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.
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