any of us. He apprehended ugly discus-
sions, growing out of the complicated condition
1 John G, Palfrey at this time held the position of secretary
of the Commonwealth; and the office of that functionary was
then in the west wing of the State House.
THE “BOSTON WHIG” 51
of our foreign affairs. Mr. Palfrey seemed
earnest to goon. Mr. Wilson, the same. Mr.
Sumner also. The two last, however, could not
aid in money. It then fell between us three.
Mr. Palfrey agreed to assume one fifth; I took
two fifths; and Mr. Phillips, not without some
hesitation, the balance. The general result was
to go on; so here I am about to assume a very
great risk.”
Such is the record, made at the time by Mr.
Adams, of a somewhat memorable meeting.
The little group of men thus brought together
in “State House Lobby No. 13” had very
faint if, indeed, any conception of the fact, but
the business they had in hand was nothing less
than planting the seed from which, in due order
of events, was to spring the Republican party
of Massachusetts,— indeed it might almost be
said, the Republican party of the United States.
In other respects, also, the group was noticeable ;
for three out of the five persons who made it up
had before them eminent public careers in con-
nection with events of great historical moment ;
_ while, of the remaining two, one was to achieve
a lasting reputation as the historian of New
England. They were all still comparatively
young men ; Palfrey, the eldest, being just fifty,
while Wilson was but thirty-four. Sumner,
born in 1811, was a year older than Wilson ;
Wak Hl 1th. Galachirs
52 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
Mr. Adams was not yet thirty-nine. The last
three were destined, during the memorable war
which was to result from the success of the po-
litical party into which they were that day
breathing life, to represent Massachusetts in
the national Senate, and the United States at
the court of St. James. Stephen C. Phillips,
aman then of forty-five, of great public spirit,
most active and useful in the early days of the
new party, shortly after withdrew from political
work, and in 1857 lost his life in a steamboat
disaster on the river St. Lawrence. He had
then long ceased to be an active factor in the
Massachusetts political situation.
The years between 1860 and 1868 were so
altogether cataclysmic, and the changes then
worked so great,—during them the situation
was, in a word, so wholly altered, — that the im-
mediately preceding, and preparatory, period has
already assumed an antediluvian aspect. Hence,
it is not altogether easy even to understand
the posture of political affairs prior to 1850, or
the motives under which men acted, either in
Massachusetts or the country at large. More-
over, while a great deal of what then took place
has been quite forgotten, the residuum, still re-
membered, is remembered vaguely, and in the
deflecting light of subsequent events. Thus
what Mr. Adams and his four friends wanted
THE “BOSTON WHIG” 53
on that 23d of May, 1846, is now not immedi-
ately apparent; neither is it altogether clear
whom they were opposing, or why they felt so
pressingly the need of a newspaper. The fact
was, their time had come. They were simply
responding to a need in the process of political
evolution. In spite of lamentations then, as
always, freely indulged in over the apathy of the
public mind and the hopelessly lethargic condi-
tion of the popular conscience, the United States
in 1846 was neither a moribund, nor yet even
a decadent, country. It was, however, threat-
ened with disease, and that of a very portentous
character. A cancer was steadily eating into its
vitals. Though few people, if indeed any, then
realized it, the knife was in point of fact already
necessary ; a surgical operation, and that a severe
one, would alone meet the exigencies of the case.
The only real questions were : — first, whether
the patient could be brought to submit to the
necessary operation; and, second, whether he
would survive the operation if he did submit to
it. Most fortunately, however, these unpleasant
alternatives were not apparent either in 1846
or, indeed, during the dozen or more years that
ensued. The five men gathered on May 23,
1846, in Lobby 13 of the Massachusetts State
House certainly did not appreciate the gravity
of the affair, or measure the distant, far-reaching
54 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
results they were challenging. They took in the
present situation only. That the case was bad,
they knew. They saw clearly enough the pro-
gress which slavery, as an institution, had al-
ready made, and the rapidity with which it was
advancing; but they did not fully appreciate
the extent to which it had struck its roots into
the national existence, much less realize the na-
' ture of the conflict they were invoking. That,
if they had realized it, they would, after a long
pause and grave deliberation, have gone straight
on in the path upon which they were entering,
can hardly admit of question; but it does admit
of very great question whether they could have
induced the North to follow them in that path.
The historical truth is, that in the great anti-
slavery discussion which began in 1844 and cul-
minated in 1860, the North never really believed
that an appeal to force was necessary and inev-
itable, until, in April, 1861, it found the country
face to face with it. It certainly cannot be said
that what then occurred had not been predicted.
It had been predicted by numerous voices, on
many occasions, in the clearest possible manner,
and with all necessary emphasis; but. on the
other hand, it is equally clear that those who
predicted failed to see that, short of death by
disease, there was no other way.
What Mr. Adams and his associates did then
THE “BOSTON WHIG” 55
clearly see and all they clearly saw, was the im-
mediate work cut out for them to do. It was
for them to rouse the country to a consciousness
of the danger of the situation, and the conse-
quences inevitably involved if events went on
unchecked. They were mere agencies. To re-
vert to the figure already used, their movement
was, in the economy of nature, merely an in-
stinctive effort of the body politic to contend
against disease and throw it off. It was long
an open question whether the effort would suc-
ceed. That depended on the general health and
vitality of the organization; for, in a politico-
pathological sense, the health of a community,
— its power to resist and overcome disease, may
be said to be in almost direct proportion to its
moral receptivity, —its tendency to altruism.
Loyalty, patriotism, and even religious devotion,
very admirable and potent in their way, are
qualities of a much lower order. Indeed, these
are found quite as fully developed in the savage,
as in civilized, man: for barbarous Patagonian
tribes, semi-developed Scotch clans, and states
far sunk in Spanish decadence are conspicuous
for them. When, however, in any given commu-
nity, many individuals, regardless of ridicule,
epithets, and denunciation, — shouts of “ fire-
brand,” “fanatic,” and ‘“ traitor,” — revolt at
wrong, or quickly respond to a cry of injustice,
56 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
whether raised on behalf of a person or a class,
— Jew, African, or Malay, —the presence of
such individuals affords evidence incontroverti-
ble of vitality in the community to which they
belong ; and the quickness and volume of the
response to their appeal measure not inaccu-
rately the moral and political soundness of that
community. During the period between 1830
. and 1850 the tendency to what are known as
‘‘isms”’ in the free States of the Union, and
especially in Massachusetts and those of New
England progeny at the West, was notorious.
The land seemed given over to philanthropists
and reformers of the kind generically classified
as *“‘ cranks,”’ — long-haired men and short-haired
women. Dickens, who was then here, depicted
them, and made fun of them ; they shocked anti-
slavery men like Richard H. Dana.! None the
less, they were the unmistakable symptom of a
redundant moral activity. They indicated a
body politic full of quickening force. Had these
not appeared, or had they been silent, had the
United States as a whole then been in at all a
decadent state, — in the condition, for instance,
of the later Roman Empire, or of Turkey and
Spain since the commencement of the seven-
teenth century, — the attempt would unquestion-
ably have failed. The appeal on behalf of the
1 Biography of R. H. Dana, i. 68.
THE “BOSTON WHIG” 57
African, —the despised “ nigger,” — wasted in
the air, would have elicited no response,
In 1845 the abolition movement had spent
its force. Begun by Garrison in 1831 it had,
in awakening the public conscience, done a great
work, —a work wherein its success was in larg-
est degree due to the almost insane anger which
its utterances and actions aroused among the
slaveholders. In other words, under the irrita-
tion of those highly drastic applications, the dis-
eased portion of the body politic became acutely
inflamed. The whole system throbbed angrily,
—almost suppurated. Thus the “ Liberty”
movement, as it was called, was effectively adver-
tised ; and, without that advertisement, Garri-
son’s most strenuous and sustained efforts, and
Wendell Phillips’s most eloquent and incisive
utterances would never have reached beyond a
narrow and in no way influential circle. After
the presidential canvass of 1844, the situation
rapidly changed, and the extra-constitutional
abolition movement, as it had then declared it-
self, did not thereafter increase either in force
or in influence. On the contrary, it distinctly
dwindled ; for, so far as concerned nationality, —
the growing and intensifying spirit of Union, —
the Garrisonians thenceforth preached non-re-
sistance and self-destruction ; the two especial
doctrines against which all the instincts of the
58 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.
country rose in revolt. Thus, contending with
the spirit of the age, the abolitionists met with
the fate usual for those who engage in that con-
test. Accordingly, from 1844 onward, one great
effort of those who afterwards brought the con-
flict to a practical, though to them wholly unan-
ticipated, issue, was to distinguish their policy
from that advocated by Mr. Garrison, and to
. work the problem out within the Union and in
subordination to the Constitution. It is, there-
fore, historically a mistake to treat either Mr.
Garrison or Wendell Phillips, after 1844, as
leaders in the later and really effective anti-
slavery movement, or, indeed, as political factors
of consequence. By nature, as well as from long
habit, irregulars, at home nowhere except on the
skirmish line, very necessary in the earlier opera-
tions, they, having brought on the conflict, had
done their work; and when the solid lines of
battle crashed together, their partisan operations
ceased to count. Had they in 1845 wholly dis-
appeared from the field, the result would have
been in no way other than it was; for, by the
country at large— those who had to be rea-
soned with, educated, and gradually brought into
line — Mr. Garrison was from 1844 to 1861
looked upon as an impracticable, cracked-brained
fanatic, and Mr. Phillips as a bitter, shrill-
voiced, political scold. Not influencing results,
THE “BOSTON WHIG” 59
they, like guerillas in warfare, were in the later
stages of the contest quite as much a hindrance
to those with whom, as they were an annoyance
to those against whom, they acted.
On the other hand, in the free States, as well
as at the South, the old conventional anti-slavery
feeling, — that handed down from the War of
Independence and the Fathers of the Republic,
and based in greatest part on sentiment and
tradition, — was fast fading out. That African
slavery, as an industrial institution, was not go-
ing to die a natural death had become apparent.
On the contrary, most vigorous and decidedly
ageressive, it was visibly developing. There
were in this or in any other country no more
really useful, public-spirited citizens than the
shrewd, energetic, clear-headed men, generally
belonging to the Whig party, who now in Mas-
sachusetts, arraying themselves instinctively in
behalf of the Union and the Constitution, ear-
nestly deprecated all agitation of slavery, as a
political issue. They were right, also, from
their point of view. With them the Union was
supreme. ‘They rather disliked slavery, and
still declaimed against it, averring their abstract
abhorrence of it in certain phrases rapidly de-
generating into cant; but it may fairly be said
that there was no limit to the concessions they
would ultimately have been willing to make as
60 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS»
the alternative to a disruption of the Union.
Rufus Choate, for instance, argued earnestly
that the return to slavery of a few fugitives
from time to time was an insignificant sacrifice
on that altar, as compared with the hecatombs
inevitably to be sacrificed through civil convul-
sion. Leaving honor and self-respect out of the
question, he was unquestionably right; but with
‘nations as with individuals, honor and self-re-
spect are worth something. Accordingly, when
at Cambridge, in June, 1851, Choate took occa-
sion to enunciate this latter-day dispensation,
the everlasting verities underwent no change.
That
‘‘ rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honor ’s at the stake,”
remained just as true then as it was when
Shakespeare wrote the words two hundred and
fifty years before; or as, ten Junes later, it
proved to many of those who listened to the
eloquent advocate of honor’s effacement. In
common with the great mass of the most re-
spectable and comfortably circumstanced indi-
viduals of the community to which he and they
belonged, Mr. Choate failed to realize that the
self-respect of a people could not but be more
or less blunted, if they saw the land of boasted
THE “BOSTON WHIG” 61
liberty in which they dwelt converted into a
“nigger hunting-ground;” while they them-
selves were from time to time called upon in
ordered ranks to bear a hand in the work. At
best it was repulsive, even though Union-sav-
ing. Still, historically speaking, it is not unsafe
to say that, between 1845 and 1852, there was
no concession, so far as the “ peculiar institu-
tion’ was concerned, at which the represent-
ative leaders of the Whig party, North as well
as South, would have stopped, provided dis-
union appeared to be the alternative. If need
be they would have submitted, under protest of
course, to the complete nationalization of slav-
ery. They would have held it the lesser of two
evils.
The fact here stated was recognized at the
South by the exponents of the new gospel of
slavery. Calhoun counted on it as the prime
factor of success in the policy he now laid
down. He was never a Disunionist; but he
called on the South to bring the North face to
face with a dissolution of the Union as the alter-
native to unconditional submission. In present-
ing this alternative he did not believe that it
would lead to disruption, being firmly convinced
that, with disruption certain to result from per-
sistency, the North would consider no price too
great to pay for a united, even though bickering,
62 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
household. For, as he scornfully expressed it,
“‘measureless avarice was its ruling passion.” 4
In this belief the South Carolinian was, as
South Carolina afterwards found, dreadfully
mistaken ; but, for the time being, it did not so
seem. Then and afterwards, Massachusetts was
the storm centre; and in Massachusetts the anti-
slavery movement, after 1844, assumed a wholly
“new phase. It organized: and, while it became
constitutional, became also distinctly opportunist
and practical. It drew its inspiration from the
Declaration of Independence, and sought, so far
as African servitude was concerned, to convert
the national government from a propagandist to
a repressive agency.
An organ — a newspaper — thus became ne-
cessary ; for the new doctrine — after all a species
of homeopathic faith-cure— must be voiced,
and voiced constantly by those who believed in it.
The situation, also, was becoming more and more
grave. The admission of Texas had been finally
consummated on December 22, 1845; and, on
the 11th of May following, President Polk sent
to Congress his message, at once famous and
infamous, declaring that ‘“ War exists, and not-
withstanding all our efforts to avoid it, exists by
the act of Mexico itself.” A war of spoliation
had thus been entered upon, — a war the pur-
1 Von Holst, iii. 315-318.
THE “BOSTON WHIG” 63
pose of which, whether avowed or not, was well
known to be the propagation of slavery. The
disease was in an obviously acute stage; the
cancer was manifestly spreading.
The President’s war message bore date May
11th; the unnoticed, and apparently scarce note-
worthy, meeting in State House Lobby No. 138
took place just twelve days later, on the 23d, —
a@ mere incident, it was, none the less, in a way
the response to the great event; for, though it
caused no loud or echoing reverberation, it was,
as the event showed, the answering gun which
signified an acceptance of the challenge. Mean-
while, so far as Massachusetts, and more par-
ticularly Boston, was concerned, the situation
had been further complicated. On May 11th,
Mr. Robert C. Winthrop, representing the Bos-
ton district in Washington, had gone upon the
record as voting in favor of the war measures
at once reported to the House of Representa-
tives in consequence of Polk’s message. In
Massachusetts that vote of his was an event of
far-reaching consequence. It made complete
and permanent the division between the ‘* Con-
science” and the “ Cotton” Whigs; and Mr.
Adams was now to become the recognized
mouthpiece of the former.
So far as the establishment of a newspaper
was concerned, the feasibility of so doing had
64 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
for some time been under consideration. Dr.
Palfrey advocated it earnestly; and the mére
Mr. Adams thought of it, the more the idea
took possession of him. In dead earnest now
on the slavery issue, he had a strong inclination
generally towards newspaper utterance. For
years he had liked to set forth his views on cur-
rent political topics in communicated articles,
‘ usually, as was the custom in those days, run-
ning into series, signed ‘ Publicola,”’ “* Junius,”
“ Sagitta,” or the like. The trouble was that,
with some little experience, not very encoura-
ging, as an editorial writer, he had no knowledge
whatever, or even conception, of editorial func-
tions in the modern sense of the term.
On the other hand, journalism in 1846 was in
the plastic stage. In almost no aspect did it
resemble what it has since become. In 1846, the
electric telegraph was only two years old; the
suburban railroad service was new and imperfect ;
the street railway did not exist. People had not
yet accustomed themselves to any of these neces-
sities of modern existence, much less grown to
depend upon them. A newspaper, accordingly,
did not then imply its present organization and
expense. It was a comparatively simple affair,
usually the property and mouthpiece of one man,
—jits editor and proprietor. In fact, it is now
difficult to realize what a thing of yesterday the
THE “BOSTON WHIG” 65
newspaper of 1846, though the progenitor of the
modern newspaper, then itself was. The ‘ Ad-
vertiser,” the first daily paper which had been
able to sustain itself in Boston, dated only from
the year 1813. The “Courier” followed in
1824; and then came the “ Transcript” (1830),
the “ Post” (1831), the “ Atlas” (1832), the
“ Journal” (1833), and finally the “ Evening
Traveller” (1845). The cheap one-cent paper,
sold on the street or at the news-stand, was
looked upon as an undignified publication, car-
rying no weight. Among the high-priced, old-
fashioned subscription ‘ blanket sheets,” the
* Daily Advertiser’ — “the respectable Daily ”
—meant Mr. Nathan Hale; the ‘ Courier,”
Mr. Joseph T. Buckingham; and the “ Post,”
Mr. Charles G. Greene. They were all organs,
too; for independent journalism was only then
assuming shape in New York, and the older
and more established newspapers depended for
their existence on the subscriptions, advertise-
ments, and patronage of some mercantile interest
or political organization. The “ Advertiser,”
for instance, was inspired by Mr. Webster; the
*¢ Post” was the recognized organ of the Jackson
Democracy ; the ‘ Liberator” — a weekly paper
—was the mouthpiece of Mr. Garrison and the
extreme abolitionists. The circulation of that
day would also now be considered almost ridicu-
66 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
lously small. It is very questionable whether
the subscription list of any of the sheets which
have been named contained over four thousand
names; while an annual net income of $20,000
was thought enormous. A circulation of two
thousand was looked upon as very respectable.
The New York “ Evening Post,” for instance, in
1842, printed two thousand five hundred copies ;
-the noted and influential “Courier and Enquirer”
only seven thousand ; while the “* Herald,” the
great sensational journalistic innovator, could
boast of but fifteen thousand. The influence of
a paper was not, however, by any means mea-
sured by its circulation; far less so, indeed,
then than now: and hence in great degree,
in the mind of Dr. Palfrey, the necessity as
well as the feasibility of an organ. Between
1840 and 1850 the local —what would in Eu-
rope be called the provincial — press was vig-
orous and potent. Rapid transportation had
not yet laid down the journal of the great city
on the doorsteps of every country town as
promptly as the news carrier laid it down at
those of the houses adjoining the press-room.
So every considerable centre in Massachusetts
had its paper, —its “ Argus,” its “Spy,” its
“ Republican,” its “ Mercury,” its ‘ Courier,”
— which again looked to the recognized Boston
organ for its news and its inspiration. As Gar-
THE “BOSTON WHIG” 67
rison had already demonstrated in the case of
the ‘ Liberator,” a limited circulation by no
means implied a correspondingly restricted in-
fluence.
Notwithstanding all this, the showing made to
Mr. Adams by the publishers of the “ Whig”’ was
the reverse of inspiring. “It” [the paper], he
wrote, “‘is far from flourishing. It has but two
hundred and twelve paying subscribers, and its
debts run on all fours with its income.” It is true
that only eleven years before this time the New
York * Herald” had been launched on its won-
derful career with cash resources of only $500
behind it; and, more remarkable still, the
‘Tribune ” had started out so recently as 1841
with a borrowed cash capital of but $1000: but
both these journals were backed by the enter-
prise, energy, and experience of two of the most
remarkable born journalists of the century, and
they had been merely the prizes in a fascinating
lottery which had turned up almost innumera-
ble blanks. It is needless to say, also, that Mr.
Adams had very few attributes in common with
either James Gordon Bennett or Horace Gree-
ley. He was rather modeled on the old-fash-
ioned pattern of William W. Seaton and Nathan
Hale, — types fast vanishing. He had abso-
lutely no conception of the journal of the future,
as it then loomed vaguely up; while for the
68 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
work such a journal implied he was in every re-
spect lacking. Nevertheless the editorship of
the “ Boston Whig,” while it carried with it
some danger of ignominious failure, did not
involve any excessive pecuniary risk. It was
only necessary to secure the few hundred dollars
immediately needed to keep the concern afloat.
This sum was forthcoming from the sources,
’ and in the proportions, already indicated. So,
on going to town from Quincy on June 1, 1846,
Mr. Adams found himself “saluted with a
great bundle of newspapers, the sign of a new
vocation,” and, at the same time, read his own
opening editorial. The “ Whig” was a blan-
ket sheet, as it was called, of the pattern then in
vogue. ‘Twenty-two inches by sixteen in size,
one of its six-column pages was devoted to edi-
torial matter and news, while the three others
were filled with advertisements, with the excep-
tion of a single column, the first of the first
page, which contained the instalment of a serial
story, or some other mild literary nutriment of
that character. This was the form the “ Whig”
had when Mr. Adams assumed editorial charge
of it; and this form it retained until his con-
nection with it ceased. A two-cent paper, with
a subscription price of $5.00 per annum, Mr.
Adams’s name nowhere appeared upon it as its
editor; nor was he ever its proprietor. He re-
THE “BOSTON WHIG” 69
ceived no compensation for his services ; in fact
the paper, while under his editorial control, was
never prosperous enough to pay any compensa-
tion.
The position assumed by the “ Whig” was,
from the outset, simple. Remembering the dis-
astrous results which followed the Birney move-
ment in 1844, it was, in 1846, no believer in third
parties as political factors; though, only two
years later, in 1848, its action led to the forma-
tion of a third party. But parties were merely
the means to the attainment of political ends;
and the end which the “ Whig” had in view
was explicit. ‘Hither,’ it declared, “the pre-
sent tide, which is carrying all of our institutions,
excepting the forms, into a vortex of which
slavery is the moving power, must be stayed by
the people of the free States, or, if left to its
course, it will bring on, in no very long time, a
sudden and total dissolution of the bond of our
Union. . . . We feel tolerably confident it may
be avoided; but it can only be by one way.
That way is the total abolition of slavery, —
the complete eradication of the fatal influence it
is exercising over the policy of the general gov-
ernment.”
Such was the attitude of the organ of the
“Conscience”? Whigs of Massachusetts. The
limits assigned to this sketch permit hardly more
70 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
than a reference to the bitter controversies, per-
sonal and political, which in Massachusetts
between the years 1846 and 1856 marked the
breaking up of the Whig party and the forma-
tion of the Republican. The story is not lack-
ing in interest ; but it has already in main been
told both by Henry Wilson, himself an actor in
it, and by Edward L. Pierce, not only an actor
‘in it, but subsequently an untiring investigator
of it. Upon it Mr. Adams’s contemporaneous
record throws much additional light. The
period was, too, not only important, but, as re-
vealed in his papers, extremely interesting. It
has its distinctly humorous, as well as tragic,
side. There was in it a vast play of character,
and of strong character, as J. Q. Adams, and
Webster, and R. C. Winthrop pass off the stage
and new men force their way upon it. They all
tell their story, and often in their own words as
well as by their acts; and while the earnest,
angry, acrimonious debate goes on, the dark,
ugly, ominous war-cloud rises and spreads in
the distant background. It is absorbing, as
well as impressive; but the narrative attains
almost the dimensions of a history, and will not
be compressed into a sketch. Its salient fea-
tures only can here be referred to.
In 1846, when the war with Mexico was en-
gineered by the slave power, through the agency
THE “BOSTON WHIG” 71
of President James K. Polk in firm possession
of the national government, there were two
Massachusetts public men of the first rank
whose attitude, while of especial significance,
was altogether uncertain, — Daniel Webster and
Robert C. Winthrop. The course of the former,
as subsequently developed during the next six
years, is matter of familiar history. But it was
with the course of the latter that Mr. Adams
was more immediately concerned: for the vote
of Mr. Winthrop in favor of the Mexican war
bill during the previous May was already, in
June, 1846, a burning issue ; and, as the months
rolled on, it became steadily more so. In re-
- gard to that vote Mr. Adams took occasion pre-
sently to express himself in the columns of the
“ Whig,” though not until two months were
gone since it was cast. ‘ We know not, or care
not, what the feelings of others may be upon the
subject, or whether Mr. Winthrop may not be-
come ten times more popular than ever for this
act; but, according to the best estimate we can
form of political morality, if he could expunge
the record of it even by the sacrifice of the
memory of all his preceding brilliant career,
he would make a bargain. . . . Hither the pre-
amble to the war bill tells the truth, or it tells
what is not true. If it does tell the truth, then
indeed are we all of us wrong, and no one is
72 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
more wrong than Mr. Winthrop, in having here-
tofore described the administration policy as
inevitably bringing on a state of war on the
part of Mexico. If, on the other hand, it does
not tell the truth, how could Mr, Winthrop jus-
tify it to his own conscience to set his name in
perpetual attestation to a falsehood ?”
America has never been looked upon as a
‘ field conspicuous for a delicate journalistic re-
gard for the amenities of political discussion ;
but between 1840 and 1855 certain of the edito-
rial writers —it was the “ We” period — set
much store, in Boston at least, on what may
perhaps best be defined as “tone.”’ It is need-
less now to say that there was in this “tone” a.
good deal of that which approximates closely to
cant. A spade, after all,is a spade ; and, when
referring to it, little is gained by describing it
as an agricultural implement used in turning
the soil. Mr. Adams, as respects slavery and
the Mexican war, was thoroughly in earnest;
and a man thoroughly in earnest is apt to be
outspoken. Neither, until he fairly takes to
vituperation, as, unfortunately, is altogether too
frequently the case, is the editorial writer open
to any just criticism because he makes use of
language which does not allow his meaning to
escape the reader. As to Mr. Winthrop’s vote
of May 11, 1846, as a matter of policy on his
THE “BOSTON WHIG” 73
part, much may be said in extenuation. None
the less, the measure for which he that day voted
had been unnecessarily and wantonly amended
so as to declare that the war, for which it made
provision, existed “by the act of the Republic
of Mexico.” This was a falsehood. That it
was a falsehood, and a flagrant, palpable, un-
blushing falsehood, no man now denies; and
history has not failed so to brand it.) Nor at
the time was this disputed, except for hypoc-
risy’s sake. Henry Clay, for instance, was an
unquestioned authority in Whig circles, whether
in Massachusetts or elsewhere ; but Henry Clay
did not hesitate to describe that measure as “a
bill with a palpable falsehood stamped on its
face,” and almost passionately exclaimed that
he “‘ never, never could have voted” for it. In
like manner the “ National Intelligencer,” the
official Whig organ, declared that the two
Houses of Congress, in passing the bill with
that declaration in it, gave “‘ the seal and sanc-
tion of their authority to a false principle and a
false fact.” Yet when Mr. Adams, writing edi-
torially, asked the question how the Boston re-
presentative in Congress could justify to his
conscience thus setting “‘ his name in perpetual
attestation to a falsehood,” the regular Whig
papers of the city found their sense of propriety
1 Von Holst, iii, 250-255,
74 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
greatly shocked by language, which they re-
ferred to as “rude and indecorous,” and, more-
over, ‘‘ unfounded in truth.”
The vigor and direct personal character of the
assault were, it must be admitted, of a nature
calculated to excite surprise in the breasts of
the very respectable and altogether well-mean-
ing and public-spirited gentlemen who now
‘found themselves the object of almost daily at-
tack ; but, on the other hand, subsequent events
showed unmistakably that the measures resorted
to, and the language used, were no more drastic
and severe than the exigency called for. Ata
grave crisis in political affairs the publie mind
was lethargic, and it had to be aroused. No
two citizens of Boston then stood higher in pub-
lic estimation than Abbott Lawrence and Nathan
Appleton. They stood, too, deservedly high ;
for they were men of great business sagacity,
high character, and of a public spirit which
had been often in evidence. In fact there have
not been before or since better examples of the
strong, virile, adaptive, and resourceful stock
which made and sustains Massachusetts. Solid
and intelligent, they were representative men.
As respects slavery, however, their views were
of the sentimental and submissive order. It was
a bad thing, they were wont to say, — very bad ;
but one dangerous to agitate, especially from the
THE “BOSTON WHIG” 75
business point of view; and, after all, no affair
of theirs. Like honest Dogberry, having, as in
the case of Texas, bid the “ vagrom” man stand,
if he would not stand, they would then “ take no
note of him, but let him go;” and presently
thank God they were “rid of a knave.” Mr.
Garrison boldly preached a dissolution of the
Union as a remedy, and the only remedy, for
the existing state of affairs. Mr. Appleton
frankly believed that the so-called ‘* Con-
science” Whigs were, as he expressed - it,
“playing into the hands of the disunionists ;”
and he intimated the strong desire he really felt
to save “one of them,” meaning Mr. Sumner, —
then looked upon in Beacon Street as a young
man of uncommon promise, — from the courses
and contamination into which he was then head-
long rushing. Seeing things as he did, Mr. Ap-
pleton frankly admitted that he held “all the
evils of bad legislation and bad administration,”
— including slavery, Texas, and the Mexican
war, — “light, compared to those which must
inevitably flow from a disruption of the States.”
That, of course, settled the matter. The “ va-
grom”’ man, when bid to stand, had but to
refuse to do so, and they would forthwith “ take
no note of him, but let him go.” And more-
over, like Dogberry, Messrs. Lawrence and
Appleton, and those who thought as they
76 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
thought, would on this score make no noise in
the streets; “for to babble and to talk” about
slavery and other matters, which in no way con-
cerned Massachusetts, was *“‘ most tolerable and
not to be endured.”
This way of looking at the situation did not
commend itself to Mr. Adams. It had received
practical illustration the preceding spring in
‘the point blank refusal of Messrs. Lawrence and
Appleton to put their names to the final remon-
strance against the admission of Texas to the
Union. This proceeding Mr. Adams had not
forgotten ; and the “ Whig” at once proceeded to
hold Messrs. Lawrence and Appleton personally
to account. The latter had in his letter to the
anti-Texas Committee used the expression that,
to his mind, the Texas question had, as a result
of the election of 1844, been “ for all practical
purposes settled.” Dr. Palfrey now, in the col-
umns of the “ Whig,” rang the changes on that
expression. ‘ The question was settled! What
if it had been? Did Massachusetts owe nothing
then to her principles, her pledges, her charac-
ter? Did she owe no record of honorable action
to future history ? Have Mr. Appleton and his
friends always reasoned thus? . . . The demon-
stration of Mr. Appleton and his friends, com-
ing, as it did, as unexpectedly as a thunderclap
in a clear sky,” did much to embarrass and
THE “BOSTON WHIG” 77
check “ the vigorous movement of the people,”
then daily gathering momentum. Mr. Adams
also a few days later added his opinion that,
“when a gentleman of such standing in the cot-
ton manufacturing interest as Mr. Appleton
insults the founders of the Constitution so far
as to maintain that ‘it is questionable whether
the abolition movement is reconcilable with duty
under it,’ we are driven to the conviction that
he is not a safe guide in the construction of his
neighbor’s duties either to his country or his
God.” At the same time Mr. Adams took Mr.
Lawrence in hand ina series of letters signed
“ Sagitta,” addressed directly to him, after the
manner of Junius. These also contained some
vigorous specimens of style, — the following for
example. Asamanufacturer Mr. Lawrence had
evinced a deep interest in the tariff on wool.
The remonstrance against the admission of
Texas to the Union, Mr. Adams now wrote,
*‘ simply asked the representatives of the Union
not to sanction a form of government in Texas
designed to make slavery perpetual there. And
this petition you refused to sign on the ground
that the question was already settled, at the very
moment when you were ready to move heaven
and earth to resist a change in the Tariff of
1842. . . . You, who would not give a dollar
to defend the rights of man, are announced as
78 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
having paid the expenses of circulating twenty
thousand copies of Mr. Stewart’s defense of
sheep. . . . To sacrifice mankind, to fasten for-
ever the galling chain around the neck of the
black man, the other end of which, though you
did not know it, was to press upon your own,
you were not unwilling to agree beforehand. It
was only for the sheep that you preferred to go
- to the death.”
Before Mr. Adams had been five months in
charge of the “ Boston Whig” the issue between
“ Conscience ” and “ Cotton” was defined. Mr.
Winthrop’s vote of May 11th presented it; it
was emphasized and embittered by a sharp cor-
respondence, as yet unpublished, between him
and Mr. Sumner, all the details of which were
long subsequently recounted by Mr. Pierce ! and
by Mr. Winthrop’s son.2, The Whig house was
clearly divided against itself; which faction
was the larger remained to be seen. The
strength of the ‘ Conscience” element lay in
the country; in Boston and the larger manu-
facturing towns, the “Cotton” influence was
more than dominant, it was supreme. The
question of mastery was to be decided in the
state Whig convention to be held in Faneuil
Hall on September 23d. That convention was
1 Life of Sumner, iii. 114-119.
2 Memoir of R. C. Winthrop, 51-56.
THE “BOSTON WHIG” 79
memorable, marking, as it did, an epoch in the
anti-slavery movement. In it Winthrop and
Sumner struggled for the ascendency; and an
issue was forced. Under the throes of upheaval
from the young party of the future within it,
the Whig house trembled to its foundations. As
the day wore on, the traditional party magnates,
alarmed by the strength the new movement de-
veloped, and the courage and persistency of its
leaders, appealed, as a last resort, to the per-
sonal authority of Mr. Webster. IE. L. Pierce,
in his life of Sumner, has given a detailed
and striking account of what now took place,
and still another account, too long for insertion
here, is to be found in'the diary of Mr. Adams.
Suffice it to say that no more striking scene was
ever witnessed in Faneuil Hall. The entrance
of Webster upon the stage was a veritable coup
de théatre, admirably arranged and skillfully
timed by the hard-pressed respectabilities of the
organization. It worked also like magic. The
tide was running strongly for ‘* Conscience,”
and against “ Cotton,” when, late in the Sep-
tember day, and after hasty conference among
the gray-haired conservatives, Mr. Webster’s
son, Fletcher, hurriedly left the hall. Presently
he came back, and, whispering to Abbott Law-
rence, who was seated on the platform, that
gentleman rose and went out. When he came
80 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
back, Daniel Webster was on his arm. The
two walked slowly through the excited chamber.
The debate had ceased in the presence thus
evoked, and all parties rose and joined in a loud
demonstration of applause. Without uttering a
word the great Whig chieftain took his seat on
the platform, — grand, gloomy, impressive. Not
a word was necessary; his presence, thus her-
alded, sealed the fate of the amendments moved
by the “Conscience” faction, and then in de-
bate. It was in the brief speech that followed
the decisive vote — the “few generalities in-
tended as a soother,” as Mr. Adams described
them in his account of what occurred — that the
great orator made use of a striking simile, since
famous, which may well have been suggested to
him by a figure of speech used only a few days
before by Mr. Adams in an open letter to Mr.
Lawrence: “Others rely on other foundations
and other hopes for the welfare of the country ;
but, for my part, in the dark and troubled uight
that is upon us, I see no star above the horizon
promising light to guide us but the intelligent,
patriotic, united Whig party of the United
States.” And this, delivered through the lips
of Daniel Webster, was the answer of Abbott
Lawrence to the challenge of ‘ Sagitta.”
CHAPTER V
THE FREE-SOIL PARTY
THE Massachusetts canvass of 1846 resulted,
as might naturally have been expected, in the
total discomfiture of the “ Conscience” Whigs.
With them it was as yet only the seeding time.
The election that year took place on November
10th ; and, as the outcome of the fierce and sus-
tained assaults made upon him, Mr. Winthrop
was triumphantly sent back to Congress from
Boston. Dr. Palfrey, on the other hand, the
*‘ Conscience’ Whig candidate for Congress in
the adjoining Middlesex district, failed to se-
cure a majority, though chosen some weeks later
by a narrow margin of votes at a special elec-
tion. “This is all of it very bad,” wrote Mr.
Adams, ‘‘ and it depressed me much for the rest
of the day.” But the depression of his friends
he found even greater than his own, “ inasmuch
as they attach more consequence to the immedi-
ate result. Yet it is unpleasant to meet with a
large majority of persons who disagree with you,
and who are disposed to rejoice at your defeat.
I am prepared for this with a good share of
philosophy, and submit to it.”
82 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
Immediately after the election Mr. Adams
accompanied his mother and his father’s family
to Washington, leaving his father himself in
Boston. - When on his way from New York to
Philadelphia he saw in the newspaper the an-
nouncement that J. Q. Adams had suffered a
paralytic shock on the previous Thursday ; and
it is noticeable as evidence of how very slowly
information traveled in those days, only half a
century ago, that information of an event of
such public, and, to him, domestic interest, oc-
curring Thursday morning in Boston, reached
him only while leaving New York on Saturday,
and then through the newspapers. Indulging
in no delusive hopes of recovery, he realized the
full extent of the loss. ‘ However light that
blow may be,” he wrote on the day he heard of
it, “ there it is; and, at eighty, not to be reme-
died.” It so proved.
A period of political gloom, as of domestic
anxiety, now ensued. In spite of a languishing
subscription list, the “* Whig,” with a firm front,
persisted in its course; and when, the following
autumn, the next annual convention of the Whig
party was held, this time at Springfield, the
struggle between the two factions was renewed.
The as yet unwritten history of this gathering
can here be no more than alluded to, though it
still has an interest, and, at the moment, was of
THE FREE-SOIL PARTY 83
great historical significance. Mr. Webster was
present in person, pleading for a nomination to
the presidency. Winthrop and Sumner both
were there, renewing their wrestle of the year
before. George Ashmun, George T. Curtis,
Charles Allen, Stephen C. Phillips, and Dr.
Palfrey all figured prominently ; while Mr. Ad-
ams outlined the policy and directed the opera-
tions of the “ Conscience” element. Practically
it resulted in a drawn battle.
Though Mr. Webster on this occasion favored
the convention with an address two hours in de-
livery, his biographer has made no mention of
the fact, notwithstanding he was himself a dele-
gate and listener. The reason is obvious. Mr.
’ Webster at that time was engaged in the difficult
politico-acrobatic feat of endeavoring to ride two
horses at once, they going in opposite directions.
On the one side was the Southern wing of “ the
intelligent, patriotic, united Whig party of the
United States,” fast drifting into the pro-slavery
Democracy ; on the other were the “ Conscience”
Whigs of Massachusetts driving headlong to-
wards the Republican organization of the future.
Mr. Webster’s wish was to hold the two together
in support of himself. That day he had to plead
his cause before the ‘‘ Conscience”’ tribunal ; and,
in doing so, he touched what proved for him the
high-water mark of anti-slavery sentiment. He
84 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
even claimed the famous “ Wilmot proviso” as
his “thunder.” In return, he secured an indorse-
ment, such as it was, for the presidential nomi-
nation of the following year. In view of the
course he subsequently pursued and his later
utterances, the fact that Mr. Curtis ignored the
incident in his biography affords no more occa-
sion for surprise than that Mr. Webster’s re-
marks are omitted from the authorized edition
of his Speeches.
Mr. Pierce refers briefly to the convention, in
his biography of Sumner;! but that day Mr.
Webster’s successor in the Senate did not score
more of a success than Mr. Webster himself.
Mr. Sumner’s speech had the merit of brevity,
for him; but no other: and, as it appears in his
“‘ Works,” ? it is characteristic of his worst style,
— the overloaded, rhetorico-classical. Mr. Ad-
ams wrote that, in delivery, it ‘sounded out of
place and pointless.” The honors of the occa-
sion belonged distinctly to Mr. Winthrop, who
not only spoke several times, but carried his
point, greatly to his own satisfaction ;° and for
satisfaction, he had good cause. That day he
made a long stride towards Whig leadership.
“Sumner,” Mr. Adams wrote, was “the only
one of our friends much depressed ;”’ though his
1 Vol. iii. pp. 144-146, 2 Vol. ii. pp. 76-88.
3 Memoir, p. 65.
THE FREE-SOIL PARTY 85
own speech in the convention, he added, was
“ much resented by [ Mr. Webster’s] friends.”
That day, there were two real points at issue ;
one, the indorsement of Mr. Webster as the
next presidential candidate of the Whig party ;
the other, a resolution offered by Dr. Palfrey,
and designed to preclude the support of Gen-
eral Taylor. The former was carried in a per-
functory, half-hearted way; the latter was voted
down, though by a narrow majority only. But
it was in regard to the latter that Mr. Winthrop
exerted himself, and influenced the result. To
every one but Mr. Webster, it was apparent
that the Webster candidacy was a form only.
General Taylor was the coming man; and Mr.
Winthrop was now the Whig leader of the fu-
ture. Thus the “ depressed” condition of Mr.
Sumner’s mind was easily accounted for. Mean-
while the Palfrey resolution had outlined the
action of the “ Conscience” Whigs in a contin-
gency which every day rendered more probable.
An immediate split was impending in “ the
intelligent, patriotic, [but no longer] united,
Whig party.”
A month afterwards, in the early days of No-
vember, 1847, J. Q. Adams, going with his
family to Washington, left Quincy for the last
time. Four months later he was brought back
for burial. It lacked, on the day he left, just
86 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
two weeks of seventy full years since, a boy of
ten, he had for the first time gone forth from
his native town, then Braintree, embarking in
the midst of the Revolutionary trials on the
frigate Boston, then lying in the bay, sent to
carry his father to France. The intervening
period covered the whole national existence,
from the war for independence with Great
Britain to that for slavery with Mexico. On
his part they had been threescore years and ten
of almost uninterrupted public life, now ap-
proaching an end not less fitting than dramatic.
‘1 dined with them,” wrote the son, ‘* and felt
a great deal of the dullness which overspread us
all. I do not wonder ; it is difficult to see what
six months will bring forth at such an age. It
will not do to look forward.”
After a short contest, Mr. Winthrop was
elected speaker of the House, in the Congress
that now met; J. Q. Adams, to the great chagrin
of his son, voting for him. This Dr. Palfrey
found himself unable to do. The latter was
accordingly, at the very outset of congressional
life, thus put in a most trying position, in which
he found support at home from the “ Whig”
alone. Into the now wellnigh forgotten con-
troversy, which arose out of this speakership
election, there is not room here to enter. It was
long, bitter, and, in some features —as seen
THE FREE-SOIL PARTY 87
through the vista of fifty years — amusingly in-
structive. The parties to it were very much in
earnest and, as a consequence, exceedingly un-
just to themselves, as well as to each other.
The death of J. Q. Adams suddenly broke in upon
it, and, during the painful observances which
ensued, the extremely considerate demeanor of
Speaker Winthrop to Mrs. Adams and the
members of her husband’s family extricated her
son, though at the time he failed to realize it,
from a position which was fast becoming false.
The controversy was obviously degenerating into
one of a personal character, — an organized, if
not very promising, effort to break down Mr.
Winthrop. The “ Whig” also was far from
flourishing, and Mr. Adams, with reason, was
getting extremely weary of it. So far as editorial
work was concerned, it was becoming more and
more plain to him that he had no vocation that
way. Indeed, how the paper sustained itself at
all under his management, it is difficult now to
understand. Voicing an unpopular cause, it was
without capital, patronage, or enterprise. The
consciousness of forever tugging at a dead weight
is not inspiriting, and the zeal with which Mr.
Adams took hold of his new work in June, 1846,
was, in February, 1848, fast degenerating into a
sense of hopeless drudgery. He was, however,
at least cured of his taste for newspaper writ-
88 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
ing. He had of it enjoyed a surfeit. Of Mr.
Winthrop, Mr. Adams now in private exclaimed :
“ He is wrong, and grievously wrong; and what
is worse, he is leading Massachusetts wrong.
And now I am in a manner handcuffed in my
opposition.” This at the moment he looked
upon as one of “the heaviest of [his] trials: ”
but, as the weeks went on, he grew to see it in
another light ; and when, a few months later,
the course of events compelled his complete
severance from the paper, he accepted the situ-
ation with a sigh of profound relief. The ex-
perience was one he never cared to repeat. One
of the most thoroughly creditable episodes in
Mr. Adams’s life, it carried with it ever after a
memory of thankless labor, necessary, but in
character most repellent. The seed had to be
sown; but the husbandman’s work was hard,
the hours long, and his harvest to the last de-
gree meagre.
The National Convention of the Whig party
met at Philadelphia on June 7th, and the next
day nominated General Taylor as its candidate
for the presidency, resolutely and significantly re-
fusing to put forth any declaration of principles.
A candidate whose political views, if he had any,
were quite unknown was the party’s unwritten
platform. In the convention, four ballots were
had. One hundred and forty votes were necessary
THE FREE-SOIL PARTY 89
to anomination ; Mr. Clay, beginning with ninety-
seven, ended with thirty-two; Mr. Webster had
twenty-two votes on the first ballot, and thirteen
on the last. So far as the “ Conscience” Whigs
of Massachusetts were concerned, the issue was
now made up under “ the Palfrey resolve.” A
Southern man and an owner of slaves, General
Taylor could not have their support. They had
so declared in advance; and their two special
representatives in the convention, Charles Allen
and Henry Wilson, after voting loyally on every
ballot for Mr. Webster, formally withdrew when
General Taylor was declared the nominee. In
doing so Mr. Allen publicly and boldly an-
nounced that, in his belief, “the Whig party is
here and this day dissolved ;” while Mr. Wilson
exclaimed, amid the wild uproar of a tumultuous
demonstration: “Sir, I will go home; and, so
help me God, I will do all I can to defeat the
election of that candidate.”” The more immedi-
ate friends of Mr. Webster acquiesced. Like
Mr. Webster himself, they did so silently, sul-
lenly, slowly ; but, by degrees, they acquiesced.
Meanwhile on June 3d, when already the re-
sult at Philadelphia was anticipated, a consulta-
tion had been held at the office of Mr. Adams,
in Boston, and the steps preliminary to an or-
ganized “bolt” discussed. It followed, close
and sharp, on the announcement of the nomina-
90 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
tion of Taylor and Fillmore ; and, in a few days,
the call went forth for a convention to be held
in August at Buffalo. To this convention Mr.
Adams was appointed as one of the delegates
from his father’s old congressional district ;
and, on August oth, he started on his way
thither, going first to New York, where he met
Mr. Giddings, and had with him an exchange of
views. “He is averse to taking up Mr. Van
Buren, and so am I,” he wrote. On the 8th
he reached Buffalo, and at once found himself
involved in the whirl of the political storm cen-
tre. Thirty years later, referring to the Buf-
falo Convention of 1848, Mr. Adams recorded
his mature conviction of it. ‘* There have,” he
said, “ been many such assemblages since, far
larger in numbers, and perhaps more skillful in
their modes of operation; but for plain, down-
right honesty of purpose, to effect high ends
without a whisper of bargain and sale, I doubt
whether any similar one has been its superior,
either before or since.”
The convention of the Democratic party,
which met at Baltimore on the 22d of May, had,
after a sharp contest, nominated Lewis Cass, of
Michigan, as its candidate; a Northern man
with Southern principles, General Cass stood
on a distinctly pro-slavery platform. The real
question, therefore, which the Buffalo Conven-
THE FREE-SOIL PARTY 91
tion had to decide was, whether General Taylor
or General Cass should be President of the
United States for the term then approaching.
The “Conscience” Whigs wanted to defeat
Taylor; but they did not want to elect Cass.
The “ Barnburners,” the bolting New York con-
tingent at Buffalo, bitterly resented the treat-
ment of their chief, ex-President Van Buren, in
the last two Democratic presidential conventions.
In that of 1844, he had been defeated through
the instrumentality of Cass; and in that just
held Cass had received the nomination. No
matter who was elected, the “ Barnburners ”
were now eager for revenge. In the end they
had their way; and they secured it through a
very simple pact, or compromise. The “ Barn-
burners” said to the ‘ Conscience” Whigs:
“Give us the naming of the candidate, and you
may frame the platform of principles on which
the candidate shall stand.” So far as political
tenets were concerned, the opponents of Mr. -
Van Buren were thus given absolute carte
blanche ; and with this they had to be content.
Mr. Adams was made chairman of the conven-
tion; and finally, at the very earnest request
of the Ohio delegation, among whom his father’s
name was a thing to conjure with, he was asso-
ciated on the ticket with Mr. Van Buren, as
the third party’s candidate for Vice-President.
CHAPTER VI
THE EBB OF THE TIDE
Havine completed its labors, the Buffalo Con-
vention of 1848 adjourned on August 10th;
the presidential election took place on Novem-
ber 9th following. While polling close upon
300,000 votes in the country at large, the new
party failed to carry a single electoral college ;
but, none the less, as between the two dominant
divisions, it decided which should carry the day.
So far as Mr. Adams personally was con-
cerned, the vote was unmistakably gratifying.
To him had been assigned the second place on
the ticket, representing the element in the new
organization to be drawn from the Whigs; and
he had to go before the anti-slavery people of
Massachusetts weighted down by the name and
the record of Martin Van Buren. Nevertheless,
the proportion which the Free-Soil vote bore to
the total vote cast in Massachusetts (twenty-
eight per cent.) was larger than in any other
State, except Vermont (twenty-nine per cent.),
and materially exceeded that reached in New
York (twenty-six per cent.). In other words,
THE EBB OF THE TIDE 93
Mr. Adams contributed his full share to the
strength of the ticket on which he ran. The
lessons of his father, supplemented by his own
years of almost daily teaching from the editorial
office of the “ Whig,” bore their fruits. Both
the old parties were shaken to their centres by
the new demonstration.
Mr. Adams, also, came out of this canvass
with a national reputation of his own, which
thenceforth he retained and increased. This
meant a great deal for him; for probably in
the whole experience of the country there has
not been another case where a man was so per-
sistently estimated at less than his real value
because of the eminence of his immediate an-
cestors. To a certain extent this was a natural
presumption ; but it was intensified in the case
of Mr. Adams by peculiarities of manner, and
a shyness of temper which caused merely casual
observers to mistake an innate indisposition to
push himself for lack of capacity. Growing
up under the overshadowing fame of John
Quincy Adams, it was not until 1848 that he
was generally recognized as something more
than the bearer of a distinguished cognomen.
This, too, was a point on which he was sensitive,
—and unduly so. Never claiming anything, or
even seeking recognition, because of his father
and his grandfather, constant reference to them
94 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
in connection with himself annoyed, and at times
irritated him. He could not habituate himself
to it, nor learn to take it lightly and as matter
of course, — at one time the commonplace utter-
ance of some not unkindly man, devoid of good
taste, and at another the obvious retort of a
coarse and commonplace opponent, quick to
avail himself of a telling personal allusion. For
all such, it was so very easy to refer to a notice-
able family deterioration, —‘“ sharp decline”
was the approved form of speech, —and the
reference was sure to elicit a sneering laugh, and
round of blockhead applause from the benches
of the groundlings. Nor was it only the clumsy
who had recourse to this unfailing method of
bringing down the house. In the course of the
campaign of 1848 even Rufus Choate, the kind-
est, the most genial and charming of men and
acquaintances, both by nature and training
courteous and considerate of opponents, — even
Rufus Choate, in the Whig state convention,
held that year at Worcester, was not above this
wretched, worn-out claptrap; and, with rhe-
torical pause, referring to J. Q. Adams, then
scarcely six months dead, as “the last of the
Adamses,” he elicited from his audience a noisy
and delighted response. It was a hit, — a very
palpable hit; but none the less somewhat un-
worthy of Rufus Choate. It was all in the
THE EBB OF THE TIDE 95
rough give-and-take of the hustings; but there
is no doubt it annoyed Mr. Adams more than
he cared to admit or, indeed, than it should
have done. To have one’s ancestors unceasingly
flung in one’s face is unpleasant, and listening
to the changes incessantly rung upon them
becomes indubitably monotonous. This, how-
ever, all through life, was to an unusual degree
the fate of Mr. Adams, and never so much so as
in the campaign of 1848. None the less the
rallying cry of the new party, formulated by
Stephen C. Phillips at Buffalo, —‘* Van Buren
and Free Soil; Adams and Liberty,’ — echoed
all through the North, and through it Mr.
Adams’s individual name became known far
beyond the limits of Massachusetts.
In other respects the outcome of that cam-
paign was not so gratifying. The fact was, and
it could not be sophisticated away, that Martin
Van Buren, the political heir of Andrew Jack-
son and the “little magician” of New York
politics, was a strange candidate for earnest
anti-slavery men to select. The association was
undeniably incongruous. Of course, Mr. Ad-
ams’s own record and utterances in regard to
his new political running-mate were industri-
ously hunted up, and he was confronted with
them. They were, to say the least, the reverse
of respectful. Only four years before he had
96 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
in print alluded to Mr. Van Buren as one who,
making “a trade of public affairs,” was fixed to
nothing “but his own interest;” and whose
“ cold and temporizing policy ” at that time was
“symptomatic of treachery hereafter.” Refer-
ring to such expressions, he now wrote: “* These
opinions I then held, but [Mr. Van Buren] has
done much to make me change them; and it
singularly happens that, in the particular in
which I then predicted he would fail, he falsi-
fied my anticipation :—he did oppose the an-
nexation of Texas. Mr. Van Buren is a mixed
character. In early life, right; in middle life,
swayed to the wrong by his ambition and his
associations, — he seems towards the close of
his career to be again falling into the right
channel. But, as a candidate, his main defect
is thet he wants warmth to give an impulse to
his friends.”
In presenting their case in 1848, the Free-
Soil speakers always met the objection of Mr.
Van Buren’s candidacy by saying that it was a
case of “ principles, not men.” As Von Holst
has since pointcd out,! this phrase in connection
with a presidential canvass has a somewhat
empty sound. If it was meant that the candi-
dates of the party stood no chance of an elec-
tion, and consequently that the voter, in casting
1 Vol. iii. p. 398.
THE EBB OF THE TIDE 97
his ballot for them, merely recorded himself as
in favor of a principle, the proposition might be
accepted ; though scarcely one calculated to at-
tract recruits. On the other hand, when ar-
dently supporting principles, it is at least ques-
tionable wisdom to choose to office men who, in
office, cannot be relied on to make those princi-
ples effective. Furthermore, Mr. Adams’s po-
sition was now not logical. He had objected to
Mr. Webster as the exponent of the anti-slavery
sentiment because he was deficient in moral
stamina. He had insisted that, if Mr. Webster
was elevated into leadership, he would, sooner or
later, by leading the movement over to the en-
emy, betray it to its destruction. Not grounded
in the faith, Daniel Webster was consumed by
a craving for the presidential office. This was
probably true ; but, in these respects, how was
it with Martin Van Buren? Was he, as stud-
ied in a record at once long, varied, and sinuous,
conspicuous for moral stamina? How had he
stood, and what had he said on the great ques-
tion at issue? If again elevated to the presi-
dential chair, could he be depended upon to
carry out the principles enunciated at Buffalo ?
In point of fact, it needed but the development
of a single year to show the eager and honest
participants in the Buffalo convention that the
leaders among their New York associates were
98 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
simply playing a game. Headed by Mr. Van
Buren’s son, the popular “ Barnburner” idol in
the campaign of 1848, they in 1849 marched
in a body back into the regular Democratic fold.
Their late allies in other States looked on at the
spectacle in blank amazement; but the fact
could not be gainsaid. It is not easy to see
what more, or worse, under similar circum-
stances, Mr. Webster could have done.
In the way those concerned then approached
it, the difficulty, however, was insoluble. The
nascent party did not feel able to stand alone ;
and, that being so, it would have made no dif-
ference at the stage of evolution it had then
reached, whether it put forward as its exponent
Van Buren or Webster, Corwin or M’Lean. As
Mr. Adams one day somewhat ruefully wrote,
‘¢ We must do with what we have;” and which-
ever of the candidates they might select from
the men prominent in either of the old organiza-
tions, the Free-Soilers of Buffalo would have
been sure to regret not selecting another. In
J. Q. Adams the anti-slavery sentiment had a
leader, and from him it drew an early inspira-
tion. When, in 1845, years and failing strength
incapacitated him from service, no successor of
national reputation presented himself. Those
then foremost on the stage had, so far as the free
States were concerned, been educated on national
THE EBB OF THE TIDE . 99
lines. On the slavery issue they were, one and all,
wholly unreliable when subjected to any severe
test. They would roll off platitudes by the yard,
and accept endless formulas ; but they could not
lift themselves to a level with the subject, or
be convinced that it was beyond a charlatan
treatment. The party of the future, therefore,
had to educate its own leaders, — slowly evolve
its exponents. Precipitated into existence by
the events of 1848, it had no confidence in itself.
That must be its excuse; and, as an excuse, it
is fairly satisfactory. Nevertheless, for the
young party of high standards and noble aspira-
tions to select Martin Van Buren as its standard-
bearer was absurd; and, thereafter, the genuine
earnestness which pervaded the movement alone
saved it from collapse under ridicule. Even
so, in making its first nomination the Free-Soil
party, to use the words of the translator of Von
Holst, “ destroyed its own viability.” Had it
been thoroughly consistent and true to itself, it
would have nominated John P. Hale, Salmon P.
Chase, or William H. Seward, treating the can-
vass of 1848 as a subordinate and temporary
issue, which, so far as any ultimate result was
concerned, might safely be left to decide itself.
Practically, in the end, it did decide itself.
Millard Fillmore became president ; a compro-
mise was patched up; the slave-power ruled
100 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
supreme. Meanwhile, in spite of the promi-
nence given him during the canvass of 1848, the
political leadership in the Massachusetts anti-
slavery movement within the lines of the Consti-
tution was passing from Mr. Adams. Charles
Sumner, on the one hand, and Henry Wilson,
on the other, were rapidly coming into greater
prominence and more pronounced activity. Sum-
ner’s larger and more imposing presence, com-
bined with magnetism, eloquence, and zeal, were
then gaining for him that personal ascendency
which, firmly cemented by the brutal assault of
May, 1856, was to continue unbroken to his
death. Henry Wilson, on the other hand, fail-
ing in business, had now devoted himself to
politics as a calling from which incidentally the
means of livelihood might be extracted. With
untiring activity he was organizing the new
party throughout the State; and he was not or-
ganizing it with an eye to the political advance-
ment of Mr. Adams. He meanwhile was writ-
ing in his diary: “I look upon this period as
simply an episode to what ought to be the true
purpose of my next few years.”
In this entry he referred to the work before
him in connection with the family papers, now
his, the John Adams accumulation having now
been augmented by the yet larger accumulation
of his son. ‘Twenty-two years had then already
THE EBB OF THE TIDE 101
elapsed since the death of the second president,
and his grandson felt no disposition longer to
defer a task which, moreover, was one altogether
congenial. So already, while the presidential can-
vass of 1848 was still in progress, arrangements
for the publication of the “ Life and Works
of John Adams” had been effected, and a pro-
spectus issued. Wholly freed at last from jour-
nalistic work, Mr. Adams, now turning from pol-
itics, devoted himself wholly to literature and
the study of “ stale political excitements.”’
The massive ten volume publication of the
John Adams papers, begun in 1848, was not
completed until 1856; nor was it until 1860
that Mr. Adams again exercised an appreciable
influence in the direction of public affairs. The
intervening years, passed in his library, or at
most touching on politics quite remotely and in
a way not productive of any considerable result,
only here and there offer anything of historical
value. Not ina position to be consulted, or to
enjoy special means of information, his diary
became a mere record of private reflections and
local or family incidents. In it, also, the ab-
sence of his father makes itself greatly felt, the
inspiration of his large activity and _ restless,
eager temper being distinctly gone. Though he
himself did not know it, the single element of
the picturesque and broadening had in Febru-
102 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
ary, 1848, been taken out of Mr. Adams’s ex-
istence, and he now fell easily and naturally
back into the narrow circle of New England
life.
So far, also, as the anti-slavery cause was
concerned, therc now followed a succession of
dull, dragging years,— years of reaction, dis-
couragement, and hope deferred. In national
politics, the death of Taylor, at the moment
when to anti-slavery men his administration
promised results as happy as they were unex-
pected, was followed by the accession of Fill-
more, the recreancy of Webster, and the pas-
sage of the compromise measures of 1850.
Then came the canvass of 1852, and the elec-
tion of Franklin Pierce; the Free-Soil party of
four years before being now reduced to little
more than a contemptible political fragment.
The Whig organization did not, however, sur-
vive its defeat of that year, and perceptibly
melted away in the agitation which followed the
repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Finally the
Republican party emerged from the chaos, and
in 1856 almost secured the presidency. Fortu-
nately for itself and the country, it failed to
elect Fremont; but in 1858 it carried a majority
in the House of Representatives, preliminary to
its election of Lincoln two years later. Mr.
Adams’s time, long deferred, then came.
CHAPTER VII
THE ANTE-BELLUM CONGRESS
Ty 1858 it was for Mr. Adams either to find his
way into active public life, or make up his mind
to permanent exclusion from it. Fifty-one years
of age, he had been prominent; and he no longer
was so. He was in the familiar and dangerous
position of a man well known to nourish politi-
cal aspirations, who has been much and long
discussed in various connections, but who, for
one reason or another, has never received prefer-
ment. Of such, in the end, people weary. The
man everlastingly named, who never “ gets
there,’ becomes, so to speak, shopworn, — lack-
ing novelty, he is a bit out of fashion; and,
moreover, he is in the way of the younger and
more energetic aspirants. Already, when his
father died in February, 1848, Mr. Adams had
been more or less talked of as his congressional
successor; but Horace Mann had then been
preferred to him. In 1850, the compromise
year, Mr. Mann became involved in a bitter
controversy with Mr. Webster, growing out of
the compromise measures, and Mr. Adams was
104 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
one of the most zealous advocates of his reélec-
tion. Two years later, in 1852, Mr. Mann vol-
untarily withdrew; but Mr. Adams was then a
Free-Soiler, and those were the dark days. He
was nominated by his party for the district ;
but, on the second trial, — for a majority of all
the votes cast for the office was then necessary
to a choice at the first or regular election, — his
Whig opponent, a highly respectable Boston
business gentleman of the Webster following,
was chosen over him by a narrow plurality.
The Democrats, as ever, were disinclined to Mr.
Adams. The old Jackson antipathy would not
away, and the instinctive Irish dislike to the
essentially Anglo-Saxon made itself felt. In
1854 the Whig and Free-Soil parties both dis-
appeared in Massachusetts under the native
American, or ‘¢ Know-Nothing ” cataclysm, and
Mr. Adams found himself a leader absolutely
without a following. In the Norfolk district,
William S. Damrell, a man whose name had
never been heard of in politics before, of whom
the dictionary of Congress says that, “ by trade
a printer, [he] never had the privilege of even
a common-school education,’ was evolved as a
candidate from the sessions of a secret order,
and elected by a majority larger than any by
which the district had ever honored either of his
two immediate, and better remembered, prede-
THE ANTE-BELLUM CONGRESS 105
cessors, Horace Mann and John Quincy Adams.
Though incapacitated by paralysis from any
active performance of his duties, Mr. Damrell
served through a second term ; but as that drew
to its close in 1858, the Know-Nothing deluge
had in great degree subsided, having in Massa-
chusetts brought to the political surface abso-
lutely nothing but driftwood and scum. A way
was at last thus opened for Mr. Adams. But
in the district the native American element was
still strong, and almost as set in its hostility to
Mr. Adams as were the Irish ; so his nomination
was effected not without trouble. Indeed, he
owed it largely to the unseen, personal inter-
vention of Mr. Sumner, and to the generous
withdrawal in his favor of George R. Russell,
the natural candidate of those of Whig antece-
dents, in that district a large element. When,
however, the day of the convention came, Mr.
Adams was nominated on the first ballot by a
decisive preponderance ; and, in common with
the rest of the Republican ticket, he was re-
turned at the November election by a clear
majority of nearly 1200 over two opposing can-
didates. He was thus at last fairly launched
into national public life.
The Thirty-sixth Congress, the only one
in which Mr. Adams ever sat, assembled on
Monday, December 5, 1859. The Republican
106 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
party at that time was at a great disadvantage
socially in Washington. It had no foothold in
the executive departments, and few officers of
the army and navy were in sympathy with it.
The ordinary run of office-holders regarded it with
traditional aversion, and an apprehension ever
increasing. ‘The whole social atmosphere of the
capital was in fact surcharged with pro-slavery
sentiment. Among the prominent Republicans
in Congress, Governor Seward almost alone
dwelt in a house of his own, or made any
pretense of hospitality. Mr. Sumner lived in a
bachelor apartment of modest proportions and
severe simplicity, taking his dinner at a restau-
rant, when not the guest of some member of the
diplomatic corps. Mostof the Republican mem-
bers of Congress lived at the wretched hotels,
or still less inviting boarding-houses, then char-
acteristic of Washington; and they and their
wives, when the latter were there, haunted cor-
ridors and public parlors. Sensible of the ob-
ligation which in this respect was upon him,
Mr. Adams had engaged a large house, as houses
in Washington then went, and prepared to
make of it a Republican social centre, so far as
such a centre was possible under existing con-
ditions.
The session of 1859-60, as usual with sessions
next preceding a national election, was almost
THE ANTE-BELLUM CONGRESS 107
wholly given up to president-making. The
Buchanan administration was already moribund.
All the high hopes and sanguine expectations
with which that “ old public functionary,” as he
described himself, had entered upon his high office
had, one by one, been disappointed, and utter
failure now stared him in the face; though, in
that respect, no imaginings could for him have
equaled the realities which the immediate future
had in store. The Democratic party was rent
in twain over the slavery issue; while, for Mr.
Douglas, his great panacea of popular sover-
eignty had proved in the result a veritable boom-
erang. In spite of his victory over Abraham
Lincoln in the election which followed the mem-
orable Illinois senatorial debate of 1858, Stephen
A. Douglas was now hardly less out of favor
with the Southern leaders than were the more
moderate Republicans. None the less, he was
still the favorite presidential possibility of the
Democracy of the North ; while the South looked
about anxiously, but in vain, for somebody on
whom they could unite as “ available,” in oppo-
sition to him. Every possible combination was
considered. On the Republican side, John C.
Fremont had long dropped out of considera-
tion. It was instinctively recognized, and tacitly
conceded, that he did not possess the stamina
required ; and men already began to feel a degree
108 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
of mortification and a certain sense of shame-
facedness as they called to mind the way in
which they had been stampeded into his nom-
ination four years before. The recollection was
the reverse of inspiring. Had Governor Seward
then been nominated in Fremont’s place, — as
he always after felt he should have been, — his
position as the recognized leader of the Repub-
lican party would have been thereby established,
and a renomination in 1860 would have followed
as a matter of course. As it was, he had since,
by force of ability and incisive utterance, risen to
be the most prominent member of the party in
Congress and before the country; but in the
former he did not attain the position which
Henry Clay had held so long among the Whigs.
He lacked certain of the personal elements essen-
tial to American political leadership. Still, so
far as the impending nomination was concerned,
he was distinctly in the lead, with Salmon P.
Chase as a not very formidable second. Abra-
ham Lincoln was as yet hardly considered seri-
ously. The Whigs were a mere rump; the
Know-Nothing party had disappeared.
The House of Representatives of the Thirty-
sixth Congress was a wholly impotent body, in
that it was hopelessly divided. Of its 237 mem-
bers, 109 were classed as Republicans, 88 as
Administration Democrats, 18 as Free State
THE ANTE-BELLUM CONGRESS 109
Democrats, and 27 as “ Native Americans,” all
but four of the last named being from former
Whig districts of the South. A contest, and a
long and bitter contest, over the choice of a
speaker was inevitable from the outset; and
the situation, mixed and bad at best, was fur-
ther complicated by the extreme agitation into
which the whole South had been thrown by the
John Brown raid at Harper’s Ferry in the
previous October. Never had a Congress assem-
bled containing so many elements of such dan-
gerous discord. As subsequent events showed,
it was rather an unmanageable mob insensibly
premonitory of conflict, than a parliamentary
body. Above all, the arrogance and anger
of the Southern contingent scarcely brooking
constraint, the manners of the plantation over-
seer were constantly in evidence, as also an
eagerness for the fray. Among the more pro-
minent members on the Republican side were
Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania, who, having
already served two terms in the House between
1848 and 1853, now again returned to it to re-
main in continuous service until his death in
1868; John Sherman, of Ohio, then commen-
cing his third term, and shortly to be transferred
to the Senate ; Roscoe Conkling, of New York,
aman of only thirty and just entering on his
brilliant congressional career; the three fa-
110 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
mous brothers Washburn, Israel, from Maine,
Elihu B., from Illinois, and Cadwallader C.,
from Wisconsin; and to these might be added
Owen Lovejoy, a brother of the “ martyr of Al-
ton,”’ Galusha A. Grow, of Illinois, and Lot M.
Morrill, of Vermont. Besides L. Q. C. Lamar,
of Alabama, Roger A. Pryor, of Virginia, and
Laurence M. Keitt, of South Carolina, infamous
as the coadjutor of Brooks, the list of those
serving on the other side of that House bristles
with names of men who subsequently died in
the Confederate service. Vallandigham, of Ohio,
afterwards notorious as a ‘‘ copperhead,” was also
a member.
The contest over the speakership began on
December 5th, the opening day of the session,
and came to a close on February 1st; when, on
the forty-fourth ballot, William Pennington of
New Jersey, then serving his first and only
term in Congress, was chosen. John Sherman
was the candidate of the Republicans from the
second ballot to the thirty-ninth, when he with-
drew his name to save his party from clearly
impending defeat. The contest was within
three days as long as the similar struggle of
four years previous, which had resulted in the
election of Banks; but here the resemblance
stopped. There was in it, as compared with
the other, a significant increase of bitterness ;
THE ANTE-BELLUM CONGRESS 111
on both sides an exasperation as of men who
could with difficulty be restrained from laying
violent hands on each other. Thus, while good-
humor and courtesy had marked the contest of
1856, that of 1860 was noticeable for its acri-
mony and spirit of fierce defiance.
The House was thus organized. When, how-
ever, it came to the assignment of committee
positions, Mr. Adams, so far as influence in the
House was concerned, was, as he at the time
well understood and, later on, more and more
appreciated, courteously, and in a dignified,
considerate sort of way, shelved. Failing to
bear in mind an injunction earnestly imposed
upon him by Mr. Giddings at a meeting in Bos-
ton in December, 1858, “not to permit any
delicacy or scruples to stand in the way,” it
never occurred to Mr. Adams to bring to bear
on the new and inexperienced occupant of the
speaker’s chair any pressure to secure recogni-
tion for himself. Indeed, he would not have
known how to set about such a business. Ac-
cordingly, acting under almost unendurable
pressure from every other quarter, Mr. Penning-
ton lent a ready ear to the ingenious suggestion
conveyed to him by a not disinterested Massa-
chusetts colleague, that Mr. Adams should be
appointed to the same committee positions which
had been assigned to his father when, nearly
112 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
thirty years before, the latter first entered the
House of Representatives as an ex-President.
The scheme was effective, and Mr. Adams was
thus promoted out of his colleague’s way. ‘The
committee on manufactures, of which his name
appeared as chairman was, under the rules for
the disposition of business then and since in
vogue, a mere name. It had not even a room
assigned to it; nor had it been called together
within the memory of any member of that Con-
gress. To be announced as its head was equiy-
alent to what is commonly known as “ honora-
ble mention.”” Nevertheless, for a new member
of Mr. Adams’s peculiar temperament and very
retiring disposition, this practical shelving had
its advantages in affording him time in which
to become familiar with his new surroundings.
His subsequent prominence came naturally and
in due order of events, and under a positive
call; he was not prematurely thrust into notice.
In this, his maiden session, except in answer
to the call of the clerk, Mr. Adams’s voice was
heard but once in the House. He would much
have preferred to maintain an unbroken silence ;
but a presidential election was impending, and
set speeches were in order. These speeches, of
the abstract, educational kind, while addressed
to the House, were meant for the constituencies.
Some of Mr. Adams’s friends at home insisted
THE ANTE-BELLUM CONGRESS 113
that he must make himself heard; and, in re-
sponse to their urgency, he spoke. His speech
was thoroughly characteristic. In no way sen-
sational or vituperative,— its calm, firm tone,
excellent temper, and well-ordered reasoning
naturally commended it to an audience satiated
by months of turgid rhetoric and personal abuse.
This his Southern colleagues appreciated ; for,
conscious what sinners they were in those re-
spects, they the more keenly felt in others mod-
eration of language and restraint in bearing.
A few days later one of the most extreme among
them, Mr. Cobb, of Alabama, went out of his
way to refer to Mr. Adams as “ the only mem-
ber never out of order ;” and the person thus
curiously singled out noted, “ there is something
singular in the civility formally paid me on the
other side of the house. I have never courted
one of them; but I have insulted no one.” It
was to these men—the members from the
South, and more especially to those from Vir-
ginia —that Mr. Adams now addressed himself,
setting forth the cause of being — the raison
d'etre —of the Republican party in a natural
resistance to the requirements and claims of a
property interest, which, alone of all interests,
was directly represented on the floor of the
House by a solid phalanx of its members. Then
passing on to an appeal from the modern inter-
114 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
pretation of the Declaration and Constitution to
the understanding of the framers, he closed with
a distinct statement of the constitutional limita-
tions as respects slavery recognized and accepted
by the Republican party, and his own belief in
the utter futility and foreordained failure of
any attempt on the Union.
The Republican National Convention met at
Chicago, on May 16th. Mr. Adams was an
earnest, though quiet, advocate of the nomina-
tion of Governor Seward. Seward was the
leader of the Republican party ; more, far more,
than any other one man, he had formulated its
principles and voiced its feelings. He was en-
titled now to be its standard-bearer. Suddenly,
at the moment when that result of the conven-
tion’s action was most confidently anticipated, a
rumor spread through the House of Represen-
tatives, then engaged on a contested election
case, that the prize had fallen to Mr. Lincoln.
Mr. Adams the next morning thus commented
on this momentous selection : “ [The report ] was
received with general incredulity, until by re-
peated announcements from different quarters
it appeared that he had carried the day by a
union of all the anti-Seward elements. The
effect upon me was to depress; for, though no
partisan of Governor Seward, I did feel as if he
was the man to whom the party owed the nomi-
THE ANTE-BELLUM CONGRESS 115
nation. But I could not fail to perceive in the
faces of many of our friends the signs of a very
opposite conviction. In truth, the western -sec-
tion and the middle States are exceedingly
timid, and desire as far as possible to escape so
direct an issue on the slave question as the nom-
ination of Mr. Seward would have made. Mr.
Lincoln is by no means of so decided a type;
and yet he is in many respects a fair representa-
tive. I believe him honest and tolerably capa-
ble ; but he has no experience and no business
habits.” |
Mr. Adams was no stump speaker or cam-
paign orator. It was not in him to “ move the
masses ;”’ but, in the long and exciting can-
vass which now ensued, he took a somewhat
active part, accompanying Governor Seward in
his memorable electioneering journey through
the States of the Northwest, going as far as
St. Paul. Renominated to Congress without
opposition, he was elected by a majority of
some 8000 votes. This was on November 6th;
upon which day ended the canvass most preg-
nant of consequences of all the country has ever
witnessed, before or since. On November 10th
Mr. Adams closed the old mansion at Quincy,
and moved with his family to his house in Bos-
ton, there to remain for the few weeks yet to
intervene before his departure for Washington.
116 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
The effort of fourteen years had been crowned
with success. The anti-slavery movement, at last
proving irresistible, was about to take possession
of the government. The final evening he was
destined to pass in Quincy for more than seven
years was marked by a celebration of the great
political victory just won, and was marred by
no premonition of the trials to come. The cur-
tain fell amid rejoicings, illuminations, the blaz-
ing of rockets and the shoutings of victory ;
shortly it was to rise again to the sound of
alarm-bells struck in the night. For the mo-
ment, however, satisfaction over the past was
as unalloyed as the anticipation of the future
was confident.
CHAPTER VIII
THE AWAKENING
RETROSPECT is the one infallible test of po-
litical, as of private conduct, in times of emer-
gency. To its cold and altogether unsympa-
thetic scrutiny, the statesman’s policy and the
methods of the tradesman are in the close
equally subjected. Having, too, the last word,
from its verdict there is no escape. Accord-
ingly, it is apt to go hard before posterity with
a public character when his biographer feels
himself under the necessity of defense or ex-
planation. Fortunately nothing of the sort is
necessary for Mr. Adams in connection with the
course of events subsequent to the election of
1860, and leading up to the catastrophe of
April 13, 1861.
Not that Mr. Adams ever subsequently per-
suaded himself, as did so many others, both in
and out of public life, that, during the winter
which preceded the outbreak of the civil war,
he had foreseen the whole terrible outcome, an-
ticipating just what occurred. On the contrary,
/claiming no prescience in that regard, when
118 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
the struggle came he frankly confessed himself
astonished and horrified. His forecast had for
years been all wrong. He had assured the
country that the South was not in earnest, that
its threats were mere braggadocio, that its in-
terests and its safety combined to keep it in the
Union. Now he had slowly to wake up to his
error, and address himself to a new and unan-
ticipated situation. He did so, step by step
feeling his way; but, afterwards, had his fore-
sight during the winter of 1860-61 been as per-
fect as his retrospect became, he would in no
essential respect have done otherwise than he
did.
So far as the loyal people of the United
States were concerned, the course of political
events from the election of Lincoln to the bom-
bardment of Fort Sumter — from November 6,
1860, to April 18, 1861 — afforded a curious
exemplification of what can only be described
as national good luck; for, absolutely without
intelligent human guidance, those events de-
veloped themselves in a way which, under the
peculiar conditions then existing, hardly ad-
mitted of improvement. This, of course, was
not apparent at the time. On the contrary, as
the ship of state slowly and irresistibly drifted
into the breakers, the ery for guidance —for a
hand at the helm — was only less loud than the
THE AWAKENING 119
wail of despair over its manifest absence ; this,
however, did not alter the fact that, the catas-
trophe being inevitable, it came about, though
in a way purely fortuitous, at the right time, in
the best place that could have been selected,
and, so far as the elements of the country loyal
to nationality were concerned, in the most de-
sirable form.
The facts, not open to dispute, need to be
briefly recalled. “On November 6, 1860, when
a large plurality of those voting chose Lin-
coln as President, they, like Mr. Adams, never
believed that secession would ensue. When
they were speedily undeceived on this head, the
situation in which the country found itself could
hardly have been worse. Four months were to
elapse before the change of administration was
to take place. The interim was full of danger.
It was a veritable interregnum, during which
the government might well be wrecked. The
administration was indeed in the hands of the
wreckers; while the President, wholly out of
sympathy with the man chosen to be his suc-
cessor, and in no way in communication with
him, was almost, if not altogether, pitiable in
his timorous vacillation. A better opportunity
to complete their work, conspirators could not
have desired. It so chanced, however, that,
South as well as North, public sentiment was
120 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
divided. The cotton States, so-called, — South
Carolina and those contiguous to the Gulf of
Mexico, — unanimous within themselves, were
for all practical purposes also united in a com-
mon line of action; but in all the more North-
ern, or, as they were now called, border slave
States, there was a strong Union sentiment — a
reluctance to being swept headlong into the
uncertainties which secession would unquestion-
ably entail. Virginia and Maryland, during
the interregnum, held the key of the situation.
This fact is fundamental to any correct un-
derstanding of the situation. Had those two
border slave States then promptly followed
the lead given by the cotton States, their ac-
tion would unquestionably, with Buchanan at
the head of the national government, have been
decisive of the result. The conspirators, seizing
the national capital before the change of admin-
istration was effected, would have overturned
the government. Fortunately, the traditions of
Virginia and the material interests of Maryland
were not readily overcome; and, actuated by
the spirit of conservatism, a strong party in
favor of delay at least, if not of the Union, de-
veloped itself in each of those pivotal States. It
was manifestly of vital importance to the loyal
North to keep alive and encourage this visibly
languishing Union sentiment, if only as an ob-
THE AWAKENING 121
stacle which the Southern extremists would have
to overcome, thus making of it a factor of de-
lay, consuming an interval of time fraught with
danger. Not until March 4th would the ma-
chinery of state —the War Department and the
Navy Department — be transferred ; and, for the
North, it was a matter, as is now apparent, of
simply vital importance that the catastrophe —
if a catastrophe was inevitable— should be de-
ferred until after that date. Throughout that
trying winter, therefore, the eyes of all think-
ing, cool and clear-headed men were steadily
fixed upon the ides of March.
On the other hand, it was plainly the interest
of the conspirators to precipitate a conflict. By
so doing they might not impossibly secure the
national capital, thus becoming, when the change
of administration necessarily took place, the
de facto government. So far as foreign nations
were concerned, this would have been con-
clusive. The hesitating attitude of the border
slave States, especially of Virginia, was the ob-
stacle in the way. Those States were, however,
in that unstable psychological condition which
made it very necessary to deal carefully with
them. To bring on a conflict was easy; but by
unduly precipitating such a conflict, the border
States might not impossibly be shocked and re-
pelled rather than attracted. The Southern
122 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
extremists, therefore, instinctively recognized
the fact that it would not be safe yet to put
themselves manifestly in the wrong through any
act of aggression, at once overt and wanton.
For that, conditions were not ripe. Premature
action on their part, while consolidating the
North, might divide the South. Accordingly,
unless the entire Southern heart should by good
luck be fired by some premature attempt of
the national government at the “coercion of a
State,” the conspirators had perforce to wait.
Meanwhile, the free States were in a condi-
tion of moral chaos. The old union-saving,
compromising sentiment was there both strong
and outspoken. It had to be cautiously dealt
with. The Republican party was thus under
heavy bonds to keep in the right. It must
show itself reasonable, conciliatory, and law-
abiding ; it must hold out the olive-branch con-
spicuously ; avoiding anything like provocation,
it must await attack. Only by so doing could
it, when the moment came, rally public senti-
ment to its support. So far as the North was
concerned, the day for diatribes and denuncia-
tion, for philippics and incrimination, was,
therefore, over. Though there were those, and
not a few, who seemed unable to realize this fact
then, it is obvious now.
Under these difficult conditions, the loyal ele-
THE AWAKENING 123
ment labored under great disadvantage in the
important matter of leadership. The Southern
conspirators, knowing exactly what they were
driving at, had, immediately after the election,
gone effectively to work to secure it. They en-
joyed perfect means of information; for they
were actually represented in Congress, as well as
in the executive departments. ‘They were united
as one man. Every point in the game was thus
in their favor; they apparently stood to win.
Not so the incoming party of loyalty and free-
dom. Divided by jealousies, distracted in coun-
cil, those of the North knew absolutely nothing
of that man whom the voice of a political con-
vention, little above a mob, had selected to be
their leader; and he, an untried executive, far
away from the centre of action in “ his secluded
abode in the heart of Lllinois,” made no sign.
All eyes were turned thither, all ears were in-
tent ; but during all the fateful days from early
November to late February, nothing was there
seen and little thence heard. Yet, as in the
end it turned out, even this absence of lead in
the time of crisis —so deplored at the time,
and which on any received doctrine of chances
should have been fatal— proved opportune.
The country drifted more fortunately for itself
than it would probably have been directed even
by the most sagacious of politicians. For the
124 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
moral conditions time in which to mature was
absolutely essential. A community fairly agon-
ized with fear was being slowly educated to the
fighting pitch. The process was one, not of
days, nor yet of weeks, but of months.
A succession of events then occurred, — all
fortuitous, and yet all as they should have been.
On December 26th, acting within his orders but
on his own responsibility, Major Robert Ander-
son, in command of the United States forces in
Charleston harbor, transferred his skeleton gar-
rison from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter. A
catastrophe, then imminent, but for the North
altogether premature, was thus deferred; and
the eyes of the whole country were thereafter
fixed, and its thoughts concentrated, on a single
point of danger. An attack on the flag flying
on an island in Charleston harbor became from
that moment an assault on the Union. Chance
thus selected the point of collision, and selected
it most advantageously for the North ; for while
South Carolina, laboring under a record of nearly
forty years, was in the South looked upon with
apprehension, in the North, deemed a firebrand,
‘she had no friend. Memories of nullification,
of assaults in the senate chamber and of coun-
sels always extreme, there arose uncalled at the
mere mention of her name. Human foresight
thus could not have better designated the point
of danger.
THE AWAKENING 125
A few days later, on January 9th, the attempt
to reinforce Anderson with men and supplies by
the steamer Star of the West failed, the re-
lieving steamer being fired into and driven back
to New York by the guns of South Carolina;
while, most fortunately, and almost as matter of
chance, those of Sumter did not reply. The act
of aggression was thus on the part of the con-
spirators ; and yet no catastrophe was precipi-
tated. It would then have been premature —
to the Union probably fatal; for March 4th
was still nearly two months in the future.
Again, in the early days of February, when
the tension was fast becoming too severe to last,
Virginia held an election for delegates to a con-
vention to decide on the course to be pursued ;
and a decisive majority of those chosen were
found to be opposed to immediate secession.
Most fortunately Henry A. Wise was no longer
governor of that State. Had his tenure of the
office continued, it is impossible to say what
might or might not have been attempted. John
Letcher, a Virginian of the states-rights school
but not a secessionist, had succeeded Wise in
1859, and, though a few months later on he acted
with decision in favor of the Confederacy when
the Virginia convention at last passed its ordi-
nance of secession, he now for the time being
maintained a conservative attitude. The Vir-
126 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
ginia election, resulting as it did at just this june-
ture, was, therefore, a piece of supreme good
fortune. It checked the rapid course of events.
As Mr. Seward, with a deep sigh of relief, wrote
on hearing of it: “ The danger of conflict before
March 4th has been averted. Time has been
gained.” Time at that juncture was precious.
Then came the futile Washington Peace Con-
ference, called at the request of Virginia. More
discussion and new suggestions of accommoda-
tion followed; and, though nothing came of
them in the end, they were most useful, for they
consumed the few days still remaining before
the fateful ides. And all this time the ship of
state, under influences quite irresistible, steadily
drifted on a rocky lee shore. There was no
hand at the helm; but nothing untoward oc-
curred, no reef was struck.
On March 4th, the transfer of the govern-
ment was effected quietly and safely. A hand
was now at the helm, and something positive in
the way of direction was looked for. Luckily
for the country, Mr. Lincoln’s lack of famil-
larity with the situation, the very habit of his
mind and the fact that he was more intent on
the distribution of offices than on the gravity of
the crisis, then also stood the country in good
stead. The immediate question related to the
course to be pursued in respect to Fort Sumter.
THE AWAKENING 127
Something had to be decided. Should the gar-
rison be withdrawn ?—or should the govern-
ment, in the attempt to relieve it, provoke a
collision? And here, whichever course was de-
cided on, serious doubts suggested themselves,
grave danger was incurred. If the garrison
had been, as Secretary Seward then advocated,
quietly withdrawn, the country would have been
humiliated and a great opportunity lost. Its
self-respect gone, it would have sacrificed its
prestige in the eyes of foreign powers. The
result might well have proved disastrous; for,
itself practically recognizing the Confederacy, it
would have invited its recognition by others.
On the other hand, if South Carolina were at-
tacked, and the garrison at Sumter relieved by
a successful naval operation, it would have been
an overt act of aggression precipitating the
South into a war of defense. Upon that issue
the slave States would have been a unit, while
the free States might have been divided. Had
the Confederate leaders been wise and far-see-
ing, they would in this way have provoked the
now inevitable conflict, compelling the national
government either to humiliate itself or to strike
the first blow, they then replying strictly in self-
defense. Again luck, for it was nothing else,
served the United States better than the counsels
of its statesmen. Taking the bit in their teeth,
128 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
the hot-heads of South Carolina precipitated the
issue. Blunderers—aggressors in civil strife,
the disciples of Calhoun caused the Confederate
batteries to open fire on the flag of the Union.
The rest followed. From that moment the loyal
North was a unit. All the conditions were ripe,
the educational process was complete, and the
psychological crisis followed.
Such was the course of events. That Mr.
Adams did not at the time fully appreciate the
gravity of the situation, or the irresistible force
of the influences at work, or the earnestness and
strength of his opponents, has already been said.
He never did appreciate them. Referring to the
secession movement of 1861, he twelve years
later expressed the astonishing belief that “ one
single hour of the will displayed by General
Jackson ”’ in 1833 “‘ would have stifled the fire
in its cradle.” A similar opinion was expressed
by Charles Sumner in 18638,! and by the bio-
graphers of Lincoln seventeen years later. That
a decided lead and vigorous action on the part
of the federal executive would, in December,
1860, or January, 1861, have united the North
earlier, and have in this way greatly influenced
subsequent results, is hardly questionable; but,
in view of the temper and self-confidence then
there prevailing, that the attempt to “coerce a
1 Works, vii. 518. 2 Nicolay and Hay, iii. 123.
THE AWAKENING 129
State ” in January, 1861, would have cowed the
South into submission, and so prevented the four
years of desperate conflict which ensued, is al-
together improbable; nor would it have been
desirable. The thing had been brooding too
long and gone too far to escape a copious blood-
letting. At some time, a little sooner or later,
nationality had once for all to be established.
Nevertheless, mistaken as he was as to the con-
ditions under which he was called upon to act,
and their inevitable outcome, — still holding the
irremediable to be not beyond remedy, — Mr.
Adams, in December, 1860, considered care-
fully his course. Though dictated by instincts
of high statesmanship, that course was at the
time distinctly opportunist, — a course in which,
amid changing circumstances, but always in
presence of a great danger, he felt his way from
day to day. None the less, whether viewed from
the standpoint of the moralist and Christian, or
that of the statesman, or that of the astute
player in the game of politics, the line of action
Mr. Adams then followed was completely justi-
fied by results.
In the first place, he recognized the fact that
in their hour of victory a change of tone and
bearing on the part of the victors was wise as
well as becoming. Invective and threat were
now to be replaced by firmness, moderation,
130 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
conciliation ; fears were to be allayed; confi-
dence established. Assurance was to be given
that the ascendency gained would not be abused.
This was something which a large portion of
those associated with him, of whom Mr. Sum-
ner was a type, could not understand. That
a man should in the hour of triumph demean
himself towards his opponents otherwise than
as he had demeaned himself in the heat of con-
flict seemed to pass their comprehension. To
their eyes moderation always savored of weak-
ness. In the next place, whichever way he
looked at the actual situation, the course to be
pursued seemed to Mr. Adams plain. If he
looked at it from the standpoint of high moral
responsibility, — as a Christian, —it was incum-
bent on him to do all in his power to do, short
of the concession of some vital point at issue, to
avert civil strife. He would yield nothing really
essential; but so far as non-essentials and points
of pride were concerned, he would make smooth
the way. The soundness of this view cannot
well be controverted. Taking next the lower
plane of the statesman, his eye was riveted on
the transfer of the government from the hands
of those who then held it to its friends; as he
twelve years later said, it was manifest that
something had to be done “to keep control of
the capital, and bridge over the interval before
THE AWAKENING 131
the 4th of March in peace and quiet.” To this
end it was not sufficient to guard carefully
against any premature catastrophe, the result of
some governmental action, not the less ill ad-
vised because well meant; but such a catastro-
phe, if cunningly contrived by the enemies of the
governinent, must, if possible, be averted. Mr.
Adams, therefore, advocated the appointment of
committees and the summoning of conferences,
—the presentation and discussion of schemes, —
anything, in fact, which would consume time and
preserve the peace, until the interregnum should
end. Finally, as an astute politician, he labored
to divide his enemies and concentrate the friends
of the government by the plausibility and fair-
ness of his proposals. He hoped to the last to
hold the border States, fully believing that, if
an armed conflict could by judicious caution be
averted, the Gulf States would, when the time
for sober second thought came, find their posi-
tion untenable, and so be forced ignominiously
back into the Union. In this belief he was over
sanguine, failing to recognize the deadly inten-
sity of the situation. Nevertheless, in the stage
of that tremendous game then developing, it was
a point worth playing for. Its loss would not
jeopardize the stakes.
This, however, was remote. The 4th of March,
-—the possession of the seat of government when
132 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
the change of administration should take place,
—this was the first point in the game, the se-
curing which was essential to the result. All
through that long, anxious winter, it was never
absent from the mind of Mr. Adams. He now
also rose, at once and as if by common consent,
into great congressional prominence. Almost
the first legislative act of the session was to pro-
vide for a large Special Committee of Thirty-
three, one from each State in the Union, to
frame, if anyhow possible so to do, some mea-
sure, or measures, to extricate the country from
the danger into which it was manifestly drift-
ing. Mr. Corwin, of Ohio, was chairman of this
committee, and upon it Mr. Adams represented
Massachusetts. The fate of the measures of
conciliation and adjustment, which Mr. Adams
drew up and submitted in this committee, subse-
quently constituting the basis of its report, well
illustrated how, to the very last moment, he was
intent on the change to be effected on Inaugu-
ration Day. These measures were before the
House of Representatives, causing discussion
and consuming time to the close of the session ;
they were then at last disposed of in some par-
liamentary way which made them no longer
effective. Walking home that day from the
Capitol with a member of his family after the
adjournment of the House, his companion ex-
THE AWAKENING 133
pressed to Mr. Adams regret at the disposition
thus made of his measures. The reply, con-
veyed with unmistakable cheerfulness of tone,
was, on the contrary, expressive of profound
satisfaction that they were thus well out of the
way, having done the work for which they were
designed. Matters for discussion, they had ocecu-
pied time which might otherwise have been dan-
gerously employed. But the expediency of using
every device to bridge over the interregnum did
not admit of public expression, and in the North
the purpose of Mr. Adams was only in part un-
derstood. The support he received was em-
phatic and general; but underneath there was a
current of dissatisfaction and distrust.
This, however, anticipates the narrative.
Throughout December Mr. Adams had, in the
Committee of Thirty-three, been constantly
manceuvring for position, and to gain time.) It
was yet many weeks before Lincoln would be
inaugurated. On December 8th, Howell Cobb,
1 Reuben Davis, of Mississippi, a member of the Committee
of Thirty-three and an influential ‘ fire-eater,” at the time
pronounced that committee “a tub thrown out to the whale,
to amuse only, until the 4th of March next, and thus arrest
the present noble and manly movements of the Southern
States to provide by that day for their security and safety out
of the Union. With these views I take my place on the com-
mittee, for the purpose of preventing it being made a means of
deception by which the public mind is to be misled and mis-
guided.’’ Globe, December 11, 1860, p. 59.
134 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
of Georgia, had resigned the portfolio of the
Treasury to throw in his lot with the seceders ;
and on the 15th, in anger, disgust, and despair,
his secretary of state, General Cass, had aban-
doned President Buchanan. On the evening of
| the 26th Major Anderson had transferred his
command from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter.
Up to this time, coolly watching his opponents
in the Committee of Thirty-three, the effort
of Mr. Adams had been directed towards mak-
ing them show their whole hand. With extrem-
ists at both ends, — Sumner and Chandler on
the one side, and Davis and Chestnut on the
other, — the North and the South were equally
divided, the advocates of compromise in the free
States vainly struggling against the influence of
the “ Black Republicans,” as they were desig-
nated, and the Unionists in the slave States
against that of the “ fire-eaters.” Mr. Adams
instinctively sought to show to the North that
compromise was out of the question by forcing
the representatives of the South from one posi-
tion to another, until their final demands were
shown to be impossible of concession ; and, while
by so doing he united the North, the conciliatory
tone adopted would tend temporarily to para-
lyze the South, if not permanently to divide it.
The border States were in dispute.
His diary, and still more his letters written at
THE AWAKENING 135
the time, show the skill, temper, and clearness of
head with which Mr. Adams played the hand
assigned to him in this delicate game. The real
object of the secession movement, the end to
which his opponents were working, was not so
plain in the winter of 1860-61 as it has since be-
come; for what the leaders of the Confederacy
then secretly had in view, they in public care-
fully disavowed. It is now well understood that |
what they planned was the ultimate establish-
ment of a great semi-tropical republic, founded
on African servitude, which, including all, or
nearly all, the slave-holding States of the old
Union, should find ample field for almost unlim-
ited expansion in Mexico, Central America, and
the West Indies. The reopening of the slave
trade, as an inexhaustible source for the supply
of cheap labor, was a recognized feature of the
scheme, for obvious reasons sedulously disavowed
until a more opportune oceasion.!
As a whole, and in the more or less remote
future, the project was large and essentially ag-
gressive ; at the commencement it professed to
1 This subject has been well discussed by both Rhodes and
von Holst (Rhodes, ii. 34, 241, 367-373; iii. 119-124, 294,
822 ; von Holst, v. 18-16, 30, 477-490; vi. 336 ; vii. 263, 264) ;
and of the main features of the project, as it rested, more or
less clearly defined, in the minds of the leaders of the Confed-
eracy, there can be no question. See, also, Nicolay and Hay,
iii. 177.
136 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
be modest and strictly defensive. Those ma-
turing it even assumed an attitude of injured
innocence, and seem at times almost to have
persuaded. themselves, as well as tried to per-
suade the world, of the wrongs which they
loudly averred. These were principally three
in number. First, and that most harped upon,
was the exclusion of slaves, as property, from
the territories, the common possession of the
Union, not yet organized into States. Next,
the alleged fear of the anti-slavery sentiment as
an aggressive force, in time disregarding con-
stitutional barriers and interfering with a strong
hand in the domestic institutions of the South.
And, finally, the Personal Liberty Acts passed
by legislatures of many of the free States,
practically nullifying in those States the consti-
tutional provision looking to the rendition of
fugitives from labor. Such were the capital
grievances of the South specifically alleged ;
but, in reality, a mere cover to the greater, un-
avowed, and as yet carefully disavowed, scheme
of southern empire and the slave trade. The
effort of Mr. Adams was to remove the mask,
and disclose to the free States, and yet more to
the hesitating border States, the reality be-
‘neath. To this end, he framed the proposi-
tions advanced by him in the Committee of
Thirty-three: (1.) So far as the common ter-
THE AWAKENING 137
ritory was concerned, rather than quarrel, let
us, he said, dispose of the matter finally by ad-
mitting the region in dispute into the Union as
a State, with or without slavery as its constitu-
tion when framed shall provide. (2.) As to
the Personal Liberty bills, the Fugitive Slave |
Law can be modified in its repulsive and uncon-
stitutional features, and those laws shall then be
repealed. (8.) Finally, the Republican party
had always carefully disavowed in every declara-
tion of principles all right, or any intent, to in-
terfere with slavery as a state institution ; and
so far as that cause of apprehension was con-
cerned, as a pledge of its good faith in making
its declarations, the Republican party would
agree to any reasonable additional constitutional
guarantee that might be asked for.
Confronted with these proposals, advanced in
perfect temper and apparent good faith, the
representatives of the slave States were in a
dilemma. If they accepted them, all cause of
complaint was removed, and secession became
mere wanton revolution. If they rejected them,
it must be because other and unavowed ends
were aimed at. If so, what were those ends?
The Southern extremists of the Gulf States,
the men of the Reuben Davis type, knew well
enough, and seceded without further discussion.
The representatives of the border States were
138 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
less precipitate, and, in presence of their con-
stituents, more embarrassed. They, in their
turn, were well aware that, in presence of the
aroused anti-slavery sentiment of the free States,
the Fugitive Slave Law was a dead letter. The
_ modification of the Personal Liberty Acts to
conform to constitutional requirements was, they
felt, an empty concession; but they could not
refuse to accept it. One article of grievance
was thus removed. The alleged fear of inter-
ference with slavery as a state institution was
next disposed of. They could ask no more than
the additional guarantees freely offered. The
second article of grievance was thus removed.
There remained only the territorial question.
That, from conditions of soil and climate, slav-
ery as a system could not find a profitable field
for development in New Mexico, the only terri-
tory open to it then belonging to the United
States, had already been proved by experience.
The concession thus offered, as the representa-
tives of the slave States well knew, was abso-
lutely empty; none the less its acceptance re-
moved the last alleged cause of grievance.
Feeling themselves thus steadily pressed back
in discussion, the attitude of such members of
the committee from the slave States as still re-
mained upon it now underwent a change. The
mask had to fall. The complaint over exclusion
THE AWAKENING 139
from territory already owned ceased to be heard,
and, in place thereof, it was claimed that the
existence of slavery and rights of slaveholders
should be recognized, and in advance affirmed,
in all southward territory thereafter to be ac-
quired. No longer modest and on the defensive,
the aggressive spirit and imperial ambition of
the slaveocracy were avowed. It had been driven
from cover. The only other question, that of
a reopened slave-trade, was not then at issue,
and the wish for it would have been promptly
and emphatically denied. Meanwhile the object
Mr. Adams had in view was attained. Accord-
ingly, the moment his opponents acknowledged
their alleged grievances as mere pretenses, and
disclosed their real purpose, he ceased to urge
on them his measures of adjustment. Before
the free States and before the border States the
issue was made, and was clear. The demand
simply could not be complied with.
Such were the views of the situation at Wash-
ington entertained by Mr. Adams during that
momentous winter, as described in his diary
and letters, as yet unpublished, with that vivid-
ness only possible in records contemporaneous
with events, when hopes and fears fluctuate
daily. As he himself summed it all up in a
letter relating to other matters addressed to
Mr. Sumner’s brother George, dated April 24,
140 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
1861: ‘Our only course in the defenseless con-
dition in which we found ourselves was to gain
_ time, and bridge over the chasm made by Mr.
Buchanan’s weakness.” That this was the one
practical course for a statesman to pursue, un-
der the circumstances, seems now self-evident ;
that it was the course which would instinctively
suggest itself toa natural diplomat is apparent.
This Mr. Adams was. Looking upon him as
such, his line of action throughout that crisis
becomes explicable, and was right. He played
his hand for time and the occasion ; they came,
and he won.
The single set speech Mr. Adams made in
the course of this session was on January 81st, |
and it completely justified with the general pub-
lic the course he had taken. So far as the
House of Representatives was concerned, it was
unquestionably the speech of the session. Keenly
expected, listened to intently, published and re-
published in the leading papers of the country,
the response it elicited was immediate, emphatic,
and favorable. Mr. Adams had now come to
occupy a position of great prominence; only a
few days earlier Sherrard Clemens of Virginia,
one of the few border-state representatives
really sincere in their loyalty, had earnestly ex-
horted him to declare himself ; and now what he
said was listened to with an almost feverish in-
THE AWAKENING 141
terest. In that speech, far the best and most
finished production of his life, Mr. Adams rose
to the occasion; and few occasions anywhere or
at any time have been greater. Though long
since lost sight of in the mass of utterances of
that time, — a mass so great as not to admit of
measurement except by the cubic foot or pound,
—this speech, when read by the historical inves-
tigator, speaks for itself. While delivering it
Mr. Adams stood near the centre of the great
Hall of Representatives, the galleries of which
were densely packed and breathlessly silent.
When he took the floor there was a general
movement of Southern members from their side
of the chamber towards him, and some of the
most extreme, in their anxiety to hear every
word he uttered, were imperceptibly attracted
until they found themselves occupying the desks
of their Republican opponents. Mr. Everett,
Robert C. Winthrop, and Governor Clifford, of
Massachusetts, all then in Washington, occupied
members’ seats close to the speaker; and, when
he finished, extended to him thanks and con-
gratulations. Indeed, it was a droll and highly
significant reversal of conditions when Robert
C. Winthrop was present and outspoken in com-
mendation, while Charles Sumner was noticeable
for his absence. The next day the correspon-
dents pronounced it “the ablest, most polished,
142 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
and clearly argued speech delivered in House or
Senate the present session;” and the “ Louis-
ville Journal,” when reprinting it in full a week
later, commended it to readers in the border
States, “‘as the most finished and masterly, as
well as the most significant, expression of the
spirit of conciliation that has yet been made on
the Republican side.” That it contributed to
the unification of sentiment at the North was
nowhere more clearly shown than in a declara-
tion of George 8. Hillard, at the Union meeting
held a few days later in Boston. Mr. Hillard,
a devoted personal adherent of Mr. Webster,
then voiced more nearly than any other the
sentiments of the ‘“ Webster Whigs;” and Mr,
Hillard now declared that, in his speech,
; Mr. Adams had yielded all “that an honorable
opponent ought to ask.’ On the other hand,
the division effected in the Southern ranks was
~ shown by the declaration of Mr. Nelson, an in-
fluential member from Tennessee, that “at a
most critical moment” he had been led to take
“an entirely different course of action by a
' timely suggestion made” by Mr. Adams. His
line of dontiies and utterance had thus tended
to unify and educate the supporters of the gov-
ernment, while, dividing its opponents, it held
the border States in suspense.
When it came to forming the Cabinet of the
THE AWAKENING 143
new administration, the name of Mr. Adams
was much discussed. Governor Seward urged
him upon the President elect, through the po-
tent agency of Thurlow Weed; and the Massa-
chusetts delegation united in a formal recom-
mendation of him for the Treasury Department.
Mr. Lincoln, however, had his own ideas as to
who his advisers should be. One portfolio he
had assigned to New England; and, out of con-
sideration to Mr. Hamlin, of Maine, his associate
on the presidential ticket, he left it to that
gentleman to designate the person to whom
the portfolio in question should be confided.
At the same time he advised Mr. Hamlin that
those to whom most consideration had been
given were Mr. Adams, Governor Banks, of
Massachusetts, and Gideon Welles, of Connec-
ticut. For reasons which he stated to Mr.
Lincoln, Mr. Hamlin, though himself of Demo-
eratic antecedents, objected strongly to Gov-
ernor Banks, of the two preferring Mr. Adams.
Finally, with a view to the more even division
of the Cabinet, both Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Ham-
lin agreed that it was advisable that the mem-
ber of it from New England should have come
from the Democratic camp. Fortunately, as it
turned out, for him, this eliminated Mr. Adams,
as Governor Banks had been eliminated before ;
and the choice settled down on Mr. Welles.
144 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
Mr. Lincoln certainly was not predisposed in
favor of Mr. Adams for any position; though
the evidence is clear that he entertained no
particular objection to him. When it came,
however, to the assignment of the other more
prominent posts under his administration, the
President elect, acting on his own volition, had
pitched upon William L. Dayton, of New Jersey,
for the English mission, and John C. Fremont
for that to France; thus providing for the can-
didates made familiar to the country as the
nominees of the Republican party in the elec-
tion of 1856. This arrangement, made without
consultation with Mr. Seward, was, of course,
scarcely courteous to the secretary of state;
and moreover, in the case of one of the two
selected, was obnoxious. William H. Seward
was no admirer of John C. Fremont. The Presi-
dent, however, did not yield the point readily ;
and it was only as the result of persistent effort
that the secretary brought about the transfer of
Mr. Dayton to Paris, and Mr. Adams’s appoint-
ment to St. James. Even then Mr. Lincoln is
alleged to have excused himself for yielding by
the characteristic remark that the secretary of
state had begged very hard for it, and “ really,
Seward had asked for so little!”
Mr. Adams made at the time his own diary
record of the single official interview he was ever
THE AWAKENING 145
destined to have with President Lincoln. His
half-amused, half-mortified, altogether shocked
description of it, given contemporaneously to
members of his family was far more graphic.
He had been summoned to Washington by the
secretary of state to receive his verbal instruc-
tions. The country was in the midst of the most
dangerous crisis in its history ; a crisis in which
the action of foreign governments, especially of
England, might well be decisive of results. The
policy to be pursued was under consideration.
It was a grave topic, worthy of thoughtful con-
sideration. Deeply impressed with the respon-
sibility devolved upon him, Mr. Adams went
with the new secretary to the State Depart-
ment, whence, at the suggestion of the latter,
they presently walked over to the White House,
and were ushered into the room which more than
thirty years before Mr. Adams associated most
closely with his father, and his father’s trained
bearing and methodical habits. Presently a
door opened, and a tall, large-featured, shabbily
dressed man, of uncouth appearance, slouched
into the room. His much-kneed, ill-fitting trou.
sers, coarse stockings, and worn slippers at once
caught the eye. He seemed generally ill at
ease, —in manner, constrained and shy. The
secretary introduced the minister to the Presi-
dent, and the appointee of the last proceeded
146 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
to make the usual conventional remarks, expres-
sive of obligation, and his hope that the con-
fidence implied in the appointment he had re-
ceived might not prove to have been misplaced.
They had all by this time taken chairs; and the
tall man listened in silent abstraction. When
Mr. Adams had finished, — and he did not take
long, — the tall man remarked in an indifferent,
careless way that the appointment in question
had not been his, but was due to the secretary
of state, and that it was to ** Governor Seward ”
rather than to himself that Mr. Adams should
express any sense of obligation he might feel;
then, stretching out his legs before him, he said,
with an air of great relief as he swung his
long arms to his head : —“ Well, governor, I’ve
this morning decided that Chicago post-office
appointment.””’ Mr. Adams and the nation’s
foreign policy were dismissed together! Not
another reference was made to them. Mr. Lin-
coln seemed to think that the occasion called for
nothing further; as to Mr. Adams, it was a
good while before he recovered from his dis-
may ;— he never recovered from his astonish-
ment, nor did the impression then made ever
wholly fade from his mind. Indeed, it was
distinctly apparent in the eulogy on Seward
delivered by him at Albany twelve years after-
wards.
CHAPTER IX
THE PROCLAMATION OF BELLIGERENCY
LEAVING Boston on May Ist, Mr. Adams got
to London late on the evening of the 138th.
Hardly had he reached his hotel, when Joshua
Bates was announced. Though the head of the
great English banking firm of Baring Brothers,
—reputed the first commercial house in the
world, — Mr. Bates was Massachusetts born,
having come from Weymouth, likewise the birth-
place of Mr. Adams’s grandmother, Mrs. John
Adams. Long settled in London, and rising by
pure force of business capacity to the first place
in the Royal Exchange, to Mr. Bates then and
afterwards belonged the honorable distinction of
being, in those dark and trying times, the most
outspoken and loyal American domiciled on
British soil. As such he now came first of all
‘to express his satisfaction in seeing’ the newly
arrived American minister, “‘and his uneasiness
respecting the proceedings of the government.”
“ T confess,’ added Mr. Adams, after mention-
ing the visit of Mr. Bates, “the speech of Lord
John Russell has excited in me no small sur-
148 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
prise.’ The speech referred to was that in
which Lord John Russell, then secretary for
foreign affairs, had announced the purpose of
the government to recognize the Confederacy as
a belligerent, though not as an established and
independent power; and the royal proclamation ,
to that effect met Mr. Adams’s eyes in the
columns of the “ Gazette” of the following day.
Since his nomination, exactly eight weeks before,
events had moved hardly less rapidly in Europe
than at home; though at home they had wit-
nessed the fall of Sumter and the consequent
uprising of the North.
So far as the United States was concerned, —
meaning by the term United States that portion
of the Union which remained loyal, — the Eu-
ropean conditions at that time, bad, very bad,
in appearance, in their reality were still worse.
Well calculated to excite alarm at the moment,
looking back on them now, as they have since
been disclosed, the wonder is over the subsequent
escape. Indeed, it is not going too far to assert
that, between May and November, 1861, the
chances in Europe were as ten to one in favor
of the Confederacy and against the Union. But,
to appreciate the critical nature of the situation
in which Mr. Adams now found himself, its
leading features must be briefly reviewed.
In London, Paris, Madrid, and St. Petersburg,
PROCLAMATION OF BELLIGERENCY 149
and more especially in London and Paris, those
entrusted with the management of the foreign
relations of the several countries were, during
the spring of 1861, following the course of
American events with curious eyes,—eyes of
wonderment. That course was in fact mislead-
ing, if not bewildering, to a degree not easy now
to realize. The uprising of the North took place
in response to the proclamation of President
Lincoln and to his first call for troops, issued
on April 15th, the day following the fall of
Sumter. It was immediate and unmistakable;
but before that response, the outcome of the
secession movement had been to all outward
appearance as uncertain in America as, a month
later, it seemed still to be in Europe. Up to
the very day of the firing on Sumter the attitude
of the Northern States, even in case of hostilities,
was open to grave question; while, on the other
hand, that of the border slave States did not
admit of doubt. General disintegration seemed
imminent; nor was it clear that it would en-
counter any very tormidable cohesive resistance.
Not only were influential voices in the North
earnestly arguing that the “erring sisters”
should be permitted to ‘‘ depart in peace,” but,
even so late as April 1st, the correspondents of
the European press reported men as prominent,
and shortly afterwards as decided, as Charles
150 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
Sumner and Salmon P. Chase — the one a
senator from Massachusetts, the other the
secretary of the treasury —intimating more
than a willingness to allow the “ Southern States
to go out with their slavery, if they so desired
it.’ At the same time the mayor of the city of
New York, in an official message to the munici-
pal legislative department, calmly discussed and
distinctly advocated the expediency of that
municipality also withdrawing itself from both
Union and State, and proclaiming itself a free
port of the Hanse type. Not without ground,
therefore, did the London ‘“ Times” now declare
that, to those ‘who look at things from a dis-
tance, it appears as if not only States were to
be separated from States, but even as if States
themselves were to be broken up, the counties
assuming to themselves the same rights of sover-
elgn power as have been arrogated by the larger
divisions of the country.” All this time the
Southern sympathizers throughout the loyal
States were earnest, outspoken, and defiant;
while Mr. Seward, the member of the Presi-
dent’s Cabinet in charge of foreign affairs, both
in his official papers and his private talk, repu-
diated not only the right but the wish even ‘to
use armed force in subjugating the Southern
States against the will of a majority of the peo-
ple;” and declared that the President “ willingly”
PROCLAMATION OF BELLIGERENCY 151
aecepted as true the “cardinal dogma” of the
seceding States, that “the federal government
could not reduce them to obedience by conquest,”
— the very thing subsequently done. All philo-
sophical disquisitions of this character were a
few days later effectually silenced in a passion-
ate outburst of aroused patriotism; but, none
the less, for the time being they were in vogue,
and, while in vogue, they puzzled and deceived.
European public men could not understand such
utterances; and, not understanding them, put
on them a false construction.
The continental nations in those days got the
little knowledge they had of American affairs at
second-hand, —from English sources; and Eng-
land looked largely to the “ Times.” The legend
of “the Thunderer,” as portrayed by Kinglake
in his history of the Crimean War, still held
sway, and “the Thunderer” had sent out to
America Dr. William H. Russell, the famous
special war correspondent with the army be-
fore Sebastopol, to enlighten Europe as to the
true inwardness of affairs. Dr. Russell landed
in New York in the middle of March, 1861, —
just one month before the great uprising ; and
the feature in the situation which seemed to im-
press him most was the dilettante, insouciant
tone with which in all circles the outcome of the
political situation was discussed. In his own
152 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
words, describing the atmosphere he found in
the foremost social, monetary, and _ political
circles of New York, “there was not the slight-
est evidence of uneasiness on account of cirecum-
stances which, to the eye of a stranger, betokened
an awful crisis, if not the impending dissolution
of society itself.” This was written on March
19th, the day the appointment of Mr. Adams was
announced from Washington ; and a fortnight
later, having then got to that city, Dr. Russell
wrote: ‘“ Practically, so far as I have gone, I
have failed to meet many people who really ex-
hibited any passionate attachment to the Union,
or who pretended to be actuated by any strong
feeling of regard or admiration for the govern-
ment of the United States in itself.” Such
were the views and conclusions of an unpreju-
diced observer, communicated through the me-
dium of the most influential journal in the world
to Europe in general, and, more especially, to
those then comprising Her Majesty’s govern-
ment.
In May, 1861, the so-called Palmerston-Rus-
sell ministry had been in power a little less than
two years, having displaced the preceding con-
servative government, of which Lord Derby was
the head, in June, 1859. So far as the indi-
vidual talents of those composing it were con-
cerned, this ministry was looked upon as the
PROCLAMATION OF BELLIGERENCY 153
strongest ever formed. Lord Palmerston was
Premier, and led the Commons; Lord John
Russell, as he still was, had charge of foreign
affairs; Mr. Gladstone was chancellor of the
exchequer; and Sir George Cornewall Lewis
was secretary for war. The long list of subor-
dinate positions was filled with other names of
mark and weight. When the returns of the
parliamentary election were first complete, the
Liberal party was supposed to be almost hope-
lessly broken up. Afterwards, through an un-
derstanding reached between the two chieftains,
Palmerston and Russell, it had become singu-
larly compact; and, under a strong government,
confronted, with a small but reliable majority, a
vigorous opposition skillfully led by Mr. Disraeli.
In 1861 Lord Palmerston was in his seventy-
seventh year, and Lord John Russell was eight
years his junior; both were among the oldest
and most experienced, and were ranked among
the ablest, of European statesmen. So far as the
complications in America were concerned, the
current supposition was that the sympathies of
Lord John would naturally incline towards the
loyalists as representing the anti-slavery senti-
ment, while Lord Palmerston would almost cer-
tainly array himself more or less openly on the .
side of the slaveholding secessionists. The posi-
tion of France was not understood. In America,
154 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
a vague impression prevailed, based on old Re-
volutionary memories, of a friendly feeling be-
tween the two countries as against Great Britain.
Traditionally they were allies. Accordingly Dr.
Russell noted, so soon as he began to mix in
New York social life and listen to the conversa-
tion at its dinner-tables, that ‘‘it was taken for
eranted that Great Britain would only act on
sordid motives, but that the well-known affec-
tion of France for the United States is to check
the selfishness of her rival, and prevent a speedy
recognition.” This was the loose, uninstructed
talk of the club and street; but in better in-
formed circles it was whispered that the French
minister at Washington was advising his goy-
ernment of the early and inevitable disintegra-
tion of the Union, and suggesting that formal
recognition of the new Confederacy for which a
little later Louis Napoleon intimated readiness.
The Emperor, in fact, was already maturing his
Mexican schemes, and, in connection with them,
covertly making overtures looking to the early
and complete disruption of the United States.
So far as public opinion was concerned, Great
Britain, and more especially England, was in a
curious condition. Sentiment had not erystal-
lized. The governing and aristocratic classes,
especially in London, were at heart in sympathy
with the slaveholding movement, and, regard-
PROCLAMATION OF BELLIGERENCY 155
ing the trans-Atlantic experiment as the pioneer
of a popular movement at home, now hoped and
believed that “ the great Republican bubble in
America had burst.” Of this they made no con-
cealment; but, constrained to an extent by théir
old record and utterances as respects slavery and
its wrongs, —their lionizing of Mrs. Stowe, and
their reflections on the depth of that barbarism
which made possible such brutalities as the as-
sault on Sumner, —reflecting on all this, they
now had recourse to one of those pharisaic, better-
than-thou moods at times characteristic of the
race. People, who in their own belief, as well as
in common acceptance, were the best England
had, vied with each other in expressions of as-
tonishment that such a condition of affairs as that
now day by day disclosed in America could exist,
and, with wearisome, just-what-I-expected itera-
tion, pretended bewilderment over what their kin
across the sea were generally about. Quietly for-
getful of Ireland, English men and women won-
dered why Americans should object to national
suicide, or, as they euphemistically phrased it,
friendly separation. Language quite failed them
in which adequately to express their sense of the
violence, coarseness, and lack of Christian and
brotherly feeling which marked the controversy.
Aristocratic England was in fact in one of its
least pleasing mental and moral phases, — a phase
156 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
in which the unctuous benignity of Chadband
combined with the hypocritical cant of Peck-
sniff. Such was the prevailing social tone.
When, it was declared, “‘ calmer reflection shall
have succeeded to that storm of passion now
sweeping over the North,” the citizens of the
United States would consider as their “ sincerest
friends”’ those who now sought to secure the re-
cognition of the Confederacy ; for such were
moved so to do “not from any hostility towards
them, nor from any advocacy of slavery, but
from love of peace and unrestricted commerce,
from horror of civil war and unrestrained
hatred ;” and so on ad nauseam in that famil-
lar, conventicle strain so dear to the British
Philistine, in which the angry bulldog growl
grates harshly beneath the preacher’s lachry-
mose whine. On the other hand, the large non-
conforming, dissenting, middle-class element, —
that best represented by Cobden, Bright, and
Forster, —the friends of free labor and advo-
cates of a democratic republic, naturally well
disposed to the loyal side in the American con-
test, —the men of this class were taken by
surprise and quite demoralized in action by the
rapidity with which events moved. They were
bewildered by the apparent and quite inexpli-
cable indifference which seemed to prevail in the
free States, while the procession of slave States
PROCLAMATION OF BELLIGERENCY 157
was noisily flaunting out of the Union. Time
was necessary in which to enable these men —
the real rulers of England — to inform them-
selves as to the true situation, and to concen-
trate their scattered forces. Unless swept off
their feet by some blind popular impulse, such
as those only a few years before engineered by
the wily Palmerston in the “ opium war” and
the Crimean war, Bright and Cobden and
Forster could be relied on, working upon the
old lines, gradually to arouse the moral sense
of their countrymen.
Meanwhile the foreign ministers appointed
under the Buchanan administration were still at
their posts, though expecting soon to be relieved,
—among them, Mr. Dallas, of Philadelphia, at
London, Mr. Faulkner, of Virginia, at Paris,
and Mr. Preston, of Kentucky, at Madrid.
Pending the appointment and arrival of their
successors these gentlemen had been notified by
a circular from Secretary Seward, issued as
soon as he entered upon the duties of his office,
to “use all proper and necessary measures to
prevent the success of efforts which may be
made by persons claiming to represent [the se-
ceding States] to procure recognition.” In com-
pliance with these instructions, Mr. Dallas, on
April 8th, had an interview with Lord John
Russell, in the course of which he received assur-
158 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
ances, which he transmitted to Washington, that
“the coming of Mr. Adams would doubtless be
regarded as the appropriate occasion for finally
discussing and determining the question” of
the attitude to be taken by Great Britain in
view of the American troubles. The dispatch
from Mr. Dallas containing this assurance was
received at the State Department shortly after
the middle of April, and to the confidence caused
by it that nothing would be done until the ar-
rival of Mr. Adams, was due the fact that Mr.
Adams was not earlier hurried to his post. As
it was, his instructions, bearing date the 10th,
did not reach Mr. Adams until Saturday the
27th of April, and he sailed four days later, on
Wednesday, the Ist of May. Meanwhile the
startling news of the fall of Fort Sumter had
preceded him, reaching London on April 26th,
seventeen days before he landed at Liverpool ;
and during those days the agents of the Con-
federate government then in Europe, Messrs.
W. L. Yancey, of Alabama, and P. A. Rost, of
Louisiana, had not been idle. First on the
ground, they had, though in an “unofficial”
way, also obtained access to the British secre-
tary for foreign affairs.
James L. Orr, of South Carolina, for a time
chairman of the House Committee on Foreign
Affairs of the Confederate Congress, is author-
PROCLAMATION OF BELLIGERENCY 159
ity for the statement that the Confederacy
‘never had a foreign policy, nor did its gov-
ernment ever consent to attempt a high diplo-
macy with European powers.” Historically
speaking, this assertion does not seem to have
been inconsistent with the facts; and the ab-
sence of a sagacious, far-reaching, diplomatic
policy on the part of the Confederacy was ap-
parently due to a double error into which its
executive head, Jefferson Davis, early fell. He
at once overestimated the natural influences at
work in behalf of the Confederates, and under-
estimated his enemy. Immediately after his in-
auguration at Montgomery on February 18th,
and before making any civil appointment, Mr.
Davis had sent for Mr. Yancey and offered him
his choice of positions within the executive gift.
Upon his intimating the usual modest preference
for service in a private capacity, Davis insisted
on the acceptance by him of one of two places,
—a cabinet portfolio, or the head of the com-
mission to Europe for which the Confederate
Congress had already provided. At the same
time, the new President intimated a wish that
the latter might be preferred. The selection was
not in all respects judicious ; for while Jefferson
Davis in his dealings with European nations nat-
urally desired to keep slavery, as a factor in se-
cession, in the background, and above all to deny
160 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
any desire, much more an intention, on the part
of the Confederacy to reopen the African slave
trade, Mr. Yancey was, both by act and utter-
ance, more identified in the public mind than
any other Southern man with both those
causes. That gentleman, however, now sub-
mitted to his brother, B. C. Yancey, who had
some diplomatic experience, the Davis proposi-
tion. Should he accept the first place in the
proposed European commission? B. C. Yan-
cey advised strongly against his so doing, and
the points he urged showed a very considerable
insight into the real facts of the situation as
they subsequently developed. The year before,
while returning from a diplomatic mission to
one of the South American states, B. C. Yan-
cey had passed some time in England, and,
while there, had sought to inform himself as to
the currents of public opinion, and their prob-
able action in case a slave confederacy should
be formed and should seek recognition. Though
the British suffrage had not then been so en-
larged as to include the laboring classes, he
became satisfied that the government was on
that account hardly the less respectful of their
wishes. Cobden and Bright were the leaders of
the working classes; and Cobden and Bright
would oppose any recognition of a govern-
ment based on a system of African slave labor.
PROCLAMATION OF BELLIGERENCY 161
Unless, therefore, the Confederacy was prepared
to authorize through its commission commercial
advantages so liberal as to outweigh all other
considerations, no British government, however
well disposed, would in the end venture to run
counter to the anti-slavery feeling of the coun-
try by arecognition of the Confederacy. Unless
armed in advance with authority to commit the
Confederacy to this length, B. C. Yancey ad-
vised his brother to have nothing to do with the
proffered mission.
Under the provisions of the Confederate Con-
stitution it was for the President to determine
the scope of any diplomatic function. At this
point, therefore, Jefferson Davis became the
leading factor in the situation. His idiosyn-
erasies had to be taken into account; and they
were so taken. Though an able man and of
strong will, Mr. Davis had little personal know-
ledge of countries other than his own, or, in-
deed, of more than a section of his own
country ; but, most unfortunately for himself and
for the cause of which he became the expo-
nent, he was dominated — for no other word ex-
presses the case—by an undue and, indeed, an
overweening faith in the practical world-mastery
enjoyed by that section through its exclusive
production and consequent control of cotton,
its great agricultural staple. That Cotton was
162 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
indeed King, and would in the end so be
found, was his unswerving conviction. As
Mrs. Davis subsequently expressed it in her
biography of her husband: “The President and
his advisers looked to the stringency of the
English cotton market, and the suspension of
the manufactories, to send up a ground swell
from the English operatives, that would compel
recognition ;” or, as Dr. Russell, writing to the
same effect from Montgomery, put it at this
very time: ‘They firmly believe that the war
will not last a year... . They believe in the
irresistible power of cotton, in the natural al-
liance between manufacturing England and
France and the cotton-producing slave States,
and in the force of their simple tariff.” So
much for the leading trump card President Da-
vis held in the great game he was about to play.
Meanwhile, on the other hand, he entertained a
somewhat unduly low opinion, approaching even
contempt, for the physical courage, military ca-
pacity, and patriotic devotion of his adversaries.
He did not permit himself for an instant to
doubt the ability of the Confederacy to hold
the United States firmly in check during any
amount of time needed to enable the cotton
famine to do its work thoroughly. Neither, it
must now be admitted, did he err on this point.
His error lay in his estimate of the potency of a
cotton famine, as a factor in foreign polities.
PROCLAMATION OF BELLIGERENCY 163
From Mr. Davis’s point of view, consequently,
the diplomatic problem before the Confederacy
was one easy of solution. VIf no cotton was
allowed to go forward, Great Britain would in
less than six months be starved into subjection ;
she must raise the blockade to preserve her in-
ternal peace, if not to prevent revolution. Under
these circumstances, it was obviously unnecessary
to concede through diplomacy much, if anything,
to secure that which the Confederacy had the
power, and fully purposed, to compel. This was
a perfectly logical view of the situation from the
Confederate standpoint, and the early events of
the struggle went far to justify it. In a few
weeks after hostilities began, cotton doubled in
price. The Confederate Congress next put a
discriminating tax on its production, while in
the seceding States it was common talk that all
the cotton on hand ought to be destroyed by the
government, and formal notice should be served
on Great Britain that no crop would be planted
until after the full recognition of the Confeder-
acy. On the other hand, the physical power of
the South as a resisting force was demonstrated
at Bull Run ; and, as Mrs. Davis says, the neces-
sary time in which to make the cotton famine
felt being absolutely assured after that engage-
ment, “foreign recognition was looked forward
to as an assured fact.” Such was the diplomacy
164 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
of President Davis. It at least possessed the
virtue of simplicity.
On the other hand there were weak points, —
points, indeed, of almost incredible weakness, in
the diplomacy of the United States. Fortunately
they were only suspected. Even so, they gave
an infinity of trouble; had they been known,
they could hardly have failed to be the cause of
irreparable disaster. At an early stage of the
war it became quite apparent both at Washing-
ton and at Richmond that by some understand-
ing already reached, partly express and partly
tacit, the nations of Europe had decided to leave
the initiative in all action touching the Ameri-
can contest to Great Britain and France, as be-
ing the two powers most intimately concerned ;
and France again looked to Great Britain for
a lead. Thus from the very outset, so far as
Europe was concerned, Great Britain became
for America the storm centre ; and, in that cen-
tre, the danger focused in London. *In London
the new American foreign secretary was re-
garded with grave suspicion. Not only was Mr.
Seward believed in official circles to be unreliable
and to the last degree tricky, but he was assumed
to be actuated by a thoroughly unscrupulous dis-
regard not only of treaty obligations but, so far
as foreign nations and especially Great Britain
were concerned, of international morals.
PROCLAMATION OF BELLIGERENCY 165
This impression, vague and accordingly diffi-
cult to combat, dated far back, even to the
McLeod case when, twenty years previous, Mr.
Seward had been governor of New York, and
as such had sustained the state courts in some
rather questionable legal positions, which occa-
sioned Mr. Webster, then secretary of state,
more or less trouble. More recently he had
fallen into some indiscretion of social speech,
concerning which various accounts were at times
current, and these still further complicated a sit-
uation at best difficult. The incident is supposed
to have occurred during the visit of the Prince
of Wales to the United States, in 1860, and at a
dinner given to him in Albany. The story is
that Mr. Seward, “ fond of badinage,” as Dr. Rus-
sell expressed it, then in a jocose way intimated to
the Duke of Newcastle, who was at the head of
the Prince’s suite, that he [Seward] expected
*¢soon to hold a very high office here in my own
country ; it will then,” he was alleged to have
added, “ become my duty to insult England, and
I mean to do so.” Subsequently Mr. Weed
wrote to Mr. Seward about the matter. Mr.
Seward, in reply, professed himself greatly sur-
prised, but said the story was so absurd that to
notice it by a denial would on his part be almost
a sacrifice of personal dignity. None the less,
there can be no doubt that such a story did ema-
166 CHARLES, FRANCIS ADAMS
nate from the Duke of Newcastle; and, during
the years that followed, it is equally undeniable
that the story in question made its appearance
with great regularity, though in form variously
modified, whenever the relations between the
United States and Great Britain were, in ap-
pearance or reality, in any way “strained.”
The fact seems to have been that, on the occa-
sion referred to, Mr. Seward indulged in what
he intended for some playful “chaff” of the
Duke, in no degree seriously meant, or to be
taken seriously. It was a form of social inter-
course to which Mr. Seward was a good deal
addicted, especially at dinner-table, and when
conversation was stimulated by champagne. Not
that the idle, ill-natured talk, so current at one
time concerning him on this head, was true; for
it was not. Partly society gossip, and partly per-
sonal and political malevolence, it has since been
forgotten. But Governor Seward was social ;
and, at table, in no way abstemious. He enjoyed
his food, his wine, and his cigar; and, having
in him this element of good fellowship, his
tongue sometimes yielded to its influence. Under
these circumstances and in this mood, not know-
ing his Grace of Newcastle well, or weighing the
construction that might be put on his words, it
is supposed that the senator, as he then was, in
clumsy, humorous vein, on the occasion in ques-
PROCLAMATION OF BELLIGERENCY 167
tion, let the American eagle scream, to the
grave and lasting perplexity of his table neigh-
bor. By that neighbor his talk was afterwards
repeated, and then again by others repeated,
until it assumed the veritas in vino form of an
indiscreet dinner-table disclosure.
Fortunately this mere social indiscretion ad-
mitted of explanation and denial; but that, at
a later day, some such idea respecting Great
Britain as that commonly imputed to him, was
really lurking in Secretary Seward’s mind, is
shown by the memorandum entitled “Some
Thoughts for the President’s Consideration,”
which bore date April 1, 1861, and was first
made public from among his papers by Lin-
coln’s biographers, Messrs. Nicolay and Hay,
nearly thirty years later. This paper, the very
existence of which had probably passed out of
Mr. Seward’s recolleetion, Mr. Adams never
saw; indeed it was not published until after
his death. He never had an opportunity, there-
fore, to offer his explanation of the enigma.
Meanwhile he had dined with Secretary Seward
in Washington on the evening of March 30th,
two days before the paper in question was dated
and handed to Mr. Lincoln. It must then have
been in its writer’s mind; but, if so, it was not
reflected in the slightest degree either in his in-
timate conversation, or in the instructions to
168 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
various ministers then lying on his desk, and
submitted to Mr. Adams for perusal. None the
less, it is now undeniable that, so late as April
1, 1861, Mr. Seward was gravely proposing to
the President, as a national distraction from im-
pending troubles, a general foreign war, to be
provoked by that very attitude towards Great
Britain which had been foreshadowed in the
alleged apocryphal dinner-table talk of six
months earlier. That talk caused Mr. Adams,
first and last, almost endless annoyance and
trouble; and it was certainly fortunate for the
outgoing minister to Great Britain that the
secretary had in no degree taken him into his
inmost confidence during that gentleman’s visit
to Washington before starting to assume the
duties of his position. Had he done so, the
minister could scarcely have denied as persist-
ently as the exigencies of the case called for
the stories of Mr. Seward’s animus towards
Great Britain. As will shortly be seen, also,
the memorandum of April Ist only a few weeks
later exercised an influence not recognized at the
time, nor indeed until long years after, on other
instructions sent to Mr. Adams which only just
failed suddenly to end his mission.
The details of the fall of Sumter and the sub-
sequent proclamation of Lincoln appeared in the
London papers of April 27th, and on May Ist
PROCLAMATION OF BELLIGERENCY 169
Lord John Russell sent for Mr. Dallas, in con-
sequence of the reports which immediately began
to circulate as to the intentions of President Lin-
colu regarding a blockade of the Southern coast
and the discontinuance of its harbors as ports of
entry. At this interview Lord John informed
Mr. Dallas of the arrival in London of Messrs,
Yancey and Rost, and intimated that an inter-
view had been sought, and that he was not un-
willing to see them “unofficially.”’ He at the
same time gave notice of an understanding
reached between the governments of France and
England that the two countries should act to-
gether, and take the same course as to recogni-
tion. Mr. Dallas in his turn informed Lord
John that Mr. Adams was to sail from Boston
that very day, and would be in London in two
weeks, and it was accordingly again agreed to
pay no attention to ‘mere rumors,” but to await
the arrival of the new minister, who would have
full knowledge of the intentions of his govern-
ment. The next day (May 2d) in response to
questions in the House of Commons, Lord John
announced it as the policy of the government
“to avoid taking any part in the lamentable
contest now raging in the American States.”
‘“ We have not,” he declared, “been involved
in any way in that contest by any act or giving
any advice in the matter, and, for God’s sake,
let us if possible keep out of it.”
170 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
The following day the two Confederate com-
missioners were received by Lord John “ un-
officially.” They owed this favor to the friendly
intercession of Mr. W. H. Gregory, an Irish
member of Parliament of strong Confederate
proclivities, who must have been very active in
their behalf, as, leaving New Orleans at the
close of March, they did not reach England
until Monday, the 29th of April, and on Thurs-
day, May 2d, the day after Mr. Adams left
Boston, they were in the foreign secretary’s
reception-room. Into the details of this inter-
view it is not necessary here to enter. It is
sufficient to say that it afforded a fair example
of the Confederate diplomacy. On the part of
the Southern commissioners it was essentially
weak, — in reality apologetic so far as slavery
was concerned, and altogether empty as respects
inducements for aid. Lord John Russell was an
attentive listener merely.
This was on May 2d; and, on the 6th, the
questions involved having in the meantime been
considered by the government, and the opinions
of the crown lawyers obtained, the foreign
secretary formally announced in the Commons
that belligerent rights would be conceded to the
Confederacy. Five days later, on May 11th,
President Lincoln’s proclamation of blockade
was officially communicated to the British
bd
PROCLAMATION OF BELLIGERENCY 171
government by Mr. Dallas, together with a copy
of Secretary Seward’s cireular of April 20th
addressed to the foreign ministers of the United
States in relation to privateers against American
commerce fitted out in accordance with President
Davis’s letter-of-marque notification of three
days previous. A copy of this document had,
however, already reached the Foreign Office,
transmitted by Lord Lyons. The Queen’s pro-
clamation of neutrality, announced by Sir
George Lewis in the House of Commons as
contemplated, on the 9th, was formally author-
ized on the 13th, and appeared officially in the
*‘ London Gazette” of the following day ; the ar-
rival of the Niagara, with Mr. Adams on board,
at Queenstown having been telegraphed to Lon-
don on the 12th.
Such was the sequence of events. Unques-
tionably the Queen’s proclamation followed hard
upon the “ unofficial” reception of the com-
missioners, — so hard, indeed, as to be strongly
suggestive of connection. The natural inference
was that the one event contributed to the other;
and the commissioners, with apparent grounds,
professed themselves entirely satisfied with the
results of their conference. But, whether the
representations made to the British foreign
secretary by Messrs. Yancey and Rost on May
3d did or did not affect the decision announced
172 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
by Her Majesty’s government on the 6th, there
can be no question that the proclamation of the
18th was issued with unseemly haste, and in
disregard of the assurances given to Mr. Dallas
only five days previous. The purpose was
manifest. It was to have the status of the Con-
federacy, as a belligerent, an accomplished fact
before the arrival of the newly accredited
minister. ‘This precipitate action was chiefly
significant as indicating an animus; that animus
being really based on the agreement for joint
action just reached between the governments of
Great Britain and France, and the belief, already
matured into a conviction, that the full recogni-
tion of the Confederacy as an independent power
was merely a question of time, and probably
of a very short time.
The feeling excited in America, and among
Americans in Europe, by this precipitate act,
was intense; and the indignation was more out-
spoken than discreet, being largely minatory and
based on the assumed greater friendliness of
France. It must also be conceded that loyal
America was then in a mental condition closely
verging on hysteria. It could see things only
from one point of view; and that point of view
its own as then occupied. The insouciance of
the period prior to April 13th was wholly
gone, — something of the forgotten past; and
PROCLAMATION OF BELLIGERENCY 173
the bitter denunciation now poured forth on
Great Britain knew no limit: but there rang
through it, distinctly perceptible, a well-grounded
tone of alarm. The possible imminence of a
great disaster was recognized.
Looking back on the incident in the full light
of subsequent events, it will now be conceded
that, had Great Britain then been actuated by
really friendly feelings, the thing would not have
been done at just that time, or in that brusque
way, highly characteristic though it was of Lord
John Russell; on the other hand, that it was
done then and in that way proved in the result
most fortunate, not only for Mr. Adams person-
ally but for the cause he represented. Great
Britain having through its foreign secretary’s
action put itself in the wrong, Lord John there-
after, under the steady pressure to which he was
subjected, found himself on the defensive, and
insensibly became correspondingly over-cautious.
The weight of opinion, even among Americans,
has since tended to the conclusion that the pro-
clamation of May 13th admitted of justification ;}
but, whether it did or no while issued at that
precise time and in that way, it certainly could
not have been deferred later than immediately
after the arrival of the news of the disaster of
Bull Run, shortly before the close of the follow-
1 Rhodes, iii. 420, note.
174 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
ing July: and, if then considered and conceded,
it might well have carried with it a full recogni-
tion of the Confederacy. As it was, the partial
and ill-considered concession proved final, and,
as matter of fact, precluded the more important
ulterior step. None the less, at the moment
Mr. Adams regarded it as a most adverse and
unfortunate opening of his diplomatic career.
It so chanced that Lord John’s eldest brother,
the Duke of Bedford, died at just this time; so
the interview at the Foreign Office which had
been arranged for Mr. Adams the day after his
arrival could not take place. Meanwhile a dis-
patch from Mr. Dallas had been received in
Washington foreshadowing the course after-
wards pursued by the British government, and
this dispatch had excited much indignation in
the mind of Secretary Seward. He forthwith
wrote to Mr. Adams, under date of April 27th,
directing him at once to demand an explanation.
This dispatch (No. 4) was, however, only pre-
liminary to a far more important dispatch (No.
10) of May 21st, and the two can best be con-
sidered later on, and together. They involve a
discussion, and if possible some explanation
which shall at least be plausible, of the incident
most difficult to account for in all Secretary
Seward’s career, — the incident from which, it
is not too much to say, his posthumous reputa-
PROCLAMATION OF BELLIGERENCY 175
tion has suffered, and will probably continue to
suffer, great injury.
In the mean time, acting promptly on the in-
structions contained in the dispatch of April
27th, Mr. Adams requested an interview, and
on Saturday, May 18th, drove out to Pembroke
Lodge, where Lord John then was, for the first
of his many interviews with the foreign secre-
tary. He found him “a man of sixty-five
or seventy, of about the same size as myself,
with a face marked by care and thought rather
than any strong expression. © His eye is, I think,
blue and cold.” The conversation lasted more
than an hour. Mr. Adams wrote that while,
in carrying it on, he “avoided the awkward-
ness of a categorical requisition, it was only to
transfer the explanation to the other side of the
water ;” and, he added, “my conclusion from
it is that the permanency of my stay is by no
means certain.” In the course of this important
first interview, Mr. Adams and his future an-
tagonist must instinctively have measured each
other. On neither side, probably, was the con-
clusion unsatisfactory. The two men were, in
fact, from a certain similarity of disposition,
naturally calculated to deal the one with the
other. Of Earl Russell, as he was then soon to
become, it has since been said by a writer very
capable of forming an opinion, and with excep-
176 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
tionally good means of correctly so doing in
that case, that his “standard of private and
public virtue was as high as that which any man
has ever maintained in practice throughout a
long and honored life;” ! and those who knew
him best would not be indisposed to assert a simi-
lar claim on behalf of Mr. Adams. Men of the
highest character, public and private, both were
marked by a certain simplicity and directness
of manner and bearing, not unaccompanied by
reserve, which must at once have commended
them each to the other. Lord John was the older
and much the more experienced of the two; but
he could not, nor did he, fail at once to recognize
in Mr. Adams a certain quiet undemonstrative
force which bespoke one, like himself, of the
genuine Anglo-Saxon stock. They thus, most
fortunately for the great interests they had in
charge, liked and respected each other, and got
on together, from the start.
All now went quietly until June 10th. On
that day Mr. Adams received Mr. Seward’s dis-
patch No. 10, of May 21st, written when the
Queen’s Proclamation of Neutrality was plainly
foreshadowed. Of it he wrote on a first pe-
rusal: “*The government seems ready to de-
clare war with all the powers of Europe, and
almost instructs me to withdraw from communi-
1 Trevelyan, The American Revolution, 8, 9.
PROCLAMATION OF BELLIGERENCY 177
cation with the ministers here, in a certain con-
tingency. I scarcely know how to understand
Mr. Seward. The rest of the government may
be demented for all that I know; but he surely
is calm and wise.”
CHAPTER X
SEWARD’S FOREIGN WAR PANACEA
‘“¢ My duty here is, so far as I can do it hon-
estly, to prevent the mutual irritation from
coming to a downright quarrel. It seems to me
like throwing the game into the hands of the
enemy. ... If a conflict with a handful of
slaveholding States is to bring us to [our pre-
sent pass] what are we to do when we throw
down the glove to all Europe?” In these fur-
ther words, in the extract just quoted from his
diary, Mr. Adams set forth the whole policy
which guided his action at London from the
day he arrived to the day he left. During the
early and doubtful period of the war it has al-
ready been said that Mr. Seward was, in Europe
at least, believed to entertain another view of
a possible outcome of the situation. That he
wished to provoke a foreign war was more than
suspected. One great source of Mr. Adams’s
diplomatic usefulness lay in the confidence he
instinctively inspired by his directness and mani-
fest sincerity. In these respects he came at last
in Great Britain to be accepted as almost a re-
SEWARD’S FOREIGN WAR PANACEA 179
verse of the secretary. What, as respects the
foreign policy then to be pursued, lay in Secre-
tary Seward’s mind in the spring and early
summer — March to July —of 1861? This
difficult problem is now to be considered.
The dispatch just referred to as that num-
bered ten, bearing date May 21st, and received
by Mr. Adams on June 10th, was certainly a
most extraordinary public paper. Its full se-
eret history, also, did not come to light until
disclosed by Messrs. Nicolay and Hay nearly
thirty years after it was written.! It has been
seen how it puzzled and dismayed Mr. Adams
when he first received it. The fiercely aggres-
sive, the well-nigh inconceivable, foreign policy
it foreshadowed must, he thought, have been
forced on the secretary by the other members
of the administration ; but, in fact, though Mr.
Adams never knew it, that dispatch, in the
form in which it was originally drawn up by
the secretary of state and by him submitted to
the President, must have been designed to pre-
cipitate a foreign war. Moreover, it would in-
evitably have brought that result about but for
Lincoln’s unseen intervention. The documents
speak for themselves. To be read intelligently,
1 The dispatch, as originally drafted by Secretary Seward,
with Lincoln’s interlineations and omissions indicated in it, is
printed in full in Nicolay and Hay, iv. 270-275.
180 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
the two dispatches to Mr. Adams of April 27th
and May 21st, Nos. 4 and 10, must be read to-
gether, and both in connection with the extra-
ordinary paper entitled, “Some Thoughts for
the President’s Consideration,” already alluded
to, handed by Seward to Lincoln on April 1st.
In that paper the secretary proposed to the
President to take immediate measures calculated
to “‘change the question before the [ American]
public from one upon slavery, or about slavery,
for a question upon union or disunion;” and to
that end he recommended that explanations, in
regard to their proceedings in the West India
Islands and in Mexico, be demanded “ from
Spain and France, categorically, at once. I
would then,” he went on, “seek explanations
from Great Britain and Russia, and send agents
into Canada, Mexico, and Central America, to
rouse a vigorous continental spirit of independ-
ence on this continent against European inter-
vention. And if satisfactory explanations are
not received from Spain and France, would con-
vene Congress and declare war against them.”
Of course, if the policy here recommended had
been followed, “ satisfactory explanations ” from
the powers addressed would, under the circum-
stances, have been neither expected nor desired.
War was intended. ji
The conception of a foreign policy of this
SEWARD’S FOREIGN WAR PANACEA 181
character, at such a time, or at any time, seems
so unstatesmanlike, so immoral, from any ra-
tional point of view so impossible, that for a
public man occupying a responsible position
merely to have entertained it, subsequently dis-
credits him. Yet that Secretary Seward did
entertain it, long and seriously, in the spring of
1861, and moreover that he abandoned it slowly,
and only in the presence of facts impossible to
ignore, cannot be gainsaid. This is matter of
record. That Mr. Seward was, a statesman,
astute, far-seeing and sagacious, with a strong
grasp on facts and underlying principles, is
hardly less matter of record. The thing cannot,
therefore, be dismissed as an incomprehensible
historical riddle, —a species of insoluble co-
nundrum. It calls for explanation ; and any ex-
planation offered must be at least plausible.
Into the cabinet situation, as it then existed,
it is not necessary here to enter in detail. It
was undoubtedly more than trying. Seen in the
light of subsequent events, it is assumed that
the Lincoln of 1865 was also the Lincoln of
1861. Historically speaking there can be no
greater error; the President, who has since be-
come a species of legend, was in March, 1861,
an absolutely unknown, and by no means pro-
mising, political quantity. During the years in-
tervening between 1861 and 1865 the man de-
182 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
veloped immensely ; he became in fact another
being. History, indeed, hardly presents an anal-
ogous case of education through trial. None the
less the fact remains that when he first entered
upon his high functions, President Lincoln filled
with dismay those brought in contact with him.
Without experience, he evinced no sense of the
gravity of the situation or of the necessity of a
well-considered policy. The division of offices
among eager applicants seemed to engross his
thoughts. The evidence is sufficient and con-
clusive that, in this respect, he impressed others
as he impressed Mr. Adams in their one char-
acteristic interview. Thus an utter absence of
lead in presence of a danger at once great and
imminent, expressed the situation.
There is every reason to believe that in those
early days of their association, Seward, as the
result of close personal contact and observation,
shared in the common estimate of his official
chief. Certainly, close as were his personal re-
lations with Mr. Adams, preserving a discreet
silence as respects his official chief, the secretary
let no intimation escape him that, in the case
of the President, appearances were deceptive.
There can, also, be no question that Secretary
Seward, when he entered upon his duties in
the Department of State, did so with the idea
that he would prove to be the virtual head of
SEWARD’S FOREIGN WAR PANACEA 183
the government, — its directing mind. The
early course of events in the cabinet was not
what he anticipated. A highly incongruous
body, hastily brought together, no member of it
saw his way clearly, and differences immediately
developed. Without a head, it seemed to have
no prospect of having a head. In the direction
of its councils, the secretary of state became
day by day conscious of the fact that he was
losing ground, and it was more and more mani-
fest to him that a line of policy.almost sure to
precipitate a civil war was likely soon to be
adopted. The tension was too great to last;
unless a new direction was given to the rapid
course of events there must be a break. Plainly,
something had to be done.
Governor Seward, moreover, had all along
asserted with the utmost confidence that no
serious trouble would ensue from the change of
administration ; that the South was not in ear-
nest. A civil war was no part of his programme.
Yet now he found the country confronted with
it; and he himself was no longer held in high,
if indeed in any, esteem as a political prophet.
When, immediately before the inauguration,
Mr. Seward tendered his resignation of the first
place in the cabinet, the incoming President,
after brief consideration, declined to accept it,
characteristically observing that he “could not
184 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
afford to let Seward take the first trick.” Fol-
lowing out this not over-dignified figure of
speech, it may be said that now, a month after
the change of administration had taken place,
Mr. Seward, in the course of the game, found
himself “put to his trumps.” Under these cir-
cumstances he seems to have rapidly matured a
policy which he had long been meditating, —a
policy reserved as a last resort. Falling back
on what was with him a cardinal point of politi-
cal faith, an almost inordinate belief in the sen-
timental side of the American character, — its
patriotism and its spirit of nationality, its self-
confidence when aroused, — falling back on this,
he thought to work from it as a basis of action.
It was no new or sudden conception. On the
contrary, months before, at the dinner of the
New England Society in New York, during the
previous December, referring to the secession of
South Carolina which had then just been an-
nounced, he declared that if New York should
be attacked by any foreign power, “all the hills
of South Carolina would pour forth their popu-
lation to the rescue.” And two years and a half
later, during the foreign crisis of the war, in
precisely the same spirit he wrote to Sumner:
*‘ Rouse the nationality of the American people.
It is an instinct upon which you can always
rely, even when the conscience that ought never
SEWARD’S FOREIGN WAR PANACEA 185
to slumber is drugged to death.” Accordingly
in March, 1861, he only repeated what he had
written in his dispatches to Mr. Adams when
he said to Dr. Russell, of the “Times,” that
if a majority of the people in the seceded
States really desired secession, he would let
them have it; but he could not believe in
anything so monstrous. Convinced, therefore,
that the South was possessed by a passing mania,
he was himself a victim of the delusion that, by
a bold and unmistakable appeal-to a sentiment
of a yet deeper and more permanent character,
the evil spirit then in temporary possession
might be exorcised; or, as he a few months be-
fore had in the Senate expressed it, citing J effer-
son as his authority, the “States must be kept
within their constitutional sphere by impulsion,
if they could not be held there by attraction.”
This idea others shared with him, and it found
frequent expression: but in his case, during
April, May, and June, 1861, it amounted to
what was almost a dangerous hallucination ; for
he was secretary of state.
In itself a morbid conception, the thought was
further strengthened by another belief enter-
tained by him as to the existence of a latent,
but widespread, Union sentiment at the South,
requiring only a sufficient stimulus to assert it-
self and set everything right. This last article
186 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
of faith was immediately due to the great num-
ber of appealing letters which, after the elec-
tion and before the inauguration of Lincoln, had
poured in upon him in steady volume from the
South in general, but more particularly from the
border slave States. While he probably con-
strued their contents liberally, to these he at
the time made continual reference; and now he
thought to use the sentiment revealed in them
as the basis of a great educational movement.
It was the material on which he proposed to
work,
The real condition of public opinion at the
South, and the amount of Union sentiment there
latent, was, of course, in the spring of 1861, a
question of fact in regard to which men’s judg-
ment varied according to their means of infor-
mation and warmth of temperament. In reality,
as Dr. Russell soon afterwards found out and
advised Europe through the “ Times,” and as
Seward himself later had to realize, those dwelling
in the great region afterwards known as the
Confederate States were of one mind. In that
region, even as early as May, 1861, there was no
Union sentiment; or, as Russell, while visiting
the Confederacy in April, wrote to the “Times”: |
“ Assuredly Mr. Seward cannot know anything
of the South, or he would not be so confident
that all would blow over.” In point of fact, at
\
SEWARD’S FOREIGN WAR PANACEA 187
the very time Mr. Seward was conjuring up this
widespread, latent Union sentiment in the South,
the life of any man in the South even suspected
of Union sentiments would not have been safe.
But in the spring of 1861 a mistaken belief on
the subject was not confined to Mr. Seward.
Cassius M. Clay, for instance, came from Ken-—
tucky, a slave State. Having all his life lived
there, his means of information would be sup-
posed to have been good, and his judgment pre-
sumably correct. Yet so late as May 29, 1861,
six weeks after the fall of Sumter, Cassius M.
Clay, then on his way to represent the United
States at St. Petersburg, asserted in a communi-
cation printed in the London ‘“ Times” of May
25th, that “the population of the slave States
is divided perhaps equally for and against the
Union.” More extraordinary yet, weeks later,
in his message to Congress when it met on July
4, 1861, President Lincoln put himself on
record to the same effect. “It may well be
questioned,” he then said, “‘ whether there is to-
day the majority of the legally qualified voters
of any State, except, perhaps, South Carolina,
in favor of disunion. There is much reason to
believe that the Union men are the majority in
many, if not in every other one, of the so-called
seceded States.” Mr. Seward was not alone in
his hallucination.
188 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
In like manner, on the other point, — the ef-
fect of a foreign war as a diversion, — the Amer-
ican correspondent of the “ Times,” —not Dr.
Russell, — wrote as follows on May 21st, the
very date of Seward’s dispatch No. 10 which
so dismayed Mr. Adams:— ‘There are those
here, high in influence too, who are actively
aiming to create a cold feeling between Eng-
land and the United States, under the belief
that that will more effectually reconcile North
and South than anything else. They argue that
the presence of a foreign foe alone can recon-
cile the disintegrated States, and they would
court a foreign war rather than a civil one.
Strange as it may sound, impracticable as it
may appear, I assure you that such ideas are
entertained and acted upon in New York.” The
prevalence of this idea was also well known in
England, and, on the 15th of June, William E.
Forster, the stanchest friend America had, de-
fended to Mr. Adams the action of the British
government in sending out troops to Canada
“by attributing to our government a desire to
pick a quarrel with this country in the hopes of
effecting by means of it a reunion.”
The letter containing the extract just quoted
from the *‘ Times ” was written from New York,
and the feeling in it referred to may not im-
possibly have been inspired by the secretary of
SEWARD’S FOREIGN WAR PANACEA 189
state. A politician’s newspaper feeler, thus re-
flecting the dispatch of May 21st. In any event
the presence of such an idea in Seward’s mind
at that juncture was plainly a grave additional
source of national peril, and it would be inter-
esting to trace the manifestations of it. These,
however, though numerous and unequivocal, are
scattered through the press and in official and
other publications, and would be inappropriate
here. ‘The essence of them, moreover, was con-
densed in a single remark to Dr. Russell, made
by the secretary in course of conversation on
April 4th: “ Any attempt against us” by a for-
eign power, Mr. Seward then said,“ would re-
volt the good men of the South, and arm all
men in the North to defend their government.”
The policy thus assuming shape in the sec-
retary’s mind was large, vague, visionary. To
avert the impending issue, he would, as distinctly
shadowed forth in his dispatch of May 21st, chal-
lenge a yet greaterissue. Confidently appealing
to the spirit of Americanism and of the age, to
liberty, democracy, and the aspirations of the
century, he was prepared to precipitate a gen-
eral war, not unlike that of the Napoleonic pe-
riod, fully confident that the United States
would emerge from it victorious, purified, and
more than ever consolidated. A great concep-
tion, it was also a trifle Corsican ; and, though an
190 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
able man, Mr. Seward was essentially a New
Yorker, and not a Napoleon Bonaparte. Under
the circumstances, therefore, it must be con-
ceded that the scheme had in it elements not
consistent with what is commonly known as
sanity of judgment.
Recurring to the course of events at Wash-
ington and in London, a considerable interval
elapsed between the two days, close together, on
which Seward handed to Lincoln his memoran-
dum of “ Thoughts ” and had the conversation
just referred to with Dr. Russell, and that other
day on which he wrote the bellicose dispatch
No. 10 to Mr. Adams. The dates were seven
weeks apart. In the interval the situation had
altogether changed. Fort Sumter had fallen ;
the President’s Proclamation had been issued ;
Virginia and Tennessee had seceded. Another
dispatch also had reached the secretary from
Mr. Dallas announcing the arrival in Europe of
the Confederate Commissioners, and that Earl
Russell was disposed to accord them an “ unof-
ficial’ interview. This very contingency had
been anticipated by Mr. Seward in a dinner-
table talk, at which Dr. Russell was present, be-
fore April Ist. He had then declared that “ the
Southern Commissioners could not be received
by the government of any foreign power, offi-
cially or otherwise, even to hand in a document
SEWARD’S FOREIGN WAR PANACEA 191
or to make a representation, without incurring
the risk of breaking off relations with the gov-
ernment of the United States.”
When he made this remark Mr. Seward must
have been meditating his memorandum of
“Thoughts for the President’s Consideration.”
Four days later he handed it to Mr. Lincoln.
The latter’s considerate method of dealing with
that document, proposing, as it did, his abdica-
tion of the functions of his office, and “two or
more”’ foreign wars as a possible substitute for
one domestic, is matter of history. He quietly
put it aside. None the less, Secretary Seward
evidently did not at once abandon the scheme
therein outlined. He apparently still believed
in it as a practical recourse, so to speak, — the
last and largest trump card in the hand; and, a
few weeks later, he seems to have concluded that
the time to play it had come. Accordingly he
now prepared the dispatch of May 21st, No. 10.
Directing Mr. Adams in certain contingencies
then sure to occur to confine himself ‘ simply
to a delivery of a copy of this paper to the sec-
retary of state,’ he in it used language to
which no self-respecting government could sub-
mit, —language so indecorous and threatening
as to be tantamount to a declaration of war.
If, he announced, Great Britain shall recognize
the bearers of Confederate letters of marque as
192 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
belligerents, and give them shelter from our
pursuit and punishment, “the laws of nations
afford an adequate and proper remedy, and we
shall avail ourselves of it. . . . When this act
of intervention is distinctly performed, we from
that hour shall cease to be friends and become
once more, as we have twice before been forced
to be, enemies of Great Britain. . . . We are not
insensible of the grave importance of this occa-
sion. We see how, upon the result of the debate
in which we are engaged, a war may ensue be-
tween the United States, and one, two, or even
more Kuropean nations. . . . A war not unlike
it between the same parties occurred at the close
of the last century. Europe atoned by forty
years of suffering for the error that Great Britain
committed in provoking that contest. If that
nation shall now repeat the same great error the
social convulsions which will follow may not be
so long but they will be more general. When
they shall have ceased it will, we think, be seen,
whatever may have been the fortunes of other
nations, that it is not the United States that
will have come out of them with its precious
Constitution altered or its honestly obtained do-
minion in any degree abridged.” 1
1The wrap-the-world-in-flames hallucination seems to have
degenerated into something very like a formula in Mr. Sew-
ard’s speech during the earlier Rebellion period. On the 4th
SEWARD’S FOREIGN WAR PANACEA 193
It is not difficult to imagine what would have
been the effect of a dispatch couched in these
terms delivered in June, 1861, to a British gov-
ernment of which Lord Palmerston was the
head, with England then acting in full under-
standing with France. The Confederacy would
have been recognized, and the blockade of its
coast, at that time hardly more than nominal,
would have been disallowed almost before the
American minister had rattled out of Downing
Street. Thus, as originally drawn up, this ex-
traordinary paper of May 21st was nothing
more nor less than a definite commitment of the
United States to the policy outlined by Seward
in the “ Thoughts”’ of the first of the previous
April, — “I would demand explanations from
of July Russell of the Times had a talk with him at the
State Department. In the course of it, six weeks after writ-
ing the dispatch of May 21st, the Secretary said : — “ We have
less to fear from a foreign war than any country in the world.
If any European power provokes a war, we shall not shrink
from it. A contest between Great Britain and the United
States would wrap the world in fire, and at the end it would
not be the United States which would have to lament the
result of the conflict.” (My Diary, 381.) More than six
months later, January 22, 1862, he wrote to Thurlow Weed : —
“ Nevertheless, I do know this, that whatever nation makes
war against us, or forces itself into a war, will find out that we
can and shall suppress rebellion and defeat invaders besides.
The courage and the determination of the American people
are aroused for any needful effort — any national sacrifice.”
(Life of Weed, ii. 410.)
194 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
Spain and France, categorically, at once. I
would seek explanations from Great Britain and
Russia, . . . and, if satisfactory explanations
are not received, . . . would convene Congress
and declare war against them.” Fortunately the
memorandum of * Thoughts,” of April Ist, had
forewarned Mr. Lincoln, and the influence of the
earlier paper was immediately apparent in his
treatment of the paper of May 21st, now sub-
mitted. “It was Mr. Seward’s ordinary habit
personally to read his dispatches to the President
before sending them. Mr. Lincoln, detecting
the defects of the paper, retained it, and after
careful scrutiny made such material corrections
and alterations with his own hand as took from
it all offensive crudeness without in the least
lowering its tone; but, on the contrary, greatly
increasing its dignity. . . . When the President
returned the manuscript to his hands, Mr. Sew-
ard somewhat changed the form of the dispatch
by [omitting most of the phrases above quoted
and] prefixing to it two short introductory para-
graphs in which he embodied, in his own
phraseology, the President’s direction that the
paper was to be merely a confidential instruc-
tion, not to be read or shown to any one.’’!
And in this happily modified form it came into
the hands of Mr. Adams. A collision between
1 Nicolay and Hay, iv. 269, 270.
SEWARD’S FOREIGN WAR PANACEA 195
the two countries was thus narrowly, and for the
moment avoided! Fortunately, as will presently
be seen, Mr. Seward’s views about this time
underwent a change. As a result of the battle
of Bull Run two months later, he recovered his
mental poise, and, quite dismissing the illusion
of a latent Union sentiment to be invoked in
the South, ceased to look upon a more or less
general foreign war as a means of escape, both
natural and legitimate, from dissension at home.
Too much space has, perhaps, been devoted
to this bit of secret history. If so, its interest
as well as its importance must be a justification.
For the United States, it was a piece of supreme
good fortune then to have in Great Britain so
discreet a representative, unimpulsive and bent
on a maintenance of the peace. It would have
been very easy at just that juncture to have pro-
voked a crisis, which must have been decisive,
though, as the result showed, wholly unnecessary.
So far as Mr. Adams himself was concerned, no
minister of the United States probably ever had
so narrow an escape as his then was from a
position which could not have been otherwise than
humiliating to the last degree. It was, too, at
the threshold of a diplomatic life. As to Mr.
Seward, it would be useless to philosophize. His
management as a whole of the country’s foreign
relations during the Rebellion speaks for itself.
196 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
It was a magnificent success. Alone of all the
departments of the government, the State De-
partment proved from the beginning, and to
the end, in every respect equal to the occasion.
Carrying things always with a high hand, pre-
serving in each emergency a steady and un-
broken front, never betraying sign of weakness,
or lowering the national dignity, Mr. Seward
extricated the country from whatever difficulty
it had to encounter; nor were those difficulties
few or slight. His success in so doing was so
great and so uniform that it seems since to have
been almost assumed as of course. Scant jus-
tice has accordingly been rendered him to whom
it was due ; for, by averting intervention, he saved
the day. The single inexplicable, ineradicable
blemish upon the record is contained in that in-
conceivable memorandum of “ Notes” handed
by Secretary Seward to President Lincoln on
April 1, 1861, and the dispatches numbered four
and ten subsequently prepared for Mr. Adams
in obvious pursuance of the mad and indefen-
sible policy therein outlined.
The day following the receipt of this modified
dispatch Mr. Adams sought an interview with
Lord John. In it he “tried to act up to [his]
instructions at the same time that [he] softened
as well as [he] could the sharp edges.” For-
tunately for him, in a previous interview with
SEWARD’S FOREIGN WAR PANACEA 197
Lord John, of which he had already sent a re-
port to Washington, he had pressed the foreign
secretary quite as far and as hard as circum-
stances justified. “In truth,” he had written,
“if I were persuaded that Her Majesty’s gov-
ernment were really animated by a desire to
favor the rebellion, I should demand a categori-
eal answer; but thus far I see rather division of
Opinion, consequent upon the pressure of the
commercial classes.” So he contented himself
with the highly significant remark to Lord John,
that, if Great Britain entertained any design,
more or less marked, to extend the struggle then
going on in America, “ I was bound to acknow-
ledge in all frankness that, in that contingency,
I had nothing further left to do in Great Britain.
I said this with regret, as my own feelings had
been and were of the most friendly character.”
Secretary Seward seems to have been greatly
mollified when advised of this intimation; but
now Mr. Adams had again to approach a deli-
cate subject. Accordingly he proceeded to in-
timate “in all frankness” that any further pro-
traction of relations, “ unofficial” though they
might be, with the ‘“ pseudo -commissioners ”
from the Confederate States ‘‘ could scarcely fail
to be viewed by us as hostile in spirit, and to
require some corresponding action accordingly.”
To this diplomatically expressed demand, Lord
198 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
John, after reviewing the course pursued by
Great Britain in similar cases, concluded by say-
ing that ‘he had seen the gentlemen once some
time ago, and once more some time since; he
had no expectation of seeing them any more.”
Directness in dealing was not thrown away on
Lord John Russell. Mr. Adams now scored
his first success; Messrs. Yancey, Rost, and
Mann were not again received at the foreign
office. On their side, the commissioners reported
to their government that “ the relations between
Mr. Adams and the British cabinet are not en-
tirely amicable and satisfactory to either, and,
both in his diplomatic and social relations, Mr.
Adams is held a blunderer.” Mrs. Jefferson
Davis took later a different and more practical
view of the matter, remarking in her life of
her husband: ‘The astute and watchful ambas-
sador from the United States had thus far fore-
stalled every effort, and our commissioners were
refused interviews with Her Majesty’s minister.”
Mr. Yancey, thinking the concession of Lord
John to Mr. Adams’s demand was in violation of
the rule of neutrality, to which the British gov-
ernment had pledged itself, urged his brother
commissioners to respond to Lord John’s notice
of suspension of interviews by a firm though
moderate protest. But Messrs. Rost and Mann
objecting to this course, the matter was referred
SEWARD’S FOREIGN WAR PANACEA 199
to the Richmond government; nor was it again
heard of. The commissioners were presently
(September 23d) superseded in their functions,
so far as Great Britain was concerned, by the
appointment of James M. Mason as the Con
federate representative in that country.
CHAPTER XI
THE TREATY OF PARIS
Tue so-called Declaration of Paris was an
outcome of the Crimean war. Up to the time
of that struggle the semi-barbarous rules of in-
ternational law which, during the Napoleonic
period, had been ruthlessly enforced by all bel-
ligerents, were still recognized, though in abey-
ance. As an historical fact, it was undeniable
that, on the high seas, piracy was the natural
condition of man; and, when the artificial state
of peace ceased, into that condition nations re-
lapsed. To ameliorate this, Great Britain and
France, on the outbreak of the war with Russia,
agreed to respect neutral commerce, whether
under their own flags or that of Russia; and,
at the close of the war, the Congress of Paris
adopted, in April, 1856, a Declaration, embra-
cing four heads : —
1. Privateering is and remains abolished.
2. The neutral flag covers enemy’s goods,
with the exception of contraband of war.
3. Neutral goods, with the exception of con-
traband of war, are not liable to capture under
enemy’s flag.
THE TREATY OF PARIS 201
4, Blockades in order to be binding must be
effective; that is to say, maintained by forces
sufficient really to prevent access to the coast of
the enemy.
Great Britain, France, Prussia, Russia, Aus-
tria, and Turkey adopted this mutual agree-
ment, and pledged themselves to make it known
to states not represented in the congress, and
invite their accession to it, on two conditions : —
(1) That the Declaration should be accepted as
a whole, or not at all; and (2) That the states
acceding should enter into no subsequent ar-
rangement on maritime law in time of war
without stipulating for a strict observance of
the four points. On these conditions every mar-
itime power was to be invited to accede, and had
the right to become a party to the agreement.
Accordingly nearly all the states of Europe and
South America in course of time notified their
accession, and became, equally with the original
members, entitled to all the benefits and subject
to the obligations of the compact.
The government of the United States was
also invited to accede, and like the other powers
had the right so to do by simple notification.
Secretary Marcy informed the French govern-
ment, July 28, 1856, that the President could
not abandon the right to use privateers, unless
he could secure the exemption of all private
202 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
property, not contraband, from capture at sea;
but with that amendment the United States
would accede to the Declaration.
In other words, in addition to the points agreed
on at Paris, the United States contended for
the establishment of the same principle on the
sea that obtained on land, to wit : — the exemp-
tion from capture of all private property, not
contraband of war, including ships. The last
great vestige of the earlier times of normal
piracy was, by general consent, to be relegated
to the past. With the exception of Great Brit-
ain, the more considerable European maritime
powers made no objection to the Marcy amend-
ment. Great Britain was understood to oppose
it, for obvious reasons connected with her past
history and present naval preponderance.
President Buchanan’s was essentially an
“Ostend manifesto,” or filibuster, administra-
tion. When Lincoln succeeded Buchanan the
aspect of affairs from the United States point of
view had undergone a dramatic change. Threat-
ened with Confederate letters of marque, the
government also found itself engaged in, and
responsible for, a blockade of the first magni-
tude. Under such circumstances, it was plainly
impossible to forecast all the contingencies which
might arise, and it was altogether dubious what
policy might prove to be the more expedient;
THE TREATY OF PARIS 203
but, on the whole, it seemed to the adminis-
tration wisest to endeavor to conciliate Europe.
A circular dispatch from the Department of
State was sent out accordingly, bearing date
April 24th. By it the ministers of the United
States were formally instructed to ascertain the
disposition of the various governments to which
they were accredited; and, if they found such
governments favorably disposed, to enter into
a convention, under the terms of which the
United States became a party to the Paris
compact. This dispatch, it will be observed,
was prepared and sent out after the fall of Sum-
ter, and the consequent proclamation of Lincoln
and letter-of-marque notification of Jefferson
Davis. In view of the widely spread suspicions
entertained respecting the methods of the Amer-
ican secretary of state, the move was one calcu-
lated to excite a not altogether unnatural dis-
trust in the minds of diplomats and European
statesmen; a distrust which would not have
been allayed had they been acquainted with the
tenor of the memorandum of “ Notes for the
President’s Consideration”? submitted to Mr.
Lincoln by that secretary some three weeks pre-
vious.
Mr. Adams next found himself engaged in a
long, and what he at the time accurately de-
scribed asa “ singular,” negotiation on this sub-
204. CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
ject, into the details of which it is impossible
here to enter. It is sufficient to say that it
was marked on the part of the British govern-
ment by evasions, procrastinations, and vacil-
lations by no means creditable. In fact, as the
interviews followed each other, “the singular
divergencies of recollections as to facts’’ became
so pronounced, that Mr. Adams recorded a frank
admission that “the whole conduct of the admin-
istration here is inexplicable ;” and, at last, re-
lieved himself by declaring (to himself) that it
was ‘difficult to suppress indignation at the
miserable shuffling practiced throughout.” In
his opinion at the time all this was attributable
to the secret machinations of the Premier: but
the real explanation was that Lord John Rus-
sell, distrustful of the good faith and ulterior
purposes of the Washington government, was
afraid of being unwarily entrapped into a posi-
tion which would in some way compromise him
with respect to those responsible for depreda-
tions under Confederate letters of marque. The
British government, though it had conferred
rights of belligerency on the Confederacy, might
be called on to treat as pirates those sailing
under the Confederate colors. Again, like all
European diplomats, Lord John, or Earl Rus-
sell, as he now became, looked upon the early
recognition of the Confederacy as inevitable.
THE TREATY OF PARIS 205
But, as events developed while the negotiation
went on, recognition might well involve an
armed intervention. In case of hostilities, the
interests of Great Britain, as respects the four
principles of the Treaty of Paris, were not alto-
gether clear. The mercantile marine of the
United States had then grown rapidly. O71
in spite of. this magnificent giving, the columns
of the press teemed with instances of dire suf-
fering.
In France the situation was no better; in-
deed, owing to the deeper poverty of the popu-
lation at the manufacturing centres, some as-
serted that it was worse. At Rouen, of 50,000
operatives ordinarily engaged in spinning, weav-
- ing, dyeing, ete., 30,000 were absolutely with-
out occupation. In the adjoining country dis-
tricts, out of 65,000 hand-looms, one fifth only
were at work. It was estimated that in a single
district no less than 130,000 persons, aggre-
gating with those dependent upon them a total
of some 300,000 souls, were absolutely destitute,
all because of the cotton famine. The editor of
the “ Revue des Deux Mondes” declared that a
sum of twelve millions of francs was required to
maintain these people for three months, even
supposing that cotton would be forthcoming at
the end of that time. The estimate was of
course based on the supposition that immediate
measures would be taken to raise the blockade.
The extraordinary feature in the situation
was, however, the patience of the victims; and
the organs of the Confederacy noted with ill-
suppressed dismay the absence of “political
demonstrations, to urge upon a neglectful gov-
ernment its duty towards its suffering subjects,
272 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
and to enforce at once the rules of international
law and the rights of an injured and innocent
population.” A distinctly audible whine was
perceptible in their utterances. ‘ It is,” one of
them said, “the great peculiarity of England
that the heart of the country is thoroughly re-
ligious. ‘The plain issue, then, between the two
nations, was therefore naturally overlooked by
those whose programme in America was the law
of conscience overriding the law of the land;
and the prominence they gave to the slave ques-
tion was especially directed to the religious pub-
lic in England. And well has it answered their
purpose. To this very hour the great mass of
the people have no other terms to express the
nature of the conflict. It is to no purpose that
argument, fact, and experience have shown the
utter indifference of the North to the welfare of
the negro; the complete appreciation by the
slaves themselves of the sham friendship offered
them ; and, still more, the diabolical preaching
of the ministers of God’s word, who rely on
Sharp’s rifles to carry out their doctrines. The
emancipation of the negro from the slavery of
Mrs. Beecher Stowe’s heroes is the one idea of
the millions of British who know no better, and
do not care to know.” In truth, the fundamen-
tal sin of the Confederacy had found it out.
Literally, and in no way figuratively, the curse
THE COTTON FAMINE 273
of the bondsman was on it. Rarely, indeed, in
the history of mankind, has there been a more
creditable exhibition of human sympathy, and
what is known as altruism, than that now wit-
nessed in Lancashire. The common folk of
England, Lincoln’s “ plain people,” workless and
hungry, felt what the wealthier class refused to
believe, that the cause at issue in America was
the right of a workingman to his own share in
the results of his toil. That cause, they .in-
stinctively knew, was somehow their cause, and
they would not betray it. So no organized cry
went up to break the blockade which, while it
shut up cotton, was throttling slavery.
Yet not for six months, or until the close of
1862, did the distress show signs of abatement.
During those months the weekly returns of the
poor were watched with an anxiety hardly less
great than if they had been the bills of mor-
tality in a time of plague. The quotations of
cotton marked unerringly the severity of the
pressure. Touching thirty pence at the begin-
ning of September, before the close of the year
it ruled five pence lower. A falling market
then put a stop to speculation, and cotton in
store began to find its way to the market. The
staple was no longer hoarded, and the stock on
hand was found to be materially larger than
had been supposed. In a speech made by him
274 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
at this time, Mr. Gladstone estimated that of
the entire number of persons concerned in the
manufacture of cotton fabrics, one eighth only
were at full work, three eighths were working
short time, while one half were wholly idle. Of
the unemployed and their families, 250,000 were
paupers, and 190,000 dependent to a greater or
less degree on the relief societies; the entire
charge, public and private, was £44,000 per
week. The loss of wages he computed at eight
millions sterling a year. Nevertheless, natural
causes were bringing about a gradual measure
of relief. Thus early in January, 18638, the
number of dependent persons was reported at
nearly 457,000 ; in April this number had fallen
to 864,000; and it further fell to 256,666 in
June. At the close of the year it was 180,000;
and, though the price of American cotton still
ruled at twenty-six pence, the supply of the
staple from all sources in 1863 was more than
twenty-five per cent. greater than in 1862. By
that time, therefore, all danger from a cotton
scarcity was over. The Confederacy had staked
its whole foreign policy on a single card; and
the card had failed to win. Yet the failure was
due to no sudden contingencies beyond human
prevision. It was, on the contrary, a com-
plete case of miscaleculating overconfidence, —
the means were inadequate to the end. The
THE COTTON FAMINE 275
pressure had been applied to the full extent,
and every condition contributed to its severity.
The warehouses were bursting with manufactured
goods, the overproduction of the previous year,
which alone, through glutted markets, would
have caused a reaction and extreme consequent
dullness in the manufacturing centres. This
natural result was vastly aggravated by the
blockade, which shut off the raw material from
such of the mills as would still have kept ‘run-
ning. The speculator, waiting for the last
farthing of the rise, then held the scanty stock
on hand unspun. The other cotton-producing
countries responded but slowly to the increased
demand, and then only with a very inferior
article, the spinning of which spoiled the ma-
chinery. Finally the Confederacy held its en-
emy at arm’s length during five times the period
every Southern authority had fixed upon as
ample in which to establish King Cotton’s su-
premacy. Nothing sufficed. An alleged dynasty
was fairly and completely dethroned. It was a
great game, and the leaders of the Confederacy
were skillful gamblers as well as desperate. In
that game, so lightly and confidently entered
upon, they held what proved to be a large card:
but it was not the absolutely decisive card they
thought it; and, as is not unusual at the gam-
ing table, there proved to be in the hands
276 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
engaged other and more than counterbalancing
combinations. The bondsman and nineteenth
century self-sacrifice had not been sufficiently
taken into account. Conscience carried it over
Cotton.
One more feature in this episode remains to
be mentioned; for it was not without its influ-
ence on that deep underlying stratum of public
opinion which carried the American cause
through its crisis. By the tales of misery in
patient Lancashire, the sympathies of all Eng-
lish-speaking communities had been deeply
stirred. Contributions poured in from the re-
motest regions of the earth. Within the thir-
teen months ending June 380, 18638, charity pro-
vided nearly two millions sterling for the relief
of distress, in addition to £625,000 derived
from the local poor rates. Of gifts in kind.
clothing and blankets by the bale, coal by the
ton, and flour by the barrel had come in, each
in thousands. On the 6th of December John
Bright wrote to Mr. Sumner: “I see that some
one in the States has proposed to send something
to our aid. If a few cargoes of flour could come,
say 00,000 barrels, as a gift from persons in
your Northern States to the Lancashire work-
ingmen, it would have a prodigious effect in
your favor here.” As if in magic response to
the thought, there now came to the Mersey in
THE COTTON FAMINE 277
quick succession three food-laden “ relief-ships ”’
from New York, —the Hope, the George Gris-
wold,and the Achilles. America then had its
own burdens to bear. The amounts expended
from public and private sources for the dis-
tressed of Lancashire during the fifteen months
of famine were computed as reaching the amaz-
ing sum of $12,000,000, while the aggregate of
loss sustained in wages alone was estimated at
fifty millions. These were largeamounts. They
implied much suffering of a varied nature. Yet
the entire contribution, great and significant as
it was, would not have sufficed to cover the ex-
penditure and waste involved on the side of the
Union alone in a single month of the trans-Atlan-
tic struggle then going on; while the sum total
whether of human suffering or of pecuniary loss
sustained throughout Great Britain because of
the cotton famine was less than that endured
each fortnight by the combined American peo-
ple at home and in the field. That in the midst
of such stress — carnage, wounds, and devasta-
tion — food by the cargo was forthcoming as a
gift from those involved in the real agony of
war to those for whom that war had occasioned
distress, passing though sharp, was neither un-
noticed nor barren of results.
CHAPTER XV
THE CRISIS OF RECOGNITION
MEANWHILE, in the month of September,
1862, during the severest stress of the cotton
famine, the cause of the Union had in Europe
passed its crisis, — that in which the full recog-
nition of the Confederacy, and the consequent
raising of the blockade through the armed in-
tervention of Great Britain and France, were
most imminent. The secret history of what
then took place, giving to the course of events
its final shape, has never as yet been fully re-
vealed ; but, though nervously conscious of the
imminence of danger, Mr. Adams could only
watch the developments, powerless to influence
them, except adversely by some act or word
on his part a mistake.
All through the summer of 1862 the min-
isters of Napoleon III. were pressing the British
government towards recognition, and the utter-
ances of English public men of note were be-
coming day by day more outspoken and signifi-
cant. Of these, some were of little moment;
others meant more. It did not much matter,
THE CRISIS OF RECOGNITION 279
for instance, that the honest, but ill-balanced
and somewhat grotesque, John Arthur Roe-
buck, when addressing his constituency at
Sheffield on August 8th, referred, in the pre-
sence of Lord Palmerston, to the United States
as ‘a people that cannot be trusted,” and to
the Union army as “the scum and refuse of
Europe.” It was not much more to the purpose
that he denounced the North as having “ put
forward a pretense,” and declared that “they
are not fighting against slavery,’ while the
whole effort to reunite the country was “an
immoral proceeding, totally incapable of suc-
cess.” Finally his appeal to “the noble Lord,”
then present, “ to weigh well the consequences of
what he calls ‘ perfect neutrality,” would not
under ordinary circumstances have carried much
weight with the Premier. The same may be
said of Mr. Beresford-Hope, who, in his ad-
dress about the same time to the electors of
Stoke-upon-Trent, bewailed the “unhappy in-
fatuation ” which had led the North “ to venture
its all upon the cast for empire, misnamed lib-
erty,” and thus to risk “its own moral degra-
dation ;”’ and then pledged himself to vote in
Parliament to place “the Confederate States
amongst the governments of the world.” Nor
was Mr. Lindsay of much greater moment when,
at Chertsey, he declared “the question practi-
280 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
cally settled,’ and asked: “Is there one man in
a thousand in this country who thinks that the
broken Union can be restored?” —then pro-
ceeding to denounce “this wicked, this worthless
war.” These men, and men like these, carrying
with them little weight in life, were speedily
forgotten when dead. Not so Mr. Gladstone,
who now at Newcastle, on October Tth, was be-
trayed into utterances which he was afterwards
at much trouble to explain. ‘There is no
doubt,”’ he said, amid loud cheers from his au-
dience, ‘“‘that Jefferson Davis and other leaders
of the South have made an army; they are
making, it appears, a navy ; and they have made
what is more than either, — they have made a
nation. ... . We may anticipate with certainty
the success of the Southern States so far as re-
gards their separation from the North. I can-
not but believe that that event is as certain as
any event yet future and contingent can be.”
Mr. Gladstone was then chancellor of the ex-
chequer ; the date of the utterance was October
7th. Both time and utterance were significant ;
nor did the latter pass unchallenged. In the
Palmerston-Russell ministry Sir George Corne-
wall Lewis held the position of secretary of
state for war. An able, an upright, and a cour-
ageous public man, Sir George Lewis, in direct
response to Mr. Gladstone, and almost imme-
THE CRISIS OF RECOGNITION 281
diately afterwards, at a meeting at Hereford,
on the 14th, while admitting that, in the general
opinion of Great Britain, “the contest would
issue in the establishment of the independence
of the South,” went on to declare that “ it could
not be said the Southern States of the Union
had de facto established their independence,”
or were in a position to be entitled to recogni-
tion on any accepted principles of public law.
It was not without reason that Mr. Lindsay,
referring a few days later to this speech of Sir
George Lewis’s, remarked that he had “ reason
to believe the barrier that stopped the way [to
a recognition of the Confederacy] is not any of
the great powers of Europe, — is not the unani-
mous cabinet of England, but a section of that
cabinet.”
Such was the fact; and the danger was ex-
treme. Lord Palmerston had at last made up
his mind that the time had come. Accordingly,
on September 14th, he wrote to Earl Russell
suggesting a joint offer by Great Britain and
France of what is in diplomatic parlance known
as “good offices.” This Earl Russell was now
quick to approve. He, too, thought the occasion
meet. ‘I agree with you,” he wrote in reply to
Palmerston on September 17th, “the time is
come for offering mediation to the United States
government, with a view to the recognition of
282 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
the independence of the Confederates. I agree
further that, in case of failure, we ought our-
selves to recognize the Southern States as an
independent state.’ He went on to suggest an
early meeting of the cabinet to pass upon the
question. On the 23d the Premier acknow-
ledged the note of the foreign secretary, pro-
nouncing the plan of the latter “excellent,”
adding characteristically : “Of course the offer
would be made to both the contending parties at
the same time; for, though the offer would be
as sure to be accepted by the Southerners as
was the proposal of the Prince of Wales to the
Danish Princess, yet, in the one case as the
other, there are certain forms which it is decent
and proper to go through. . . . Might it not be
well to ask Russia to join England and France
in the offer of mediation? . . . We should be
better without her, because she would be too
favorable to the North; but, on the other hand,
her participation in the offer might render the
North more willing to accept it.” The middle
of October was the time he suggested for action.
Naturally, the two heads of the ministry took it
for granted that their concurrence would control
its action. It proved otherwise; and hence the
great significance of Sir George Lewis’s Here-
ford utterances in response to those of Mr. Glad-
stone. The difference was pronounced; the
THE CRISIS OF RECOGNITION 283
several ministers were admitting the public into
their confidence. Lord Russell, however, per-
severed. A confidential memorandum, outlin-
ing the proposed policy, went out; and a call
was issued for a cabinet meeting on October
23d, for its consideration. The authority of the
two chieftains to the contrary notwithstanding,
the division of opinion foreshadowed by the
remarks of Sir George Lewis proved so serious
that the meeting was not held. The Duke of
Argyll and Mr. Milner Gibson were the two
most pronounced “* Americans” in the cabinet ;
and they received a measured support from Mr.
C. P. Villiers and Sir George Lewis. The Con-
federate emissaries in London had access to ex-
cellent sources of information; far better, in-
deed, than those at the command of Mr. Adams.
Their organ, a little later, thus referred to the
attitude of the government: “On matters of
public policy, the cabinet must, in some sense,
think alike; there must be a cabinet opinion.
. . . Now, on many questions, and especially on
the American question, there prevails the great-
est disunion of feeling among the members of
the cabinet. Some of them sympathize strongly
with the Confederate States. . . . Others are
devoted to the North. Others, and notably the
Prime Minister, care nothing for either party.
. . . They do not care to involve themselves in
284 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
any difficulty foreign or domestic, by siding with
the Confederates ; and their only wish is to let
the matter alone. At present this party practi-
cally determines the action, or rather inaction,
of the cabinet; which is quite aware that any
attempt to have an opinion or lay down a policy
in regard to American affairs must be fatal to
the very pretense of accord, and to its official
existence. Therefore the ministry does nothing,
because nothing is the only thing which the dif-
ferent sections can agree to do.” The question,
so far as Great Britain was concerned, thus
from this time forth became one of internal
polities, social divisions, and parliamentary ma-
jorities.
Meanwhile, following indications closely, Mr.
Adams had in July anticipated some such action
of the British and French governments as being
then in contemplation ; not yet matured, he felt
sure it was in mind. ‘ Mischief to us in some
shape,” he wrote, “will only be averted by the
favor of Divine providence on our own efforts.
I wrote a full dispatch to Mr. Seward.” In
that dispatch he asked for further and explicit
instructions as to the course he should pursue,
if approached by Earl Russell with a tender of
‘‘ good offices.” The response reached him about
the middle of August, a few days only after Mr.
Roebuck had orated at Sheffield before his con-
THE CRISIS OF RECOGNITION 285
stituency and the Prime Minister. So far as
explicitness was concerned, the instructions now
received were in no way deficient. Carrying the
standard entrusted to him high and with a firm
hand, the secretary bore himself in a way of
which his country had cause to be proud. The
paper read in part as follows : —
“Tf the British government shall in any way
approach you directly or indirectly with propo-
sitions which assume or contemplate an appeal
to the President on the subject of our internal
affairs, whether it seem to imply a purpose to
dictate, or to mediate, or to advise, or even to
solicit or persuade, you will answer that you are
forbidden to debate, to hear, or in any way re-
ceive, entertain, or transmit any communication
of the kind. You will make the same answer
whether the proposition comes from the British
government alone or from that government in
combination with any other power.
“Tf you are asked an opinion what reception
the President would give to such a proposition,
if made here, you will reply that you are not
instructed, but you have no reason for supposing
that it would be entertained.
“Tf contrary to our expectations the British
government, either alone or in combination with
any other government, should acknowledge the
insurgents, while you are remaining without
286 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
further instructions from this government con-
cerning that event, you will immediately sus-
pend the exercise of your functions, and give
notice of that suspension to Earl Russell and to
this department. If the British government
make any act or declaration of war against the
United States, you will desist from your fune-
tions, ask a passport, and return without delay
to this capital. I have now in behalf of the
United States and by the authority of their
chief executive magistrate performed an im-
portant duty. Its possible consequences have
been weighed, and its solemnity is therefore
felt and freely acknowledged. This duty has
brought us to meet and confront the danger of
a war with Great Britain and other states allied
with the insurgents who are in arms for the
overthrow of the American Union. You will
perceive that we have approached the contem-
plation of that crisis with the caution which
great reluctance has inspired. But I trust that
you will also have perceived that the crisis has
not appalled us.”
Ignorant of the September correspondence
between the Prime Minister and the foreign sec-
retary, but with this letter of instructions in his
desk, Mr. Adams had on October 8th read the
report of Mr. Gladstone’s Newcastle speech.
“If he,” Mr. Adams wrote, “be any exponent
THE CRISIS OF RECOGNITION 287
at all of the views of the cabinet, then is my
term likely to be very short.” The next day
came more “ indications ;”’ and he added: “We
are now passing through the very crisis of our
fate. I have had thoughts of seeking a confer-
ence with Lord Russell, to ask an explanation of
Mr. Gladstone’s position; but, on reflection, I
think I shall let a few days at least pass, and
then perhaps sound matters incidentally.”
Making a visit at this time to the Forsters,
than whom, he wrote, ‘no persons in England
have inspired me with more respect and regard,”
Mr. Adams communicated to his host ‘in con-
fidence the substance of my instructions. He
thought I ought to make the government aware
of them, before they committed themselves.” A
few days later came the speech of Sir George
Lewis, and Mr. Adams, still anxiously noting
the situation, wrote: “I think [Gladstone]
overshot the mark;” but he rightly regarded
the cabinet meeting then called for the 28d as
being decisive of the policy now to be pursued.
*‘T so wrote to the government to-day.”
Exactly what passed in anticipation of this
truly crucial cabinet meeting has remained a
state secret. The Palmerston-Russell ministry
from the beginning held office by an uncertain
tenure; it held it, indeed, through the acquies-
cence and silent support of a large element in
288 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
the ranks of the Conservatives, who recognized
in the Prime Minister one of themselves. He
had outlived opposition, and was now accepted
as a species of party compromise. He would
remain in office as long as he lived, provided
always he presented no strong issue, whether
internal or foreign. He understood the situa-
tion perfectly, and held parliamentary reform
in abeyance, on the one hand, while, on the
other, he did not countenance intervention.
The moral sentiment of Great Britain on the
issue of African slavery was not yet fully
aroused, and from all other sides the pressure
for recognition and the raising of the blockade
was strong. Lord Palmerston, as his correspond-
ence with Earl Russell shows, was quite ready
to yield to the pressure, had it not involved a
break. But it so chanced that it did involve a
break ; and the ministerial ranks were not strong
enough to stand a break. Sir George Lewis’s
utterances, backed by Cobden, Bright, and
Forster, were very ominous. Probably consider-
ations prevailed then similar to those which two
years later led the same two chieftains to a re-
luctant acquiescence in a like cautious policy
in the Schleswig-Holstein imbroglio. “ As to
cabinets,” Lord Palmerston then wrote to Earl
Russell, “if we had colleagues like those who
sat in Pitt’s cabinet, you and I might have our
THE CRISIS OF RECOGNITION 289
own way on most things; but when, as is now
the case, able men fill every department, such
men will have opinions, and hold to them.”
However this may have been, Mr. Adams on
the afternoon of October 23d, the date fixed for
the canceled cabinet meeting, had an official
interview with the foreign secretary, at which,
after disposing of some matters of nominal
importance, he got to the “real object in
the interview.” Referring to the departure of
Lord Lyons from London for Washington, he
having in reality been detained by the govern-
ment until its American policy had been de-
cided upon, “I expressed,” Mr. Adams wrote,
* the hope that he might be going out for a long
time. I had, indeed, been made of late quite
fearful that it would be otherwise. If I had en-
tirely trusted to the construction given by the
public to a late speech, I should have begun to
think of packing my carpet-bag and trunks.
His Lordship at once embraced the allusion ;
and, whilst endeavoring to excuse Mr. Glad-
stone, in fact admitted that his act had been
regretted by Lord Palmerston and the other
cabinet officers.”
Unknowingly, and with the narrowest possi-
ble margin of safety, the crisis had been passed.
Three weeks later, Mr. Adams made the follow-
ing diary entry : —
290 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
“ Friday, 14th November, 1862 : — Some ex-
citement here by the publication of a letter of
M. Drouyn de Lhuys, the new minister of for-
eign affairs in Paris, proposing to the courts of
England and Russia a joint offer of mediation
in the American struggle, to begin with an ar-
mistice of six months. This letter is dated on
the 15th of last month, so that it has probably
been already answered by both governments.
The general impression here is that it has been
declined. I have a letter from Mr. Dayton to- —
day, giving the substance of his conference with
M. Drouyn de Lhuys, and reporting him as say-
ing that in case of the other powers declining
nothing would be done. It is nevertheless a
strange move.”
CHAPTER XVI
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION
In the mean time one of the great events of
the century had taken place in America. On
September 22d, while the British Prime Minis-
ter and foreign secretary were corresponding
with a view to the immediate recognition of the
“‘slaveholders’ Confederacy,” the Emancipa-
tion Proclamation of President Lincoln had
been made public. Slavery as an issue in the
struggle then going on could no longer be de-
nied or ignored. It was there; and it was
there to stay. The knot was cut; the shackles
were knocked off.
The ultimate influence of this epochal move
in Europe, especially in Great Britain, was im-
mense; but, at the moment, it seemed to excite
only astonishment, mingled with scorn and hor-
ror. It was not even taken seriously. Indeed,
a reprint of the editorials of the leading Eng-
lish papers of that date would now be a literary
curiosity, as well as a most useful vade mecum
for the race of ready, editorial writers. An in-
structive memorial of human fallibility, it might
292 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
preserve from many future pitfalls. Not a
single one of the London journals of 1862 rose
to an equality with the occasion. An event oc-
curred second in importance to few in the de-
velopment of mankind; the knell of human
bondage was sounded, and one more relic of
barbarism ceased: yet, having eyes they saw
not, having ears they did not hear. Purblind
and deaf, they only canted and caviled. The
tone varied from that of weak apology in the
friendly ‘‘ News,” to that of bitter denunciation
in the hostile “‘ Post.” The “Times” charac-
terized the Proclamation as “a very sad docu-
ment,” which the South would “ answer with a
hiss of scorn.’ It was instructive merely as
“proof of the hopelessness and recklessness”
of those responsible for it; while, as an act of
policy, it “is, if possible, more contemptible
than it is wicked.” The “ Morning Herald”
pronounced it “an act of high-handed usurpa-
tion,’ with “no legal force whatever.” ...
Had “Mr. Davis himself directed the course of
his rival, we do not think he could have dic-
tated a measure more likely to divide the North
and to unite the border States firmly with the
South.” The “ Post” remarked: “ It is scarcely
possible to treat seriously of this singular mani-
festo. If not genuine, the composition would be
entitled to no little praise as a piece of match-
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 293
less irony.” The “Standard” pronounced the
whole thing a “sham” intended ‘to deceive
England and Europe” — “the wretched make-
shift of a pettifogging lawyer.” The “ Daily
Telegraph ” accused President Lincoln and his
advisers of having “ fallen back upon the most
extravagant yet most commonplace ‘ dodges’ of
the faction that placed them in power.” Mean-
while, the more kindly disposed “ News” pro-
nounced the step thus taken “feeble and halt-
ing,’ and gave as its opinion that the Procla-
mation had not “the importance which some
persons in England are disposed to attach to
it.” These extracts are all from the issues of
the leading London journals of a single day
(October 7, 1862); but they sufficiently illus-
trate the tone of thought and the state of feel-
ing in which Mr. Adams was then compelled to
draw the breath of life. It was bitterly, aggres-
sively, vindictively hostile.
It was another case of people using the same
speech, and yet talking in different tongues.
Even when he honestly wished so to do, the
Englishman could not understand America, or
things American ; and now he did not wish to.
He had read General Butler’s order No. 28, as
he would have read a similar order governing
the action of an English soldiery in India or a
French soldiery in Spain. It was an invitation
294 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
to outrage. So now he saw in the Proclamation
either mere emptiness, or an incitement to ser-
vile insurrection. If not, as he believed and
hoped, an idle menace, it meant a repetition
of the horrors of the Sepoy mutiny, then only
four years gone and fresh in English memory,
or a renewal on an infinitely larger scale of the
unforgettable atrocities of St. Domingo. That
by any possibility it should prove in the result
what it actually did prove, never at the time
dawned on the average cockney brain ; nor, in-
deed, did the possessors of that brain welcome
the idea when at last it forced its way there.
It is, in fact, difficult now to realize the lan-
guage used in 1862-63 towards the men of the
North by Englishmen who professed the most
intimate knowledge of them. For instance, a
Mr. Cowell, who had at one time lived for sev-
eral years in the United States as the represent-
ative of no less an institution than the Bank of
England, but was now residing in apparent re-
tirement at Cannes, in a pamphlet published
about this time, in reference to “ points in the
Yankee national character which ought to be
borne in mind,” thus delivered himself: ‘* The
narrow, fanatical, and originally sincere puri-
tanism of their ancestors has, in the course of
six generations, degenerated into that amalgam
of hypocrisy, cruelty, falsehood, unconsciousness
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 295
of the faintest sentiments of self-respect, coarse-
ness of self-assertion, insensibility to the opin-
ions of others, utter callousness to right, bar-
barous delight in wrong, and thoroughly moral
ruffianism, which is now fully revealed to the
world as the genuine Yankee nature; and of
which Butler, Seward, etc., who are pure repre-
sentative Yankees, afford such finished exam-
ples.” And it was from the government of a
community of this character that the Emanci-
pation Proclamation of 1862 was, among those
comprising certain influential classes of British
society, supposed to have emanated.
To Mr. Adams, the adoption of the policy
set forth in the Proclamation seemed “ a mere
question of time.” It was emancipation through
martial law; that solution of the trouble which
had been predicted by his father time and again
in Congress a quarter of a century before: and
now, when at last it came, as he observed the
effect of its announcement on his British sur-
roundings, his feelings found expression in that
stern Puritan speech, characteristic of the stock
and of the man. Communing, after his wont
with himself, he wrote in his diary: ‘I do not
pretend to peer into the future; but this terrible
series of calamities appears as a just judgment
upon the country for having paltered with the
evil so long. (God have mercy on us, miserable
offenders! ”
296 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
For a time after the news of the Proclama-
tion reached Europe, the friends of the Confed-
eracy seemed to have exclusive control of both
press and platform. Examples of journalistic
utterance have been given ; those of the average
gentleman lecturer and member of Parliament
were scarcely more discreet. Of the former
class, Mr. Beresford-Hope energetically charac-
terized the Proclamation as “ this hideous out-
burst of weak yet demoniacal spite,” and “ the
most unparalleled last card ever played by a
reckless gambler.” Of the latter class, Mr.
Lindsay hastened to declare that :— “ Instead of
being a humane proclamation, it was, in fact, a
specimen of the most horrible barbarity, and a
more terrible proclamation than had ever been
issued in any part of the world.” A Mr. Pea-
cocke, member from North Essex, towards the
close of October, at a great Conservative de-
monstration at Colchester, went even further than
Mr. Lindsay, declaring of the Proclamation that,
if it “was worth anything more than the paper
on which it was inscribed, and if the four mil-
lions of blacks were really to be emancipated on
January 1st, then we should be prepared to wit-
ness a carnage so bloody that even the horrors of
the Jacquerie and the massacres of Cawnpore
would wax pale in comparison. . . . The eman-
cipation proclamation, even if it had been in the
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 297
interest of the negro, would have been a political
crime; but when we reflect that it was put forth,
not in the interest of the negro or of civilization,
but that it was merely a vindictive measure of
spite and retaliation upon nine millions of whites
struggling for their independence, it was one
of the most devilish acts of fiendish malignity
which the wickedness of man could ever have
conceived.” The distress of these gentlemen
should have been greatly alleviated when, at
about this time, the special correspondent of
the “ Times,” writing from the Confederacy on
the effect of the Proclamation, but exercising the
common capacity for self-deception to another
end, gravely assured the British public that, —
“ Acvain and again the slaves have fled from the
Yankee army into the swamp to escape a com-
pulsory freedom ; and there is abundant evidence
that if a being so morally weak and nerveless as
the African could be made to fight for anything,
he would fight for slavery much rather than for
liberty.”
A few days later, with characteristic blunt-
ness, Mr. Bright said in a letter, “I applaud
the proclamation ;” and for the United States to
emerge from the contest leaving “the slave still
a slave will expose [it] to the contempt of the
civilized world.” The Confederate organ in
1 London Times, December 1, 1862.
298 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
London, commenting on this letter, spoke with
measurable accuracy when it announced in reply
that ““every organ of a considerable party ”
pronounced the edict ‘“‘ infamous,” and that a
similar opinion of it was entertained by “ every
educated and nearly every uneducated English-
man.”
But, as the weeks went on they at last brought
with them significant indications of a deep un-
dercurrent of opposing sentiment; and on Jan-
uary 2, 1863, a gentleman from Manchester —
the great city of Lancashire, and the centre of
the cotton famine, then at its worst — called on
Mr. Adams, bringing him a copy of an address
to the President from a meeting of workingmen
held on the last day of the previous year. “I
was glad to seize the occasion to express my
satisfaction with it,” wrote Mr. Adams. ‘ It
was quite a strong manifestation of good feel-
ing. There certainly is much sympathy felt
in the lower classes, but little or none by the
upper.” On the 16th a committee called to
present the resolutions of the British Emanci-
pation Society on the Proclamation, which had
been confirmed as finally operative by the mails
of three days before. Even then, so dubious
was the chairman of the organization as to the
effect of the step on public opinion, that he
evinced a strong disposition to defer action.
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 299
But, wrote Mr. Adams, “later in the day,
[when] the committee came, it proved so numer-
ous and respectable that I heard no more of
Mr. Evans’s seruple. He, as chairman, pre-
sented to me the resolutions; after which Mr.
P. A. Taylor, member of Parliament from
Leicester, the Rev. Baptist Noel, Rev. Newman
Hall, and Mr. Jacob Bright made some remarks,
all expressive of earnest sympathy with Amer-
ica in the present struggle. There can be hittle
doubt that now is the time to strike the popular
heart here; and the effect may be to checkmate
the movement of the aristocracy.” In other
words, Mr. Adams was now working on the very
elements in Great Britain which, two years be-
fore at Montgomery, B. C. Yancey had pointed
out to his brother as fatal to the chances for
recognition of “a slaveholders’ Confederacy.”
Soon the addresses began to pour into the
Legation in a steady and ever-swelling stream.
“It is clear,” wrote Mr. Adams, “ that the cur-
rent is now setting strongly with us among the
body of the people. This may be quite useful
on the approach of the session of Parliament ;”’
or, as B. C. Yancey had expressed it: “ Suffrage
had not then been enlarged to reach the labor-
ing classes, but the government was scarcely
less respectful of their wishes on that account.”
On January 29th a meeting was held in Exeter
300 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
Hall, “reported as one of the most extraordi-
nary ever made in London,” proving to Mr.
Adams “ conclusively the spirit of the middle
classes here as well as elsewhere.” For the
first time since he had been in England, he had
the cheering consciousness of sympathy and
support. “ It will not change the temper of the
higher classes,” he wrote, “ but it will do some-
thing to moderate the manifestation of it.”
Four days later the delegation from the Exeter
Hall meeting called to present the address. “I
received them,” wrote Mr. Adams, “in my din-
ing-room, which was very full. The body
seemed to be clergy ; but all looked substantial
and respectable. The chairman made some re-
marks explanatory of the difficulties previously
in the way of a movement of this kind. Then
came remarks from different speakers, some
very good, and others quite flat; [but] there
was no mistaking the tone, which was strong
and hearty in sympathy with us. I think there
can be little doubt that the popular current now
sets in our favor. They left me with hearty
shakes of the hand, that marked the existence
of an active feeling at bottom. It was not the
lukewarmness and indifference of the aristo-
eracy, but the genuine English heartiness of
good-will.” |
The organ of the Prime Minister at this time
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 301
editorially referred to the Exeter Hall meeting
as “a great disgrace to the Christian religion,
and an egregious blunder as a step towards
emancipation.” ! In so doing, it voiced the sen-
timents of the ruling class. Cobden voiced
those of the laboring classes ; and Cobden now
wrote to Sumner: — “I know nothing in my
political experience so striking, as a display of
spontaneous public action, as that of the vast
gathering at Exeter Hall, when, without one
attraction in the form of a popular orator, the
vast building, its minor rooms and passages, and
the streets adjoining, were crowded with an
enthusiastic audience. That meeting has had a
powerful effect on our newspapers and _politi-
cians. It has closed the mouths of those who
have been advocating the side of the South.
And I now write to assure you that any un-
friendly act on the part of our government —
no matter which of our aristocratic parties is in
power — towards your cause is not to be appre-
hended. If an attempt were made by the goy-
ernment in any way to commit us to the South,
a spirit would be instantly aroused which would
drive that government from power.” The tri-
bune of the British people and the organ of the
Prime Minister of England thus saw the thing
from different points of view. The result shortly
1 The Morning Post, Saturday, 31st January, 1863.
302 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
showed which was right. From this time on
nothing but an outburst of patriotic, warlike
passion, provoked by some untoward incident
like that of the Trent, could have sufficed to |
master the rising voice of English conscience.
It was the final demonstration of the soundness
of the advice his brother gave Mr. Yancey, two
years before, so often already alluded to:—
“Unless the (Confederate) government should
send a Commission (to Europe) authorized to
offer commercial advantages so liberal that the
Exeter Hall influence could not withstand them,
the British government, however well disposed,
would not venture to run counter to the anti-
slavery feeling by recognition of the Confederate
States.” Cobden and Bright, B. C. Yancey had
added, were the leaders of the laboring classes ;
and “Cobden and Bright would oppose the
recognition of a slaveholders’ Confederacy.” 4
Parliament assembled February 5th, only two
days after the Exeter Hall delegation had pre-
sented the address to Mr. Adams, and six days
before Mr. Cobden wrote to Mr. Sumner, setting
forth its significance. ‘“ The most marked in-
dication,” wrote Mr. Adams, “ respecting Amer-
ican affairs, was the course of Lord Derby and
Mr. D’Israeli [in] the debate on the address,
which decidedly discouraged movement. On
1 Life and Times of W. L. Yancey, 588, 589.
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 303
their minds the effect of the President’s procla-
mation on public sentiment here has not been
lost.” Nor had its effect on that sentiment
been lost on the “ Times.” The utterances of
the ‘“* Thunderer” on the contrary were now
more than ever significant, and expressive of
the views of those among whom it circulated.
Read in the light of forty years after, they have
an interest still : —
“Though there is little homage to principle
in the President’s proclamation, any attempt on
the part of the American government, however
tardily, reluctantly, and partially made, to
emancipate any portion of the negro race, must
have an effect on the opinion of mankind, and
tend to what we have never doubted would in
some way or other be the final result of this
war, the abolition of slavery. But our exulta-
tion is by no means without misgivings... .
If the blacks are to obtain the freedom he pro-
mises them, it must be by their own hands.
They must rise upon a more numerous, more in-
telligent, better-armed, and braver community
of whites, and exterminate them, their wives
and children, by fire and sword. The President
of the United States may summon them to this
act, but he is powerless to assist them ‘in its ex-
ecution. Nay, this is the very reason why they
are summoned. ... Mr. Lincoln bases his act
304 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
on military necessity, and invokes the consider-
ate judgment of mankind and the judgment of
Almighty God. He has characterized his own
act; mankind will be slow to believe that an
act avowedly the result of military considera-
tions has been dictated by a sincere desire for
the benefit of those who, under the semblance
of emancipation, are thus marked out for de-
struction, and He who made man in His own
image can scarcely, we may presume to think,
look with approbation on a measure which, un-
der the pretense of emancipation, intends to re-
duce the South to the frightful condition of St.
Domingo. . . . In the midst of violent party
divisions, in ostentatious contempt of the Con-
stitution, with the most signal ill success in war,
he is persisting in the attempt to conquer a na-
tion, to escape whose victorious arms is the only
triumph which his generals seem capable of
gaining. Hvery consideration of patriotism and
policy calls upon him to put an end to the hope-
less contest, but he considers the ruin is not
deep enough, and so he calls to his aid the ex-
ecrable expedient of a servile insurrection.
Egypt is destroyed ; but his heart is hardened,
and he will not let the people go.”
And thus the slave-owners, and not the slaves,
were in London, in the early days of 1863,
likened unto the children of Israel escaping
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 305
from the land of bondage ; while Abraham Lin-
coln figured, somewhat incongruously, as the
great and only American Pharaoh! As he read
day by day these effusions of vindictive cant and
simulated piety, it is small matter for surprise
that, restrained in expression as he habitually
was, Mr. Adams impatiently broke out in his
diary: “ Thus it is that the utter hollowness of
the former indignation against America for up-
holding slavery is completely exposed. *The
motives of that censure, as for the present emo-
tion, are jealousy, fear, and hatred. It is im-
possible for me to express the contempt I feel
for a nation which exhibits itself to the world
and posterity in this guise. It is a complete
forfeiture of the old reputation for manliness
and honesty.”
CHAPTER XVII
THE ALABAMA AND THE ‘“‘ LAIRD RAMS”
Captain JAMES H. Buwwocn, formerly of
the United States navy, but later the duly ac-
credited naval agent in Europe of the Confed-
eracy, had at this time long been busy negotiat-
ing with the shipbuilders and shipowners of
Great Britain, and sending out to the Confed-
erate ports large consignments of munitions of
war. Coming direct from Montgomery, he had
reached Liverpool on June 4, 1861. Through
his indefatigable efforts, the keel of the Oreto,
afterwards famous as the Florida, had, within a
month of his arrival, been laid; and, on August
1st following, he closed a contract with the
Messrs. Laird, large Liverpool shipwrights, for
the construction of the Alabama, or “290,” as
she was called, that number simply designating
her order among the vessels constructed in the
Laird yards at Birkenhead. The Alabama was
not launched until the 15th of May, 1862. She
was then put in course of rapid preparation for
sea.
The purpose for which the “290” was de-
THE ALABAMA AND THE LAIRD RAMS 307
signed was at Liverpool matter of common town
talk. She was to be a Confederate commerce-
destroyer. The British Foreign Enlistment Act
had been examined by counsel on behalf of the
Confederate agent, and its provisions riddled.
There was no question whatever that the act
was designed to provide against the fitting out
of warlike expeditions in the ports of Great
Britain, and especially to prevent those ports
being made the base of naval operations against
friendly powers; or, in the language of the en-
actment, “the fitting out, equipping, and arming
of vessels for warlike operations.” Counsel
learned in the law now, however, advised that
there was nothing in the act which made illegal
the building of a warship as one operation ;
and nothing which prevented the purchase of
the arms and munitions to equip such vessel,
when built, as another operation. But the two
must be kept distinctly separate. If, then, hav-
ing been thus kept separate, they subsequently
came together, this combination constituted no
violation of the law, provided the result —a
man-of-war, armed, equipped, and in every way
ready for service — was brought about in some
foreign waters more than one marine league
from the British coast. Subsequently this con-
struction of the statute was gravely propounded
in Parliament by ministers and law repre-
308 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
sentatives of the crown, and, at last, for-
mally laid down for the guidance of juries by
the Lord Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer.
Obviously, the law and its administration were
together brought into contempt; and any goy-
ernment official, from the Prime Minister down,
who might endeavor to enforce the manifest in-
tent of the statute, or honestly to regard the
international obligations of the country, must do
so at his peril, and with a distinct understand-
ing that any jury before which the case might
be brought would find heavy damages against
him. The construction of vessels, built avowedly
for war purpose, and designed as Confederate
commerce-destroyers, seemed, therefore, likely
to prove an industry at once safe and lucrative.
If a delivery to the party ordering them was
prevented, the government would have to in-
demnify every one.
Naturally, this extremely technical and thor-
oughly characteristic construction of the Neu-
trality Act failed to commend itself to the repre-
sentatives of the United States in Great Britain.
That it was at the time highly acceptable to the
Parliament, the press, and the moneyed and com-
mercial classes of that country was apparent. It
was looked upon also as an exceeding good joke.
Indeed, it had its side of broad humor. The pas-
sengers on English packets, which a little later
THE ALABAMA AND THE LAIRD RAMS _ 309
fell in with the Alabama, cheered her vociferously
and to the echo. Was she not a Mersey-built
ship, armed with English guns, manned by Brit-
ish sailors? She was destroying the commerce
of the United States ; and yet in her construction
and equipment, judge, counsel, and ministers
were all agreed that no law had been violated, nor
had any disregard been shown to Her Majesty’s
Proclamation of Neutrality. The Yankee had
on this occasion at least been fairly outwitted.
None the less, while the shipbuilders, the law-
yers, and the government officials were busy over
the preliminaries of this elaborate international
burlesque, and before the final perpetration of
the joke, the gradual completion of the “ 290”
was watched with sleepless eyes by Mr. Dudley,
the very efficient United States consul at Liver-
pool, and Mr. Adams was kept fully advised as
to her state of preparation. He, in his turn,
bombarded the Foreign Office with depositions
and other evidence in regard to her. These
Her Majesty’s government had under constant
consideration ; but they were uniformly advised
by the crown lawyers that a sufficient case
against the vessel had not been made out.
Captain Bulloch, meanwhile, was fully in-
formed as to the movements of Mr. Dudley and
Mr. Adams, and prepared to balk them. The
erew of the Enrica, as the ‘290 ” was called, was
310 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
engaged, but not all shipped, lest their num-
ber and indiscreet talk should attract notice,
furnishing further evidence against her. She
was to meet her consort, carrying her muni-
tions and armament, including an additional
supply of coal, in the Azores, at the Bay of
Praya. No precautions calculated to evade the
provisions of law had been omitted.
In July, 1862, heavy military reverses both in
Virginia and Tennessee had followed the Union
successes of the spring of that year, and the
spirits of those sympathizing with the Confeder-
ates, a vast majority of the English people, had
so rallied that Mr. Adams well-nigh despaired
of being able much longer to counteract the
hostile influences. “ There is not,’ he despond-
ingly wrote, ‘“‘ much disguise now in the temper
of the authorities.” As to the government
‘authorities ” at Liverpool, there was certainly
o “ disguise,” or pretense even of “ disguise,”
so far as their individual sympathies were con-
cerned. They were pronounced in their Con-
federate leanings ; though, as matter of course,
the usual protestations were made as respects the
impartial performance of what in such cases is
usually denominated “ duty.”’ Unfortunately, it
was not a question of common town talk or pub-
lic notoriety ; for probably not one human being —
in Liverpool who had given any attention to the
THE ALABAMA AND THE LAIRD RAMS 311
matter questioned for an instant that the war-
vessels then under forced construction at Birken-
head were intended for the service of the Con-
federacy. On this head the collector of the
port, Mr. S. Price Edwards, unquestionably
entertained as little doubt as either the Laird
Brothers or Captain Bulloch. When, however,
it came to evidence of the fact, the man willfully
shut his eyes, and would not be convinced by
anything possible to obtain. The imputation
and strong circumstance which led directly to
the door of proof were nothing to Mr. Edwards ;
he wanted ocular demonstration, and that of
course Mr. Dudley could not furnish. It was
afterwards suggested by high authority that the
American agents should have then gone directly
to the Messrs. Laird, and asked them frankly if
they did not propose to violate the law; and, in
such case, “‘ the high character of these gentle-
men would doubtless have insured either a refus-
al to answer or a truthful answer.”! This ex-
tremely ingenuous method of procedure probably
never occurred to Consul Dudley ; and, on his
side, the collector would seem to have deemed
nothing short of the open admission of a crimi-
nal intent by the parties in interest as sufficient.
Imputations of corruption were subsequently
1 Opinion of Sir Alexander Cockburn in the Geneva arbi-
tration. Papers Relating to the Treaty of Washington, iv. 453,
312 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
current, involving Mr. Edwards; and it was
even whispered that he was the “private but
most reliable source”? from which the Confed-
erate agents received the confidential intima-
tions which enabled the Alabama to escape de-
tention. There is no evidence whatever that
such was the case. On the contrary, Mr. Col-
lector Edwards would appear to have been simply
an honest but obtuse man, of decided Confeder-
ate proclivities, who thought to protect him-
self against official responsibility by insisting
on the impossible. It is doubtful, however,
whether even he could have had the effrontery
to propose to the American consul the unique
method of securing evidence afterwards sug-
gested by Lord Chief Justice Cockburn. While
the statute law of the realm was unquestionably
being turned into a manifest farce, everything
was done gravely and in an orderly way; and it
would have been manifestly unbecoming to in-
ject into the performance at its then stage
broad practical jokes of a distinctly side-split-
ting character.
It is not necessary here to enter into a detailed
account of what now took place, and the efforts,
strenuous and sustained, put forth by Mr. Adams
to induce the British government to respect its
own laws and its treaty obligations. .The ground
has since that time been most thoroughly tray-
THE ALABAMA AND THE LAIRD RAMS 313
ersed, and the printed matter relating to it
amounts to a literature in itself. It is sufficient
to say that not only did British ministries repre-
senting both parties in the state subsequently
concede that the course then pursued by those
responsible for the government could not be
justified, but Earl Russell himself within a year,
and while still foreign secretary, admitted to
Mr. Adams that the case of the Alabama was a
‘“‘scandal,” and, ‘‘in some degree, a reproach ”
to the laws of Great Britain. Finally, while as
a history the work of James F. Rhodes is marked
by a sobriety of tone not less commendable than
the good temper and thoroughness of research
throughout evinced in it, yet when he came to
making a summary of the performances connected
with this incident, that grave author felt moved
to remark that, while to do justice to them ‘‘ com-
pletely baffles the descriptive pen of the histo-
rian,’ they would have been most useful and sug-
gestive “to the writer of an opera-bouffe libretto,
or to Dickens for his account of the Circumlocu-
tion Office.” 4
It is sufficient here to say that after represen-
tation on representation, accompanied by endless
documents and affidavits, designed to prove that
which every one knew, had been for months for-
warded to the Foreign Office, and there pro-
1 History of the United States, iv. 88.
314 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
nounced defective or inadequate, the American
minister on July 23d “addressed another com-
munication to Lord Russell, so that the refusal to
act may be made as marked as possible.”’ Two
days earlier, on the 21st, Collector Edwards had
by letter notified the Commissioners of Customs
at London that “the ship appears to be ready
for sea, and may leave at any hour she pleases.”
Directly appealed to by the American consul,
the Commissioners of Customs, on the 238d, with
this letter of their Liverpool subordinate before
them, declined to act. This was on Wednesday.
Before the close of the week the papers from
the Foreign Office relating to the case, covering
‘“‘ evidence strong and conclusive’ in the words
of Mr. Adams, and backed by “a still stronger
opinion”? of leading English counsel, had, in
the bandying process, reached the table of the
Queen’s advocate, Sir John Harding. He just
then broke down from nervous tension, and
thereafter became hopelessly insane. His wife,
anxious to conceal from the world knowledge of
her husband’s condition, allowed the package to
lie undisturbed on his desk for three days, —
days which entailed the destruction of the Amer-
ican merchant marine ; and it was on the first of
these days, Saturday, July 26, 1862, that Captain
Bulloch, at Liverpool, ‘received information
from a private but most reliable source that it
THE ALABAMA AND THE LAIRD RAMS _ 315
would not be safe to leave the ship at Liverpool
another forty-eight hours.” On the following
Monday accordingly the Alabama, alias the
“© 290,” alias the “‘ Enrica,” was taken out of
dock, and, under pretense of making an additional
trial trip, steamed, dressed in flags, down the
Mersey, with a small party of guests on board.
It is needless to say she did not return. The
party of guests were brought back on a tug,
and the Enrica, now fully manned, was, on the
dist, off the north coast of Ireland, headed sea-
ward in heavy weather. A grave international
issue had been raised, destined to endure and
be discussed throughout the next ten years.
Shortly before the “ 290,” subsequently world-
renowned as the Alabama, thus evaded the ex-
tremely sluggish crown officials, instructions had
reached Captain Bulloch from the Confederate
naval department forthwith to contract for two
ironclad ships of war, of the most formidable
description then built; and the sum of one mil-
lion dollars in cash had been placed at his dis-
posal to be used in payment for the same. This
sum, it was promised, should, later on, be in-
creased by an equal amount. Contracts were
at once closed with the firm of Laird Brothers,
and by the middle of July, 1862, work on both
ships had fairly begun. Fully equipped for sea,
but without batteries or munitions of war, these
316 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
ships were to cost £98,750 each, and they were
to be ready, the one of them in March and the
other in May, 1863. Naval architecture at that
time was developing rapidly. Five years later,
in July, 1867, Mr. Adams attended the great -
naval review at Portsmouth in honor of the
Sultan of Turkey, and, among the ironclad, tur-
reted leviathans there arrayed, one of the two
famous “ Laird rams” was pointed out to him.
Her day was already gone; “as I looked on
the little mean thing,” he wrote, “I could not
help a doubt whether she was really worthy of
all the anxiety she had cost us.” None the less,
built on the most approved models of that time,
and designed to be equipped with formidable
batteries and every modern appliance of war,
the Laird rams were naval creations with which
neither steam wooden ships nor the monitors
in use in 1863 could successfully cope. With
the rams, acting in concert, it was intended to
break and raise the blockade of the Southern
ports, and thus secure for the Confederacy for-
eign recognition. If necessary to secure this
result, New York and Boston were to be in-
vaded, and those cities put under requisition.
This scheme, as feasible apparently as it was
dangerous, it devolved on Mr. Adams to balk, if
in any way possible. Its success involved a for-
elgn war.
THE ALABAMA AND THE LAIRD RAMS 317
Meanwhile the experience of the Alabama
showed how difficult the task before him was, and
the agents of the United States were in a
condition of complete discouragement. The
Queen’s proclamation to the contrary notwith-
standing, parties in Great Britain were en-
gaged in both constructing and equipping a
formidable Confederate navy. Nevertheless,
though the life had been construed out of the
statute, and the agents of the United States
were in a demoralized condition, these last
kept Mr. Adams well advised of everything
going on, and the consequent pressure brought
steadily to bear on the Foreign Office was by
no means unproductive of results. In 1863 the
Alabama was in her full career of destruction,
and so much of the American merchant marine
as was not sent in flames to the bottom was fast
seeking protection under foreign flags. Witha
view to increasing the pressure, therefore, Mr.
Adams now formally opened his long and mem-
orable Alabama correspondence with Earl Rus-
sell. While work was actively going on in the
Birkenhead yards, the receipt of controversial
dispatches served as a constant reminder to the
Foreign Office, both of its proven shortcomings
in the past and its possible future delinquencies.
As to neither was Earl Russell to be given rest.
In March, 18638, this correspondence was pub-
318 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
lished in the London papers, and much com-
mented upon. That Great Britain should be
asked to pay for the ruin wrought by the
commerce-destroyers let loose on a friendly na-
tion through her lax administration of her own
laws, was a new view of the subject, —a view
also which, at this stage of proceedings, savored,
to the average British mind, of what they loved
to refer to as ‘‘ Yankee ”’ impudence and “ cute-
ness.” A huge joke, even Captain Raphael
Semmes, C. S. N., commanding the Alabama,
stopped in the midst of his burnings to enjoy —
a quiet laugh over it. “That ‘little bill,’” he
wrote from Bahia to Captain Bulloch, on May
21, 1863, ‘“‘ which the Yankees threaten to pre-
sent to our Uncle John Bull, for the depre-
dations of the Alabama, is growing apace, and
already reaches $3,100,000.” The ‘“ Yankee”
has not generally been deemed deficient in a
sense of humor; but this joke, of an intensely
practical kind, he failed to appreciate; and
so war between the two countries was now
regarded as imminent, and the great mercan-
tile houses of London were taking precautions
accordingly. Mr. Adams, however, did not de-
spair. ‘I shall,” he wrote, as he noted down
the gathering indications, “do my best to avoid
it.” It was the dark hour of the long night;
but, for him, it preceded the dawn.
THE ALABAMA AND THE LAIRD RAMS 319
The pinch now came. More and more clearly
the issue of the American struggle depended on
the blockade. On the other hand, the machin-
ery for breaking the blockade was almost per-
fected. Owing to delays in construction at first,
and later to complications growing out of legal
proceedings instituted by Mr. Adams in other
similar cases, the first of the two rams was not
launched until July 4th, instead of in March, as
had been originally agreed ; and the other was
delayed until the end of August. Early in Sep-
tember Mr. Adams forwarded fresh represen-
tations. The work for which the vessels were
designed was matter of notoriety; but still the
government “could find no evidence upon which
to proceed in stopping”’ them. How much the
government of Jefferson Davis counted on the
shrewd stroke thus ‘in preparation for the
“Yankee,” and the importance they gave to it,
— greater than that set on any victory in the
field, — was shown in the references to the rams
of Mr.S. R. Mallory, who in the Richmond cabi-
net held the position of secretary of the navy.
Writing to Mr. Slidell, in Paris, on the 27th of
March, 1863, Mr. Mallory said: ‘Our early
possession of these ships, in a condition for ser-
vice, is an object of such paramount importance
to our country that no effort, no sacrifice, must
be spared to accomplish it. Whatever may be
320 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
the conditions of placing them at our command
will be promptly met.” A year later, when
the action of the British government in detain-
ing the rams proved to be final, Mr. Mallory
wrote concerning the event to Captain Bulloch
in language which sounded like a wail. He
referred to it as “a great national misfor-
tune,” and spoke of his own hopes, “shared by
thousands around me,” as ‘ prostrated by the
intelligence.” He then dwelt on “the bitterness
of his disappointment.”” Had the Confederate
government, President Davis in his turn de-
clared, been successful in getting those vessels
to sea, ‘it would have swept from the ocean the
commerce of the United States [and] would
have raised the blockade of at least some of our
ports.”
Those in charge of the navy of the Union and
coast defenses of the United States were cor-
respondingly alarmed. As the result of careful
inquiry, they described the two ships as “ of the
most formidable character, and equal, except in
size, to the best ironclads belonging to” the
British government. So urgent was the occa-
sion deemed that two private gentlemen of high
character and reputation for business and execu-
tive capacity were secretly sent out to England
at the shortest possible notice to outbid the
Confederacy, if possible, and buy the ships for
THE ALABAMA AND THE LAIRD RAMS 321
the United States. Ten millions of dollars in
freshly issued government bonds were put in
their hands to be used as they saw fit for this
purpose. Diplomatically, it was a most danger-
ous course, as the United States now proposed
secretly to do just what its accredited re-
presentative in Great Britain was strenuously
claiming that the Confederacy had no right to
do. The emergency alone could justify the
proceeding; but the emergency was thought
to be extreme. “You must stop [the Laird
rams] at all hazards,” wrote Captain Fox, the
assistant secretary of the navy, “‘as we have
no defense againstthem. Let us have them for
our own purposes, without any more nonsense,
and at any price. As to guns, we have not one
in the whole country fit to fire at an ironclad.
. . . It is a question of life and death.” No-
thing came of this dangerous mission, as the
two emissaries, being shrewd and practical men,
soon became satisfied that to “ offer to buy the
ironclads without success, would only be to
stimulate the builders to greater activity, and
even to building new ones in the expectation of
finding a market for them from one party or
the other.” They therefore, like the American
officials in Europe, quite discouraged, returned
home before the ironclads were launched,
bringing with them the greater part of their
322 — CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
ten millions of bonds, which were taken back to
Washington “in the original packages, with the
seals of the Treasury unbroken.” ! Mr. Adams
was prudently kept uninformed as to the errand
of these gentlemen and the steps they took in
pursuance of it.
His own instructions from the State De-
partment were at this crisis explicit. As re-
spects also the course the United States gov-
ernment proposed in certain contingencies to
pursue, they left no room for doubt. In line
of thought and even in expression, they fol-
lowed closely the memorable dispatches Nos. 4
and 10 of April and May, 1861. “If the law
of Great Britain . . . be construed by the gov-
ernment in conformity with the rulings of the
chief baron of the exchequer, then there will be
left for the United States no alternative but to
protect themselves and their commerce against
armed cruisers proceeding from British ports,
as against the naval forces of a public enemy.
. . . Can it be an occasion for either surprise
or complaint that, if this condition of things is
to remain and receive the deliberate sanction of
the British government, the navy of the United
1 Hughes, Letters and Recollections of J. M. Forbes, ii. 1-66 ;
Chittenden, Recollections of President Lincoln, i. 194-211;
Proceedings of Massachusetts Historical Society, Second Series,
xiii. 177-179. aay
THE ALABAMA AND THE LAIRD RAMS 323
States will receive instructions to pursue: these
enemies into the ports which thus, in violation
of the law of nations and the obligations of
neutrality, become harbors for the pirates? The
President very distinctly perceives the risks and
hazards which a naval conflict thus maintained
will bring to the commerce and even to the
peace of the two countries. . . . If, through the
necessary employment of all our means of
national defense, such a partial war shall become
a general one between the two nations, the
President thinks that the responsibility for that
painful result will not fall upon the United
States.”
With dispatches of this character on his table
Mr. Adams, as the weeks rolled by, watched anx-
iously the dreaded vessels nearing completion.
Work in the yards of the Laird Brothers had
been pushed steadily forward all through the win-
ter, sheds lighted with gas having been erected
over the rams so as to insure additional hours of
labor upon them. But, alarmed by the depreda-
tions of the Alabama and the demands of the
United States government on account thereof,
the British officials were now exercising a de-
gree of surveillance which caused Captain Bul-
loch much anxiety; and, before the close of
1862, he expressed himself as apprehensive of
great difficulty in getting the vessels out of Brit-
324 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
ish jurisdiction. This apprehension increased
steadily. The object for which armored ships,
provided with formidable steel beaks, must be
intended, was too evident to admit of dis-
guise ; and Captain Bulloch, confessing himself
“much perplexed,” became satisfied at last that
the government was prepared to resort to an
order in council to override the ordinary rules of
law. So great was the sympathy in Liverpool and
vicinity that he felt quite confident of his ability
to overcome “all ordinary opposition;” and
he assured the Confederate secretary that “ no
mere physical obstruction could have prevented
our ships getting out, partially equipped at
least.” But Earl Russell had been irritated by
the evasion of the ‘ 290,” of which it had even
been asserted that he was cognizant in advance ;
and he now let it be known that he did not pro-
pose to have that performance repeated. So,
unless a change should take place in the politi-
cal character of the ministry, Captain Bulloch
was obliged to “ confess that the hope of getting
the ships out seems more than doubtful, — in-
deed, hopeless.” This was towards the close of
January, 1863, — six months nearly before the
first of the rams left the ways.
Messrs. Mason and Slidell at this point be-
came factors in the course of proceedings. They
shared in the views of Secretary Mallory, deem-
THE ALABAMA AND THE LAIRD RAMS 325
ing the early possession of the ships of “ para-
mount importance,” —a result for the attain-
ing of which “no effort, no sacrifice, must be
spared ;”” and now the European plan of cam-
paign, in cooperation with that which was to
take place in America, gradually assumed shape.
John Slidell was its originating and directing
mind, and throughout it was marked by his
peculiar characteristics. Mr. Slidell acted, of
course, in cooperation with James M. Mason,
and of Mr. Mason something will presently be
said; but at this stage of proceedings Mr. Sli-
dell came distinctly to the front. The field of
final operations was in Great Britain ; but there
Mr. Slidell, directing his campaign from Paris,
was as immediately opposed to Mr. Adams as,
in America, Lee was opposed to Hooker, and
Meade or Grant to Johnston or Pemberton.
The two men were in curious contrast; for
while Mr. Adams was essentially a Puritan, Mr.
Slidell certainly could by no possibility be so
classified; Mr. Adams, simple, direct, cool and
reticent, in manner chill and repellent, was in-
capable of intrigue; Mr. Slidell, adroit and no
less cool, friendly in manner and keenly observ-
ant of men, was at intrigue an adept.
It is not probable that either Mr. Slidell’s
papers or those of Mr. Mason will ever see the
light, and the fact is on every ground much to
326 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
be regretted ; for Mr. Slidell now evinced great
diplomatic skill. In the Senate of the United
States he had, in the years immediately preceding
the Rebellion, been accounted one of the ablest
of the Southern leaders. Dr. Russell, of the
“ Times,” met him in New Orleans in May, 1861,
and was much impressed. ‘I rarely,” he then
wrote, “have met a man whose features have
a greater finesse and firmness of purpose than
Mr. Slidell’s ; his keen gray eye is full of life ;
his thin firmly set lips indicate resolution and
passion. . . . He is not a speaker of note, nor
a ready stump orator, nor an able writer ; but he -
is an excellent judge of mankind, adroit, perse-
vering and subtle, full of device, and fond of in-
trigue ; one of those men who, unknown almost
to the outer world, organizes and sustains a
faction, and exalts it into the position of a party,
— what is called here a ‘ wire-puller,’ ” In the
European field Mr. Slidell now not only sus-
tained the reputation he had gained in the United
States Senate, but he also made good in all its
details Dr. Russell’s pointed characterization.
Having, in January, 1863, been a year on the
ground, he had become familiar with it, skill- |
fully ingratiating himself with influential circles
in France, social as well as political. He ap-
parently had access everywhere. In the utter
absence of his correspondence or of any authen-
THE ALABAMA AND THE LAIRD RAMS 327
tic memoir of him, the scheme he now devised can
be traced only in outline; but a careful study
of Mr. Adams’s papers, taken in connection
with the public documents and what elsewhere
appears, sufficiently discloses its main features.
A far-reaching, formidable conception, it was
well designed to accomplish the ends the Con-
federate authorities had in view, and neither in
its formation nor development did Mr. Slidell
fail apparently to avail himself of any con-
dition or circumstance which seemed likely to
contribute to success. |
That the scheme was large and partook of the
character of a complicated intrigue, success in
which depended on many contingencies and much
individual codperation, is undeniable. Had it
been otherwise, it would not have commended
itself to John Slidell, but, in this case, it was
so from necessity. The situation was neither
compact nor simple. Men and events in Europe
waited on events and men in America; and, from
necessity himself located in France, the Con-
federate envoy had to operate through French
instrumentalities on England. The conditions
were not of his selection. They were imposed
upon him. The cards were dealt to him; it was
. for him to play a hand in the game. He failed,
and failed completely, partly because of the skill
and conduct of his opponent, partly from the
328 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
course of events beyond his power to control ;
but the game was a great one, and it nowhere as
yet appears that he played his hand otherwise
than skillfully, and for all it was worth.
In the present sketch, it is only possible to
outline what the Confederate agents now at-
tempted. While, in the absence of authentic
information, much would in any case have to be
surmised, space does not suffice for the full use
of even such material as is now accessible. The
ends Mr. Slidell had in view are obvious. They
were twofold, —the recognition of the Con-
federacy by England and France acting in uni-
son, and the breaking of the blockade. To bring
about the recognition of the Confederacy, he had
to force the hand of the Palmerston-Russell min-
istry through the action of a strongly sympa-
thetic Parliament, compelling the resignation of
Earl Russell as foreign secretary. To insure the
consequent breaking of the blockade, in case
recognition fell short of intervention, he had to
prevent any interference by the English govern-
ment with the Laird rams. To this end he
was forced to resort to every conceivable de-
vice calculated to cover up their ownership.
His mind was fertile in expedients; and he had
now assured himself of the efficient cooperation ,
of the Emperor, an immense point in favor of
the Confederacy. Secure in this quarter, and
THE ALABAMA AND THE LAIRD RAMS 329
with more than mere intimations of protection,
he early in the year summoned Captain Bul-
loch to Paris, and there arranged for the
transfer of the rams to foreign ownership.
Thereafter the Lairds were to know as their
principals only the Messrs. Bravay & Co., a
French firm, supposed to be acting for the
Pasha of Egypt, or other unknown governments.
The papers were formal and complete, the trans-
fer legal in all its details; the real fact’ being
that the Messrs. Bravay bought the ships for a
specified amount, and then privately engaged to
re-sell them beyond British jurisdiction for an-
other amount, which should include a handsome
commission for their house. The Laird Brothers
themselves seem to have been imposed upon by
this transaction. They, too, received a commis-
sion, amounting to some £5000, on account of
the transfer.
This matter disposed of, Mr. Slidell next,
through the house of Erlanger & Co., negotiated
a Confederate cotton loan. Bonds to the amount
of £3,000,000 were floated at ninety per cent,
putting some twelve or thirteen millions of dol-
lars in cash at the disposal of the Confederacy.
The sinews of war were thus supplied. So far
all went well. Much was accomplished ; but
the last and most difficult portion of the far-
reaching programme was yet to be carried out.
330 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
An aggressive American policy was to be im-
posed upon the British government, and recogni-
tion compelled. Tothis end Earl Russell was to
be driven to resign from the ministry. Here the
adroit, secret management of Mr. Slidell came
in sharp contrast with Mr. Mason’s bungling
methods of procedure. In the skillful hands
of the Confederate envoy at Paris, the Emperor
and his ministers now seem to have become
hardly more than manikins. The touch of Sli-
dell could everywhere be traced. Two mem-
bers of the English Parliament were at this
juncture conspicuous for their advocacy of the
Confederate cause,— John Arthur Roebuck,
of the Sheffield “scum of Europe” speech of
August, 1862; and W. S. Lindsay, of “this
wicked, this worthless war ” speech at Chertsey.
Curiously enough, Mr. Lindsay was a friend of
Richard Cobden ; while Roebuck only a few
years before had, with characteristic savageness
of speech, denounced Napoleon III. as a “ per-
jured despot.” None the less, in view of the
great parliamentary campaign now in prepara-
tion, Messrs. Lindsay and Roebuck, towards the
end of June, 1863, were induced to go over to
Paris, where they conferred freely with the Em-
peror, dining at the Tuileries, and receiving
assurances from him of the most outspoken char-
acter. He professed himself ripe and eager for
THE ALABAMA AND THE LAIRD RAMS 331
instant recognition; and, as both his guests as-
severated, authorized them so to state in the
House of Commons. Mr. Slidell nowhere ap-
pears, but there can be little question of his
agency behind the scene. Messrs. Roebuck and
Lindsay did not go to Paris wholly on their own
motion ; the Confederate envoy was marshaling
his forces.
Then came the parliamentary demonstration.
The lead in this devolved on Mr. Roebuck.
Like Mr. Adams in other years, Mr. Slidell was
forced to do with what he had; but it is scarcely
possible that he should not have felt grave mis-
givings as respected the impulsive member for
Sheffield. Nevertheless, on the 30th of June,
that gentleman spoke in the Commons in sup-
port of his motion that the government be in-
structed “to enter into negotiations with the
Great Powers of Europe for the purpose of ob-
taining their codperation in the recognition ” of
the Confederacy. Into the details of this de-
bate, and the struggle that then took place in
and out of Parliament, it is impossible here to
enter. Mr. Adams watched events coolly, but
not without anxiety. Throughout, understand-
ing the situation well, he saw Slidell’s hand.
The manipulation bespoke the master. The
drive was at Earl Russell, and at one time
his resignation was rumored; London was pla-
332 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
carded with representations of the conjoined
Confederate and British ensigns; fully three
quarters of the House of Commons were avow-
edly in sympathy with the Rebellion ; on the 4th
of July, before a large company at Lord Wyn-
ford’s table in London, Mr. Mason oracularly
announced the absence of any doubt in his own
mind that General Lee, then in reality shat-
tered at Gettysburg, was in possession of
Washington.
Unfortunately for Mr. Slidell, most fortunately
for Mr. Adams, Mr. Roebuck handled his cause
wretchedly. He made to the House an avowal
of amateur diplomacy which forced the ministry
to array itself solidly against him, and brought
upon him not only a measured rebuke from Pal-
merston, but an exemplary castigation from John
Bright. “The effect of Tuesday night’s de-
bate,” wrote Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward, “ was
very severe on Mr. Roebuck. His extraordinary
attempts to influence the action of the House by
the use of the authority of the Emperor of the
French, as well as his presuming to make him-
self the medium of an appeal to Parliament
against the conduct of the ministry, have had
the consequences which might naturally be ex-
pected by any one acquainted with the English
character. Thus it happened that Mr. Roe-
buck, though addressing an assembly a great
THE ALABAMA AND THE LAIRD RAMS 333
proportion of whom sympathized with him in
his object, demolished his cause; whilst, on the
other hand, Mr. Bright, even whilst running
counter to the predisposition of most of his
hearers, succeeded in extorting a general tribute
of admiration of his eloquent and convincing
reply.” This whole episode was one which Mr.
Roebuck’s biographer afterwards thought it ex-
pedient to pass over very lightly. Referring
to the dinner at the Tuileries and the subse-
quent debate, Mr. Leader says: ‘ The inevi-
table result of amateur diplomacy followed.
None of the parties to the interview agreed as
to what actually took place. The Emperor dis-
avowed, or declined to be bound by, the version
Mr. Roebuck gave to the House of Commons of
the conversation. ‘The amazement and amuse-
ment, with which this mission to the ‘ perjured
despot’ of a few years ago was received by the
general public, were expressed in very pregnant
sarcasm by speakers like Lord Robert Montagu
and Mr. Bright;” so that, thoroughly discom-
fited, Mr. Roebuck on the 18th of July “ very
reluctantly’ withdrew his motion without in-
sisting on a division. The carefully nurtured
movement of Mr. Slidell had failed, and Earl
Russell remained at the head of the British For-
eign Office.
But Mr. Slidell was none the less a danger-
334 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
ous opponent. He neglected no opportunity for
attack, as Mr. Adams himself had occasion to
realize. The episode of the Howell-Zerman let-
ter now occurred. Altogether a very entertain-
ing and characteristic incident, the letter referred
to caused at the moment great commotion, and for ~
a brief space threatened gravely to compromise
Mr. Adams; but the affair soon passed over,
leaving no trace behind. Reference only can be
made to it here. Mr. Slidell, however, did not
fail to avail himself of it as a possible element
of discord; and again the imperial manikins
went through the requisite motions in obedience
to the skillful touch of Russell’s adroit “ wire-
puller.” Representations from the French For-
eign Office were received at the State Depart-
ment in Washington, indicating the grave
displeasure of the Emperor at the spirit shown
by Mr. Adams in regard to the former’s pro-
ceedings in Mexico; and English newspaper
correspondents from New York, of Confederate
leanings, dilated on the latter’s “ extraordinary
stupidity,” and the “really clever ability of all
the rebel agents.” Again Mr. Slidell’s blow
fell short; but it was well directed, and its
origin was plain, at least to Mr. Adams.
The first of the Laird rams took the water at
Birkenhead on the 4th of July; Mr. Roebuck
withdrew his motion for recognition on the 13th ;
THE ALABAMA AND THE LAIRD RAMS _ 335
on the 16th arrived news “ of a three days’ bat-
tle at Gettysburg ;”’ and on the morning of the
19th Mr. Adams wrote: “ When I came down
I found on my table a private telegram, which,
as usual, I opened with trepidation. It proved
to be an announcement from Mr. Seward that
Vicksburg had surrendered on the 4th. Thus
has this great object been accomplished... .
Our amiable friends, the British, who expected
to hear of the capture of Washington, are cor-
respondingly disappointed.” In London, the
disappointment was, indeed, intense, and only
exceeded by the surprise. That whole commu-
nity — social, commercial, political — had set-
tled down into a conviction that the Confederate
arms were on the verge of a triumph not less
decisive than brilliant, and that Lee, scarcely
less of a hero in London than in Richmond,
was in firm possession of the national capital.
Why then, they argued, intervene? Had not
the South worked out its problem for itself?
The first revulsion of feeling was angry. ‘ Per-
haps,’ wrote Mr. Adams, “the most curious
phenomenon is to be seen in the London news-
papers, which betray the profound disappoint-
ment and mortification of the aristocracy at the
result. . . . The incredulity is yet considerable.
It is the strongest proof how deep-seated is the
passion in the English breast... . The Eng-
336 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
lish are almost up to the pitch of yielding ac-
tive aid. Luckily, the aspect of affairs on the
Continent [in the Polish insurrection] is so
threatening that the government is disposed to
act with much prudence and self-restraint as to
embroiling us.”
That the elaborate plan of operations of Mr.
Slidell had now received a serious setback was
apparent, but still there was one feature in it
left. The Laird rams were French property,
and, as such, rapidly nearing completion. A
great card, they at least were still in reserve.
They constituted a card also which might well
win the game. Mr. Adams, on the other hand,
not unduly elated by the tidings from across the
Atlantic, watched his opponent coolly and wa-
rily. He was at his best. Lord Russell —
high-toned, well-intentioned, cautious, even hes-
itating — held the key of the situation. It was
he who must be worked upon. Fortunately
Mr. Adams’s immediate opponent, Mr. Mason,
having none of the finesse of Slidell, now played
directly into the American minister’s hands.
Mr. Mason was a thorough Virginian of the
mid-century school, — “that old slave dealer,”
as Cobden contemptuously described him. Ob-
tuse, overbearing, and to the last degree self-
sufficient and self-assertive, he was a poor in-
strument with which to work. Still, he was
THE ALABAMA AND THE LAIRD RAMS 337
there ; and Slidell was forced to use the tools he
had. The whole effort of Mr. Mason now was,
in the language of Mr. Adams, “to concen-
trate the attacks upon Lord Russell, as if he
were the chief barrier to the rebel progress in
the cabinet. To that end the labors of the
presses conducted by rebel sympathizers have
been directed to casting odium upon his Lord-
ship as acting too much under my influence.
This is doing me far too much honor. . Lord
Russell is too old and skillful a politician not to
understand the necessity, for his own security,
of keeping the minds of his countrymen quite
free from all suspicion of his being superfluously
courteous to any foreign power.” Mr. Adams
then added, with a touch of humorous sarcasm
not usual with him: “ From my observation of
his [Russell’s] correspondence since I have
been at this post, I should judge that he seldom
erred in that particular.”
Wiser than Mr. Mason, better informed, and
far stronger in his simple directness than Mr.
Slidell, Mr. Adams, unconsciously to himself,
now braced up for the final and vital grapple.
To that end he quietly assumed control of oper-
ations. The instructions from Secretary Seward,
already referred to, were on his table. They
were to the last degree rasping and minatory.
Mr. Adams put them in his pocket, and kept
338 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
them there. He simply advised the secretary,
in most courteous and diplomatic terms, that,
as minister and on the spot, he thought he
understood the men and the situation best, and
accordingly he would assume the responsibility
of acting on his own judgment and as circum-
stances might seem to require. Most fortu-
nately, there was no Atlantic cable then.
The days now passed rapidly on, and the
rams were as rapidly made ready for sea. In
the language of Mr. Gladstone the year before,
the rebels were ‘ making, it appears, a navy.”
Very courteous but very firm in his communica-
tions with Earl Russell, Mr. Adams carefully
abstained from anything which could be con-
strued into a threat. Outwardly his communi-
cations breathed the most abiding faith in the
good intentions of the government; while in
private he impressed upon Mr. Cobden his
sense of “the very grave nature of this case,”
and his conviction ‘that it would end in war
sooner or later.” Then he added in his diary:
“¢ Mr. Cobden is really in earnest in his efforts,
but the drift is too much for him.” Through
Mr. Milner Gibson, Mr. Cobden was, however,
in close communication with the cabinet.
Mr. Adams next visited Scotland, for it was
now August, and the dead season in London.
He was there the guest of Mr. Edward illice,
THE ALABAMA AND THE LAIRD RAMS _ 339
as also was Mr. Mason at about the same time.
His host was a very old man, and a Confederate
sympathizer. “Mr. Ellice,” Mr. Adams wrote,
“talked as fast as ever, occasionally running
full butt into American affairs. I met him
there with profound silence. This is my only
safeguard.” A few days later Mr. Adams was
the guest of the Duke of Argyll, at Inverary.
The Argylls throughout those trying times were
true well-wishers to the Union; but it shows
how well Mr. Slidell had covered up the Con-
federate tracks, that the Argylls now were al-
most persuaded that the rams were really being
built on French account; and only a few days
before, the Duchess had intimated as much in
a letter to Mr. Sumner. The Duke was a mem-
ber of the cabinet, and Mr. Adams availed him-
self of this opportunity to impress on his grace
his sense of the situation “as grave and critical ;”’
and he further intimated that his “ instructions
on the subject [were] far more stringent than
[he] had yet been disposed to execute.” That
evening the Duke was much absorbed in letter-
writing, and Mr. Adams could not help wonder-
ing whether the foreign secretary was among
those to whom the letters were addressed.
Meanwhile Earl Russell was in great per-
turbation of mind. An honest, high-minded
gentleman, he wished to do right ; he was vexed
340 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
by the course of the. rebel emissaries, and mor-
tified as well as irritated by the recollection of
his treatment in the case of the Alabama; but
he was staggered by the confident assertion of
French ownership of the vessels, which the
Lairds corroborated, — perhaps not dishonestly,
—and moreover the law,as expounded in the
Court of Exchequer, was plainly against inter-
ference. If it acted, the government must do
so on grounds of prerogative, against public
opinion, regardless of the advice of counsel, and
prepared to be heavily mulcted by a jury. The
situation was certainly trying; and yet it is
now manifest that Earl Russell earnestly desired
to do his duty to the crown, and whatever inter-
national obligations demanded. Like Shake-
speare’s noble Moor, he was, “being wrought
upon, perplexed in the extreme.”
Assuredly, so far as Mr. Adams was concerned,
Lord Russell was now sufficiently ‘ wrought
upon.” At six o’clock on the morning of Sep-
tember 3d, being, as he did not fail at the time
to note, the thirty-fourth anniversary of his
wedding day, Mr. Adams, just from the West-
moreland lake region, found himself on the
steps of his house in London. He was anxious.
The government could not be got to act, and
the rams were now almost ready to steam down
the Mersey, — of course, like the Alabama, only
THE ALABAMA AND THE LAIRD RAMS 341
on a trial trip! “After long wavering and
hesitation,” he wrote, “there are signs that the
ministry will not adopt any preventive policy.
Their moral feebleness culminates in cowardice,
which acts like the greatest daring. It precipi-
tates a conflict. My duty is therefore a difficult
one. Without indulging in menace, I must be
faithful to my country in giving warning of its
sense of injury. Nothing must be left undone
that shall appear likely to avert the danger. To
that end I addressed a note to Lord Russell at
once. The attack on Charleston [Gilmore’s
‘swamp angels’] is going on with great vigor,
and the cries of the Richmond press indicate
success. Barring the conduct of foreign pow-
ers, I should say the rebellion would collapse
before New Year’s, but the pestilent malignity
of the English and the insidious craft of Napo-
leon are not yet exhausted.”
The diary written at the time tells what now
ensued far more effectively than would be possi-
ble for any biographer : —
“ Briday, 4th September : — A notice from Mr.
Dudley that the war vessel was about. to depart
compelled me to address another and stronger
note of solemn protest against the permission of
this proceeding by the government. I feared,
however, that it would be of little avail, and my
prognostications proved but too true; for I re-
342 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
ceived at four o’clock a note announcing that
the government could find no evidence upon
which to proceed in stopping the vessel. This
affected me deeply. I clearly foresee that a
collision must now come of it. I must not, how-
ever, do anything to accelerate it; and yet must
maintain the honor of my country with proper
spirit. The issue must be made up before the
world on its merits. The prospect is dark for
poor America. Her trials are not yet over.
Luckily the difficulties do not all come together.
A telegram received to-night announces the
destruction of Fort Sumter, and the shelling of
that pestilent nest of heresy, Charleston. This
will produce a great effect in Europe. It may
go so far as to save us from imminent danger
pressing both here and in France. I hada
visit from Colonel Bigelow Lawrence, who is on
his way to America; but I fear I was not ina
mood for easy talk.”
The following day it was that, after a night
of anxious reflection over what yet might by
possibility be done, he wrote and forwarded to
Earl Russell, then in Scotland, the dispatch of
September 5th, which contains his single utter-
ance since borne in memory. It was the dis-
patch containing the expression afterwards so
famous: ‘It would be superfluous in me to
point out to your lordship that this is war.”
THE ALABAMA AND THE LAIRD RAMS 3438
The heavy sense of responsibility and utter
dreariness of spirit under which he penned this
dispatch, almost unique in diplomatic corre-
spondence, — exactly fitting to the occasion, —
appears in his corresponding diary record made
the evening of the day he transmitted it: —
“ Saturday, 5th September :— My thoughts
turned strongly upon the present crisis, and the
difficulty of my task. My conclusion was, that
another note was to be addressed to Lord Rus-
sell to-day. So I drew one, which I intended
only to gain time previous to the inevitable re-
sult. I have not disclosed to Lord Russell those
portions of my instructions which describe the
policy to be adopted by the government at home,
because that course seemed to me likely to cut off
all prospect of escape. Contenting myself with
intimating [their] existence, I decided upon
awaiting further directions. This will give a
month. After I had sent the note, I received one
from his lordship, in answer to my two previous
ones of Thursday and Friday, saying that the
subject of them was receiving the earnest and
anxious consideration of the government. There
‘is, then, one chance left, and but one.
“Tuesday, 8th September : — In the ‘ Morning
_ Post’ there was a short article announcing that
the government had decided on detaining the
vessels, in order to try the merits in court. It
344 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
had an official aspect ; and yet I could scarcely
put faith in it, while I had no notice myself.
Later in the day, however, a brief notification
came from Lord Russell to the effect that orders
had been given to prevent their departure. I
know not that even in the Trent case I felt a
greater relief.”
CHAPTER XVIII
THE YEARS OF FRUITION
More than twenty-three years later, referring
to the events just narrated, of which he was very
competent to speak, James Russell Lowell said
of Mr. Adams:—‘“ None of our generals in
the field, not Grant himself, did us better or
more trying service than he in his forlorn out-
post of London. Cavour did hardly more for
Italy.
“* Peace hath her victories
Not less renowned than war.’ ”
Certainly no victory ever won by Grant was
more decisive — and Grant’s victories were nu-
merous, and many of them most decisive — than
that won by Mr. Adams, and recorded so quietly
in the diary entry just quoted in full. There is
no more unmistakable gauge of the importance
of any movement made or result gained in
warfare than the quotations of the stock ex-
change. The deadly character of the blow
then inflicted on the Southern cause was imme-
diately read in the stock list. During the week
ending the 27th of August, the bonds of Mr.
346 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
Slidell’s Confederate cotton loan had been ac-
tive at 79; during the week ending the 10th of
September, they were lifeless at 70. The rams
were officially detained on the 9th of Septem-
ber; they were seized by the government, and
the broad arrow affixed, a month later, on
the 9th of October. That action extinguished
hope. The bonds then fell to 65. On the 9th
of July they had been quoted at 99, having
previously risen to a slight premium; the news
of the repulse of Lee at Gettysburg depressed
them only two points, to 97, at which figure
they stood firmly. Then followed the fall of
Vicksburg, the loss of the control of the Missis-
sippi, and the withdrawal of the Roebuck mo-
tion in Parliament; all which together broke the
price to 87. In other words, the combined mili-
tary and parliamentary disasters of the Confed-
eracy during July affected the barometer thirteen
points; while the detention and seizure of the
two vessels, still, in pursuance of a solemn farce,
designated El Tousson and El Monassir, reduced
it fourteen points, notwithstanding that the mili-
tary news then received from America was re-
garded as distinctly favorable to the Confederacy.
That this should have been so seems inexplica-
ble, until it is remembered that the stoppage of
the rams meant more, a great deal more, than
the continuance of the blockade, — it meant the
THE YEARS OF FRUITION 347
continuance of peaceful relations between the
United States and the great maritime powers of
Europe. The departure of the rams from the
Mersey, it was well understood, would involve
serious complications between the United States
and Great Britain, resulting almost inevitably in
the recognition of the Confederacy by the latter
country acting in unison with France. This
had been confidently anticipated ; and the anti-
cipation buoyed up the cotton loan. When at
last the broad arrow was actually affixed to the
unfinished ironclads, the sympathizers with the
Confederacy realized what that meant. The
Union need no longer apprehend any foreign
complication, while the Rebellion was obviously
sinking under the ever-increasing pressure
brought to bear upon it. It was this unexpressed
conclusion which was clearly read in the quota-
tions of the cotton loan. A decisive Union
advantage had at last been secured.
Already badly deranged by the parliamen-
tary fiasco of July, followed by the military re-
verses in Pennsylvania and on the Mississippi,
Mr. Slidell’s diplomatic programme — his great
European campaign, so well conceived, so far-
reaching, so carefully matured, so warily con-
ducted — had now come to naught on the vital
issue. A great lover of cards, Mr. Slidell was
an adept in their use. He rarely played save to
348 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
win. But this, the great game of his life, was
now over; and he left the table a loser. Prob-
ably his knowledge of the well-known puritanic
traits of his opponent did not serve to alleviate
the bitterness of defeat.
As for Mr. Adams, though hardly a note of
exultation could be detected in his diary, much
less in his correspondence, he did not fail to
realize the momentous importance of what had
now taken place. Describing the course of
events in a familiar letter written a few days
later to his brother-in-law, Edward Everett, he
said: ‘ Friday [September 4th] I gave up all
for lost, and made preparation for the catas-
trophe. On Saturday I got news of a prospect
of achange. And yesterday [Tuesday] there
came a notice that the departure of the two
vessels (for the other had been launched in the
interval) had been prevented. This is rather
close shaving. Even now I scarcely realize the
fact of our escape.”
Notice of the detention of the rams reached
Mr. Adams on the 8th of September, 1863. On
the 18th of July, fourteen months before, Wil-
liam E. Forster had hurried to his house in great
distress, bringing a telegram, just received from
Queenstown and printed in the “ Times,” an-
nouncing that ‘‘ General McClellan, with all his
army, was negotiating for a capitulation.’ ‘The
THE YEARS OF FRUITION 349
news,” wrote Mr. Adams, “spread like wildfire,
and many eagerly caught at it as true. The
evident satisfaction taken in the intelligence is
one of our delectations. It almost equals the
days of Bull Run.” Things had then gone
steadily from bad to worse: Pope’s ridiculous
fiasco ; the disasters in Tennessee and Kentucky ;
the Confederate invasion of Maryland ; the battle
of Fredericksburg ; the repulse of Chancellors-
ville; the failures before Vicksburg. At last,
in June, 1863, the Army of Virginia crossed the
Potomac and fairly carried the war into the
free States. On July 16th of that year, tidings
reached London of severe but indecisive fight-
ing at Gettysburg; yet so strong was the
tendency of feeling developed under the news
of the invasion, that it infected even friendly
Americans. “Mr. Lampson was a full be-
liever that by this time Washington must be
taken; and when, the other day, I exposed
the absurdity of it to him, I saw that he was not
convinced. This comes from what may be de-
nominated the atmospheric pressure of opin-
ion as generated in England by the London
‘Times.’ It is difficult even for me to put
myself above it.” This was on July 17th.
Then the day broke in one great burst of light.
Exactly six weeks later, the European victory
was won. The tribulation of fourteen months
350 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
had come to an end, and thenceforth all went
well. Mr. Adams had now established his own
position, as well as the position of his country,
at the Court of St. James; nor was either again
challenged. ‘The adversary even abandoned
the field; for, less than two weeks after the
detention of the rams was officially announced,
Mr. Mason, in a not undignified letter ad-
dressed to Earl Russell, shook the dust of inhos-
pitable England from his feet and withdrew to
more sympathetic Paris. ‘ The ‘ Times,’ ” wrote
Mr. Adams to Secretary Seward, briefly noti-
cing the occurrence, “ distinctly admits this to be
a relief to the government; though I confess
myself at a loss to understand how he annoyed
them. The selection of Mr. Mason to come
here was an unfortunate one from the outset.
I can scarcely imagine an agency to have been
more barren of results.” He was not heard
from again. Remaining in Europe, sometimes
in France and sometimes in England, until the
close of the war, Mr. Mason then returned to
his native Virginia by way of Canada, and,
broken in spirit as in fortune, there died in 1871.
More fortunate than his Virginian colleague, in
that he had been shrewder in the transfer be-
times of a share of his worldly possessions
from the Confederacy to Europe, Mr. Slidell
never returned to America. He was not again
THE YEARS OF FRUITION 351
heard of in the field of diplomacy, except, later
in 1868, in connection with the summary sei-
zure by the Emperor Napoleon of various war
vessels, which that potentate had about a
twelvemonth before encouraged the Confederates
to contract for at Bordeaux and Nantes. His
English defeat had followed Mr. Slidell into
France. He never emerged from its shadow ;
but, after the final suppression of the Rebellion,
transferring his residence to England, he there
died in 1871, surviving his brother envoy, with
whom his name will always be so closely asso-
ciated, by only three months.
Having in remembrance the judgment of the
Court of Exchequer in the Alexandra case, the
British ministry had no hope of obtaining a fa-
vorable verdict as the outcome of a suit brought
against its agents for the detention of the rams.
It was futile for it to hope to prove ‘a valid
seizure for a valid cause of forfeiture.” It only
remained to settle the matter on the best terms
attainable. This finally was done ; and, no other
purchaser being found, the two rams the next
year passed into the hands of the government,
and were named the Wivern and the Scorpion.
The sum paid for them was £225,000.
Mr. Adams remained in London until the
spring of 1868, when, the war being long over,
he insisted on the acceptance of his resignation.
352 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
Meanwhile, after he had achieved his great suc-
cess in. securing the detention of the rams, his
position as respects the authorities at Washing-
ton was greatly changed. ‘There too, as-well as
in Great Britain, it became assured. His expe-
rience in this matter greatly resembled, indeed,
that of certain generals in the field during the
civil war. It will be remembered how they
were at first constantly hampered and thwarted
by interference from Washington. While in
this respect Mr. Adams had little, comparatively
speaking, to complain of, and while his chief in
the State Department never failed to give hitn
full rein and undeviating support, yet Secretary
Seward was wholly without diplomatic expe-
rience himself, and, moreover, set a politician’s
undue estimate on the importance of indirect
means and influences. Accordingly, until Mr.
Adams had thoroughly established himself in
his position by success in stopping the rams, he
was encumbered with a great deal of assistance
with which he would gladly have dispensed.
Secretary Seward failed to realize how much
the irregularly accredited envoy tends to dis-
eredit the regularly accredited minister.
Fortunately, there were two sides to this an-
noyance ; for his opponents seem to have suf-
fered from it quite as much, or more even, than
Mr. Adams. In September, 1862, for instance,
THE YEARS OF FRUITION 353
Captain Bulloch wrote thus from Liverpool to
Secretary Mallory: “I do not hesitate to say
that embarrassment has already been occasioned
by the number of persons from the South who
represent themselves to be agents of the Con-
federate States government. ‘There are men so
constituted as not to be able to conceal their
connection with any affairs which may by chance
add to their importance, and such persons are
soon found out and drawn into confessions and
statements by gossiping acquaintances, to the
serious detriment of the service upon which they
are engaged.’’ The unfortunate experience of
Mr. Slidell, as the result of the amateur diplo-
macy he initiated between the two itinerant
members of the Commons, Messrs. Lindsay and
Roebuck, and the Tuileries, has already been
described.
During the early years of his mission, indeed
until the autumn of 1863, Great Britain was,
for reasons which at once suggest themselves,
the special field of American diplomatic activity,
and the minister at London was at last driven
to active remonstrance. These emissaries were
of four distinct types: (1) the roving diplomat,
irregularly accredited by the State Department ;
(2) the poaching diplomat, accredited to one
government, but seeking a wider field of activity
elsewhere; (3) the volunteer diplomat, not ac-
354 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
credited at all, but in his own belief divinely
commissioned at that particular juncture to
enlighten foreign nations generally, and Great
Britain in particular; and (4) the special agent,
sent out by some department of the government
to accomplish, if possible, a particular object.
Messrs. J. M. Forbes and W. H. Aspinwall,
already referred to as sent out by the Navy De-
partment in 1863, to buy the rams, were of the
last description, as also was Mr. William M.
Evarts ; and they were men of energy, tact, and
discretion. Accordingly they had the good sense
to confine themselves to the work they were in
England to do, and did not indulge in a per-
nicious general activity. With his rare tact,
shrewd judgment, and quick insight into men,
Thurlow Weed also made himself of use both in
Great Britain and on the Continent, and rela-
tions of a most friendly and lasting character
grew up between him and Mr. Adams. Of
other diplomats, roving, poaching, and volun-
teer, Mr. Adams, as is evident from his diary
records, had grave and just cause of complaint;
they were officious, they meddled, and they were
to the last degree indiscreet. They were pecul-
iarly addicted to the columns of the ‘ Times,”
in which their effusions appeared periodically ;
but not always did they confine themselves to
ill-considered letter-writing, or mere idle talk.
THE YEARS OF FRUITION 355
This annoyance reached its climax in the
spring of 1863. Special emissaries of the Trea-
sury and of the State Department then arrived
in quick succession, and naturally the news-
paper correspondents of Confederate leanings got
scent of their missions, and set to work to make
trouble. One of them, writing from New York
to the London “Standard” over the signature
of ** Manchester,” spoke of Messrs. Forbes and
Aspinwall as “delegates ” about to be followed
by eight other men of note, “one being Mr.
Evarts, all of whom would regulate our affairs
abroad, and Mr. Adams is ordered to be their
mouthpiece.” This correspondent then pro-
‘ceeded as follows: “[Mr. Evarts] is a particu-
lar friend of W. H. Seward. The latter, it
is well known, has lost all confidence in Mr.
Adams, who, but for his name, would have been
recalled long ago. Mr. Seward expresses him-
self on all occasions, early and late, that the real
source of bad feeling in England towards the
North has been caused by the extraordinary
stupidity of Mr. Adams, our minister, and the
really clever ability of all the rebel agents.”
This particular letter Mr. Adams never saw
until his attention was called to it by an em-
phatic private denial from Mr. Seward of the
statements contained in it. None the less,
though outwardly he gave no sign, the regularly
356 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
accredited minister to Great Britain chafed
sorely in private over these efforts at advice and
supervision. ‘It cannot be denied,” he wrote,
‘“‘that ever since I have been here the almost
constant interference of government agents of
all kinds has had the effect, however intended,
of weakening the position of the minister. Most
of all has it happened in the case of Mr. Evarts,
whom the newspapers here have all insisted to
have been sent to superintend my office-in all
questions of international law. I doubt whether
any minister has ever had so much of this kind
of thing to contend with.” Mr. Adams prob-
ably had grounds for this doubt. Meanwhile,
on the other hand, few foreign ministers at any
time, and certainly none ever from the United
States, occupied such a difficult and responsible
position at so critical a period.
After the stoppage of the rams, Mr. Adams
suffered no more annoyance from this source
than did General Grant from interference of a
similar kind after the fall of Vicksburg; and
from the same reason. But, as a mere function
of state, the position of minister had no at-
traction for him; indeed, its duties were dis-
tasteful. He yearned to be at home in New
England, referring continually to his prolonged
residence in Europe as an “exile.” Yet in
fact no American representative, before or
THE YEARS OF FRUITION 357
since, has ever enjoyed a_ position equal to
that held by him during the remaining four
years of his service. He had, under trying
circumstances, won the confidence of all parties.
The cause and country he represented had,
moreover, been brilliantly successful; and cer-
tainly not less in Great Britain than elsewhere
success counts for much.
The correspondence in relation to the so-called
Alabama claims was renewed in 1864, and ecar-
ried on at great length through 1865, Earl Rus-
sell being still the foreign secretary. It at-
tracted much attention, both in Europe and at
home, and the conduct of his share in it greatly
enhanced the reputation of Mr. Adams. Sub-
sequently it became the basis of the American
case in the Geneva arbitration.
Later, and after the close of the civil war,
occurred the “ Fenian” disturbances in Canada
and Great Britain, throwing on the London
legation a good deal of business the reverse
of agreeable. The blowing up by dynamite of
historic public edifices as well as police stations,
and the murdering of the constabulary while in
the. performance of its duties as such, are
criminal acts, even when committed in Europe
by those naturalized in America. This purely
prosaic and matter-of-fact view of the case did
not, however, during the years 1865-67, altogether
358 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
commend itself to the Irish-American political
element. Consequently, though in almost every
case he succeeded .by judicious intercession in
mitigating the severity of the British law, Mr.
Adams did not entirely escape censure at
home. In certain quarters, never conspicuous
for coolness of judgment or moderation in
speech, it was assumed that a truly sympathetic
American diplomatic representative would now
make his presence in London known by demon-
strations not less frequent than vociferous. He
would, in fact, claim for naturalized American
citizens the inalienable right, subject to some
not very material limitations, to do, in the Brit-
ish Isles at least, anything, anywhere, and to
any one. It is almost needless to say that Mr.
Adams shared to a very limited degree only, if
indeed at all, in this view cf what was incum-
bent upon him. His dissent also extended to
the manner as well as the matter. Hence the
indignation aroused. One ardent Congressional
representative, indeed, evincing, perhaps, a cer-
tain confusion in his ideas of constitutional law,
went so far as to propose the formal impeach-
ment of the American minister near the Court
of St. James. This, however, was a mere pass-
ing episode, scarcely deserving of mention; and,
as such, was wholly lost sight of -in the general
recognition afforded Mr. Adams, on both sides
of the Atlantic, as his term drew to its close.
THE YEARS OF FRUITION 359
His own record of the long and interesting
experiences he went through, social as well as
political, was detailed and graphic ; and of its
character no better idea could, perhaps, be given
than through his description of certain occur-
rences which, judging by the detail of his record,
seem most to have interested him. One of
these was an attendance at the Sunday services
held by Mr. Spurgeon, the famous evangelist
preacher. Thither curiosity took Mr. Adams,
himself always a regular church attendant, on
the 13th of October, 1861, he having then been
five months only in England.
“Sunday, 13th October, 1861:—A clear,
fine day throughout, a thing quite rare at this
season. Mrs. Adams and I took the opportunity
to execute a plan we have entertained for some
time back, which was to go across the river to
attend divine service at the great tabernacle at
which the most popular preacher in London
officiates. We were obliged to go an hour in
advance of the service in order to get a chance
of seats. As it was, crowds were in waiting at
the doors. A hint had been given to me that,
by special application at the side door, the police
officer might admit us. There is a magic power
in liveried servants in similar cases here, and we
found ourselves immediately in an immense hall,
surrounded with two deep tiers of gallery. The
360 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
seats, however, though empty at the moment, all
belonged to individuals by ticket just as rigidly
as if it was a theatre, and I was beginning to
despair, when a civil, plain-looking man met us
and offered two seats in the front gallery, vacant
by reason of the non-attendance of two of his
daughters, which I accepted with pleasure. This
position gave us the opportunity to see the entire
audience after it was assembled, and the slow
but the steady process of accumulation, until,
from top to bottom, including the very highest
point under the roof, not an empty place was
to be found, not excepting any of the aisles or
passageways. It is estimated that the house
can hold seven thousand people at the lowest.
The spectacle was striking, for the people were
evidently almost all of the pure middle class of
England, which constitutes the real strength of
the nation, and yet which in religion relucts at
the inanimate vacuity of the ministrations in the
Established Church, and grasps at something
more vigorous and earnest than forms. Mr.
Spurgeon is a short, thickset man, thoroughly
English in matter and manner, yet without
physical coarseness, so common an attendant of
the frame after youth. There was no pulpit.
He stood on a raised platform under the first
gallery, projecting sufficiently to admit of several
rows of seats behind, and between flights of steps
THE YEARS OF FRUITION 361
on each side which led down to the body of the
hall.
“
‘
ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED
BY H. 0. HOUGHTON AND CO.
‘Che Viergide Press
CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U. S. A.
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