Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 4
1831-12-01
This was Thanksgiving day. Last year we spent it at Quincy and it was a bright cool day. This time we opened our eyes to see the snow 189falling fast and to realize the arrival of Winter, in all its dreariness. I spent my morning in finishing my Letter to my Father which is unusually long for me.1 Then attended Divine Service at Mr. Frothingham’s and heard him preach from Psalms 147. 13. “For he hath blessed thy children within thee.” It was a good Sermon for the occasion, as he adopted the plan of discriminating the objects for the possession of which we should be grateful. These he stated to be Health, Peace, Liberty and Plenty. He presented the contrast between our condition and that of Europe quite forcibly.
Returned home and finished my work upon the Copy of the Letter excepting a half page which I did in the Evening. Went down to dine at Mr. Frothingham’s. He expected several, but there was only Mr. Brooks, Gorham’s wife, Abby and myself. The dinner was over bountiful. I felt as I always do after such a festival, a little too heavy, but I returned home and read a little of Cicero, before finishing the Evening at Mrs. F’s. Walked home with Mr. Brooks. Read the Spectator. It was very cold and clear.
CFA to JQA, 30 Nov.–1 Dec. (Adams Papers):
“With respect to your going to Congress ..., it was not my intention to enter into the question of it’s propriety.... Whatever opinion I may hold upon it is founded upon a construction of our system of government which like many other matters of that kind with me, is not entertained by you. I lay claim to no infallibility particularly where my conclusions are opposed to your’s. And I may in this case add that I shall be glad to find myself wrong. “But if the Call on the part of your Constituents was of such a Nature as to make this acceptance of it a Continuing, CFA pressed upon JQA both the uniqueness of his equipment to edit JA’s papers and the extraordinary importance of the task: “Does my Grandfather’s reputation stand so high that it will need no mending or restoring? Examine every Eulogy of him that was delivered and ask why it is that a veil is suddenly thrown upon his figure immediately upon his reaching the Presidency, when some intimate a fall from his great career, while even the most friendly drop the subject. Is this right? Shall it be, that his course as President of these United States belied all his former career, and proved him An Anti Republican unworthy of further confidence? Even at this moment, a deliberate attempt is made to rob him of all credit for knowledge of political affairs in a trying Crisis and moreover to prove him wrong where he has always been thought right. Is this nothing? Here is a gross perversion of history, in all its essential attributes, obtaining the authority of time and prescription, while the destruction of it is still left to chance. “I am not nor ever was the unquali-190fied admirer of my Grandfather, neither do I ever expect to be of any man living or dead. It is enough for me that human nature is concerned to distrust all notions of perfection. But from the clearest lights of my understanding I do feel impressed with a conviction that his story is not fairly told.... [H]is defects lying all on the surface impressed men, judging as men ordinarily do, unfavourably; while his rival was only rotten where nobody could see it, at the Core.... You know it all better than I do. The only deduction I wish to make from the whole is this. If this is an important duty, which you and you only can perform, is it wonderful that I feel provoked that the performance of it should be hazarded by Orations, and Eulogies, Poems and Annual Registers, and last though not least by the doubtful (to say no more) advantages of the harassing, perplexing, all engrossing, all exhausting political warfare of a Seat in the House of Representatives?”
duty; was it so imperious as to put in the back ground other Calls which perhaps are not less urgent, yet must be postponed? ... You say the call was ‘from the scenes of your Childhood.’ Is there not another associated with the same scenes which moreover can be answered by no one else? You say, it is ‘Almost from the sepulchres of your fathers.’ There is another, from which ‘Almost’ may be suppressed. There are services to a man’s own generation, and it would be difficult to say you had not already done your share of them. But grant, the only question is, how these can be now multiplied. I say, not so well by your being in Congress, if it should endanger your furnishing to the present and future generations what you only can furnish. This is the gist of the matter.”
1831-12-02
The winter sets in with great severity. The cold this morning for the season was very great. I went to the Office. Engaged there in drawing up my Accounts for last Month and balancing my Books. My father’s affairs in pretty good condition. Did not experience so much inconvenience from yesterday as I expected. But I took a walk notwithstanding the cold in order to obviate any probable difficulty. Then home. Abby had a letter from my Mother giving but a poor Account of the health of John’s child.1 I am afraid that is a bad business.
Read in the Afternoon a considerable part of the fifth Tusculan upon the happiness of virtue. In which it appears to me the ancient Philosophers entangled themselves in their own webs. I did not quite finish it, because Gorham Brooks came wishing us to go to the Theatre. Mr. Hackett performed his usual Caricatures of American Character. Mr. Fletcher a series of Attitudes from Classical designs which are worth seeing and a man imitated the Actions of a Monkey.2 Such is the Dramatic taste of the present day! Returned home and read the Spectator.
LCA to ABA, 30
The Tremont Theatre offered James Henry Hackett as Col. Wildfire, a Kentuckian, in The Lion of the West, a comedy in four acts. The play was followed by “Mr. Fletcher, from the Theatre Royal Drury Lane” in “Venetian Statues”; a scene from Down East, a farce; and a drama in one act, Savage of the Island, or the Ourang Outang, in which M. Gouffe took the part of the orangutan (Boston Patriot, 1 Dec., p. 3, col. 4). On DAB
; on Fletcher and Gouffe, see Odell, Annals N.Y. Stage, 3:569.
1831-12-03
Morning cloudy with slight snow. I went to the Office as usual. Nothing of material consequence took place. I was engaged in writing 191up my Journal and began to read the Speech of Burke upon the Nabob of Arcot’s debts.1 This Speech is very celebrated and Mr. Moore speaks so highly of it, I think I must look it over again. It takes more than one reading to judge of a Speech upon a subject of so little interest to us. Took a walk to the Athenaeum and round High Street home. My purpose was to see the Address to the Public from Mr. Bailey which involves a charge against my father.2 I could not however find it. The Free Press is left at the Athenaeum but is not in estimation enough to be preserved long. Returned home.
Afternoon, finished the reading of the Tusculans and began the Essay, “De natura Deorum.” But I made no great progress. My Afternoons pass like my Mornings without proper profit.
Evening, reading to my Wife—After which, the third Book of Pope’s Homer, and the Spectator.
The speech, delivered on 28 Feb. 1785 and published separately in the same year, is in vol. 2 of the edition of Edmund Burke’s Works at MQA, published at London in 1792 in 3 volumes.
The alleged attack on JQA by John Bailey of the Antimasonry party was later denounced by Bailey as fraudulent and an outright falsehood (JQA to CFA, 13 Dec., Adams Papers).