John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

218

5. IV:30. Tuesday.

Spear— Daniel

I finished yesterday the version of the 119th. Psalm in 44. Stanzas, and this morning began that of the 145th. Psalm. It is perhaps impossible to make a spirited Translation of the 119th. which consists of a continual series of repetitions— There is a division of eight verses for each of the twenty-two Letters of the Hebrew Alphabet, and in the 176 verses, not one without reference to the Scriptures under the varied denominations of the Word, Precepts, Laws, Commandments, Judgments and Testimonies— I suppose only one division and its Letter, were read in the Synagogues at a Time— I have not been able to avoid some repetitions of the same line— I have gone through the Psalm in forty-four days—one Stanza each day. Of course Little Verve— I received this morning several Letters—one from my Son John at Washington of 30. June— The house had been entered and robbed the preceding Night—one a blank cover, Post-marked Providence; enclosing a slip from a Providence Newspaper, nearly three years old, abusive upon me for my controversy with the federalists— One from I. K. Tefft, with a duplicate of a Letter dated last November, requesting Autographs of my father and myself— He now also forwards a recommendation from M. H. M’Allister— Deacon Spear was here; I paid to him, and took up—W. C. Greenleafs two Notes to Mrs Lucy Webb; I spoke with him about the Sale at Auction, of the crops standing upon my unleased Lots of Land; and of some other concerns. At high water this Evening just before Sunset—I bathed and swam in the Creek; with Charles and Isaac— In the Garden and Nursery, the pignuts are coming up— Not one where I expected them, and always in clusters with other seedlings, making transplantation indispensible— There are two new ones up in the book box, fronting my window. The newspapers contain a long Speech, of Samuel D. Ingham, Secretary of the Treasury lately resigned in obedience to the President’s will— Ingham was received by a procession and Escort, and a concourse of People on his return home to Bucks County Pennsylvania— A public dinner was given him, and an address presented to him, by a Committee of Citizens, who requested of him a statement of the causes of the dissolution of the late Cabinet— This he declined, though declaring his approbation of the enquiry; but slyly alledging that it is the President’s duty to give this information 219to the People; and generously offering any assistance which might be required of him for that purpose— They then requested of him a statement of the Circumstances of an attempt of personal assault upon him by his late Colleague the Ex-Secretary of War John H. Eaton, which Ingham had magnified into a conspiracy to assassinate him; and he accordingly related to them the particulars, which were in the ordinary semi-barbarian Style of backwoods quarreling— Eaton absurdly enough called upon him to acknowledge or disavow a paragraph in the Telegraph Newspaper concerning Eaton’s wife; and upon receiving an insulting answer, challenged him to fight a duel, which he answered by more insult—upon which Eaton did way-lay him both at the Department, and at Ingham’s lodgings till he left the City. The whole affair would be disreputable to any other Administration, but is strictly congenial to the whole tenour of Jackson’s life, and to the prevailing manners of the Southwestern portion of the Union— Jackson lived in open Adultery with his wife, from whom her first husband was divorced for that cause by an Act of the Legislature of Virginia, and a regular Sentence of a judicial Court in Kentucky— This was brought up against him in the late Presidential Canvas; but it rather aided than impeded his election— Her first husband had been many years dead— She had lived reputably enough with Jackson for the last thirty years; had become an old woman, with some pretensions to sanctity by methodistical regeneration. The Priestly propagators of the new birth took her under their protection; the White washing Committee at Nashville, patched her up into a very mother Cole, of Sanctity; and then the political Snakes hissed at the defamation of an innocent, and virtuous and persecuted female— She died at Nashville, just at the time of Jackson’s Election, and he of course held her up as a Saint and Martyr— Eaton had wormed himself into Jackson’s Affections, first by trumping up a book about him, called his Life, and in which he palmed him off upon the world as a hero— When Jackson came to form his Administration, he must needs have Eaton for his Secretary of War— Eaton had just married the widow of Timberlake, a purser in the Navy, daughter of a Tavern keeper at Washington at whose house Eaton and Jackson had both lodged— So it was that Fame, whisper’d light Tales of Eaton’s dame— There was much intriguing with Jackson at the Time to prevent the appointment of Eaton, on that account, but Jackson having brazen’d it out himself; familiarized himself with the infamy of adultery, and made the People of his neighbourhood in Tennessee as familiar with it as himself, fancied he could perform the same operation at Washington, stubbornly persisted in the appointment of Eaton— And such was at that time the rabid and putrid infection of Jackson’s popularity, that he would perhaps have succeeded in this outrage upon the private morals of the Country, but that Calhoun his Vice President saw in it an instrument for thwarting and discrediting Jacksons Administration, and of advancing his own popularity as the champion of morals— Nor ought in Candour, some credit to be denied him for an honest adherence to principle— Perhaps an equal or greater share of this credit is due to his wife, who from the first refused to associate with Eaton’s wife, and did not return her visit— The example thus set was followed by the wives and daughters of the Secretaries of the Treasury, and Navy, and the Attorney General, Ingham, Branch, and Berrien. The fires of AEtna have been burning in the bowels of the Administration, kindled by this Torch of the furies, and after many smoakings, and outflashings, have at 220last blazed out, and swept the whole Cabinet away— Van Buren in this affair took the part of Sir Pandarus of Troy— Being himself a widower, tainted female reputation was but a haut gout to him— He constrained the wives of Rives and M’lane the new Ministers to France and England to visit Mrs Eaton; he prevailed upon the wives of the Senators from New-York, Sanford and Dudley to do the same— He pleaded with Mrs Donelson, Jackson’s niece and wife of his private Secretary, till she yielded, and he negotiated with Mrs Huygens the wife of the Dutch Minister till she proclaimed him a liar, all this was more than twelve Months before the dissolution of the Cabinet— The Self-degradation of Van Buren in lending himself to such despicable Offices, contrasts curiously with the lofty display of Patriotic principle, in his Letter to the President, tendering the resignation of his Office as Secretary of State.