The celebration of independence in Quincy in 1835, which began with the exercises in the First Church (“Stone Temple”) as detailed on the broadside in the Adams Papers and concluded with a dinner in a tent on the Hancock Lot, was not effected without encountering serious difficulties during the planning stage. These derived largely from the heated character of the political scene in Massachusetts in 1835, the animosities and crosscurrents of which the townspeople were not always aware. Readers of the present volumes will be able to grasp in large part what the stresses were, from a series of entries in the Diary of John Quincy Adams for the month preceding the event.

At a town meeting on 3 June the inhabitants of Quincy “resolved to celebrate the next 4th of July” and voted to appoint a committee of five, with John Quincy Adams as chairman, to procure an orator, the Committee to report its actions to an adjourned meeting of the townspeople on 13 June (entries of 4 and 5 June).

On 8 June the Chairman entered in his journal that the Committee, with one member absent, met. “After gravely discussing for about an hour the question to whom we should apply; whether to Mr. Webster, to Alexander H. or Edward Everett, to President Quincy, or to his son Josiah, we finally settled upon.... President Quincy.... Mr. Webster would have been preferred, but he has just gone upon professional business to Washington, and it would have been impossible to obtain his answer in time to report ... next Saturday evening.”

In due course, President Quincy declined “on account of his multiplied occupations and the weakness of his voice.” The Chairman in consultation with one other committeeman then determined to inquire of Colonel Josiah Quincy whether he would accept an invitation issued by the Committee. On the day before the adjourned meeting was to assemble, Colonel Quincy’s regrets were received. The Chairman thereupon apprised committeeman George Beale of the fact and asked him to make the report to the meeting, the Chairman being unable to attend. He noted further: “I had been told that many of the Citizens would be glad to hear me deliver the Oration, and I requested Mr. Beale, if any such feeling should be manifested, to say that ... I should be happy to gratify any wish of the Citizens of Quincy, but that circumstances of a domestic nature would render xvit a painful office at this time, it being not only the day of my father’s death, but having since the last anniversary lost a beloved Son, who was born on that day. I did not wish explicitly to give this reason, but he might allude to it in general terms to avert any possible application to me” (entries of 11 and 12 June).

At the meeting of the inhabitants, after the Committee was voted the town’s thanks and discharged, another committee was appointed. Harvey Field, as spokesman for the new Committee, waited upon John Quincy Adams. “Mr. Field made some enquiry concerning Mr. Webster, and asked if I would write to him upon his return from Washington and invite him to deliver the Oration, which I declined. He then said that Mr. Solomon Lincoln of Hingham had been mentioned as a suitable person to deliver the oration; and asked if I knew him. I said I did, and that I had no doubt he would deliver a very good Oration” (entry for 16 June). Ten days later Field was back: “He intimated that there was some dissatisfaction of some of the members of the first Committee appointed ... that they had been discharged and another Committee chosen, but he said it was not intended to offend the first Committee. I assured him that it had given no offence to me.... That I was glad they had obtained the consent of Solomon Lincoln ... and should have very cheerfully applied to him had his name occurred to me or to any other member of the first Committee. He said that the reason for changing the Committee was the belief that two of its members ... were averse to having any celebration at all” (entry for 26 June).

That Solomon Lincoln’s name had not occurred to any member of the first Committee, whose list of proposed nominees was made up only of those prominent in public life or established orators on public occasions, need not surprise. Lincoln (1804–1881), a graduate of Brown University and a lawyer in Hingham, had served a term in the State’s House of Representatives and a term in its Senate, had published a History of Hingham in 1827, and had delivered addresses on a number of occasions in that town, but had spoken publicly only twice before beyond the town’s boundaries. See [Thomas T. Bouvé and others], History of the Town of Hingham, 3 vols. in 4 [Cambridge], 1893, vol. 1, pt. 2, p. 334–336. That he had apparently yet taken no strong stand on political issues or candidates was perhaps a part of his appeal.

As Adams had predicted, Lincoln proved a good choice. “Mr. Lincoln’s Oration was a very good one, without any infection of Party Spirit, giving due honour to the Patriots of the Revolution, and especially noticing those who were natives or inhabitants of this Town.... He was about an hour in the delivery and was very warmly applauded” (entry for 4 July). Charles Francis Adams thought “the Oration rather above the ordinary level of such productions.... He did not stir any temporary politics.” John Quincy Adams not only attended the ceremonies, but was persuaded to provide the toasts, all carefully nonpolitical, for the dinner that followed. A. H. Everett was also present. See p. 171, below.