Charles Francis Adams, U.S. Minister to the U.K., to his son, Charles.
London, November 25, 1864
John writes us that you reached Quincy on the Sunday previous to the election. Hence you had an opportunity to vote on that day. The result is now before us. Its moral effect must be prodigious everywhere. I candidly admit, it has surpassed my most sanguine expectations. In the face of intrigues of every kind carried on for months between traitors both without and within the lines, in the face of the serious difficulties attending the maintenance of a terrible struggle, a large majority of the people, spread over the whole country, without geographical or sectional lines to mark a difference, have expressed their deliberate sense of the necessity of perseverance in the policy once commenced. This sentiment has so pervaded the nation, that not one branch of the government, but every part of it, whether federal or state, has been brought into harmony with it. Not an opening has been left for doubt or question as to the constitutional legitimacy of the decision. This is an extraordinary escape from what at one time looked like a portentous hazard. We owe it, under Divine providence, in some degree to the energy and fidelity of the armies in the field which have nobly co-operated to sustain the government policy by contributing the essential element of success. This most critical danger having been safely passed, I trust the moment is approaching when reconciliation may be expected to commence. The slave question must before long be removed from the path. The hope of independence as the instrument to protect slavery must die with it. What is there left to fight about? All the expectations so sanguinely entertained of a return to old compromises by the agency of General McClellan prove vain. Nothing is left but a new appeal to the sword attempted at every disadvantage in comparison with earlier ones that have failed. Unless the people are stark mad, the issue must be peace or expatriation.
