13 May 1830
adams-john10 Neal Millikan Nullification Native Americans Recreation Health and Illness
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13. V.45. Thursday.

Poinsett— Joel R. Abert John J Mr and Mrs Frye Mary Roberdeau

I was unable this morning to put on my own Clothes, but was indebted for it to the assistance of my wife— I can moralize upon this event as well as younger and more disinterested philosophers— It is one admonition more to set my house in order— May they not all be lost. Mr Poinsett our late Minister to Mexico, called to visit me. He has been at Philadelphia and Baltimore where they have given him public dinners; where Speeches were made and toasts given— He told me he was going immediately home to South-Carolina; even at this Season of the year, to see if he could by good advice calm the excitement which he does not share— He spoke of a toast recently given by the Governor of the State— The right to fight—and said it was unfortunate that the most violent man they had was to be their next Governor—James Hamilton. South-Carolina has been potioned and philtered and back scourged like an old lecher into a frenzy of excitement, and has now a prospect of coming into physical collision with the Government of the Union— As the Government is now administered, there is every prospect that her bullies will succeed to the sacrifice of the interest of all the rest of the Union; as the bullies of Georgia have succeeded in the project of extirpating the Indians, by the sacrifice of the public faith of the Union and of all our Treaties with them— Coll. Abert brought 451back my two foot Carpenter’s Rule, which I had requested him to have measured upon the Scale of Troughton’s beam-compass at the War-Department— But the Beam-compass is packed up in its box, and Coll. Abert says the Rule is so coarsely made and warped that it could not be accurately measured. He lent me however an Ivory foot Rule, made, he said, in New-York upon a measure taken from the Tower-yard, and very correct. Mrs Frye and Mary Roberdeau dined with us, and Mr Frye called in the Evening— I took a short walk before dinner, and a ride with John towards dusk— There was a moderate Thunder shower. The day was passed not in absolute idleness; but in reading occasionally interrupted by sharp pangs, and by writing without satisfaction— I read an Article in the American Quarterly Review of September last, upon Shakespear, and some pages of Beloe’s Herodotus.

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