Henry returns to Quincy in October 1860. On November 6, he casts his vote for the Republican candidate for President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln; that same day, Henry begins the study of law at the office of Judge Horace A. Gray. Again, the effort is short-lived. By the beginning of December, young Adams is in Washington, D. C., where he assumes duties as private secretary to his father, a member of the House of Representatives. Henry will also serve anonymously as the Washington correspondent for the Boston Daily Advertiser. The major political issue that winter is the possible secession of the Southern, pro-slavery states, made more likely by the election of Lincoln. On March 20, 1861, the new Secretary of State, William Henry Seward, commissions Henry’s father, Charles Francis Adams, Minister to England. Henry is to serve there as the minister’s private secretary.
