Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 3
1830-10-04
Boston
The morning fine and clear again. After breakfast we made ready to return to Boston. My father did not seem in very good humour, probably from the course which I felt it my duty to take about the election. This matter is not an agreeable one to him nor is it so to me, but I feel as if he ought not to take any course without having the whole ground laid out before him. The precedent is important to the whole nation.1
Returned to town, and from thence directly to the Office. After arranging and looking over my papers here, I went down to the Meeting of the Stockholders of the State Bank, for the annual election of Directors. The excitement was very considerable as there was a design to overturn the President. Mr. Degrand figured away upon that occasion a little too much for the success of his cause. Our people are never over fond of foreigners and the moneyed men are wary of Brokers. The mass of the property of the Bank went in favour of the old system, while the young men and small Proprietors advocated a change; among the latter I may be classed. The excitement was notwithstanding very considerable.
I returned to the Office and passed the rest of the morning in reading, writing and Accounts. Mr. Frothingham dined with us. And I read Cicero afterwards, although I cannot make much of the Books de Inventione. They are a mere skeleton of a very intricate and subdivided system. Evening, Corinne, Mason’s Life of Gray, and the Diversions of Purley.
333JQA makes no reference to the conversation with CFA, only to a miserable night caused by a return of his lumbago (Diary, 4 Oct.). His decision to accept a nomination if offered with a strong show of support had apparently been made. Despite efforts made by the Jacksonians to block the nomination, JQA was nominated by the Republican convention at Halifax on 12 Oct., as well as by the National Republican convention the next day (see JQA, Diary, 13, 14 Oct.; Boston Patriot, 16 Oct., p. 2, cols. 1–2). On 15 Oct. JQA responded to notice of the nomination: “If my fellow-citizens of the District should think proper to call for such services as it may be in my power to render them by representing them in the twenty-second Congress, I am not aware of any sound principle which would justify me in withholding them. To the manifestations of confidence on the part of those portions of the people, who, at two several meetings, have seen fit to present my name for the suffrages of the District, I am duly and deeply sensible” (Boston Daily Advertiser, 25 Oct., p. 2, col. 3). For a fuller account of the movement to make JQA a candidate and of the arguments advanced against his giving his consent, see Bemis, JQA
, 2:206–211, in which account CFA’s comments here and in the preceding entry are quoted and CFA’s opposition presented in an unfavorable light. LCA’s more intense and more sustained opposition is not mentioned by Bemis; on that see below, entry for 27 Oct. and note.
1830-10-05
Morning delightful, the air being a little warmer than it had been. I occupied my time as usual after breakfast until my Office hour, when I went down first to the American and Boston Banks, where I drew my Dividends of Profit and of Capital.1 My Investments in both these Institutions have been partially returned to me but this time I got the start and have not only invested the surplus but am actually receiving at the same moment profits upon the same money in both situations. At the Office, preparing the Papers for New’s sale, and arranging my father’s accounts. The proceeds of his Estate come in slowly this Quarter. Returned home and passed a part of my afternoon in reading Cicero, just enough of which I understand to make me desire to keep more in my head.
Abby had been asked to go and take tea at Mr. Everett’s, and accordingly I called for her at Mrs. Dehon’s where she went to pay a parting visit to Fanny who goes tomorrow. We walked to Charlestown and found there Mr. and Mrs. Hale, Mr. and Mrs. A. H. Everett, Genl. Van Rensselaer and his son—The two latter just arrived from New York.2 Evening tolerably pleasant and quiet return.
CFA held three shares in the American Bank and six shares in the Boston Bank (vol. 2:286, 288, 339).
Stephen Van Rensselaer (1764–1839), long a supporter of JQA and member of Congress from New York during his administration, had not stood for reelection in 1828. His son Henry Bell Van Rensselaer (1810–1864), in 1830 a cadet at West Point, was later a member of Congress and subsequently brigadier-general in the union army during the Civil War. (
Biog. Dir. Cong.
)