Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 39.djvu/169

 Our American Civil War. 157

situation." Mr. Adams points out that it was bad form for Mr. Gladstone to have foreshadowed a ministerial policy, and thinks it must have offended Palmerston, and that the latter in consequence "called him down," and that as a result, when the Cabinet meeting came off, the subject was quietly ignored or indefinitely postponed. This, in short, is Mr. Adams' solution of the question, upon which hung, in his judgment, the fortunes of the Confederacy. The solution is so marvellously simple, it seems most remarkable it should never have occurred to any one before. Mr. Adams gives us no hint of what took place at the meeting. His researches into State papers and the cor- respondence of the period, do not disclose the presence of any- thmg of an irritating nature, as occurring on that occasion, nor does he find such in the contemporaneous press. If so, he has not told us of it. Air. Adams had the fact to deal with that a Cabinet meeting was called to discuss or decide upon a recog- nition' of the Confederacy, and that nieeting was done. He thereupon frames a theory to fit the facts. But we are con- strained to think Mr. Adams' theory will not bear examination. In the first place, it is inconceivable that if Lord Palmerston, Earl Russell and Mr. Gladstone, the three leaders of the Cabinet, were in thorough accord on the subject, and had maturely con- sidered and agreed upon a line of action, they would have been diverted from following it up, especially in so grave a matter, by anything so trivial as that suggested by Mr. Adams. For- Palmerston to have suffered a momentary fit of spleen towards Gladstone to upset and thrust aside a settled policy of the Government is to do the greatest violence to his record and his reputation as an astute, able, and experienced Statesman.

It is true that Mr. Adams does suggest, that while the post- ponement of the subject at the Cabinet meeting of October 23d, in consequence of Gladstone's Newcastle speech, and while Pal- merston waited, anticipating more decisive military results in America, something did occur, not as Palmerston anticipated, '■'but of a wholly unexpected character, by the merest chance as to time," which did affect the situation, and that was Mr.