- Goodhue Samuel
The Diary of yesterday, consumed too much time, and occupies too much
space; and in retrieving my arrears of index I found a record of three
days 26. 27. and 28 September 1835. which I had forgotten, and thought I
had made no record of them at all. I had even made that entry yesterday
in my index, and was now obliged to deface the book by erasing it, and
making the proper entry.— There came this afternoon a man by the name of
Samuel Goodhue, a Soldier
of the Revolution, 74 years of age, now residing in Boston, who said he
had heretofore entertained a strong desire to see and talk with my father, but had been disappointed—
That he had only once seen me in company with Mr Armstrong when I delivered
the Eulogy on James Madison— But
he had long wished to converse with me, and to ask sundry questions, a
paper of which he had in his pocket.— He said he had been a member of
the Common Council, with my dear departed Son George, but was not a member of that
body now. I listened to his questions and answered them as well as I
could— He kept throughout for at least two hours the style of
interrogation, affirming nothing himself, but disclosing clearly enough
his own opinions by the character of his enquiries— He is an ardent
patriot of our revolution, and now a whig abolitionist head over ears—
He abhors Andrew Jackson, for
his Bank war, and his removals from Office— He thinks slaveholding a
crime, which ought to be abolished though it should cost the dissolution
of the Union; and he thinks as it was wrong in the representatives of
the free States to stipulate for the delivery up of fugitive Slaves, a
bad promise is better broken than kept, and that we ought to consider
that pledge in the Constitution null and void— Here is the Roman
Catholic principle that faith is not to be kept with heretics, in all
its glory. Mr Goodhue is sincere and honest
in these opinions, and to warrant his opinion that a breach of faith
with Slaveholders is an obligation of duty he instanced the case of
St. Paul,
who upon his conversion at Damascus, broke his promise to the high
priest, to bring all the Christians he could find, in bonds to
Jerusalem.— I told him the conversion of St.
Paul was by a miracle—a special command from Heaven—and until we should
receive a like command, it would be best for us to keep our faith— He
was not satisfied with this reasoning, and insisted still on the enquiry
whether a wrongful promise were not better broken than performed. He
finally asked me for copies of several of my publications for which he
offered to pay. but I gave him copies of my Letter to the inhabitants of
the 12th. Congressional District of
Massachusetts of 13. August 1838. of my three Letters to the Petitioners
at the last Session of Congress, of the Eulogy upon La Fayette— Of the Oration at Newbury
Port, and of the jubilee of the Constitution— And he gave me a printed
pamphlet Biography of the family of Goodhue at Ipswich in 1636. and
Genealogy to 1833; together with an Address, by Deacon Samuel Goodhue to his
Descendants—and left with me a manuscript of his own composition to be
returned to him— Charles with
his two elder boys
dined with us. His wife with Mary and her daughter Fanny went to Boston to consult the
doctress Miss Hunt about Fanny’s
health— They returned this Evening— Charles here.