{CH_X
CHAPTER X Political Morality (1862)
–
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 Attache,
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 position at all. As the years went on, he
began to find advantages in having no position at all except that of
young man. Gradually 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. Under the stimulus of danger, he too got 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 any one; 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 indurated with
prejudice than ever. The waste was only apparent; the work all told in
the end, and meanwhile it 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 due only to Mr. Weed’s skill of management,
although Adams never met another such master, or any one 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’s 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 were 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.”
{CH_X ^paragraph 5}
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
efface 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. Evarts to London as law
counsel, and Henry began an acquaintance with Mr. Evarts that soon
became intimate. Evarts 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.” Evarts 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 Evarts were practical, and the private
secretary’s life turned on their value. England’s power of absorbing
truth was small. Englishmen, such as Palmerston, Russell, Bethell, 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 one’s self 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- Lord Palmerston, Lord Russell, Lord Westbury, Lord
Selborne, Mr. Gladstone, Lord Granville, and their associates, paid by
the British Government; William H. Seward, Charles Francis Adams,
William Maxwell Evarts, 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. Hegel’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 “No. 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.
{CH_X ^paragraph 10}
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. Sir Robert Collier seemed to hold that Law
agreed with History. For education the 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
politicians’ 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 in 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 abstruse; it was a practical
matter of business to be handled as Weed or Evarts 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 any one.
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 Argyll believed in it also.
Argyll betrayed a taste for throwing the blame on Bethell, 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. Every one 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; then 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.
{CH_X ^paragraph 15}
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
29-30, 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: “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?”
This letter, quite in the 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:-
–
Gotha, September, 17, 1862.
MY DEAR PALMERSTON:-
{CH_X ^paragraph 20}
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 is 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 23d 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
13, 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 Argyll,
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:-
{CH_X ^paragraph 25}
–
…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…
–
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 temperately. 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 2, 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 forty years afterwards in Granville’s “Life” (I,
442)- to the private secretary altogether the most curious and
instructive relic of the whole lesson in politics:-
–
{CH_X ^paragraph 30}
…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 3, 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 past, 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 every one knows, was William Ewart 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.
{CH_X ^paragraph 35}
Here is what he learned! Palmerston notified Gladstone, September
24, 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: the 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 student seen this letter, he must have concluded
from it that the best educated statesman 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 25 to October 7, 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 sudden impulse;
it was the result of deep reflection pursued to the last moment. On
the morning of October 7, 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:-
–
…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….
–
{CH_X ^paragraph 40}
Looking back, forty years afterwards, on this episode, one asked
one’s self 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.
Every one 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 surer 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 forty 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 towards 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 Exchequer 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 every one at the moment and time
only added to their force. Never in the history of political 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 Cornewall Lewis to repudiate the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, 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 13, he issued his
call for the Cabinet to meet, on October 23, 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 every one
knew that the Cabinet was called for October 23, and then could not
fail to decide its policy about the United States. Lord Lyons put
off his departure for America till October 25 expressly to share in
the conclusions to be discussed on October 23. When Minister Adams
at last requested an interview, Russell named October 23 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:-
{CH_X ^paragraph 45}
–
His lordship took my allusion 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….
–
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
24, 1862, was whether his father believed, or should believe, one word
of Lord Russell’s “embarrassment.” The “truth” was not known for
thirty 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 in the Government now to adopt” that new
policy. Earl Russell never disavowed Gladstone, although Lord
Palmerston and Sir George Cornewall 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
honorable; 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 on 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:-
{CH_X ^paragraph 50}
–
His lordship intimated as guardedly as possible that Lord
Palmerston 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 Palmerston 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 cat’s-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 13]
the cabinet assembled from all parts of the country on October 23;
but… members of the Cabinet doubted the policy of moving, or
moving at that time.” The Duke of Newcastle and Sir George Grey joined
Granville in opposition. As far as known, Russell and Gladstone
stood alone. “Considerations such as these prevented the matter
being pursued any further.”
{CH_X ^paragraph 55}
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, “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.” When
Mr. Adams, not satisfied even with this positive assurance, pressed
for a categorical answer: “I asked him if I was to understand that
policy as not now to be changed; he said: Yes!”
John Morley’s comment on this matter, in the “Life of Gladstone,”
forty 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 one who is 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 23. Only the next day,
October 24, Gladstone circulated a rejoinder to G. C. Lewis, insisting
on the duty of England, France, and Russia to intervene by
representing, “with moral authority and force, the opinion of the
civilized world upon the conditions of the case.” 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 ten
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 11, and this time Gladstone himself
reports the debate:-
–
Nov. 11. We have had our Cabinet to-day and meet again to-morrow. I
am afraid we shall do little or nothing in the business of America.
But I will send you definite intelligence. Both Lords Palmerston and
Russell are right.
{CH_X ^paragraph 60}
Nov. 12. 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 decline for the moment, the
answer is put upon grounds and in terms which leave the matter very
open for the future.
Nov. 13. 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.
–
Forty years afterwards, when every one 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, 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 this singular problem as they presented
themselves to the student of diplomacy in 1862: Palmerston, on
September 14, 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 17, and driven out of
Maryland. Then Gladstone, October 7, tried to force Palmerston’s
hand by treating the intervention as a fait accompli. Russell
assented, but Palmerston put up Sir George Cornewall Lewis to
contradict Gladstone and treated him sharply in the press, at the very
moment when Russell was calling a Cabinet to make Gladstone’s words
good. On October 23, 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 in 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 Whig 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 favor 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.
{CH_X ^paragraph 65}
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
turned on alternate sides of the same figure. Psychological study
was still simple, and at worst- or at best- English character was
never subtile. 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 statesman 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 most statesmanlike. 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 seventy. 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 Disraeli 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’s
long education was that, after forty years of confirmed dislike,
distrust, and detraction of Lord Palmerston, he was obliged at last to
admit himself in 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 stillstand:-
{CH_X ^paragraph 70}
–
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 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 not (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 offence 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….
–
Long and patiently- more than patiently- sympathetically, did the private secretary, forty years afterwards in the twilight of a life of study, read and re-read 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 rancor, 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 life and 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 every one else; granting in short what the English themselves seemed at last to conclude- that Gladstone was not quite sane; that Russell was verging on senility; and 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.
