It was well planned, well prepared, and well
executed. He could never discover a mistake in it. Possibly he
was biassed by personal interest, but his chief reason for
trusting his own judgment was that he thought himself to be one
of only half a dozen persons who knew something about it. When
others criticised Mr. Seward, he was rather indifferent to their
opinions because he thought they hardly knew what they were
talking about, and could not be taught without living over again
the London life of 1862. To him Secretary Seward seemed immensely
strong and steady in leadership; but this was no discredit to
Russell or Palmerston or Gladstone. They, too, had shown power,
patience and steadiness of purpose. They had persisted for two
years and a half in their plan for breaking up the Union, and had
yielded at last only in the jaws of war. After a long and
desperate struggle, the American Minister had trumped their best
card and won the game.
Again and again, in after life, he went back over the ground to
see whether he could detect error on either side. He found none.
At every stage the steps were both probable and proved. All the
more he was disconcerted that Russell should indignantly and with
growing energy, to his dying day, deny and resent the axiom of
Adams's whole contention, that from the first he meant to break
up the Union.
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