Category: 1817

August, 1817

Here we have the last entries in Volume H.

Gallison devotes the first half of this month’s writing to William Ellery Channing’s sermons.   Topics ranged from the nature of Christ to the religious education of children.  At the end of the volume comes one of Gallison’s more successful efforts at an index—better described, perhaps, as a chronological list of topics.

We don’t have his journal entries for the following twelve months, as Volumes I and J seem to have vanished.  If anyone knows where they (and Volume C) might be, please pass the word!

July, 1817: the “Era of Good Feelings” begins in Boston

July 1817 contains a few updates on the progress of Aunt Scott’s financial affairs. As a reminder, she was in the process of scaling back her estate, the enormous fortune inherited from her first husband having been put into disstress by cronies of her second.

More significantly, Gallison chronicled the famous visit of President James Monroe to Boston, part of an extensive tour of the nation that led to the coining of the “Era of Good Feelings.”  Gallison’s analysis reminds us that, however literally future generations might have taken that phrase, good feelings toward the new president and his supporters were not held by everyone.  Federalists may have been silenced at the national level, but that did not mean they were all inclined to support the new administration.

When the President attended a service at the Federal Street Church as part of his charm offensive, William Ellery Channing’s sermon made clear his disdain for those who sought unnecessary military glory– including the Democratic-Republican sitting before him– and who had helped lead the United States into war against Britain just five years before.  Channing began on the virtue of charity, but quickly pivoted into a very Unitarian/Protestant view of church history.  From there, it was easy to link recent anti-British military fervor to the earlier corruption of the church by Greek and Roman ethics.

Gallison borrowed from this framework to underpin his 1819 address to the Federalist-dominated Massachusetts Peace Society.  In that speech, he not only excoriated those who would mis-use patriotism, but also broadened his argument to reject the “Platonic” (we might today call it Machiavellian or republican) willingness to accept different standards for public and private morality.

While Jefferson, Madison, and their followers may not have adopted a “republican” (with small “r”) philosophy as uncritically as some historians would later maintain, there is no question that Federalists were quite willing to accuse them of doing so.  By raising the specter of classical political philosophy, Federalists were effectively linking Republicans’ policies and attitudes to a lack of Christian virtue, exemplified by Jeffersonians’ sympathy for (revolutionary/atheist) France.

May, 2017

May 1817 Journal Entries

Here we find Daniel Webster’s second appearance in the journals, the first having come in a fleeting mention from an 1812 Phi Beta Kappa gathering at Harvard.

Apart from content, Gallison’s form is worth comment.  He had begun his journals in 1807 as a commonplace-book; even when he expanded their scope to cover more than his education, he made sure that they would be useful for him to read in his old age.  A note in the margin of last month’s entry on April 6 served that mission, by referring to a sermon from some months previous.  This month produces more evidence of his awareness of this volume’s prospective value.  Marginal notes serve as headlines, which make paragraphs easier to skim.  On page 103, we also find an extensive deletion, one of many throughout these volumes.  This one appears not to have much to do with a change of opinion or desire to write more effectively.  Rather, it was likely meant to keep the specifics of private business away from prying eyes in the future.

March, 1817

March 1817 Journal Entries

Some of the topics this month:

William Prescott, Jr., a prominent lawyer who had taken Gallison into his office after the War of 1812 ended.  A Federalist, Prescott was one of the delegates to the Hartford Convention.

Starting on page 62, William Ellery Channing’s view of Holy Communion, of which he (Channing) was a great believer.  Gallison was less able to see the point and recorded his doubts several times throughout the journals.

A literary club formed to support the North American Review and Hale’s newspaper

Reminiscences concerning Major André—the spy captured at West Point during the Revolutionary War—as well as John Jay— Supreme Court justice, diplomat, and co-author of The Federalist Papers.

February, 1817

Journal Entries from February 1817, Volume H

Lots of day-to-day socializing in this month, with a few tidbits about Gallison’s legal practice and a concise report of William Ellery Channing’s view of gender roles and responsibilities.

We now look back ten years earlier to make an Important Digression on…    the Expulsion.  Here is the link to Gallison’s account from Volume A.

[Further notes coming soon.]

January, 1817

Entries from January 1817, Volume H

Like many Federalist gentlemen with close ties to Harvard, Gallison was a committed Unitarian.  The “Mr Channing” he mentions was the Rev. Mr William Ellery Channing, the famed Unitarian minister of what is now the Arlington Street Church in Boston.   He had arrived at Channing’s church, then on Federal Street, as a young man too reserved to approach the great minister for some months.  By the end of his short life, however, Gallison was close enough to Channing that he earned a lengthy and affectionate obituary.

Channing Memoir_of_John_Gallison_Esq_

By 1817, Gallison devoted more and more of his journal to reporting and meditation on Channing’s sermons and other religious matter.  He had always used it as something of a commonplace book for self-improvement, devoting half of each volume to personal study even after he decided it might also be useful to record events of his daily life.  The main difference, as time went on, is that religion and his spiritual life replaced philosophy, history, and mathematics as subject matter.

Exhibit II

Aunt Scott, was, as noted earlier, the widow of Governor John Hancock. Already aware of the mismanagement of her affairs by her second husband and his associates, she was beginning the process of adjusting her balance sheet and daily expenses.

His comment on Mrs. Greenwood brings to a close one of the longest sub-plots of his journal– the steady decline of her manic-depressive husband. Anyone with an interest in medicine or social attitudes toward mental illness in this period may find the following excerpts useful:

Greenwood excerpts, Volumes D-H