A World on Fire_ Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - Amanda Foreman [31]
On June 6, 1859, 274 MPs assembled in the ballroom of Willis’s Rooms in St. James’s and declared themselves the Liberal Party. Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell shook hands, demonstrating forgiveness of all previous acts of treachery and rivalry toward each other during their previous stints as prime minister, agreeing to become the party’s joint leaders. (It was noted that the seventy-five-year-old Palmerston sprang onto the dais while the sixty-nine-year-old Russell had to be helped up the steps.) Four days later, on June 10, the Liberals voted en masse in a motion of no confidence against Lord Derby’s ministry, winning by a majority of thirteen votes. The Queen, who disliked both Russell and Palmerston, was annoyed with “those two terrible old men,” as she called them. After considerable prevarication, she chose Palmerston as her new prime minister—much to Russell’s disappointment. Russell became foreign secretary, a post that played to his weaknesses rather than his strengths.
Nothing had quite gone Russell’s way since he achieved iconic status as the young man who ushered through the Great Reform Bill of 1832. That achievement had been all the more remarkable considering his lifelong poor health and nervous disposition, which had turned him into something of a self-absorbed eccentric.2.3 Many of his ailments could be traced back to the fact that he had been born more than two months premature, and his survival was almost without precedent in the nineteenth century. Throughout his life, Russell would be blessed and cursed in equal measure. He enjoyed close relations with his family, particularly his older brother, the Duke of Bedford, and yet he was never comfortable in society. Both of his marriages were reasonably happy; on the other hand, the second Lady John never pretended that her love was of the romantic kind. Nor was she capable of providing the support and help that Palmerston received from his wife. Unlike Lady John, who never entertained if she could help it, Lady Palmerston used all the means in her power to assist her husband. They had been lovers for many years until the death of her husband, Lord Cowper, enabled them to marry. During their long political partnership, she had developed her own skills and insights into human nature. According to one diplomat, a morning call on her “was more instructive than studying the newspapers.”9 Lady Palmerston was adept at converting enemies and newspaper editors into political allies, her most important conquest being John Delane, editor of The Times.
Russell was one of the most cultured politicians of his generation, but “Little Jonny,” as he was called on account of his diminutive stature, was desperately shy and stiff to the point of rudeness while also being overly sensitive and demanding of others. Consequently, he was a dreadful manager of men, incapable of fulfilling the most basic requirements of leadership.10 Although not exactly devious, he could be slippery with his colleagues, who accused him of withholding information and of acting without consultation or contrary to agreed plans. Sydney Smith once said of him, “It is impossible to sleep soundly while Lord John has command of the watch.”
With all these talents and handicaps, Russell was driven by a lofty idealism for genuine political and social reform; but the failures of his career had been catastrophic, not least his inability to come to grips with the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s. Russell ought to have retired from politics after the fall of his administration in 1852, as one of his biographers