Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 5
1833-03-16
As soon as I could get through with my breakfast I went down to see Dr. Hayward. He looked at and dressed the wound and pronounced it to be in a good condition notwithstanding the collection of matter formed in it. This relieved me a little but I was very good for nothing during most of the day. The throbbing in my head continued. I took Medicine and remained at home in my study, a very useless personage to all intents and purposes.
I received the report of my father from the Minority of the Manufacturing Committee. It is an eighteen Column Report,1 but I managed to read it through and it was the only thing I did for the day. It is one line of public policy, that of a statesman, but it is not the line by which this Country can be governed. They are too much in the hands of political Jugglers—General Jackson et id genus omne who have no basis but the popularis aura. Retired to bed early and in pain.
JQA’s report for the minority on the Committee on Manufactures was printed in full in the National Intelligencer for 12 March. Subsequently it was published in Philadelphia and in Boston as a pamphlet;
1833-03-17
I obtained some rest during the night and felt better all day, though my head throbbed very much and my stomach felt out of order.
Remained quietly at home most of my time and read in the morning the Account of the History of the United States in the Dr. Lardner’s Collection, and in the Afternoon, a long Sermon of Massillon’s upon the Divinity of Christ. Text Luke 2. 21. “His name was called Jesus, which was so named of the Angel.” His argument is that the Divinity is proved by the brilliancy and the general spirit of his Ministry on Earth, for supposing him to have been only a Man. The first would have naturally led men to idolatry and the Deity must have been by his attribute as Creator, responsible. The second would have spread a fatal snare for our innocence. This is a doctrinal point and it is treated by him with all the zeal which the Catholic sect entertain. I do not pretend to say any thing certain upon the point. Some of his views on the first division of the discourse are very powerful. And I believe they may be said to be convincing in regard to his earthly character. But I do not know that they go far enough to justify idolatry.
I took a short walk this morning. The air was cold, the wind being from the raw East. Evening quiet. Gardiner Gorham passed an hour. I was sleepy and dull. Read a little upon Architecture.
1833-03-18
Mild though cloudy. I went to the Office and received a letter from my father at last. It is a sort of review of the state of things at the last of the Congress. I think he himself is rather depressed, he speaks of his own and the health of the family as bad, and intimates not the most agreeable things as to the state of his property.1
My time was taken up in writing, attending to applicants for the House in Tremont Street and looking over the Intelligencer. Mr. Webster’s Speech2 is too long to read at once. I went to the Athenaeum to pick up scattering opinions upon my father’s Report. Walsh as usual praises it. The Boston papers are calm as death.3 Masonry is powerful, who can doubt it.
Isaac P. Davis came up to see me. We talked and I read to him parts 51of my father’s letter. They are about to print the Report for circulation. He came to inquire as to the correctness of it as reported by the Intelligencer, for which I told him, I thought I could vouch, such reports being generally corrected by himself.
Walk and home to dinner—Miss Lydia Phillips spending the day. Afternoon, read de Retz whose Accounts are somewhat sickening of the intrigue and nightly consultations to regulate the hypocrisy of the day. Evening at home. Visitors to see Miss Elizabeth Phillips. Mr. Charles Bartlett of Charlestown and Miss Elizabeth Parks. Cousins of my Wife. William G. Brooks also came in soon afterwards.4 Not late to bed.
JQA to CFA, 13 March (Adams Papers). The family’s transfer from Washington to Quincy, usually effected upon the adjournment of Congress, was to be delayed for a month because of the weather, LCA’s health, and the need for JQA to make arrangements about his debts. See also, above, entry for 25 Feb., note.
On Nullification, delivered 16 Feb. in the Senate.
Robert Walsh, editor of the National Gazette in Philadelphia, as well as of the American Quarterly Review, was one of JQA’s firmest journalistic supporters (see vol. 4:175, 214–215). When CFA came to prepare the Report for pamphlet publication he included the comments from the Gazette of 13 March on the inside front cover: “The Report of ... Mr. Adams ... is the product of his athletic and capacious mind.... The performance is altogether one of extraordinary strength and momentum; equal in masculine sense and argument, sustained impetus, intrepid candor, and importance of general maxims and conclusions, to any one of the antecedent state papers from the same pen.... Its length is as great as that of Mr. Calhoun’s dissertation; but in every other respect it forms a contrast like that between true dialectics and the most artificial sophistry, wisdom and error, nutritive aliment and vitiating drug. Mr. Adams ... exhibits, with original traits, all the spuriousness and evil tendencies of the claim of nullification.... That part ... in which the relations between the slave-holding and non-slave-holding States, and the conduct and tone of the South toward the North, are treated, is particularly racy and impressive. In the art of exploding absurdities, Mr. Adams is, indeed, consummate.”
CFA is not altogether accurate in his comment on Boston newspapers. On the day of the present entry the Columbian Centinel, in printing lengthy excerpts from the Report (p. 1, cols. 3–7), called it “one of the most able documents that has been published during the whole session of Congress” (p. 2, col. 5).
The mothers of ABA, Charles Bartlett, and Elizabeth Parks were sisters; the fathers of ABA and William G. Brooks were brothers; see vol. 3:70, 113, 132, 324.