Charles Francis Adams

Text extracted from opening pages of book: CHAELES FKANC1S; ADAMS BY HIS SON CHARLES FRANCIS BOSTON AND NEW TOEK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY d fje Ulitejsifoe jpre, Copyright, 190O, B CMABJQES - 4ZZ rights TWENTY-SEVEN years have now elapsed since Mr. Adams returned from Europe, after the Geneva arbitration of 1872, in which he ren dered his last considerable public service, asnd It lacks a few days only of thirteen years sine his death. No use whatever has hitherto been made of his papers. Though neither in bulk nor in interest equal to the accumulations left by John Adams or by John Quincy Adams, these have none the less a distinct value, shedding, as they do, much contemporaneous light on a period and a struggle which, not improbably, will hereafter be accounted the most momentous in American history. Mr. Adams was not an active letter writer, or systematic collector of material; but he preserved all his correspondence, together with copies of his own letters, and for over fifty years, from the time he entered Harvard, he kept a diary, in which there Is scarcely a break. The time has now come when this material may fairly be used. The following sketch is, therefore, in part a preliminary study, and in vi PREFACE part the condensed abstract of a larger and more detailed work already far advanced In prepara tion. If narrated by another than himself, no matter how skillfully, the career of Mr. Adams would offer not much of interest One brief volume would amply suffice to do full justice to it. It so chanced, however, that lie lias told his own story in his own way; the story of a life some of which was passed in a prominent posi tion at a great centre and during a memorable period.This story he has told, too, very simply and directly; but, necessarily, in great detail. When a public character thus gives an account of himself, and what lie did and saw, and how he felt, not autobiographically, but jotting it all down from day to day as events developed, he must be given space. If space is not allowed, the biographer has to substitute himself for the man. In the case of Mr. Adams, however, no matter what latitude, within any reasonable lim its, might in the larger proposed publication be allowed, only a small portion of the material he left could be used. The present sketch is chiefly biographical. In it only now and then does Mr. Adams speak for himself. The work hereafter forthcoming will be made up in a much greater degree of extracts from his diary, letters, and papers, with only PREFACE vii such, extraneous matter as may be deemed ne cessary to connect the narrative, and to throw light upon it by means of developments since made, explaining much which was to him at the time lie wrote obscure or deceptive, C. K A, November 11, 1899. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. EIHTH AND EDUCATION . . . . . 1, II. EARLY LIKE ....... 12 III. Tiiifl MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE . . 42 IV. THE BOSTON WHIG 50 V. THE FREE-SOIL PARTY 81 VI. THE EBB OF THE TIDE .... 92 VII. THJEO ANTE-BELLUM CONGRESS . . . 108 VIIL THE AWAKENING 137 IX. THE PROCLAMATION OF BELLIGERENCY . 147 X. SEWARD'S FOREIGN WAR PANACEA . . 178 XI. THE TREATY OF PARIS 200 XII. THE TRENT AFFAIR 210 XIII. A BOUT WITH THE PREMIER .... 240 XIV. THE COTTON FAMINE 261 XV. THE CRISIS OF RECOGNITION . . . 278 XVI. THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION . . 291 XVII. THE ALABAMA AND THE LAIRD RAMS . 306 XVIII. THE YEARS OF FRUITION .... 345XIX. THE GENEVA ARBITRATION .... 377 XX. CLOSING YEARS 308 INDEX ........ 403 CHAPTER I BIRTH ANB EDUCATION THOUGH born In Boston, and, until lie was over fifty, passing all Ms maturer life under New England influences, Charles Francis Adams was of mixed Northern and Southern descent. Pure English on both sides, without a trace, so far as can be ascertained, of Scotch, or Irish, much less of continental ancestry, race charac teristics went with him in the blood, a factor of no inconsiderable moment in his public life. But while through his father he came of t