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• Born: 30 October 1735
• Birthplace: Braintree, Massachusetts
• Died: 4 July 1826
• Best Known As: President of the United States, 1797-1801

John Adams followed George Washington as president of the United States, becoming the country's second chief executive. An early colonist agitator against the Stamp Act of 1765, John Adams helped draft the Declaration of Independence in 1776. He served as an all-purpose diplomat for the new republic during the Revolutionary War, and after the war, in 1785, he became the first American Minister to London. He served two terms as vice-president under Washington (1789-97), and beat Thomas Jefferson in 1796 to become president himself. He was respected but not popular, and served one term before losing to Jefferson in the elections of 1800. His son, John Quincy Adams, was president from 1825-29.

Adams was the first president to attend Harvard University and the first to have a son become president; his wife, Abigail Adams, is one of history's best-known First Ladies... By great coincidence, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died in separate states on the same day, 4 July 1826 -- the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence... Historian David McCullough's biography, John Adams, was a bestseller in 2001.

An ill-tempered person full of resentment and stubborn notions.

Curmudgeon is back, and it's not Andy Rooney! John Adams is the "crusty irascible cantankerous old person full of stubborn ideas" referred to in the headline of the New York Times book review.

Link: Books of The Times | 'John Adams': Founding Curmudgeon Who Spared the Nation a War

See our Word Overheard blog to see interesting uses of strange words.

(1735–1826), member of the Continental Congress, diplomat, vice president, and second president of the United States

John Adams never soldiered, but throughout his public life he repeatedly faced issues of war and peace.

In June 1775, at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, Adams nominated George Washington to command the Continental army, and in October and November 1775, as a member of the Continental Congress's Naval Committee, he was instrumental in creating the U.S. Navy and Marines. From June 1776 until November 1777, Adams chaired the Board of War and Ordnance, Congress's committee to oversee the Continental army and the conduct of the war. As a U.S. diplomat in Europe after 1778, Adams repeatedly implored France to make a greater military commitment. He emphasized the need for concerted action by Washington's army and the French Navy, a formula that eventually led to victory at the Battle of Yorktown.

Later, faced by the Undeclared Naval War with France (1798–1800) during his presidency, Adams sought to avoid hostilities, fearful that the fragile new nation might not endure another war. He took steps to strengthen the Union's defenses, but also dispatched to Paris the envoys who ultimately negotiated the accord that prevented war. His action split the Federalist Party and contributed to his defeat in the 1800 election. Reflecting on his public career in 1815, Adams said that his greatest achievement had been the preservation of peace during his presidency.

Bibliography

• Page Smith, John Adams, 1962.
• John Ferling, John Adams: A Life, 1988

Adams, John (1735-1826) 2nd president of the United States, diplomat, and member of the Continental Congress, born in Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts; father of 6th president John Quincy Adams. In the Continental Congress Adams nominated George Washington for commander in chief (1775), was instrumental in the establishment of the U.S. Navy and Marines, chaired the Congress's Board of War and Ordnance (1776-77), and negotiated the peace with Britain (1782). Under Washington he was the nation's first vice president (1789-97) and was elected president in 1796 as a Federalist (1797-1801). He built up the navy, but his refusal to declare war on France and his signing of the Alien and Sedition Acts (1798) turned the Federalist party against “His Rotundity.”

The first president to live in the White House, Adams was defeated in the election of 1800 by Thomas Jefferson; both men died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence that Adams recommended and Jefferson wrote.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

The second president of the United States, John Adams (1735-1826) played a major role in the colonial movement toward independence. He wrote the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 and served as a diplomatic representative of Congress in the 1780s.

John Adams was born in Braintree (now Quincy), Mass. His father was a modest but successful farmer and local officeholder. After some initial reluctance, Adams entered Harvard and received his bachelor's degree in 1755. For about a year he taught school in Worcester. Though he gave some thought to entering the ministry, Adams was repelled by the theological acrimony resulting from the period of the Great Awakening and turned to the law. After studying under James Putnam, Adams was admitted to the Boston bar in 1758. While developing his legal practice, he participated in town affairs and contributed his first essays to the Boston newspapers. In 1764 he married Abigail Smith of Weymouth, who brought him wide social connections and was to share with sensitivity and enthusiasm in the full life that lay ahead.

Early Political Career

By 1765 Adams had achieved considerable distinction at the Boston bar. With the Stamp Act crisis he moved into the center of Massachusetts political life. He contributed an important series of essays, Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, to the Boston Gazette and prepared a series of anti-Stamp Act resolutions for the Braintree town meeting, which were widely copied throughout the province.

In April 1768 Adams moved to Boston. He defended John Hancock against smuggling charges brought by British customs officials and acted as counsel for Capt. Thomas Preston, the officer in charge of British troops at the Boston Massacre. Adams undertook the Preston defense somewhat reluctantly, fearing its consequences for his own local popularity, but the need to provide Preston with a fair trial persuaded him to act - with no damage, in the end, to his own reputation or practice. Indeed, a few weeks later Adams was elected representative from Boston to the Massachusetts Legislature.

In the spring of 1771, largely for reasons of health, Adams returned to Braintree, where he divided his attention between farming and the law. Within a year, however, professional and political considerations drew him back to Boston. In 1773 he celebrated the Boston Tea Party as a dramatic challenge to British notions of parliamentary supremacy. The next year he was one of the representatives from Massachusetts to the First Continental Congress, where he took a leading role in developing the colonists' constitutional defense against the Coercive Acts and other British measures. Although Adams favored the various petitions Congress made to the King, Parliament, and the English people, as well as the scheme of nonimportation agreements, he nonetheless hoped for more vigorous measures. All the while, however, he had to guard against the suspicion held by many other delegates that the New Englanders were plotting independence. Upon his return to Massachusetts, Adams was chosen for the governor's council but was negatived. During the winter of 1774-1775 he carried on, under the pseudonym Novanglus, an extended debate with Daniel Leonard over the proper constitutional relations between the Colonies and Parliament. Adams's recommended solution at this point was a commonwealth system of empire, with a series of coequal parliaments joined by common allegiance to the Crown.

After the battles of Lexington and Concord, Adams returned to Congress, carrying the welcome instructions from the General Court for measures to establish American liberties on a permanent basis, secure from attack by Britain. He now believed that independence would probably be necessary. Congress, however, was not yet willing to agree, and Adams fumed while still more petitions were sent off to England. The best chance of promoting independence, he concluded, was through the device of instructing the various colonies to adopt new forms of government following the breakdown of their provincial regimes. Replying to petitions from several provinces seeking advice on their governments (petitions which Adams and others had solicited), he recommended that they adopt new governments modeled on their colonial regimes and framed by special conventions.

By February 1776 Adams was back in Congress. There he presented, first privately in response to the requests of several delegates and then publicly in a pamphlet entitled "Thoughts on Government," his specific proposals for the reconstruction of the provincial governments. Adams was at last fully committed to American independence. In May, Congress finally passed a resolution that, where no adequate governments existed, measures should be taken to provide for the "happiness and safety" of the people. For this resolution Adams wrote a preamble which in effect asserted the principle of independence. A month later he seconded Richard Henry Lee's resolution for the formal declaration of independence, the contracting of foreign treaties, and the construction of a continental confederation. A member of the committee appointed to bring in the formal statement, Adams contributed little to the content of the Declaration of Independence but served, as Thomas Jefferson later reported, as "the pillar of its support on the floor of the Congress." On another committee Adams drew up a model treaty that encouraged Congress to enter into commercial but not political alliances with European nations. Exhausted by his duties, he temporarily left Philadelphia in mid-October for Massachusetts. For the next year or so he continued to serve in Congress.

Diplomatic Career

On Nov. 28, 1777, Congress elected Adams commissioner to France, replacing Silas Deane, and in February Adams embarked from Boston for what was to prove an extended stay. Upon arrival, Adams found that France had already granted diplomatic recognition to the United States and contracted treaties of commerce and amity. With nothing specific to do, Adams spent the next year and a half trying to keep busy: attempting to secure badly needed loans for Congress, transmitting lengthy letters on European affairs, and learning with mixed fascination and repugnance about the ways of French court and national life.

When he learned that Benjamin Franklin, one of his fellow commissioners, had been appointed sole American plenipotentiary in France, Adams returned to Boston, where in the fall of 1779 he was elected from Braintree to the state constitutional convention. For the next few months he devoted his time to the convention, preparing what became the basic draft of the new Massachusetts constitution.

In the meantime Adams had been tapped by Congress for another diplomatic post, this time as commissioner to contract peace and then a commercial treaty with Great Britain. He embarked in mid-November and arrived in Paris on Feb. 9, 1780. Again he found his situation frustrating, largely because he had been instructed to make no significant moves without the prior approval of the Comte de Vergennes, the French foreign minister. Between Adams and Vergennes there quickly developed a mutual dislike - duplicated in Adams's relations with Franklin, a man more flexible and less demanding in his relations with the French foreign minister. In the face of all this, Adams spent considerable time writing his friends in Congress to complain of his difficult position. Having been further commissioned minister plenipotentiary to the United Provinces, Adams finally secured recognition by The Hague in the spring of 1782, and in October he signed the first of several desperately needed loans with a group of Dutch bankers.

He returned to Paris to negotiate the terms of peace with the British representatives. Adams and the other two American commissioners, Franklin and John Jay, ignored their instructions to make no agreement without first consulting Vergennes; they feared (correctly) that France wished to pressure the United States into peace arrangements inconsistent with national interest (for example, leaving certain coastal areas in British hands). The American commissioners concluded provisional articles of peace and sent the results home to Congress. These were duly signed as the definitive treaty of peace on Sept. 3, 1783.

The Dutch loans and the treaty of peace were the major products of the diplomatic phase of Adams's public career. Before returning permanently to the United States, however, he spent 3 frustrating years as American envoy to the Court of St. James in London, attempting without success to negotiate a commercial treaty and to clear up various diplomatic issues carried over from the Revolution. Rebuffed by British officials and unsupported by a weak Congress, Adams finally asked to resign. Formal letters of recall were sent in February 1788. During the last year and a half of his stay, he composed his three-volume Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, an extended attempt to defend the American concept of balanced government against the criticisms of the French statesman A.R.J. Turgot.

The Presidency

With his return to Boston, Adams began the final stage of his public career. He was chosen vice president in 1789 under the new Federal constitution, a position he was to fill, again with considerable frustration because of its powerlessness, during both of Washington's administrations.

As the election of 1796 approached, the Jeffersonian Republicans began forming an opposition to the Federalists' financial program and seemingly pro-British foreign policy. The Republicans presented Jefferson as their presidential candidate. The Federalists split into two factions, with Adams as one candidate and Thomas Pinckney (backed by Alexander Hamilton) as the other. In spite of Hamilton's efforts, Adams ran well ahead of Pinckney and became the second president of the United States. Jefferson, a scant three electoral votes behind, became vice president.

Adams took office on March 4, 1797. From the first his presidency was a stormy one. His Cabinet, inherited from Washington and dominated by Hamilton's followers, proved increasingly difficult to control. Foreign policy problems, generated by the outbreak of war between revolutionary France and a counterrevolutionary coalition of European nations, created internal political crises of magnitude. The outbreak of revolution in France had tended to polarize political discussion in the United States as well as in Europe between "aristocratic" and "democratic" positions. More particularly, the war between England and France raised questions of whether the United States would maintain a strict neutrality - in fact impossible because of efforts by both England and France to control American trade - or align itself, at least sympathetically, with one of the countries. While most Americans professed the desire to remain neutral in the contest, the Jeffersonians were sympathetic with France and the Federalists with England. Adams found himself caught in the middle.

In 1797 French diplomats attempted to bribe the three-man commission sent by the United States to negotiate various points in dispute between the two nations. The immediate result was an outburst of anti-French sentiment, which the Hamiltonians worked hard to inflame. Adams became caught up in the furor as well, making numerous statements during the spring and summer of 1798 that fanned emotions even higher. Taking advantage of the situation, the Federalists in Congress, with Adams's tacit approval, developed a war program consisting of substantial increases in the American navy, a large provisional army, the Alien and Sedition Acts (aimed at controlling potential subversives within), and a system of tax measures to finance the entire program. The Federalist goals were two: to prepare for an expected war with France and to attack the Jeffersonian opposition.

For a while it seemed that the Federalist measures would carry the day. But during the late summer and fall of 1798 the prospect of peaceful accommodation with France increased, and public discontent with the Federalist war program (helped along by the cries of the Jeffersonians) broke through the surface. President Adams, at home in Massachusetts during much of this time, became convinced that war with France was not necessary and that the Federalist policies, if continued, were likely to result in serious internal disorder. Early in 1799 he committed himself to a plan of peaceful accommodation with France - a decision that enraged most of the Hamiltonians and left them sitting far out on a political limb, with a military establishment and no foreign invader to fight.

By 1800 the split between Adams and the Hamiltonian wing of the Federalist party was complete. Adams dismissed the main Hamiltonians from his Cabinet, and Hamilton openly opposed Adams for reelection. But the President's peace initiatives were both enlightened statesmanship and good politics. The young nation was unprepared for any major external war, and the possibility of serious internal conflict if the war program was continued seems to have been real. Moreover, as various individuals reported, by late 1799 France was prepared for an honorable accommodation with the United States, so there was no longer reason for conflict. Politically, Adams's peace decision made comparable sense. The Federalist split no doubt weakened his chances in 1800, but the Jeffersonians were already scoring heavily in their attacks on Federalist policies. Continued defense of such policies would almost certainly have led to political disaster. In the end Adams lost the election to Jefferson by a narrow margin.

Adams later described his peace decision as "the most splendid diamond in my crown," more important than his leadership in the revolutionary crisis, his constitutional writings, or his diplomatic service. He left the capital, however, bitterly disappointed over his rejection by the American people, so distressed that he even refused to remain for Jefferson's inaugural in 1801.

Adams spent the remainder of his life in political seclusion, though he retained a lively interest in public affairs, particularly when they involved the rising career of his son, John Quincy Adams. John Adams divided his time between overseeing his farm and carrying on an extended correspondence concerning both his personal experiences and issues of more general political and philosophical significance. He died at the age of 91, just a few hours after Jefferson's death, on July 4, 1826.

Further Reading

The most complete modern biography is Page Smith, John Adams (2 vols., 1962), although Smith does not differentiate clearly enough the central themes of Adams's career. Still useful is Gilbert Chinard, Honest John Adams (1933). For the early career of John Adams see Catherin Drinker Bowen, John Adams and the American Revolution (1950). Adams's election to the presidency is fully detailed in Arthur M. Schlesinger, ed., History of American Presidential Elections (4 vols., 1971). Manning J. Dauer, The Adams Federalists (1953), and Stephen G. Kurtz, The Presidency of John Adams: The Collapse of Federalism, 1795-1800 (1957), examine Adams's feud with Hamilton and the split within the Federalist party. For the political thought of Adams three studies are relevant: Correa M. Walsh, The Political Science of John Adams (1915); Edward Handler, America and Europe in the Political Thought of John Adams (1964); and John Howe, The Changing Political Thought of John Adams (1966).

(1735-1826) American revolutionary politician and political theorist. Trained as a lawyer in Massachusetts, he helped formulate the argument that the US colonies had never legitimately been subject to the jurisdiction of the British parliament. After independence he was the intellectual leader of the conservative wing of the revolution, arguing in his Defence of the Constitutions… of the USA (1787) that the Senate ought to be chosen from among the rich and the intelligent. Until 1796 he nevertheless retained a friendship with the much more radical Jefferson, perhaps because of their common exposure to the French Enlightenment when they had been diplomats in the 1780s. The friendship was broken by Adams's partisan Presidency (1797-1801), although Adams was less extreme in his partisanship of urban, commercial policies than the fiery Hamilton. It was resumed 1812 and led to a warm and wise exchange of letters which ended with the death of both men on the same day—4 July 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

For more information on John Adams, visit Britannica.com.

• Born: Oct. 19, 1735, Braintree, Mass.
• Political party: Federalist
• Education: Harvard College, A.B., 1755
• Military service: none
• Previous government service: Continental Congress, 1774-1778; committee that drafted Declaration of Independence, 1776; wrote first draft of Massachusetts Constitution, 1779; minister to the Netherlands, 1780–84; minister to Great Britain, 1785–87; Vice President, 1789–97
• Elected President, 1796; served, 1797-1801
• Died: July 4, 1826, Quincy, Mass.

John Adams was the first President to occupy the White House and the first to be defeated for reelection and turn over his office to a member of an opposition party. Adams was one of the most experienced men ever to become President. As a young man, he taught school in Worcester, Massachusetts, and studied law, becoming a lawyer in Boston in 1758. He played a major role in the struggle for independence. On the principle that there should be “no taxation without representation,” Adams led the opposition to the Stamp Act of 1765, which required the purchase of a stamp (effectively a tax) for all public documents. He showed his fierce independence, however, when he defended several British soldiers accused of killing four people in the Boston Massacre in 1770; most were acquitted.

As a member of the Second Continental Congress in 1775, Adams seconded the nomination of George Washington as commander of the Continental Army. The following year he seconded the motion for independence, introduced by Richard Henry Lee, that “these colonies are, and of a right ought to be, free and independent states.” He then convinced Thomas Jefferson to draft the Declaration of Independence. He was, as Jefferson said, “the pillar of support” in the debate leading to its adoption.

Adams helped draft the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780. In 1781 and 1782 he helped negotiate the treaty with the British ending the war and then a commercial treaty with the Netherlands and a large loan to the United States.

In 1785 Adams was named minister to Great Britain. Two years later, while still in London, he published his book A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, which called for a balanced Constitution. The people would be represented in the lower house of the legislature, “the rich, well born and able” would serve in the upper house, and a chief executive would act as a monarch to balance the interests of the upper and lower classes.

Adams received the second highest total of electoral college votes (behind George Washington) in the Presidential election of 1789, and so he assumed the post of Vice President. “My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived,” Adams observed. But he was instrumental in devising procedures for the new Senate, and he cast several important tie votes to pass Washington's legislative measures. He was one of the organizers of the Federalist party during his second term and was the choice of President Washington and most party leaders to run for President in 1796. He defeated Thomas Jefferson, 71 electoral votes to 68. Under the rules then in effect, Jefferson, as the runner-up, became Vice President, although he was the leader of the opposition party, the Democratic-Republicans.

During his Presidency, Adams faced intrigues within his own party as Alexander Hamilton moved to influence his cabinet and his policies. The Jay Treaty, which he had helped negotiate with Great Britain in 1795, allowed British ships to seize American cargoes bound for France. The French, in retaliation, decreed that French warships would follow the same policy against American ships bound for Britain, and they then seized 317 American merchant vessels in 1796. A diplomatic mission sent by Adams was refused a hearing by the French unless bribes were paid to French agents (who were referred to as X, Y, and Z) and the United States agreed to lend France $10 million. Adams refused and made the affair public. “Millions for War but not one cent for Tribute” became the slogan of Federalists calling for war.

Adams ignored pressure from Alexander Hamilton and his followers in the Federalist party and instead sought a diplomatic solution, while Congress passed laws enlarging the navy and preparing war measures. Bowing to party pressure, Adams appointed George Washington commander in chief of the army, in effect ceding his constitutional powers. Congress created the Navy Department, organized the Marine Corps, and canceled all treaties with France. Three new frigates, the United States, the Constitution, and the Constellation, were launched in 1797 and 1798 and soon put to service in a naval war with France. They were responsible for a number of American victories in the Caribbean. Although Congress had not declared this war, it did vote funds for it, and the Supreme Court held that the war was constitutional. With French emperor Napoleon's navy bottled up by the British fleet, and many French ships sunk by Admiral Horatio Nelson in the Battle of the Nile in 1798, France could not easily retaliate. Finally a diplomatic solution in 1799 averted further war. The decision to talk rather than continue fighting led to a final split between Adams and the Hamilton wing of the Federalist party. In 1800 Napoleon and Adams agreed to the Treaty of Montfortaine, which released the United States from its revolutionary war treaties with France.

During the conflict Adams assented to the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts (1798), which made it a crime to publish anything “with the intent to defame” the President or the government. The sedition law was invoked in 25 cases and used by his party to arrest editors from the opposition ranks. Ten editors were convicted by Federalist judges and juries. But public opinion opposed the prosecutions. Madison and Jefferson worked to get the Virginia and Kentucky legislatures to pass resolutions that the laws were unconstitutional and would not be enforced.

Although Adams retained enough support from moderate Federalists to win his party's nomination for a second term, the split in his party led to his defeat by Thomas Jefferson in the election of 1800. Adams's final act in office, on the morning of March 4, 1801, was to send to the Senate his nomination of John Marshall to be chief justice of the United States.

See also Burr, Aaron; Jefferson, Thomas; Washington, George

Sources

• James Truslow Adams, The Adams Family (Boston: Little, Brown, 1930).
• Ralph Adams Brown, The Presidency of John Adams (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1975).
• Joseph J. Ellis, Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams (New York: Norton, 1993)

(1735-1826), lawyer, revolutionary theorist and leader, diplomat, first vice president and second president of the United States. Adams, raised on a farm in Braintree (later Quincy), Massachusetts, was the first in his family to attend college--Harvard--and its first professional man--a lawyer. Beginning in 1765 Adams, living part of the time in Boston with his wife, Abigail, and their children, opposed British revenue measures and their enforcement by the military. He did so as a moderate, never joining in demonstrations or publishing inflammatory rhetoric in the manner of his cousin Samuel Adams or fellow lawyer James Otis.

In 1765 Adams drew up the Braintree Instructions, a widely disseminated argument against the Stamp Act, which he also opposed in his "Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law." In 1770, following the Boston Massacre, Adams, on the principle that the accused always has the right to a vigorous defense, was willing to defend the British troops who had fired on the Boston crowd. But in 1774, after the Boston Tea Party and the British Coercive Acts, he came out for independence.

Adams had already been a Massachusetts legislator and one of the colony's delegates to the First Continental Congress when at the Second Congress he emerged as the leading advocate of independence. His Thoughts on Government (1776) set forth a design whereby the colonies could govern themselves as independent states. Typically, this blueprint was moderate in tone, but its publication was a radical step toward independence.

Adams's best-known contribution to independence was his indefatigable support in favor of the issuance of a formal declaration of independence. Neither an orator nor an adept forger of political alliances, Adams moved men and events with his earnestness and lawyerly thoroughness of argument. Thomas Jefferson described him as a "colossus"; other delegates called him "the Atlas of Independence." By 1778 he had served on more committees than any other member, simultaneously acting as a virtual one-man war department.

From 1778 to 1788 Adams served as a diplomat in France, the Netherlands, and England. He secured Dutch loans, chaired the commission that concluded a peace treaty with England, and ended as ambassador to the English court, where he was received by George III, the king against whom he had helped lead a revolution.

Returning to America after the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, he stood out as a public figure well respected for his Defence of the Constitutions (1787-1788), a three-volume commentary on political systems favoring the bicameral legislature just adopted for the new United States, partly on the model of the Massachusetts State Constitution he had drafted in 1779. His political conservatism linked him to the Federalist party, but Adams consistently held himself aloof from its counsels.

Adams was elected vice president under George Washington and then served as president from 1797 to 1801. His presidency was marred by the threat of war with France and by the Alien and Sedition Acts, not proposed by Adams but signed by him. After a single term, Adams was defeated by Thomas Jefferson. Adams was deeply hurt by the voters' rejection, which reflected the view that he had grown increasingly conservative, especially as evidenced by his low opinion of human nature in his Discourses on Davila (1790-1791). Resentfully, he retired to Quincy and refused all public involvements.

Beginning in 1812 he was reconciled with Jefferson, who had been a friend in Europe, and began with him a correspondence that is now regarded as a monument of the American enlightenment. Adams's philosophical spirit, sometimes submerged by politics, reasserted itself as he argued the limitations of human nature in a more balanced and memorable way than in any of his published works. Adams died on the same day as Jefferson: July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of independence, a coincidence taken by contemporaries as a sign of divine approval of the American experiment.

Bibliography:

L. H. Butterfield et al., eds., The Adams Papers (1961-); Peter Shaw, The Character of John Adams (1976).

Author:

Peter Shaw

See also Adams, Abigail; Boston Massacre; Conservatism; Continental Congresses; Elections: 1789 , 1792 , 1796 , 1800; Federalist Party; Paris, Treaty of (1783); Revolution; Stamp Act. For events during Adams's administration, see Alien and Sedition Acts; XYZ Affair.

1735–1826, 2d President of the United States (1797–1801), b. Quincy (then in Braintree), Mass., grad. Harvard, 1755. John Adams and his wife, Abigail Adams, founded one of the most distinguished families of the United States; their son, John Quincy Adams, was also President.

Early Career

A plain-spoken, tough-minded lawyer, scrupulously honest and dauntingly erudite, but also sometimes quarrelsome and stubborn, Adams emerged into politics as an opponent of the Stamp Act and, after moving to Boston, was a central figure in the Revolutionary group opposing the British measures that were to lead to the American Revolution. Sent (1774) to the First Continental Congress, he distinguished himself, and in the Second Continental Congress he was a moderate but forceful revolutionary. He proposed George Washington as commander in chief of the Continental troops to bind Virginia more tightly to the cause for independence. He favored the Declaration of Independence, was a member of its drafting committee, and argued eloquently for the document.

Diplomatic Career

As a diplomat seeking foreign aid for the newly established nation, he had a thorny career. Appointed (1777) to succeed Silas Deane as a commissioner to France, he accomplished little before going home (1779) to become a major figure in the Massachusetts constitutional convention. He then returned (1779) to France, where he quarreled with Vergennes and was able to lend little assistance to Benjamin Franklin in his peace efforts. His attempts to negotiate a loan from the Netherlands were fruitless until 1782.

Adams was one of the negotiators who drew up the momentous Treaty of Paris (1783; see Paris, Treaty of) to end the American Revolution. After this service he obtained another Dutch loan and then was envoy (1785–88) to Great Britain, where he met with British coldness and unwillingness to discuss the problems growing out of the treaty. He asked for his own recall and ended a significant but generally discouraging diplomatic career.

Presidency

In the United States once more, he was chosen Vice President and served throughout George Washington's administration (1789–97). Although he inclined to conservative policies, he functioned somewhat as a balance wheel in the partisan contest between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. In the 1796 election Adams was chosen to succeed Washington as President despite the surreptitious opposition of Hamilton.

The Adams administration was one of crisis and conflict, in which the President showed an honest and stubborn integrity, and though allied with Hamilton and the conservative property-respecting Federalists, he was not dominated by them in their struggle against the vigorously rising, more broadly democratic forces led by Jefferson. Though the Federalists were pro-British and strongly opposed to post-Revolutionary France, Adams by conciliation prevented the near war of 1798 (see XYZ Affair) from developing into a real war between France and the United States. Nor did the President wholeheartedly endorse the Alien and Sedition Acts (1798), aimed at the Anti-Federalists. He was, however, detested by his Jeffersonian enemies, and in the election of 1800 he and Hamilton were both overwhelmed by the tide of Jeffersonian democracy. By the end of his term, Adams had proved to be a generally unpopular president, deeply respected but not beloved.

Retirement

After 1801 Adams lived in retirement at Quincy, issuing sober and highly respected political statements and writing and receiving many letters, notably those to and from Jefferson. Their famous correspondence was edited by Lester J. Cappon in The Adams-Jefferson Letters (1959). By remarkable coincidence he and Jefferson died on the same day, Independence Day, July 4, 1826.

Bibliography

A definitive edition of the voluminous writings of the Adams family was begun with four volumes (1961) containing the diary and autobiography of John Adams. Until completion of the definitive edition, see Adams's Works (10 vol., ed. by J. Q. Adams and C. F. Adams, 1850–56, repr. 1969; Vol. I is a biography by C. F. Adams); The Selected Writings of John Adams and John Quincy Adams (ed. by A. Koch and W. Peden, 1946).

See also biographies by J. T. Morse (1884, repr. 1970), G. Chinard (1933, repr. 1964), P. Smith (2 vol., 1962), J. Ferling (1992), J. J. Ellis (1993), D. McCullough (2001), and J. Grant (2005); J. T. Adams, The Adams Family (1930); Z. Haraszti, John Adams and the Prophets of Progress (1952); M. J. Dauer, The Adams Federalists (1953, repr. 1968); S. G. Kurtz, The Presidency of John Adams (1957, repr. 1961); J. R. Howe, Jr., The Changing Political Thought of John Adams (1966); R. A. Brown, The Presidency of John Adams (1975); R. Brookhiser, America's First Dynasty: The Adamses, 1735–1918 (2002); G. Vidal, Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson (2003).

(1735-1826)

1755	Diary of John Adams. On November 18, the patriot and future president makes the first entry into his new diary. Over the next forty years Adams's diary grows from brief notes about the weather to more detailed and highly personal commentaries on numerous subjects and individuals. Adams's diary is one of the most important firsthand records of life and politics during the late colonial and Revolutionary eras. It would not be widely available until 1961 when published as part of the first volume of the Adams's family papers.
1765	A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Laws. An essay arguing that the experiences of ancient Greece and Rome should be the models for understanding democracy and tyranny.
1768	"An Essay on Canon and Federal Law." Among Adams's earliest publications, this essay uses the New England Puritans' rejection of the "unlimited submission to a monolithic church" to attack British claims to establish total control over the colonies.
1776	Thoughts on Government: Applicable to the Present State of the American Colonies. Adams attempts to find the balance between New England republicanism and southern democratic skepticism. He presents the advantages of a bicameral legislature that would provide checks and balances on the power of any group.
1784	History of the Dispute with America. A collection of newspaper essays originally published in 1774 and 1775 in response to essays by "Massachusettensis" (identified as Daniel Leonard). Adams holds that the legal standing of the colonies--including semi-autonomy from Parliament--is established by precedents within the colonial charters.
1787	A Defence of the Constitutions of the United States of America Against the Attack of Mr. Turgot. Adams begins his three-volume response to the British critics who questioned the political and economic promise of the United States (to be completed in 1788).
1789	Twenty-six Letters; upon Interesting Subjects Respecting the Revolution of America. This collection of letters from 1780 displays Adams's fervor for the American Revolution while discussing the opportunities and problems of independence.
1790	Discourses on Davila. A political manifesto controversial for Adams's support of a monarchy and aristocracy in countries such as France and his denunciation of equality based on his belief that humans naturally have "a passion for distinction."

A political leader of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; one of the Founding Fathers. Adams was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was the second president, from 1797 to 1801, after George Washington. Washington and Adams were the only presidents from the Federalist party. Adams's presidency was marked by diplomatic challenges, in which he avoided war with France. The Alien and Sedition Acts were passed while he was president.

John Adams achieved prominence as a jurist, a statesman, and as the second president of the United States.

Adams was born on October 30, 1735. A graduate of Harvard College, class of 1755, Adams was admitted to the Boston bar in 1758 and established a prestigious legal practice.

During the pre-Revolutionary War years, Adams spoke against many acts enforced by the British government, such as the Townshend Acts, which unjustly taxed items such as glass and tea. He joined the Sons of Liberty—a group of lawyers, merchants, and businessmen who, in 1765, banded together to oppose the Stamp Act.

From 1774 to 1778 Adams served as the Massachusetts representative to the Continental Congress. He entered the judiciary during this period and rendered decisions as chief justice of the Superior Court of Massachusetts from 1775 to 1777. In 1776 he signed the newly created Declaration of Independence.

After the war, Adams entered the field of foreign service, acting as commissioner to France in 1777. In 1783 Adams went to Paris with John Jay and Thomas Jefferson to successfully negotiate the Treaty of Paris with Great Britain, which officially ended the Revolutionary War and established the United States as an independent nation. In 1785 Adams became the first U.S. minister to Great Britain.

Adams returned to the United States in 1788 and began service to the new government with his election to the office of vice president of the United States. He was the first person to serve in this office and was reelected for a second term in 1792.

In 1796 Adams was elected president of the United States. He was the second man to hold this position, following the retirement of the first president, George Washington. During his term of office, Adams advocated naval strength; approved the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 (1 Stat. 566, 570, 577, 596), which increased the restrictions concerning aliens and imposed harsh penalties on any person who attempted to obstruct the government system; averted war with France; and selected the eminent John Marshall as chief justice of the Supreme Court.

In 1800 Adams ran for the presidency for a second term but was defeated by Thomas Jefferson.

John Adams wrote several publications, including Thoughts on Government (1776) and Defense of the Constitutions of the United States of America Against the Attacks of Mr. Turgot (1787).

Adams was the father of four children, and his son, John Quincy, served as the sixth president of the United States. He died on July 4, 1826, in Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts.

CROSS-REFERENCES: Marshall, John.

Quotes:

"A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man."

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."

"There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live."

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

"Thomas Jefferson -- still surv"

"Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power."

See more famous quotes by John Adams