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.
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