Politics Back in the 18th Century

From Boston 1775 which has been running a series on the celebrations of Washington's birthday (first as president, then as historic man) and the controversies involved as Americans tried to figure out what sort of government and society they had, Albert Gallatin writes:

"The court [i.e., the Adams administration]is in a prodigious uproar about that important event. The ministers and their wives do not know how to act upon the occasion; the friends of the old court say it is dreadful, a monstrous insult to the late President; the officers and office-seekers try to apologize for Mr. Adams by insisting that he feels conscientious scruples against going to places of that description, but it is proven against him that he used to go when Vice-President."