Following the American Civil War Sesquicentennial with day by day writings of the time, currently 1863.

Post image for The Emancipation Proclamation “…is creating an almost convulsive reaction in our favor all over this country.”–Adams Family Letters, Henry Adams, private secretary of the US Minister to the UK, to his brother, Charles.

The Emancipation Proclamation “…is creating an almost convulsive reaction in our favor all over this country.”–Adams Family Letters, Henry Adams, private secretary of the US Minister to the UK, to his brother, Charles.

January 23, 2013

Adams Family Civil War letters; US Minister to the UK and his sons.

London, January 23, 1863

The Emancipation Proclamation has done more for us here than all our former victories and all our diplomacy. It is creating an almost convulsive reaction in our favor all over this country. The London Times furious and scolds like a drunken drab. Certain it is is, however, that public opinion is very deeply stirred here and finds expression in meetings, addresses to President Lincoln, deputations to us, standing committees to agitate the subject and to affect opinion, and all the other symptoms of a great popular movement peculiarly unpleasant to the upper classes here because it rests altogether on the spontaneous action of the laboring classes and has a pestilent squint at sympathy with republicanism. But the Times is on its last legs and has lost its temper. They say it always does lose its temper when it finds such a feeling too strong for it, and its next step will be to come round and try to guide it. We are much encouraged and in high spirits. If only you at home don’t have disasters, we will give such a checkmate to the foreign hopes of the rebels as they never yet have had….

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