John Adams (1417 words)
John AdamsThe Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the
minds and hearts of the people… This radical change in the principles, opinions,
sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution.
John Adams — 1818
In three remarkable careers–as a foe of British oppression and champion of
Independence (1761-77), as an American diplomat in Europe (1778-88), and as the first
vice-president (1789-97) and then the second president (1797-1801) of the United
States–John Adams was a founder of the United States. Perhaps equally important,
however, was the life of his mind and spirit; in a pungent diary, vivid letters, learned
tracts, and patriotic speeches he revealed himself as a quintessential Puritan, patriarch of
an illustrious family, tough-minded philosopher of the republic, sage, and sometimes a
vain, stubborn, and vitriolic partisan.
John Adams was born in Braintree (now Quincy), Mass., on Oct. 30, 1735, in a small
saltbox house still standing and open to visitors. His father, John Adams, a deacon and a
fifth-generation Massachusetts farmer, and his mother, the former Suzanna Boylston,
were, their son wrote, both fond of reading; so they resolved to give bookishly inclined
John a good education. He became the first of his family to go to college when he entered
Harvard in 1751. There, and in six further years of intensive reading while he taught
school and studied law in Worcester and Boston, he mastered the technicalities of his
profession and the literature and learning of his day. By 1762, when he began 14 years of
increasingly successful legal practice, he was well informed, ambitious, and public
spirited.
His most notable good fortune, however, occurred in 1764 when he married Abigail
Smith. John Adams’s marriage of 54 years to this wise, learned, strong-willed, passionate,
and patriotic woman began the brilliant phase of Adams family history that produced
their son John Quincy, his son Charles Francis, his sons Henry and Brooks, and numerous
other distinguished progeny.
In 1761, John Adams began to think and write and act against British measures that he
believed infringed on colonial liberties and the right of Massachusetts and the other
colonies to self-government. A pamphlet entitled A Dissertation on the Canon and the
Feudal Law and town instructions denouncing the Stamp Act (1765) marked him as a
vigorous, patriotic penman, and, holding various local offices, he soon became a leader
among Massachusetts radicals. Although he never wavered in his devotion to colonial
rights and early committed himself to independence as an unwelcome last resort,
Adams’s innate conservatism made him determined in 1770 that the British soldiers
accused of the Boston Massacre receive a fair hearing. He defended the soldiers at their
trial. He also spoke out repeatedly against mob violence and other signs of social
disintegration.
In 1774-76, Adams was a Massachusetts delegate to the Continental Congress in
Philadelphia. His speeches and writings (especially a newspaper series signed
Novanglus in 1775) articulating the colonial cause and his brilliant championing of
American rights in Congress caused Thomas Jefferson to call him the Colossus of
Independence. Adams helped draft the Declaration of Independence, secured its
unanimous adoption in Congress, and wrote his wife on July 3, 1776, that the most
memorable Epoch in the History of America has begun.
After 18 months of toil in committee and on the floor of Congress managing the
American Revolution, Adams crossed the Atlantic to be an American commissioner to
France. The termination of this mission after less than a year in Paris allowed him to
return home long enough to take a leading role in drafting the new Massachusetts
constitution.
He sailed again for Europe, accompanied by two of his sons, in November 1779 as a
commissioner to seek peace with Britain. After quarrels in Paris with Benjamin Franklin
and French officials, he left for the Netherlands, where he secured Dutch recognition of
American independence and a substantial loan as well. He returned to Paris in October
1782 to insist on American rights (especially to fish on the Grand Banks of
Newfoundland) in the negotiations that led to Britain’s recognition of the independence
of the United States in the Treaty of Paris of Sept. 3, 1783.
For two more years Adams helped Franklin and Jefferson negotiate treaties of
friendship and commerce with numerous foreign powers. Then, appointed the
first American minister to Britain, Adams presented his credentials to George III
in 1785, noting his pride in having the distinguished honor to be the first
{ex-colonial subject} to stand in your Majesty’s royal presence in a diplomatic
character.
The king, aware of the poignancy of the occasion, returned Adams’s compliments and
hoped that the language, religion, and blood shared by the two nations would have
their natural and full effect, but the British ministry obstructed Adams’s efforts to restore
equitable commerce between the two nations.
When he returned to the United States in 1788, Adams was greeted by his countrymen as
one of the heroes of independence and was promptly elected vice-president under the
new Constitution. This post, regarded by Adams as the most insignificant office that
ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived, left him time to work
out his increasingly sober views of republican government.
In Europe he had been impressed with both the unsuitability of self-government for
masses of destitute, ignorant people, and the usefulness, in evoking patriotism and in
maintaining order, of the pomp and ceremony of monarchy. ritual, and authority in a
republic like the United States. He also supported the efforts of George Washington to
give the presidency an almost regal quality and to extend executive power, and he agreed
with Alexander Hamilton on most of the latter’s fiscal plans. He never accepted, however,
the high Federalist biases toward commercial growth and government by the rich, the
well-born, and the able.
Although his own presidency (1797-1801) was a troubled one, Adams made
uniquely important contributions during his term as chief executive. He managed
orderly transitions of power at both the beginning and the end of his
administration, and he gave the government stability by continuing most of the
practices established under Washington.
The major crisis he faced, however, arose from strained relations with revolutionary
France. When, in the so-called XYZ Affair (1797-98), American peace commissioners
returned from Paris with lurid stories of deceit and bribery, Adams called for an assertion
of national pride, built up the armed forces, and even accepted the Alien and Sedition
Acts as emergency national security measures. With his opponents (led by Jefferson)
charging oppression and some of his own Federalist Party (led by Hamilton) urging war
and conquest, Adams kept his nerve and, when the opportunity arose, dispatched another
peace commission to France. This defused the crisis and led in 1800 to an agreement
with France that ended the so-called Quasi-War. Nonetheless, deserted by Hamilton and
other Federalists who disapproved of his independent course, and attacked by the
Jeffersonian Republicans as a vain monarchist, Adams was forced out of office after one
term.
When he and Abigail returned to Massachusetts, they moved into a comfortable but
unpretentious house in Quincy (it is known today and open to visitors as the Adams
National Historic Site) they had bought 12 years before. There, tending to his fields,
visiting with neighbors, and enjoying his family, John Adams lived for 25 years as a sage
and national patriarch. Of his numerous correspondences, the cherished 14-year
(1812-26) one with Jefferson became a literary legacy to the nation. Although the
debilitation’s of old age and the death of his beloved Abigail in 1818 troubled his last
years, his mind remained sharp and his spirit buoyant until the end.
Like Jefferson, he died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of
Independence. Ninety years old at his death, Adams was revered by his countrymen not
only as one of the founding fathers but also as a plain, honest man who personified the
best of what the nation could hope of its citizens and leaders.
Facts About John Adams
2d President of the United States (1797-1801)
Nickname: Atlas of Independence
Born: Oct. 30, 1735, Braintree (now Quincy), Mass.
Education: Harvard College (graduated 1755).
Profession: Lawyer
Religious Affiliation: Unitarian
Marriage: Oct. 25, 1764, to Abigail Smith (1744-1818).
Children: Abigail Amelia Adams (1765-1813); John Quincy Adams (1767-1848);
Susanna Adams (1768-70); Charles Adams (1770-1800); Thomas Boylston
Adams (1772-1832).
Political Affiliation: Federalist
Writings: The Life and Works of John Adams (10 vols., 1856); The Adams’
Papers (13 vols., 1961-77).
Died: July 4, 1826, Quincy, Mass.
Buried: First Unitarian Church, Quincy, Mass.
Vice-President: Thomas Jefferson
CABINET MEMBERS
Secretary of State: Timothy Pickering (1797-1800); John Marshall (1800-01).
Secretary of the Treasury: Oliver Wolcott, Jr. (1797-1801); Samuel Dexter
(1801).
Secretary of War: James McHenry (1797-1800); Samuel Dexter (1800-01).
Attorney General: Charles Lee.
Secretary of the Navy: Benjamin Stoddert
Government Essays
