Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 3
1830-05-26
This being the day regularly assigned for the organization of the new Government of the State for the year, commonly called Election Day,1 and no season for business, I remained at home and occupied myself very busily for three hours in my work upon Demosthenes, which progressed very considerably. I should have done more, had it not been for Edmund Quincy who called to pay a visit. Mrs. Frothingham and her children with those of Mrs. Everett from Medford came to complete the set. Our windows are very well adapted to the notice of all that is to be seen, and small children like these always admire such prospects very much.2 It was wearisome to me. I went out with Quincy and finding my morning nearly gone, concluded to go to the Athenaeum, where I passed my time between the gallery and the reading room. The Everett girls dined with us.3 Afternoon passed in reading Greek and Latin Notes in Reiske’s Edition, but it is now stupid. My nerves had got disordered so that I made unusually slow progress. Evening, read Arabian Nights to my Wife and after it, some of Plutarch’s Lives, and Saverien’s Philosophes Anciens.4 My editorial Article appeared today in the Patriot, corrected.5 I thought it good.
Established usage dictated that on Election Day the legislature assembled, completed its organization, and elected its officers; then, with military escort, its members accompanied the Executive to the Old South Meeting House for the election sermon. In 1830 the sermon was preached by William Ellery Channing.
Beyond the events of the day, the whole week was largely given over to public functions, it being the traditional time for the religious and benevolent societies of the Commonwealth to hold their “anniversaries,” i.e. annual meetings, in Boston. The investiture of the governor and lieutenant governor were the concluding ceremonies at the week’s end. For this year’s events, see Boston Patriot, 22 May, p. 2, col. 1; 26 May, p. 2, col. 4; 29 May, p. 2, col. 1.
Not including infants in both families, there were four Frothingham boys 246and two Everett girls. All were between the ages of five and ten (First Church Records, Col. Soc. Mass., Pubns.
, 40 [1961]:449–452).
ABA’s plans for the day for Ann and Charlotte Everett included taking them “to see the Rhinoceros and other Lions of the day” (Charlotte Everett to Edward Everett, 26 May, Everett MSS, MHi).
Alexandre Savérien, Histoire des philosophes anciens jusqu’à la renaissance des lettres, 5 vols., Paris, 1771–1772.
CFA’s communication which had been changed somewhat and adapted by John Brazer Davis as an editorial, and as such was unsigned, bore the title “The Next Presidency” (Boston Patriot, 26 May, p. 2, cols. 2–3). It called upon patriotic citizens, “unseduced by the glitter of corruption, and unawed by the intimidation of power,” to begin the fight against the reelection of Andrew Jackson. Praise is given to the minority in the Senate for resisting encroachments upon liberty, and the members of the Congress are urged to lose no time in choosing a leader to make the fight. “The fundamental principle of the opposition, should be resistance against the progress of corruption.... Let it not be said, by any true man, that he has not done every thing in his power ... to purify and restore the Republic.”
Although it does speak of the President’s “imbecility,” the editorial is directed not so much against Jackson as against Vice-President Calhoun and Secretary of State Van Buren: “more dangerous public men ... never existed here.”
1830-05-27
The morning was very pleasant, but the usual change took place at noon, and we were chilled by an Easterly wind. At the Office, but felt indisposed to translating; so that I read the laws upon the course of Administration upon insolvent Estates, and made a reexamination of New’s Papers. Found nothing of any value. Mr. Kinsman called about a demand made in favour of New, and with some propositions to a settlement. I told him that I would attend to it. Mr. Greenough called to be paid his demand for the expenses of the Bust, a stale thing for which he ought to have been ashamed.1 I called on Mr. Bowditch for a memorandum of New’s debt to the Life Office but could get none.2 Called also upon Mr. Welsh for it. He had mislaid it. Thus the morning passed.
The Afternoon found me engaged in an occupation very different from my usual ones. I had sent for Prior’s Life of Burke to the Athenaeum, and could not help sitting down at once to it’s perusal.3 The character of the man, his eloquence, and the society in which he lived, all make him to me one of the most interesting individual biographies in the world. I could not leave excepting for an hour in the Evening to read to my Wife from Eustace. How valuable the privilege of the Athenaeum is to me. I obtain books to amuse my Wife whose state of health depresses her spirits, and to instruct me—Though my own resources are very considerable. Continued Prior until I had nearly devoured the volume.
247Horatio Greenough had been commissioned by JQA to do the bust of his father to be placed above the memorial tablet in the Adams Temple at Quincy, and had also done a bust of JQA, both in 1828; see above, entry for 25 Oct. 1829; JQA, Diary, 20–25 Feb. 1828; and
Portraits of John and Abigail Adams
, p. 231–232, 234.
Nathaniel Bowditch was a director and the actuary of the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Co. on State Street (
Boston Directory, 1830–1831).
The copy of James Prior’s Memoir of the Life and Character of ... Edmund Burke at the Boston Athenaeum is of the 2d edn., 2 vols., London, 1826.