Charles Francis Adams Sr. Quotes
It would be superfluous for me to point out to your Lordship that this is war.
Veiled threat to England to stop Confederate agents from building ships in Britain. In one of the great, artfully worded, diplomatic messages, Adams threatened to take direct action in British territory without ever threatening anything. It worked, and the vessel construction was curtailed by the British.
Charles Francis Adams, 1807-1886, U. S. Ambassador to England, Letter to British Foreign Minister Lord Russell, 1863
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
During World War II an internment camp was opened in Arizona for Japanese Americans. The camp administrators had asked the University of Arizona to lend library books and faculty lecturers.
There was some fear in the North that the shots fired by the Southern rebels, might encourage one or more of the European Powers to start a war with the United States. And if the Rebellion turned into a full scale Civil War, the South would surely encourage such acts be promising trade concessions in the export of Southern cotton. Seward’s confident and bellicose statement distressed some Union colleagues who feared that Seward might anger and provoke one of more of the machismo and nationalistic European Powers. However, if Seward was bluffing, the bluff worked. No country encroached on American interests during the Civil War. If he was not bluffing, he certainly, along with many others, understated the difficulty that the North would have putting down the Southern rebellion.
He himself became a victim of the Civil War when Oliver Cromwell ordered him beheaded in 1658
The line was delivered by Dustin Hoffman.
The English were at War with Napoleon and Denmark was neutral. British leaders feared that Denmark might either ally themselves with Napoleon or provide him with ships from their well equipped fleet. The English decided on a preemptive attack on Denmark and Paget and other Captains were ordered to Denmark. When they arrived they were ordered to bombard Copenhagen and force the Danes to surrender. When this happened, the British seized the Danish ships and simply took them as war prizes. The issues of the morality and wisdom of preemptive attacks, as with the Americans in the Iraq war, was thoroughly debated but the government view prevailed to the shame of most Englishmen.
This was the group that decided who was to be executed in the Reign of Terror
General Grant had the fort surrounded and the confederate general hoped to surrender the fort and allow him and his men to leave to fight again some other day. This was often agreed to so the military objective would be gained without the casualties of a battle. However, Grant and Lincoln did not simply want to gain forts and territory. They wanted to end the war. Those Confederates who survived the battle were taken prisoner and were out of the fight.
Charles Francis Adams Sr. was an American historical editor, writer, politician, and diplomat. He was a son of President John Quincy Adams, and grandson of President John Adams, about whom he wrote a major biography. He was the father of Henry Adams.
