On the evening of the day on which this was written there occurred the greatest, most outspoken, and most denunciatory to the aristocracy, of the meetings held to support the cause of the North.  This was the spectacular gathering of the Trades Unions of London at St. James’ Hall, on March 26, usually regarded as the culminating effort in Bright’s tour of England for the cause of democracy, but whose origin is somewhat shrouded in mystery.  Socialist tradition claims that Karl Marx conceived the idea of the meeting and was responsible for its organization[1368].  The press generally reported it as a “Bright Meeting.”  Adams wrote to Seward of the pressure put on him by Professor Beesly, of the University of London, to send a representative from the American Ministry, Beesly expanding upon the importance and high standing of the Trades Unions.  To this Adams demurred but finally sent his son to sit in the audience and report the proceedings.

Whatever its origin there can be no doubt that this was the most important of all pro-Northern meetings held in England during the Civil War, nor that its keynote was “America fighting the battle of democracy.”  Save for some distinguished speakers those in attendance consisted almost wholly of three thousand picked representatives of the Trades Unions of London.  Adams transmitted to Seward his son’s report of the meeting, its character, composition, names of speakers and their emphatic expressions of friendship for the North[1369], but it is again noteworthy that Henry Adams’ clear analysis of the real significance of the meeting was not printed in the published diplomatic correspondence.  Giving due praise to the speeches of Bright and Beesly, and commenting on press assertions that “the extraordinary numbers there were only brought together by their curiosity to hear Mr. Bright,” Henry Adams continued:  “That this was not the case must have been evident to every person present.  In fact, it was only after he closed that the real business of the evening began.”  Then followed speeches and the introduction of resolutions by “Mr. Howell, a bricklayer ...  Mr. Odgers, a shoemaker ...  Mr. Mantz, a compositor ...  Mr. Cremer, a joiner, who was bitter against Lord Palmerston ...  Mr. Conolly, a mason....” and other labouring men, all asserting “that the success of free institutions in America was a political question of deep consequence in England and that they would not tolerate any interference unfavourable to the North.”  No one, the report emphasized, “could doubt what was intended.”

“The meeting was a demonstration of democratic strength and no concealment of this fact was made.  If it did not have a direct political bearing on internal politics in England it needed little of doing so.  There was not even a profession of faith in the government of England as at present constituted.  Every hostile allusion to the Aristocracy, the Church, the opinions of the ‘privileged classes,’