Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 2

Thursday. 13th.

Saturday. 15th.

Friday. 14th. CFA

1827-09-14

Friday. 14th. CFA
Friday. 14th.

Morning passed at the Office. Went to Mr. Harding’s to see my father who is sitting for his Picture.1 This was the first day. After which I dined at Mr. Joseph Coolidge’s. The party consisted of Mr. Coolidge Jr. and his lady, with Mrs. Randolph, (Mr. Jefferson’s daughter),2 Mr. Everett, Messrs. Kerr,3 of Maryland, Brooks, Farrar, Swett, Lloyd Rogers,4 Dr. Parkman, and many others whose names I do not remember. A farrago however. The dinner went over much as usual and I passed the evening at my room. I was much struck today with a letter lately published of Mr. Jefferson to Mr. Giles which is made to bear upon the present political troubles.5

1.

The self-taught American artist, Chester Harding (1792–1866), painted most of the major political leaders of his time ( DAB ). A portrait by Harding of JQA is in the Redwood Library, Newport, R.I. Copies of it are in other institutions.

2.

Thomas Jefferson’s daughter, Martha, married in 1790 her cousin, Thomas Mann Randolph (1768–1828), who served in the House of Representatives and in his state’s legislature ( DAB ). Their daughter, Ellen Wayles, was the wife of Joseph Coolidge Jr. (1798–1879). See JQA, Diary, 14 Sept. 1827, and DAB under Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, their son.

3.

John Leeds Kerr (1780–1844), who represented Maryland in the House from 1825 to 1829 and from 1831 to 1833 and in the Senate from 1841 to 1843 ( Biog. Dir. Cong. ).

4.

Lloyd Nicholas Rogers, Harvard 1808, of Baltimore, who married Eliza Law, daughter of Thomas Law (Wharton, Social Life in the Early Republic, p. 28–29).

5.

Continuing his warfare upon JQA’s administration, William Branch Giles (1762–1830), the Virginia state-rights advocate, published on 7 September a confidential letter which the aging Thomas Jefferson had written him on 26 December 1825, expressing his “deep affliction” at the rapid usurpation of power by the federal government, a development illustrated by JQA’s recent message to Congress (Bemis, JQA , 2:163–164).