 CHAPTER X On Moran's promotion to be secretary, Mr. Seward inquired whether Minister Adams would like the place of assistant secretary for his son. It was the first and last office ever offered him, if indeed he could claim what was offered in fact to his father. To them both the change seemed useless. Any young man could make some sort of assistant secretary. Only one, just at that moment, could make an assistant son. More than half his duties were domestic. They sometimes required long absences. They always required independence of the government service. His position was abnormal. The British government, by courtesy, allowed the son to go to court as attaché, though he was never attached, and after five or six years' toleration the decision was declared irregular. In the legation, as private secretary, he was liable to do secretary's work. In society, when official, he was attached to the minister. When unofficial, he was a young man without any possession at all. As the years went on he began to find advantages in having no position at all, except that of a young man. Only he aspired to become a gentleman, just a member of society like the rest. The position was irregular. At that time many positions were irregular, yet it lent itself to a sort of irregular education that seemed to be the only sort of education the young man was ever to get. Such as it was, few young men had more. The spring and summer of 1863 saw a great change in secretary Seward's management of foreign affairs. Due to the stimulus of danger he too got an education. He felt at last that his official representatives abroad needed support. Officially he could give them nothing but despatches, which were of no great value to anyone, and at best the mere weight of an office had little to do with the public. Governments were made to deal with governments, not with private individuals or with the opinions of foreign society. In order to affect European opinion, the weight of American opinion had to be brought to bear personally, and had to be backed by the weight of American interests. Mr. Seward set vigorously to work and sent over every important American on whom he could lay his hands. All came to the legation more or less intimately, and Henry Adams had a chance to see them all, bankers or bishops, who did their work quietly and well, though to the outsider the work seemed wasted and the influential classes more injurated with prejudice than ever. The waste was only apparent. The work all told in the end, and meanwhile, had helped education. Two or three of these gentlemen were sent over to aid the minister and to cooperate with him. The most interesting of these was Thurlow Weed, who came to do what the private secretary himself had attempted two years before with boyish ignorance of his own powers. Mr. Weed took charge of the press, and began to the amused astonishment of the secretaries by making what the legation had learned to accept as the invariable mistake of every amateur diplomat. He wrote letters to the London Times. Mistake or not, Mr. Weed soon got into his hands the threads of management, and did quietly and smoothly all that was to be done. With his work the private secretary had no connection. It was he that interested. Thurlow Weed was a complete American education in himself. His mind was naturally strong and beautifully balanced. His temper never seemed ruffled. His manners were carefully perfect in the style of benevolent simplicity, the tradition of Benjamin Franklin. He was the model of political management and patient address, but the trait that excited enthusiasm in a private secretary was his faculty of irresistibly conquering confidence. Of all flowers in the garden of education, confidence was becoming the rarest. But before Mr. Weed went away, young Adams followed him about not only obediently, for obedience had long since become a blind instinct, but rather with sympathy and affection, much like a little dog. The sympathy was not only due to Mr. Weed's skill of management, although Adams never met another such master or anyone who approached him, nor was the confidence due to any display of professions, either moral or social, by Mr. Weed. The trait that astounded and confounded cynicism was his apparent unselfishness. Never in any man who wielded such power did Adams meet anything like it. The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self, a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim's sympathies, a diseased appetite like a passion for drink or perverted tastes. One can scarcely use expressions too strong to describe the violence of egotism it stimulates. And Thurlow Weed was one of the exceptions, a rare immune. He thought apparently not of himself, but of the person he was talking with. He held himself naturally in the background. He was not jealous. He grasped power, but not office. He distributed offices by handfuls without caring to take them. He had the instinct of empire he gave, but he did not receive. This rare superiority to the politicians he controlled, a trait that private secretaries never met in the politicians themselves, excited Adams' wonder and curiosity. But when he tried to get behind it and to educate himself from the stores of Mr. Weed's experience, he found the study still more fascinating. Management was an instinct with Mr. Weed, an object to be pursued for its own sake as one plays cards. But he appeared to play with men as though they were only cards. He seemed incapable of feeling himself one of them. He took them and played them for their face value. But once when he had told, with his usual humor, some stories of his political experience, which was strong even for the Albany lobby, the private secretary made bold to ask him outright. Then Mr. Weed, do you think that no politician can be trusted? Mr. Weed hesitated for a moment, then said in his mild manner, I never advise a young man to begin by thinking so. This lesson at the time translated itself to Adams in a moral sense, as though Mr. Weed had said youth needs illusions. As he grew older, he rather thought that Mr. Weed looked on it as a question of how the game should be played. Young men most needed experience. They could not play well if they trusted to a general rule. Every card had a relative value. Principles had better be left aside. Values were enough. Adams knew that he could never learn to play politics in so masterly a fashion as this. His education and his nervous system equally forbade it, although he admired all the more the impersonal faculty of the political master who could thus face himself and his temper in the game. He noticed that most of the greatest politicians in history had seemed to regard men as counters. The lesson was the more interesting because another famous New Yorker came over at the same time who liked to discuss the same problem. Secretary Seward sent William M. Everts to London as law counsel, and Henry began an acquaintance with Mr. Everts that soon became intimate. Everts was as individual as Weed was impersonal. Like most men he cared little for the game or how it was played and much for the stakes. But he played it in a large and liberal way like Daniel Webster, a great advocate employed in politics. Everts was also an economist of morals, but with him the question was rather how much morality one could afford. The world can absorb only doses of truth, he said. Too much would kill it. One sought education in order to adjust the dose. The teachings of Weed and Everts were practical, and the private secretary's life turned on their value. England's power of absorbing truth was small. Men such as Palmerston, Russell, Bethel, and the Society represented by the Times and Morning Post as well as the Tories represented by Disraeli, Lord Robert Cecil, and the Standard offered a study in education that sickened a young student with anxiety. He had begun, contrary to Mr. Weed's advice, by taking their bad faith for granted. Was he wrong? To settle this point became the main object of the diplomatic education so laboriously pursued at a cost already stupendous and promising to become ruinous. Life changed front according as one thought oneself dealing with honest men or with rogues. Thus far the private secretary felt officially sure of dishonesty. The reasons that satisfied him had not altogether satisfied his father, and of course his father's doubts gravely shook his own convictions. But in practice, if only for safety, the legation put little or no confidence in ministers, and there the private secretary's diplomatic education began. The recognition of belligerency, the management of the Declaration of Paris, the Trent Affair, all strengthened the belief that Lord Russell had started in May 1861 with the assumption that the Confederacy was established. Every step he had taken proved his persistence in the same idea. He never would consent to put obstacles in the way of recognition, and he was waiting only for the proper moment to interpose. All these points seemed so fixed, so self-evident, that no one in the legation would have doubted or even discussed them, except that Lord Russell obstinately denied the whole charge and persisted in assuring minister Adams of his honest and impartial neutrality. With the insolence of youth and zeal, Henry Adams jumped at once to the conclusion that Earl Russell, like other statesmen, lied. And although the minister thought differently, he had to act as though Russell were false. Month by month the demonstration followed its mathematical stages, one of the most perfect educational courses in politics and diplomacy that a young man ever had a chance to pursue. The most costly tutors in the world were provided for him at public expense. Sir Palmerston, Lord Russell, Lord Westbury, Lord Selburn, Mr. Gladstone, Lord Granville, and their associates, paid by the British government, William H. Seward, Charles Francis Adams, William Maxwell Everts, Thurlow Weed, and other considerable professors employed by the American government. But there was only one student to profit by this immense staff of teachers. The private secretary alone sought education. To the end of his life he labored over the lessons then taught. Never was demonstration more tangled. Hagel's metaphysical doctrine of the identity of opposites was simpler and easier to understand. Yet the stages of demonstration were clear. They began in June 1862 after the escape of one rebel cruiser by the remonstrances of the minister against the escape of Number 290, which was imminent. Lord Russell declined to act on the evidence. New evidence was sent in every few days, and with it, on July 24, was included Collier's legal opinion. It appears difficult to make out a stronger case of infringement of the Foreign Enlistment Act, which, if not enforced on this occasion, is little better than a dead letter. Such language implied almost a charge of collusion with the rebel agents, an intent to aid the Confederacy. In spite of the warning, Earl Russell let the ship, four days afterwards, escape. Young Adams had nothing to do with law. That was business of his betters. His opinion of law hung on his opinion of lawyers. In spite of Thurlow Weed's advice, could one afford to trust human nature in politics? History said not. The Robert Collier seemed to hold that law agreed with history. For education that point was vital. If one could not trust a dozen of the most respected private characters in the world composing the Queen's ministry, one could trust no mortal man. Lord Russell felt the force of this inference, and undertook to disprove it. His effort lasted till his death. At first he excused himself by throwing the blame on the law officers. This was a politician's practice, and the lawyers overruled it. Then he pleaded guilty to criminal negligence and said in his recollections, I assent entirely to the opinion of the Lord Chief Justice of England that the Alabama ought to have been detained during the four days I was waiting for the opinion of the law officers. But I think that the fault was not that of the commissioners of customs. It was my fault as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. This concession brought all parties on common ground. Of course it was his fault. The true issue lay not on the question of his fault, but of his intent. To a young man getting an education in politics there could be no sense in history unless a constant course of faults implied a constant motive. For his father the question was not so obstruce. It was a practical matter of business to be handled as weed or everts handled their bargains and jobs. Minister Adams held the convenient belief that in the main Russell was true, and the theory answered his purposes so well that he died still holding it. His son was seeking education and wanted to know whether he could, in politics, risk trusting anyone. Unfortunately no one could then decide. No one knew the facts. Minister Adams died without knowing them. Henry Adams was an older man than his father in 1862 before he learned a part of them. The most curious fact, even then, was that Russell believed in his own good faith and that Argyle believed it also. Argyle betrayed a taste for throwing the blame on Bethel, Lord Westbury, then Lord Chancellor, but this escape helped Adams not at all. On the contrary it complicated the case of Russell. In England one half of society enjoyed throwing stones at Lord Palmerston while the other half delighted in flinging mud at Earl Russell. But every one of every party united in pelting Westbury with every missile at hand. The private secretary had no doubts about him for he never professed to be moral. He was the head and heart of the whole rebel contention, and his opinions on neutrality were as clear as they were on morality. The private secretary had nothing to do with him and regretted it, for Lord Westbury's wit and wisdom were great. But as far as his authority went he affirmed the law that in politics no man should be trusted. Russell alone insisted on his honesty of intention and persuaded both the Duke and the minister to believe him. Everyone in the legation accepted his assurances as the only assertions they could venture to trust. They knew he expected the rebels to win in the end, but they believed he would not actively interpose to decide it. On that, on nothing else, they rested their frail hopes of remaining a day longer in England. Minister Adams remained six years longer in England than returned to America to lead a busy life till he died in 1886, still holding the same faith in Earl Russell, who had died in 1878. In 1889 Spencer Walpole published The Official Life of Earl Russell and told a part of the story which had never been known to the minister and which astounded his son, who burned with curiosity to know what his father would have said of it. The story was this. The Alabama escaped by Russell's confessed negligence on July 28, 1862. In America the Union armies had suffered great disasters before Richmond and at the Second Bull Run, August 29 to 30, followed by Lee's invasion of Maryland, September 7, the news of which, arriving in England on September 14, roused the natural idea that the crisis was at hand. The next news was expected by the Confederates to announce the fall of Washington or Baltimore. Palmerston instantly, September 14, wrote to Russell, quote, if this should happen would it not be time for us to consider whether in such a state of things England and France might not address the contending parties and recommend an arrangement on the basis of separation, end quote. This letter, quite in line of Palmerston's supposed opinions, would have surprised no one if it had been communicated to the legation, and indeed if Lee had captured Washington no one could have blamed Palmerston for offering intervention. Not Palmerston's letter, but Russell's reply merited the painful attention of a young man seeking a moral standard for judging politicians. Gota, September 17, 1862. My dear Palmerston, whether the Federal Army is destroyed or not, it is clear that it is driven back to Washington and has made no progress in subduing the insurgent states. Such being the case, I agree with you that the time has come for offering mediation to the United States government with a view to the recognition of the independence of the Confederates. I agree further that in case of failure we ought ourselves to recognize the southern states as an independent state. For the purpose of taking so important a step, I think we must have a meeting of the Cabinet. The 23rd or 30th would suit me for the meeting. We ought then, if we agree on such a step, to propose it first to France and then on the part of England and France to Russia and other powers as a measure decided upon by us. We ought to make ourselves safe in Canada, not by sending more troops there, but by concentrating those we have in a few defensible posts before the winter sets in. Here, then, appeared in its fullest force the practical difficulty in education which a mere student could never overcome. A difficulty not in theory or knowledge or even want of experience, but in the sheer chaos of human nature. Lord Russell's course had been consistent from the first and had all the look of rigid determination to recognize the Southern Confederacy with a view to breaking up the Union. His letter of September 17 hung directly on his encouragement of the Alabama and his protection of the Rebel Navy, while the whole of his plan had its root in the proclamation of belligerency May 13th, 1861. The policy had every look of persistent forethought, but it took for granted the deliberate dishonesty of three famous men, Palmerston, Russell, and Gladstone. This dishonesty, as concerned Russell, was denied by Russell himself and disbelieved by Argyle, Forster, and most of America's friends in England, as well as by Minister Adams. What the minister would have thought had he seen this letter of September 17, his son would have greatly liked to know, but he would have liked still more to know what the minister would have thought of Palmerston's answer, dated September 23. Quote, it is evident that a great conflict is taking place to the northwest of Washington and its issue must have a great effect on the state of affairs. If the Federals sustain a great defeat, they may be at once ready for mediation and the iron should be struck while it is hot. If, on the other hand, they should have the best of it, we may wait a while and see what may follow. End quote. The roles were reversed. Russell wrote what was expected from Palmerston or even more violently, while Palmerston wrote what was expected from Russell or even more temporarily. The private secretary's view had been altogether wrong, which would not have much surprised even him, but he would have been greatly astonished to learn that the most confidential associates of these men knew little more about their intentions than was known in the legation. The most trusted member of the cabinet was Lord Granville and to him Russell next wrote. Granville replied at once decidedly, opposing recognition of the Confederacy and Russell sent the reply to Palmerston who returned it October 2nd with the mere suggestion of waiting for further news from America. At the same time, Granville wrote to another member of the cabinet, Lord Stanley of Alderley, a letter published 40 years afterwards in Granville's Life, volume one, page 442, to the private secretary altogether, the most curious and instructive relic of the whole lesson in politics. Quote, I have written to Johnny my reasons for thinking it decidedly premature. I, however, suspect you will settle to do so. Pam, Johnny and Gladstone would be in favor of it and probably Newcastle. I do not know about the others. It appears to me a great mistake. Out of a cabinet of a dozen members, Granville, the best informed of them all, could pick only three who would favor recognition. Even a private secretary thought he knew as much as this or more. Ignorance was not confined to the young and insignificant, nor were they the only victims of blindness. Granville's letter made only one point clear. He knew of no fixed policy or conspiracy. If any existed it was confined to Palmerston, Russell, Gladstone, and perhaps Newcastle. In truth the legation knew then all that was to be known and the true fault of education was to suspect too much. By that time, October 3rd, news of Antietam and of Lee's retreat into Virginia had reached London. The Emancipation Proclamation arrived. Had the private secretary known all that Granville or Palmerston knew, he would surely have thought the danger passed, at least for a time, and any man of common sense would have told him to stop worrying over phantoms. This healthy lesson would have been worth much for practical education, but it was quite upset by the sudden rush of a new actor upon the stage with a rhapsody that made Russell seem sane and all education superfluous. This new actor, as everyone knows, was William Ewert Gladstone, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. If, in the domain of the world's politics, one point was fixed, one value ascertained, one element serious, it was the British Exchequer. And if one man lived, who could be certainly counted as sane by overwhelming interest, it was the man who had in charge the finances of England. If education had the smallest value, it should have shown its force in Gladstone, who was educated beyond all record of English training. From him, if from no one else, the poor student could safely learn. Here is what he learned. Palmerston notified Gladstone, September 24th, of the proposed intervention. If I am not mistaken, you would be inclined to approve such a course. Gladstone replied the next day. He was glad to learn what the Prime Minister had told him, and for two reasons especially, he desired that the proceedings should be prompt, that first was the rapid progress of the Southern arms and the extension of the area of Southern feeling. The second was the risk of violent impatience in the cotton towns of Lancashire, such as would prejudice the dignity and disinterestedness of the proffered mediation. Had the puzzled students seen this letter, he must have concluded from it that the best educated statesmen England ever produced did not know what he was talking about, an assumption which all the world would think quite inadmissible from a private secretary. But this was a trifle. Gladstone, having thus arranged with Palmerston and Russell for intervention in the American War, reflected on the subject for a fortnight from September 25th to October 7th, when he was to speak on the occasion of a great dinner at Newcastle. He decided to announce the government's policy with all the force his personal and official authority could give it. This decision was no impulse. It was the result of deep reflection pursued to the last moment. On the morning of October 7th, he entered in his diary, reflected further on what I should say about Lancashire and America, for both these subjects are critical. That evening at dinner, as the mature fruit of his long study, he deliberately pronounced the famous phrase. Quote, we know quite well that the people of the northern states have not yet drunk of the cup. They are still trying to hold it far from their lips, which all the rest of the world see, they nevertheless must drink of. We may have our own opinions about slavery. We may be for or against the south, but there is no doubt 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. End quote. Looking back 40 years afterwards on this episode, one asked oneself painfully, what sort of a lesson a young man should have drawn for the purposes of his education from this world-famous teaching of a very great master? In the heat of passion at the moment, one drew some harsh moral conclusions. Were they incorrect? Posed bluntly as rules of conduct, they led to the worst possible practices. As morals, one could detect no shade of difference between Gladstone and Napoleon, except to the advantage of Napoleon. The private secretary saw none. He accepted the teacher in that sense. He took his lesson of political morality as learned, his notice to quit as duly served, and supposed his education to be finished. Everyone thought so, and the whole city was in a turmoil. Any intelligent education ought to end when it is complete. One would then feel fewer hesitations and would handle a sureer world. The old-fashioned logical drama required unity and sense. The actual drama is a pointless puzzle without even an intrigue. When the curtain fell on Gladstone's speech, any student had the right to suppose the drama ended. None could have affirmed that it was about to begin, that one's painful lesson was thrown away. Even after 40 years, most people would refuse to believe it. They would still insist that Gladstone, Russell, and Palmerston were true villains of melodrama. The evidence against Gladstone in special seemed overwhelming. The word must can never be used by a responsible minister of one government toward another, as Gladstone used it. No one knew so well as he, that he and his own officials and friends at Liverpool were alone making a rebel navy, and that Jefferson Davis had next to nothing to do with it. As Chancellor of the Extrecer, he was the minister most interested in knowing that Palmerston, Russell, and himself were banded together by mutual pledge to make the Confederacy a nation the next week, and that the Southern leaders had as yet no hope of making a nation but in them. Such thoughts occurred to everyone at the moment, and time only added to their force. Never in the history of moral turpitude had any brigand of modern civilization offered a worse example. The proof of it was that it outraged even Palmerston, who immediately put up Sir George Cornwall Lewis to repudiate the Chancellor of the Extrecer, against whom he turned his press at the same time. Palmerston had no notion of letting his hand be forced by Gladstone. Russell did nothing of the kind. If he agreed with Palmerston, he followed Gladstone. Although he had just created a new evangel of non-intervention for Italy, and preached it like an apostle, he preached the gospel of intervention in America as though he were a mouthpiece of the Congress of Vienna. On October 13th, he issued his call for the Cabinet to meet on October 23rd for discussion of the duty of Europe to ask both parties in the most friendly and conciliatory terms to agree to a suspension of arms. Meanwhile, Minister Adams, deeply perturbed and profoundly anxious, would betray no sign of alarm and purposely delayed to ask explanation. The howl of anger against Gladstone became louder every day, for everyone knew that the Cabinet was called for October 23rd, and then could not fail to decide its policy about the United States. Lord Lyons put off his departure for America till October 25th, expressly to share in the conclusions to be discussed on October 23rd. When Minister Adams at last requested an interview, Russell named October 23rd as the day. To the last moment, every act of Russell showed that in his mind the intervention was still in doubt. When Minister Adams at the interview suggested that an explanation was due him, he watched Russell with natural interest and reported thus, quote, his Lordship took my illusion at once, though not without a slight indication of embarrassment. He said that Mr. Gladstone had been evidently much misunderstood. I must have seen in the newspapers the letters which contained his later explanations, that he had certain opinions in regard to the nature of the struggle in America, as on all public questions, just as other Englishmen had, was natural enough. And it was the fashion here for public men to express such as they held in their public addresses. Of course, it was not for him to disavow anything on the part of Mr. Gladstone, but he had no idea that in saying what he had, there was a serious intention to justify any of the inferences that had been drawn from it of a disposition in the government now to adopt a new policy, end quote. A student trying to learn the processes of politics in a free government could not but ponder long on the moral to be drawn from this explanation of Mr. Gladstone by Earl Russell. The point set for study as the first condition of political life was whether any politician could be believed or trusted. The question which a private secretary asked himself in copying this despatch of October 24th, 1862, was whether his father believed or should believe one word of Lord Russell's embarrassment. The truth was not known for 30 years, but when published seemed to be the reverse of Earl Russell's statement. Mr. Gladstone's speech had been drawn out by Russell's own policy of intervention and had no sense except to declare the disposition of the government now to adopt that new policy. Earl Russell never disavowed Gladstone, although Lord Palmerstone and Sir George Cornwall Lewis instantly did so. As far as the curious student could penetrate the mystery, Gladstone exactly expressed Earl Russell's intent. As political education, this lesson was to be crucial. It would decide the law of life. All these gentlemen were superlatively honourable. If one could not believe them, truth in politics might be ignored as a delusion. Therefore the student felt compelled to reach some sort of idea that should serve to bring the case within a general law. Minister Adams felt the same compulsion. He bluntly told Russell that while he was willing to acquit Gladstone of any deliberate intention to bring out the worst effects, he was bound to say that Gladstone was doing it quite as certainly as if he had one, and to this charge, which struck more sharply at Russell's secret policy than at Gladstone's public defence of it, Russell replied as well as he could. Quote, his lordship intimated as guardedly as possible that Lord Palmerstone and other members of the government regretted the speech, and Mr. Gladstone himself was not disinclined to correct, as far as he could, the misinterpretation which had been made of it. It was still their intention to adhere to the rule of perfect neutrality in the struggle, and to let it come to its natural end without the smallest interference, direct or otherwise. But he could not say what circumstances might happen from month to month in the future. I observed that the policy he mentioned was satisfactory to us, and asked if I was to understand him as saying that no change of it was now proposed, to which he gave his assent. Minister Adams never knew more. He retained his belief that Russell could be trusted, but that Palmerstone could not. This was the diplomatic tradition, especially held by the Russian diplomats. Possibly it was sound, but it helped in no way the education of a private secretary. The Katz-Paw theory offered no safer clue than the frank, old-fashioned, honest theory of villainy. Neither the one nor the other was reasonable. No one ever told the minister that Earl Russell, only a few hours before, had asked the cabinet to intervene and that the cabinet had refused. The minister was led to believe that the cabinet meeting was not held and that its decision was informal. Russell's biographer said that, with this memorandum of Russell's dated October 13th, the cabinet assembled from all parts of the country on October 23rd, but members of the cabinet doubted the policy of moving or moving at that time. The Duke of Newcastle and Sir George Gray, joined Granville in opposition. As far as known, Russell and Gladstone stood alone. Quote, considerations such as these prevented the matter being pursued any further. End quote. Still, no one has distinctly said that this decision was formal. Perhaps the unanimity of opposition made the formal cabinet unnecessary, but it is certain that within an hour or two before or after this decision, quote, his lordship said to the United States minister that the policy of the government was to adhere to a strict neutrality and to leave this struggle to settle itself, end quote. When Mr. Adams, not satisfied even with this positive assurance, pressed for a categorical answer, quote, I asked him if I was to understand that policy as not now to be changed, he said yes, end quote. John Morley's comment on this matter in the life of Gladstone 40 years afterwards would have interested the minister as well as his private secretary. If this relation be accurate, said Morley, of a relation officially published at the time and never questioned, then the foreign secretary did not construe strict neutrality as excluding what diplomatists call good offices. For a vital lesson in politics, Earl Russell's construction of neutrality mattered little to the student, who asked only Russell's intent and cared only to know whether his construction had any other object than to deceive the minister. In the grave, one can afford to be lavish of charity and possibly Earl Russell may have been honestly glad to reassure his personal friend, Mr. Adams, but to know when who was still in the world, even if not of it, doubts are as plenty as days. Earl Russell totally deceived the private secretary, whatever he may have done to the minister. The policy of abstention was not settled on October 23rd. Only the next day, October 24th, Gladstone circulated a rejoinder to G. C. Lewis, insisting on the duty of England, France, and Russia to intervene by representing, quote, with moral authority and force the opinion of the civilized world upon the conditions of the case, end quote. Nothing had been decided. By some means, scarcely accidental, the French Emperor was led to think that his influence might turn the scale, and only 10 days after Russell's categorical yes, Napoleon officially invited him to say no. He was more than ready to do so. Another cabinet meeting was called for November 11th, and this time Gladstone himself reports the debate. Quote, November 11, we have had our cabinet today and meet again tomorrow. I am afraid we shall do little or nothing in the business of America, but I will send you definite intelligence. Both Lord Palmerston and Russell are right. November 12th, the United States affair has ended, and not well. Lord Russell rather turned tail. He gave way without resolutely fighting out his battle. However, though we declined for the moment, the answer is put upon grounds and in terms, which leave the matter very open for the future. November 13th, I think the French will make our answer about America public, at least it is very possible, but I hope they may not take it as a positive refusal or at any rate that they may themselves act in the matter. It will be clear that we concur with them that the war should cease. Palmerston gave to Russell's proposal a feeble and half-hearted support. End quote. 40 years afterwards when everyone except himself who looked on at this scene was dead, the private secretary of 1862 read these lines with stupor and hurried to discuss them with John Hay, who was more astounded than himself. All the world had been at cross purposes, had misunderstood themselves and the situation, had followed wrong paths, drawn wrong conclusions, and had known none of the facts. One would have done better to draw no conclusions at all. One's diplomatic education was a long mistake. These were the terms of the singular problem as they presented themselves to the student of diplomacy in 1862. Palmerston, on September 14th, under the impression that the President was about to be driven from Washington and the Army of the Potomac dispersed, suggested to Russell that in such a case intervention might be feasible. Russell instantly answered that in any case he wanted to intervene and should call a cabinet for the purpose. Palmerston hesitated. Russell insisted. Granville protested. Meanwhile, the rebel army was defeated at Antietam, September 17th, and driven out of Maryland. Then Gladstone, October 7th, tried to force Palmerston's hand by treating the intervention as a fait accompli. Russell assented, but Palmerston put up Sir George Cornwall Lewis to contradict Gladstone and treated him sharply in the press, at the very moment when Russell was calling a cabinet to make Gladston's words good. On October 23rd, Russell assured Adams that no change in policy was now proposed. On the same day, he had proposed it and was voted down. Instantly, Napoleon III appeared as the ally of Russell and Gladstone with a proposition which had no sense except as a bribe to Palmerston to replace America from pole to pole in her old dependence on Europe and to replace England in her old sovereignty of the seas if Palmerston would support France and Mexico. The young student of diplomacy, knowing Palmerston, must have taken for granted that Palmerston inspired this motion and would support it. Knowing Russell and his wig antecedents, he would conceive that Russell must oppose it. Knowing Gladstone and his lofty principles, he would not doubt that Gladstone violently denounced the scheme. If education was worth a straw, this was the only arrangement of persons that a trained student would imagine possible, and it was the arrangement actually assumed by nine men out of ten as history. In truth, each valuation was false. Palmerston never showed favour to the scheme and gave it only a feeble and half-hearted support. Russell gave way without resolutely fighting out his battle. The only resolute, vehement, conscientious champion of Russell, Napoleon, and Jefferson Davis was Gladstone. Other people could afford to laugh at a young man's blunders, but to him the best part of life was thrown away if he learned such a lesson wrong. Henry James had not yet taught the world to read a volume for the pleasure of seeing the lights of his burning glass to turn down on alternate sides of the same figure. Psychological study was still simple and at worst, or at best, English character was never subtle. Surely no one would believe that complexity was the trait that confused the student of Palmerston, Russell, and Gladstone. Under a very strong light, human nature will always appear complex and full of contradictions, but the British statesmen would appear on the whole among the least complex of men. Complex, these gentlemen were not. Disraeli alone might, by contrast, be called complex, but Palmerston, Russell, and Gladstone deceived only by their simplicity. Russell was the most interesting to a young man because his conduct seemed the most statesman-like. Every act of Russell, from April 1861 to November 1862, showed the clearest determination to break up the union. The only point in Russell's character about which the student thought no doubt to be possible was its want of good faith. It was thoroughly dishonest, but strong. Habitually, Russell said one thing and did another. He seemed unconscious of his own contradictions even when his opponents pointed them out as they were much in the habit of doing in the strongest language. As the student watched him deal with the Civil War in America, Russell alone showed persistence, even obstinacy, in a definite determination which he supported, as was necessary, by the usual definite falsehoods. The young man did not complain of the falsehoods. On the contrary, he was vain of his own insight in detecting them, but he was wholly upset by the idea that Russell should think himself true. Young Adams thought Earl Russell, a statesman of the old school, clear about his objects and unscrupulous in his methods, dishonest, but strong. Russell ardently asserted that he had no objects and that though he might be weak, he was above all else honest. Minister Adams leaned to Russell personally and thought him true, but officially, in practice, treated him as false. Punch, before 1862, commonly drew Russell as a schoolboy telling lies and afterwards as prematurely senile at 70. Education stopped there. No one, either in or out of England, ever offered a rational explanation of Earl Russell. Palmerston was simple. So simple as to mislead the student altogether, but scarcely more consistent. The world thought him positive, decided, reckless. The record proved him to be cautious, careful, vacillating. Minister Adams took him for pugnacious and quarrelsome. The lives of Russell, Gladstone, and Granville show him to have been good-tempered, conciliatory, avoiding quarrels. He surprised the minister by refusing to pursue his attack on General Butler. He tried to check Russell. He scolded Gladstone. He discouraged Napoleon. Except at Israeli, none of the English statesmen were so cautious as he in Talking of America. Palmerston told no falsehoods, made no professions, concealed no opinions, was detected in no double dealing. The most mortifying failure in Henry Adams' long education was that after 40 years of confirmed dislike, distrust, and detraction of Lord Palmerston, he was obliged at last to admit himself an error and to consent in spirit, for by that time he was nearly as dead as any of them, to beg his pardon. Gladstone was quite another story, but with him a student's difficulties were less because they were shared by all the world, including Gladstone himself. He was the sum of contradictions. The highest education could reach in this analysis only a reduction to the absurd. But no absurdity that a young man could reach in 1862 would have approached the level that Mr. Gladstone admitted, avowed, proclaimed in his confessions of 1896, which brought all reason and all hope of education to a still stand. Quote, I have yet to record an undoubted error, the most singular and palpable. I may add the least excusable of them all, especially since it was committed so late as in the year 1862 when I had outlived half a century. I declared in the heat of the American struggle that Jefferson Davis had made a nation. Strange to say this declaration, most unwarrantable to be made by a minister of the crown with no authority other than his own, was not due to any feeling of partisanship for the South or hostility to the North. I really, though most strangely believed that it was an act of friendliness to all America to recognize that the struggle was virtually at an end. That my opinion was founded upon a false estimate of the facts was the very least part of my fault. I did not perceive the gross impropriety of such an utterance from a cabinet minister of a power allied in blood and language and bound to loyal neutrality. The case being further exaggerated by the fact that we were already, so to speak, under indictment before the world for naught, as was alleged, having strictly enforced the laws of neutrality in the matter of the cruisers. My offense was indeed only a mistake, but one of incredible grossness, and with such consequences of offense and alarm attached to it, that my failing to perceive them justly exposed me to very severe blame. It illustrates vividly that incapacity, which my mind so long retained, and perhaps still exhibits, an incapacity of viewing subjects all round. End quote. Long and patiently, more than patiently, sympathetically, did the private secretary 40 years afterwards in the twilight of a life of study, read and reread and reflect upon this confession. Then, it seemed, he had seen nothing correctly at the time. His whole theory of conspiracy, of policy, of logic and connection in the affairs of man, resolved itself into incredible grossness. He felt no rancour, for he had won the game. He forgave, since he must admit, the incapacity of viewing subjects all round, which had so nearly cost him his life in fortune. He was willing even to believe. He noted without irritation that Mr. Gladstone, in his confession, had not alluded to the understanding between Russell, Palmerston, and himself, had even wholly left out his most incredible act, his ardent support of Napoleon's policy, a policy which even Palmerston and Russell had supported feebly, with only half a heart. All this was indifferent, granting, in spite of evidence, that Gladstone had no set plan of breaking up the union, that he was party to no conspiracy, that he saw none of the results of his acts, which were clear to everyone else, granting, in short, what the English themselves seemed at last to conclude, that Gladstone was not quite sane, that Lord Russell was verging on senility, that Palmerston had lost his nerve. What sort of education should have been the result of it? How should it have affected one's future opinions and acts? Politics cannot stop to study psychology. Its methods are rough, its judgments rougher still. All this knowledge would not have affected either the minister or his son in 1862. The sum of the individuals would still have seemed, to the young man, one individual, a single will or intention, bent on breaking up the union, as a diminution of a dangerous power. The minister would still have found his interest in thinking Russell friendly and Palmerston hostile. The individual would still have been identical with the mass. The problem would have been the same. The answer equally obscure. Every student would, like the private secretary, answer for himself alone. End of chapter 10. Chapter 11 of The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 11, The Battle of the Rams, 1863. Minister Adams troubled himself little about what he did not see of an enemy. His son, a nervous animal, made life a terror by seeing too much. Minister Adams played his hand as it came and seldom credited his opponents with greater intelligence than his own. Earl Russell suited him. Perhaps a certain personal sympathy united them. And indeed Henry Adams never saw Russell without being amused by his droll likeness to John Quincy Adams. Apart from this shadowy personal relation, no doubt the minister was diplomatically right. He had nothing to lose and everything to gain by making a friend of the foreign secretary. And whether Russell were true or false mattered less because in either case the American legation could act only as though he were false. Had the minister known Russell's determined effort to betray and ruin him in October 1862, he could have scarcely used stronger expressions than he did in 1863. Russell must have been greatly annoyed by Sir Robert Collier's hint of collusion with the rebel agents in the Alabama case, but he hardened himself to hear the same innuendo repeated in nearly every note from the legation. As time went on Russell was compelled, though slowly, to treat the American minister as serious. He admitted nothing so unwillingly for the nullity or fatuity of the Washington government was his e-day feaks. But after the failure of his last effort for joint intervention on November 12, 1862, only one week elapsed before he received a note from Minister Adams repeating his charges about the Alabama and asking in very plain language for redress. Perhaps Russell's mind was naturally slow to understand the force of sudden attack or perhaps age had affected it. This was one of the points that greatly interested a student, but young men have a passion for regarding their elders as senile, which was only in part warranted in this instance by observing that Russell's generation were mostly senile from youth. They had never got beyond 1815. Both Palmerston and Russell were in this case. Their senility was congenital, like Gladston's Oxford training and high church illusions, which caused wild eccentricities in his judgment. Russell could not conceive that he had misunderstood and mismanaged Minister Adams from the start, and when after November 12, he found himself on the defensive with Mr. Adams taking daily a stronger tone, he showed mere confusion and helplessness. Thus, whatever the theory, the action of diplomacy had to be the same. Minister Adams was obliged to imply collusion between Russell and the rebels. He could not even stop at criminal negligence. If by an excess of courtesy, the minister were civil enough to admit that the escape of the Alabama had been due to criminal negligence, he could make no such concession in regard to the ironclad rams which the Lairds were building, for no one could be so simple as to believe that two armored ships of war could be built publicly under the eyes of the government and go to sea like the Alabama without active and incessant collusion. The longer Earl Russell kept on his mask of assumed ignorance, the more violently in the end the minister would have to tear it off. Whatever Mr. Adams might personally think of Earl Russell, he must take the greatest possible diplomatic liberties with him if this crisis were allowed to arrive. As the spring of 1863 drew on, the vast field cleared itself for action. A campaign more beautiful, better suited for training the mind of a youth eager for training, had not often unrolled itself for study from the beginning before a young man perched in so commanding a position. Very slowly indeed, after two years of solitude, one began to feel the first faint flush of new and imperial life. One was twenty-five years old and quite ready to assert it. Some of one's friends were wearing stars on their collars. Some had won stars of a more enduring kind. At moments one's breath came quick. One began to dream the sensation of wielding unmeasured power. The sense came, like vertigo, for an instant and passed, leaving the brain a little dazed, doubtful, shy. With an intensity more painful than that of any Shakespearean drama, men's eyes were fastened on the armies in the field. Little by little, at first only as a shadowy chance of what might be if things could be rightly done, one began to feel that somewhere behind the chaos in Washington power was taking shape, that it was masked and guided as it had not been before. Men seemed to have learned their business at a cost that ruined, and perhaps too late. A private secretary knew better than most people how much of the new power was to be swung in London, and almost exactly when. But the diplomatic campaign had to wait for the military campaign to lead. The student could only study. Life never could know more than a single such climax. In that form education reached its limits. As the first great blows began to fall, one curled up in bed in the silence of night to listen with incredulous hope. As the huge masses struck, one after another, with the precision of machinery, the opposing mass, the world shivered. Such development of power was unknown. The magnificent resistance and the return shocks heightened the suspense. During the July days Londoners were stupid with unbelief. They were learning from the Yankees how to fight. An American saw in a flash what all this meant to England, for one's mind was working with the acceleration of the machine at home. But Englishmen were not quick to see their blunders. One had ample time to watch the process, and even had a little time to gloat over the repayment of old scores. News of Vicksburg and Gettysburg reached London one Sunday afternoon, and it happened that Henry Adams was asked for that evening to some small reception at the house of Moncton Milne's. He went early in order to exchange a word or two of congratulation before the rooms should fill, and on arriving he found only the ladies in the drawing-room. The gentlemen were still sitting over their wine. Presently they came in, and as luck would have it, delaying of the times came first. When Milne's caught sight of his young American friend with a whoop of triumph, he rushed to throw both arms around his neck and kiss him on both cheeks. Men of later birth, who knew too little to realise the passions of 1863, backed by those of 1813, and reinforced by those of 1763, might conceive that such publicity embarrassed a private secretary who came from Boston and called himself shy. But that evening, for the first time in his life, he happened not to be thinking of himself. He was thinking of Delayne, whose eye caught his at the moment of Milne's embrace. Delayne probably regarded it as a piece of Milne's foolery. He had never heard of young Adams and never dreamed of his resentment at being ridiculed in the times. He had no suspicion of the thought floating in the mind of the American minister's son, for the British mind is the slowest of all minds, as the files of the times proved, and the capture of Vicksburg had not yet penetrated Delayne's thick cortex of fixed ideas. Even if he had read Adams' thought, he would have felt for it only the usual amused British contempt for all that he had not been taught at school. It needed a whole generation for the times to reach Milne's standpoint. Had the minister's son carried out the thought, he would surely have sought an introduction to Delayne on the spot, and assured him that he regarded his own personal score as cleared off, sufficiently settled there and then, because his father had assumed the debt and was going to deal with Mr. Delayne himself. You come next would have been the friendly warning. For nearly a year the private secretary had watched the board arranging itself for the collision between the legation and Delayne, who stood behind the Palmerston Ministry. Mr. Adams had been steadily strengthened and reinforced from Washington in view of the final struggle. The situation had changed since the Trent Affair. The work was efficiently done, the organization was fairly complete. No doubt the legation itself was still as weekly manned and had as poor an outfit as the legations of Guatemala or Portugal. Congress was always jealous of its diplomatic service, and the chairman of the Committee of Foreign Relations was not likely to press assistance on the minister to England. For the legation not an additional clerk was offered or asked. The secretary, the assistant secretary, and the private secretary did all the work that the minister did not do. A clerk at five dollars a week would have done the work as well or better, but the minister could trust no clerk without express authority he could admit no one into the legation. He strained a point already by admitting his son. Congress and its committees were the proper judges of what was best for the public service, and if the arrangement seemed good to them it was satisfactory to a private secretary who profited by it more than they did. A great staff would have suppressed him. The whole legation was a sort of improvised volunteer service and he was a volunteer with the rest. He was rather better off than the rest because he was invisible and unknown. Better or worse he did his work with the others, and if the secretaries made any remarks about Congress they made no complaints and knew that none would have received a moment's attention. If they were not satisfied with Congress they were satisfied with Secretary Seward. Without appropriations for the regular service he had done great things for its support. If the minister had no secretaries he had a staff of active consuls. He had a well-organized press, efficient legal support, and a swarm of social allies permeating all classes. All he needed was a victory in the field and Secretary Stanton undertook that part of diplomacy. Vicksburg and Gettysburg cleared the board, and at the end of July 1863 Minister Adams was ready to deal with Earl Russell or Lord Palmerston or Mr Gladstone or Mr Delaney or anyone else who stood in his way. And by the necessity of the case was obliged to deal with all of them shortly. Even before the military climax at Vicksburg and Gettysburg the minister had been compelled to begin his attack. But this was history and had nothing to do with education. The private secretary copied the notes into his private books and that was all the share he had in the matter, except to talk in private. No more volunteer services were needed. The volunteers were in a manner sent to the rear. The movement was too serious for skirmishing. All that a secretary could hope to gain from the affair was experience and knowledge of politics. He had a chance to measure the motive forces of men, their qualities of character, their foresight, their tenacity of purpose. In the litigation no great confidence was felt in stopping the Rams, whatever the reason Russell seemed immovable. Had his efforts for intervention in September 1862 been known to the litigation in September 1863 the minister must surely have admitted that Russell had from the very first meant to force his plan of intervention on his colleagues. Every separate step since April 1861 led to this final coercion. Although Russell's hostile activity of 1862 was still secret and remained secret for some five and twenty years his animus seemed to be made clear by his steady refusal to stop the rebel armaments. Little by little minister Adams lost hope. With loss of hope came the raising of tone until at last after stripping Russell of every rag of defense and excuse he closed by leaving him loaded with connivance in the rebel armaments and ended by the famous sentence it would be superfluous in me to point out to your lordship that this is war. What the minister meant by this remark was his own affair. What the private secretary understood by it was a part of his education. Had his father ordered him to draft an explanatory paragraph to expand the idea as he grasped it he would have continued thus. It would be superfluous first because Earl Russell not only knows it already but has meant it from the start. Second because it is the only logical and necessary consequence of his unvarying action. Third because Mr. Adams is not pointing out to him that this is war but is pointing it out to the world to complete the record. This would have been the matter of fact sense in which the private secretary copied into his books the matter of fact statement with which without passion or excitement the minister announced that a state of war existed. To his copying eye as clerk the words though on the extreme verge of diplomatic propriety merely stated a fact without novelty fancy or rhetoric. The fact had to be stated in order to make clear the issue. The war was Russell's war. Adams only accepted it. Russell's reply to this note of September 5 reached the legation on September 8 announcing at last to the anxious secretaries that instructions have been issued which will prevent the departure of the two ironclad vessels from Liverpool. The members of the modest legation in Portland place accepted it as Grant had accepted the capitulation of Vicksburg. The private secretary conceived that as secretary Stanton had struck and crushed by superior weight the rebel left on the Mississippi so secretary Seward had struck and crushed the rebel right in England and he never felt a doubt as to the nature of the battle. Though minister Adams should stay in office till he were ninety he would never fight another campaign of life and death like this and though the private secretary should covet and attain every office in the gift of president or people he would never again find education to compare with the life and death alternative of this two and a half year struggle in London as it had racked and thumb screwed him in its shifting phases but its practical value as education turned on his correctness of judgment in measuring the men and their forces. He felt respect for Russell as for Palmerston because they represented traditional England and an English policy respectable enough in itself but which for four generations every Adams had fought and exploited as the chief source of his political fortunes as he understood it Russell had followed this policy steadily ably even vigorously and had brought it to the moment of execution then he had met wills stronger than his own and after persevering to the last possible instant had been beaten Lord North and George Canning had a like experience. This was only the idea of a boy but as far as he ever knew it was also the idea of his government for once the volunteer secretary was satisfied with his government commonly the self-respect of a secretary private or public depends on and is proportional to the severity of his criticism but in this case the English campaign seemed to him as creditable to the State Department as the Vicksburg campaign to the War Department and more decisive it was well planned well prepared and well executed he could never discover a mistake in it possibly he was biased by personal interest but his chief reason for trusting his own judgment was that he thought himself to be one of only half a dozen persons who knew something about it when others criticized Mr. Seward he was rather indifferent to their opinions because he thought they hardly knew what they were talking about and could not be taught without living over again the London life of 1862 to him secretary Seward seemed immensely strong and steady in leadership but this was no discredit to Russell or Palmerston or Gladstone they too had shown power patience and steadiness of purpose they had persisted for two years and a half and their plan for breaking up the union and had yielded at last only in the jaws of war after a long and desperate struggle the American minister had trumped their best card and won the game again and again in afterlife he went back over the ground to see whether he could detect error on either side he found none at every stage the steps were both probable and proved all the more he was disconcerted that Russell should indignantly and with growing energy to his dying day deny and resent the axiom of Adams's whole contention that from the first he meant to break up the union Russell affirmed that he meant nothing of the sort that he had meant nothing at all that he meant to do right that he did not know what he meant driven from one defense after another he pleaded at last like Gladstone that he had no defense concealing all he could conceal burying in profound secrecy his attempt to break up the union in the autumn of 1862 he affirmed the louder his scrupulous good faith what was worse for the private secretary to the total derision and despair of the lifelong effort for education as the final result of combined practice experience and theory he proved it Henry Adams had as he thought suffered too much from Russell to admit any plea in his favor but he came to doubt whether this admission really favored him not until long after Earl Russell's death was the question reopened Russell had quitted office in 1866 he died in 1878 the biography was published in 1889 during the alabama controversy and the Geneva conference in 1872 his course as foreign secretary had been sharply criticized and he had been compelled to see England pay more than three million pounds penalty for his errors on the other hand he brought forward or his biographer for him evidence tending to prove that he was not consciously dishonest and that he had in spite of appearances acted without collusion agreement plan or policy as far as concerned the rebels he had stood alone as was his nature like Gladstone he had thought himself right in the end Russell entangled himself in a hopeless ball of admissions denials contradictions and resentments which led even his old colleagues to drop his defense as they dropped Gladstone's but this was not enough for the student of diplomacy who had made a certain theory his law of life and wanted to hold Russell up against himself to show that he had foresight and persistence of which he was unaware the effort became hopeless when the biography in 1889 published papers which upset all that Henry Adams had taken for diplomatic education yet he sat down once more when past 60 years old to see whether he could unravel the skein of the obstinate effort to bring about an armed intervention on the lines marked out by Russell's letter to Palmerston from Gota 17 September 1862 nothing could be said beyond Gladstone's plea in excuse for his speech in pursuance of the same effort that it was the most singular and palpable error the least excusable a mistake of incredible grossness which passed defense but while Gladstone threw himself on the mercy of the public for his speech he attempted no excuse for Lord Russell who led him into the incredible grossness of announcing the foreign secretary's intent Gladstone's offense singular and palpable was not the speech alone but its cause the policy that inspired the speech quote I weekly supposed I really though most strangely believed that it was an act of friendliness end quote whatever absurdity Gladstone supposed Russell supposed nothing of the sort neither he nor Palmerston most strangely believed in any proposition so obviously and palpably absurd nor did Napoleon delude himself with philanthropy Gladstone even in his confession mixed up policy speech motives and persons as though he were trying to confuse chiefly himself there Gladstone's activity seems to have stopped he did not reappear in the matter of the Rams the rebel influence shrank in 1863 as far as is known to Lord Russell alone who wrote on September 1st that he could not interfere in any way with those vessels and thereby brought on himself Mr. Adams's declaration of war on September 5th a student held that in this refusal he was merely following his policy of September 1862 and of every step he had taken since 1861 the student was wrong Russell proved that he had been feeble timid mistaken senile but not dishonest the evidence is convincing the Lairds had built these ships in reliance on the known opinion of the law officers that the statute did not apply and a jury would not convict minister Adams replied that in this case the statute should be amended or the ships stopped by exercise of the political power Bethel rejoined that this would be a violation of neutrality one must preserve the status quo tacitly Russell connived with Laird and had he meant to interfere he was bound to warn Laird that the defect of the statute would no longer protect him but he allowed the builders to go on till the ships were ready for sea then on September 3rd two days before Mr. Adams's superfluous letter he wrote to Lord Palmerston begging for help quote the conduct of the gentleman who have contracted for the two iron clads at Birkenhead is so very suspicious end quote he began and this he actually wrote in good faith and deep confidence to Lord Palmerston his chief calling the conduct of the rebel agents suspicious when no one else in Europe or America felt any suspicion about it because the whole question turned not on the rams but on the technical scope of the foreign enlistment act quote that I have thought it necessary to direct that they should be detained end quote not of course under the statute but on the ground urged by the American minister of international obligation above the statute quote the solicitor general has been consulted and concurs in the measure as one of policy though not of strict law we shall thus test the law and if we have to pay damages we have satisfied the opinion which prevails here as well as in America that that kind of neutral hostility should not be allowed to go on without some attempt to stop it end quote for naivety that would be unusual in an unpaid attache of legation this sudden leap from his own to his opponent's ground after two years and a half of dogged resistance might have roused Palmerston to inhuman scorn but instead of derision well earned by Russell's old attacks on himself Palmerston met the appeal with wonderful loyalty quote on consulting the law officers he found that there was no lawful ground for meddling with the ironclads end quote or in unprofessional language that he could trust neither his law officers nor a Liverpool jury and therefore he suggested buying the ships for the British Navy as proof of criminal negligence in the past this suggestion seemed decisive but Russell by this time was floundering in other troubles of negligence for he had neglected to notify the American minister he should have done so at once on September 3rd instead he waited till September 4th and then merely said that the matter was under serious and anxious consideration this note did not reach the legation till three o'clock on the afternoon of September 5th after the superfluous declaration of war had been sent thus Lord Russell had sacrificed the lords had cost his ministry the price of two ironclads besides the Alabama claims say in round numbers twenty million dollars and had put himself in the position of appearing to yield only to a threat of war finally he wrote to the Admiralty a letter which from the American point of view would have sounded youthful from an eaten schoolboy September 14th 1863 my dear Duke it is of the utmost importance and urgency that the ironclads building at Birkenhead should not go to America to break the blockade they belong to Monsieur Bravais of Paris if you will offer to buy them on the part of the admiralty you will get money's worth if he accepts your offer and if he does not it will be presumptive proof that they are already bought by the Confederates I should state that we have suggested to the Turkish government to buy them but you can easily settle that manner with the Turks the hilarity of the secretaries in Portland Place would have been loud had they seen this letter and realized the muddle of difficulties into which Earl Russell had at last thrown himself under the impulse of the American minister but nevertheless these letters upset from top to bottom the results of the private secretary's diplomatic education forty years after he had supposed it complete they made a picture different from anything he had conceived and rendered worthless his whole painful diplomatic experience to reconstruct when past 60 an education useful for any practical purpose is no practical problem and Adam saw no use in attacking it as only theoretical he no longer cared whether he understood human nature or not he understood quite as much of it as he wanted but he found in the life of Gladstone volume to page 464 a remark several times repeated that gave him matter for curious thought I always hold said Mr. Gladstone that politicians are the men whom as a rule it is most difficult to comprehend and he added by way of strengthening it for my own part I never have thus understood or thought I understood above one or two Earl Russell was certainly not one of the two Henry Adams thought he also had understood one or two but the American type was more familiar perhaps this was the sufficient result of his diplomatic education it seemed to be the whole end of chapter 11 chapter 12 of the education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams this LibriVox recording is in the public domain chapter 12 eccentricity 1863 knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education but several years of arduous study in the neighborhood of Westminster led Henry Adams to think that knowledge of English human nature had little or no value outside of England in Paris such a habit stood in one's way in America it roused all the instincts of native jealousy the English mind was one-sided eccentric systematically unsystematic and logically illogical the less one knew of it the better this heresy which would scarcely have been allowed to penetrate a Boston mind it would indeed have been shut out by instinct as a rather foolish exaggeration rested on an experience which Henry Adams gravely thought he had a right to think conclusive for him that it should be conclusive for anyone else never occurred to him since he had no thought of educating anybody else for him alone the less English education he got the better for several years under the keenest incitement to watchfulness he observed the English mind in contact with itself and other minds especially with the American the contact was interesting because the limits and defects of the American mind were one of the favorite topics of the European from the old world point of view the American had no mind he had an economic thinking machine which could work only on a fixed line the American mind exasperated the European as a buzz saw might exasperate a pine forest the English mind disliked the French mind because it was antagonistic unreasonable perhaps hostile but recognized it as at least a thought the American mind was not a thought at all it was a convention superficial narrow and ignorant a mere cutting instrument practical economical sharp and direct the English themselves hardly conceived that their mind was either economical sharp or direct but the defect that struck most an American was its enormous waste in eccentricity Americans needed and used their whole energy and applied it with close economy but English society was eccentric by law and for sake of the eccentricity itself the commonest phrase overheard at an English club or dinner table was that so and so is quite mad it was no offense to so and so it hardly distinguished him from his fellows and when applied to a public man like Gladstone it was qualified by epithets much more forcible eccentricity was so general as to become hereditary distinction it made the chief charm of English society as well as its chief terror the American delighted in Thackeray as a satirist but Thackeray quite justly maintained that he was not a satirist at all and that his pictures of English society were exact and good-natured the American who could not believe it fell back on Dickens who at all events had the vice of exaggeration to extravagance but Dickens's English audience thought the exaggeration rather in manner or style than in types Mr. Gladstone himself went to see Southern act Dundriri and laughed till his face was distorted not because Dundriri was exaggerated but because he was ridiculously like the types that Gladstone had seen or might have seen in any club in Palm all society swarmed with exaggerated characters it contained a little else often this eccentricity bore all the marks of strength perhaps it was actual exuberance of force a birthmark of genius Boston thought so the Bostonian called it national character native vigor robustness honesty courage he respected and feared it British self-assertion bluff brutal blunt as it was seemed to him a better and nobler thing than the acuteness of the Yankee or the polish of the Parisian perhaps he was right these questions of taste of feeling of inheritance need no settlement everyone carries his own inch rule of taste and amuses himself by applying it triumphantly whenever he travels whatever others thought the cleverest Englishman held that the national eccentricity needed correction and were beginning to correct it the savage satires of Dickens and the gentler ridicule of Matthew Arnold against the British middle class were but a part of the rebellion for the middle class were no worse than their neighbors in the eyes of an American in 1863 they were even a very little better in the sense that one could appeal to their interests while a university man like Gladstone stood outside of argument from none of them could a young American afford to borrow ideas the private secretary like every other Bostonian began by regarding British eccentricity as a force contact with it in the shape of Palmerston Russell and Gladstone made him hesitate he saw his own national type his father weed everts for instance deal with the British and show itself certainly not the weaker certainly sometimes the stronger biased though he were he could hardly be biased to such a degree as to mistake the effects of force on others and while labor as he might Earl Russell and his state papers seemed weak to a secretary he could not see that they seemed strong to Russell's own followers Russell might be dishonest or he might be merely obtuse the English type might be brutal or might be only stupid but strong in either case it was not nor did it seem strong to Englishman eccentricity was not always a force Americans were deeply interested in deciding whether it was always a weakness evidently on the hustings or in parliament among eccentricities eccentricity was at home but in private society the question was not easy to answer that English society was infinitely more amusing because of its eccentricities no one denied borrowing the atrocious insolence and brutality which Englishman and especially English women showed to each other very rarely indeed to foreigners English society was much more easy and tolerant than American one might expect to be treated with exquisite courtesy this week and be totally forgotten the next but this was the way of the world and education consisted in learning to turn one's back on others with the same unconscious indifference that others showed among themselves the smart of wounded vanity lasted no long time with the young man about town who had little vanity to smart and who in his own country would have found himself in no better position he had nothing to complain of no one was ever brutal to him on the contrary he was much better treated than ever he was likely to be in Boston let alone New York or Washington and if his reception varied inconceivably between extreme courtesy and extreme neglect it merely proved that he had become or was becoming at home not from a sense of personal griefs or disappointments that he labor over this part of the social problem but only because his education was becoming English and the further it went the less it promised by natural affinity the social eccentrics commonly sympathized with political eccentricity the English mind took naturally to rebellion when foreign and it felt particular confidence in the southern confederacy because of its combined attributes foreign rebellion of English blood which came nearer ideal eccentricity than could be reached by Poles, Hungarians, Italians or Frenchmen all the English eccentrics rushed into the ranks of rebel sympathizers leaving few but well balanced minds to attach themselves to the cause of the union none of the English leaders on the northern side were marked eccentrics William E. Forster was a practical hard-headed Yorkshire man whose chief ideals and politics took shape as working arrangements on an economical base Cobden considering the one-sided conditions of his life was remarkably well balanced John Bright was stronger in his expressions than either of them but with all his self-assertion he stuck to his point and his point was practical he did not like Gladstone box the compass of thought furiously earnest as Moncton Milne's said on both sides of every question he was rather on the whole a consistent conservative of the old commonwealth type and seldom had to defend inconsistencies Moncton Milne's himself was regarded as an eccentric chiefly by those who did not know him but his fancies and hobbies were only ideas a little in advance of the time his manner was eccentric but not his mind as anyone could see who read a page of his poetry none of them except Milne's was a university man as a rule the legation was troubled very little if at all by indiscretions extravagances or contradictions among its English friends their work was always judicious practical well considered and almost too cautious the cranks were all rebels and the list was portentious perhaps it might be headed by old lord brome who had the audacity to appear at a july fourth reception at the legation led by joe parks and claim his old credit as attorney general to mr madison the church was rebel but the dissenters were mostly with the union the universities were rebel but the university men who enjoyed most public confidence like lord granville sir george cornwall lewis lord stanley sir george gray took infinite pains to be neutral for fear of being thought eccentric to most observers as well as to the times the morning post and the standard a vast majority of the english people seemed to follow the professional eccentrics even the emotional philanthropists took that direction lord shaftsbury and carlyle fowl buxton and gladston threw their sympathies on the side which they should naturally have opposed and did so for no reason except to their eccentricity but the canny scots and yorkshire men were cautious this eccentricity did not mean strength the proof of it was the mismanagement of the rebel interests no doubt the first cause of this trouble lay in the richman government itself no one understood why jefferson davis chose mr mason as his agent for london at the same time that he made so good a choice as mr slidell for paris the confederacy had plenty of excellent men to send to london but few who were less fitted than mason possibly mason had a certain amount of common sense but he seemed to have nothing else and in london society he counted merely as one eccentric more he enjoyed a great opportunity he might even have figured as a new benjamin franklin with all society at his feet he might have roared as lion of the season and made the social path of the american minister almost impassable but mr adams had his usual luck and enemies who were always his most valuable allies if his friends only let them alone mason was his greatest diplomatic triumph he had his collision with palmerston he drove rustle off the field he swept the board before coburn he overbore sladell but he never lifted a finger against mason who became his bulwark of a defense possibly jefferson davis and mr mason shared two defects in common which might have led them into this serious mistake neither could have had much knowledge of the world and both must have been unconscious of humor yet at the same time with mason president davis sent out sladell to france and mr lamar to russia some 20 years later in the shifting search for the education he never found adams became closely intimate at washington with lamar then senator from mississippi who had grown to be one of the calmest most reasonable and most amiable union men in the united states and quite unusual in social charm in 1860 he passed for the worst of southern fire eaters but he was an eccentric by environment not by nature above all his southern eccentricities he had tact and humor and perhaps this was a reason why mr davis sent him abroad with the others on a futile mission to st petersburg he would have done better in london in place of mason london society would have delighted in him his stories would have won success his manners would have made him loved his oratory would have swept every audience even montan mills could never have resisted the temptation of having him to breakfast between lord shaftsbury and the bishop of oxford lamar liked to talk of his brief career in diplomacy but he never spoke of mason he never alluded to confederate management or criticized jefferson davis's administration the subject that amused him was his english allies at that moment the early summer of 1863 the rebel party in england were full of confidence and felt strong enough to challenge the american legation to a show of power they knew better than the legation what they could depend upon that the law officers and commissioners of customs at liverpool dared not prosecute the ironclad ships that palmerston russell and gladstone were ready to recognize the confederacy that the emperor napoleon would offer them every inducement to do it in a manner they owned liverpool and especially the firm of laird who were building their ships the political member of the laird firm was lindsey about whom the whole web of rebel interests clung rams cruisers munitions and confederate loan social introductions and parliamentary tactics the firm of laird with a certain dignity claimed to be champion of england's navy and public opinion in the summer of 1863 still inclined toward them never was there a moment when eccentricity if it were a force should have had more value to the rebel interest and the managers must have thought so for they adopted or accepted as their champion an eccentric of eccentrics a type of 1820 a sort of brome of sheffield notorious for poor judgment and worse temper mr roebuck had been a tribune of the people and like tribunes of most other peoples in growing old had grown fatuous he was regarded by the friends of the union as a rather comical personage a favorite subject for punch to laugh at with a bitter tongue and a mind and feeble even more than common by the political epidemic of egotism in all england they could have found no opponent better fitted to give away his own case no american man of business would have paid him attention yet the lairds who certainly knew their own affairs best let roebuck represent them and take charge of their interests with roebuck's doings the private secretary had no concern except that the minister sent him down to the house of commons on june 30th 1863 to report the result of roebuck's motion to recognize the southern confederacy the legation felt no anxiety having vicksburg already in its pocket and bright and forced her to say so but the private secretary went down and was admitted under the gallery on the left to listen with great content while john bright with astonishing force caught and shook and tossed roebuck as a big mastiff shakes a wiry ill conditioned toothless bad-tempered yorkshire terrier the private secretary felt an artistic sympathy with roebuck for from time to time by way of practice bright in a friendly way was apt to shake him too and he knew how it was done the manner countered for more than the words the scene was interesting but the result was not in doubt all the more sharply was he excited near the end of 1879 in washington by hearing lamar begin a story after dinner which little by little became dramatic recalling the scene in the house of commons the story as well as one remembered began with lamar's failure to reach saint petersburg at all and his consequent detention in paris waiting instructions the motion to recognize the confederacy was about to be made and in prospect of the debate mr lindsay collected a party at his villa on the thames to bring the rebel agents into relations with roebuck lamar was sent for and came after much conversation of a general sort such as is the usual object or resource of the english sunday finding himself alone with roebuck lamar by way of showing interest but thought himself of john bright and asked roebuck whether he expected bright to take part in the debate no sir said roebuck sententiously bright and i have met before it was the old story the story of the swordfish in the whale no sir mr bright will not cross swords with me again thus assured lamar went with the more confidence to the house on the appointed evening and was placed under the gallery on the right where he listened to roebuck and followed the debate with such enjoyment as an experienced debater feels in these contests until as he said he became aware that a man with a singularly rich voice and imposing manner had taken the floor and was giving roebuck the most deliberate and tremendous pounding he ever witnessed until at last concluded lamar it dawned on my mind that the swordfish was getting the worst of it lamar told the story in the spirit of a joke against himself rather than against roebuck but such jokes must have been unpleasantly common in the experience of the rebel agents they were surrounded by cranks of the worst english species who distorted their natural eccentricities and perverted their judgment roebuck may have been an extreme case since he was actually in his dotage yet this did not prevent the lads from accepting his lead or the house from taking him seriously extreme eccentricity was no bar in england to extreme confidence sometimes it seemed a recommendation and unless it caused financial loss it rather helped popularity the question whether british eccentricity was ever strength weighed heavily in the balance of education that roebuck should mislead the rebel agents on so strange a point as that of bright's courage was doubly characteristic because the southern people themselves had this same barbaric weakness of attributing want of courage to opponents and owed their ruin chiefly to such ignorance of the world bright's courage was almost as irrational as that of the rebels themselves everyone knew that he had the courage of a prize fighter he struck in succession pretty nearly every man in england that could be reached via blow and when he could not reach the individual he struck the class or when the class was too small for him the whole people of england at times he had the whole country on his back he could not act on the defensive his mind required attack even among friends at the dinner table he talked as though he were denouncing them or someone else on a platform he measured his phrases built his sentences accumulated his effects and pounded his opponents real or imagined his humor was glow like iron at dull heat his blow was elementary like the thrash of a whale one day in early spring march 26th 1863 the minister requested his private secretary to attend a trade unions meeting at st. james's hall which was the result of professor bezley's patient efforts to unite bright and the trade unions on an american platform the secretary went to the meeting and made a report which reposes somewhere on file in the state department this day as harmless as such reports should be but it contained no mention of what interested young adam's most bright psychology with singular skill and oratorical power bright managed at the outset in his opening paragraph to insult or outrage every class of englishmen commonly considered respectable and for fear of any escaping he insulted them repeatedly under consecutive heads the rhetorical effect was tremendous privilege thinks it has a great interest in the american contest he began in his massive deliberate tones and every morning with blatant voice it comes into our streets and curses the american republic privilege has beheld an afflicting spectacle for many years past it has beheld 30 million of men happy and prosperous without emperors without king cheers without the surroundings of a court renewed cheers without nobles except such as are made by eminence in intellect and virtue without state bishops and state priests those vendors of the love that works salvation cheers without great armies and great navies without a great debt and great taxes and privilege has shuddered at what might happen to old europe if this great experiment should succeed end quote an ingenious man with an inventive mind might have managed in the same number of lines to offend more englishmen than bright struck in this sentence but he must have betrayed artifice and hurt his oratory the audience cheered furiously and the private secretary felt peace in his much troubled mind for he knew how careful the ministry would be once they saw bright talk republican principles before trades unions but while he did not like robux see reason to doubt the courage of a man who after quarrelling with the trades unions quarreled with all the world outside the trades unions he did feel a doubt whether to class bright as eccentric or conventional everyone called bright unenglish from lord palmerston to william e forster but to an american he seemed more english than any of his critics he was a liberal hater and what he hated he reviled after the manner of milton but he was afraid of no one he was almost the only man in england or for that matter in europe who hated palmerston and was not afraid of him or of the press or the pulpit the clubs or the bench that stood behind him he loathed the whole fabric of sham religion sham loyalty sham aristocracy and sham socialism he had the british weakness of believing only in himself and his own conventions in all this an american saw if one may make the distinction much racial eccentricity but little that was personal bright was singularly well poised but he used singularly strong language long afterwards in 1880 adams happened to be living again in london for a season when james russell lowell was transferred there as minister and as adams relations with lowell had become closer and more intimate with years he wanted the new minister to know some of his old friends bright was then in the cabinet and no longer the most radical member even there but he was still a rare figure in society he came to dinner along with sir francis dole and sir robert cunliffe and as usual did most of the talking as usual also he talked of the things most on his mind apparently it must have been some reform of the criminal law which the judges opposed that excited him for at the end of dinner over the wine he took possession of the table in his old way and ended with a superb denunciation of the bench spoken in his massive manner as though every word were a hammer smashing what it struck quote for 200 years the judges of england sat on the bench condemning to the penalty of death every man woman and child who stole property to the value of five shillings and during all that time not one judge ever remonstrated against the law we english are a nation of brutes and ought to be exterminated to the last man end quote as the party rose from table and passed into the drawing room adams said to lowell that bright was very fine yes replied lowell but too violent precisely this was the point that adams doubted bright knew his englishman better than lowell did better than england did he knew that no violence was enough to affect a summonset sure or wiltshire peasant bright kept his own head cool and clear he was not excited he never betrayed excitement as for his denunciation of the english bench it was a very old story not original with him that the english were a nation of brutes was a commonplace generally admitted by englishmen and universally accepted by foreigners while the matter of their extermination could be treated only as unpractical on their desserts because they were probably not very much worse than their neighbors had bright said that the french spaniards germans or russians were a nation of brutes and ought to be exterminated no one would have found fault the whole human race according to the highest authority has been exterminated once already for the same reason and only the rainbow protects them from a repetition of it what shocked lowell was that he denounced his own people adams felt no moral obligation to defend judges who was far as he knew with the only class of society specially adapted to defend themselves but he was curious even anxious as a point of education to decide for himself whether bright's language was violent for its purpose he thought not perhaps cobden did better by persuasion but there was another matter of course even englishmen sometimes complained of being so constantly told that they were brutes and hypocrites although they were told little else by their censors and bore it on the whole meekly but the fact that it was true in the main troubled the ten pound voter much less than it troubled newman gladston ruskin carlyle and matthew anald bright was personally disliked by his victims but not distrusted they never doubted what he would do next as they did with john russell gladston and disraeli he betrayed no one and he never advanced an opinion in practical matters which did not prove to be practical the class of englishmen who set out to be the intellectual opposites of bright seemed to an american bystander the weakest and most eccentric of all these were the trimmers the political economists the anti-slavery and doctrinaire class the followers of detauchville and of john stewart mill as a class they were timid with good reason and timidity which is high wisdom and philosophy sick least the whole cast of thought in action numbers of these men haunted london society all tending to be free-thinking but never venturing much freedom of thought like the anti-slavery doctrinairs of the forties and fifties they became mute and useless when slavery struck them in the face for type of these eccentrics literature seems to have chosen henry reeve at least to the extent of biography he was a bulky figure in society always friendly good-natured obliging and useful almost as universal as mills and more busy as editor of the edinburgh review he had authority and even power although the review and the whole wig doctrinaire school had begun as the french say to date and of course the literary and artistic shop shooters of 1867 like frank paul grave frothed and foamed at the mere mention of reeve's name three fourths of their fury was due only to his ponderous manner london society abused its rights of personal criticism by fixing on every two conspicuous figures some word or phrase that stuck to it everyone had heard of mrs groat as the origin of the word grotesque everyone had laughed at the story of reeve approaching mrs groat with his usual somewhat floored manner asking in his literary dialect how her husband the historian was and how is the learned groteus pretty well thank you puffendorf one winced at the word is the word drawing of foray no one would have been more shocked than reeve had he been charged with want of moral courage he proved his courage afterwards by publishing the gravel memoirs braving the displeasures of the queen yet the edinburgh review and its editor avoided taking sides except where sides were already fixed americanism would have been bad form in the liberal edinburgh review it would have seemed eccentric even for a scotchman and reeve was a saxon of saxons to an american this attitude of oscillating reserve seemed more eccentric than the reckless hostility of brome or carlyle and more mischievous for he never could be sure what preposterous commonplace it might encourage the sum of these experiences in 1863 left the conviction that eccentricity was weakness the young american who should adopt english thought was lost from the facts the conclusion was correct yet as usual the conclusion was wrong the years of palmarston's last cabinet 1859 to 1865 were avowedly years of truce of arrested development the british system like the french was in its last stage of decomposition never had the british mind shown itself so decos so unraveled at sea floundering in every sort of historical shipwreck eccentricities had a free field contradictions swarmed in state and church england devoted 30 years of arduous labor to clearing away only a part of the debris a young american in 1863 could see little or nothing of the future he might dream but he could not foretell the suddenness with which the old europe with england in its wake was to vanish in 1870 he was in dead water and the party-coloured fantastic cranks swam about his boat as though he were the ancient mariner and they saurians of the prime end of