Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 5
1833-09-30
I make it a point as far as I can to avoid any share in the political agitations of the day. But I cannot help feeling the harshness with which my father is treated by most of the Masonic party. It is far beyond any thing he experienced while engaged in the canvass for the Presidency. The National Republican party has quailed under the threats of this portion of it and will proceed to make an independent nomination with almost the certainty of failure.1 My own judgment has always led me to condemn his return to public life, especially as I foresaw these evils. Yet in itself as avoiding the situation I have no regret that things should result in this manner. My only wish now is that his own friends will not desert him, and leave him in a small minority. If he can come out as the first with a plurality, it will save him much mortification and perhaps in the end serve the cause.
My Wife sat up a few minutes today. At the Office engaged in Ac-182counts as tomorrow is Quarter day. Drew up my Quarterly statement and my own books, which took up most of my time. Called to see Mr. Clark and went to the Athenaeum. Afternoon, reading My grandfather’s letters, and Voltaire with d’Alembert. Evening, Shakespeare’s Henry 4th. 1st. part. I waste my time in little things.
Any hope that the National Republicans in convention beginning 3 Oct. would nominate JQA as their candidate for governor would seem to have been doomed by the violent tone of the attacks on him in the National Republican press since his announcement of candidacy. The Columbian Centinel on 30 Sept., p. 2, col. 3, printed a letter from a correspondent calling upon all good National Republicans to resist the effort to effect the nomination of “the most unpopular man that could be mentioned in the whole State of Mass.... If there is anyone among your number who means to support him at the Convention, he has no right to go there.”