THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
not positively hostile, influences he had to contend with—influences the strength of which depended in a great measure upon the strength of the wide-spread belief that the existence of slavery was not involved in our home struggle.
I left Mr. Adams with the highest impression of his patriotism, of the clearness and exactness of his mind, of the breadth of his knowledge, and his efficiency as a diplomat. History has since pronounced its judgment on his services. He was, in the best sense of the term, a serious and sober man. Indeed, he lacked some of the social qualities which it may be desirable that a diplomat should possess. While he kept up in London an establishment fitting the dignity of his position as the representative of a great republic, and performed his social duties with punctilious care, he was not a pleasing after-dinner speaker, nor a shining figure on festive occasions. He lacked the gifts of personal magnetism or sympathetic charm that would draw men to him. Neither had he that vivacity of mind and that racy combativeness which made his father, John Quincy Adams, so formidable a fighter. But his whole mental and moral being commanded so high a respect that every word he uttered had extraordinary weight, and in his diplomatic encounters his antagonists not only feared the reach and exactness of his knowledge and the solidity of his reasoning, but they were also anxious to keep his good opinion of them. He would not trifle with anything, and nobody could trifle with him. His watchfulness was incessant and penetrating without becoming offensive through demonstrative suspiciousness, and his remonstrances commanded the most serious attention without being couched in language of boast or menace. The dignity of his country was well embodied in his own. It is doubtful whether a fitter man could have been found to represent this Republic during the great crisis in its his-
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