John Adams

John Adams was a Founding Father of the United States, the nation’s first vice president, and its second president. Born on October 30, 1735, on the family farm in Braintree, Massachusetts, he came of age in a colonial society still tied to Great Britain. He died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. His life ran across the American Revolution, the making of the new government, and the first hard tests of the presidency.

Before national office, Adams was a lawyer and political activist known for his devotion to the right to counsel and the presumption of innocence. He defied anti-British feeling in Massachusetts when he successfully defended British soldiers against murder charges after the Boston Massacre. As a Massachusetts delegate to the Continental Congress, he became a leader of the Revolution. In 1776, he assisted Thomas Jefferson in drafting the Declaration of Independence and became its primary advocate in Congress.

Adams also served the new United States abroad during the latter part of the Revolutionary War and in the early years of independence. He represented the country in France and the Netherlands, helped negotiate the peace treaty with Great Britain, secured Dutch loans for the American government, and became the first United States ambassador to Great Britain. In 1780, he was the primary author of the Massachusetts Constitution, a work that, along with his other political writings, influenced the United States Constitution.

His way of thinking was shaped early by family, study, law, and argument. His father, John Adams Sr., was a deacon, farmer, cordwainer, and militia lieutenant, and Adams often praised him. His mother, Susanna Boylston, came from a leading medical family, and Adams later credited her with forming the character of her children. He studied Latin, rhetoric, logic, and arithmetic at Braintree Latin School, entered Harvard College at sixteen, and as an adult read ancient writers such as Thucydides, Plato, Cicero, and Tacitus in their original languages. James Otis Jr.’s 1761 argument against British writs of assistance inspired Adams toward the cause of the American colonies.

Adams served two terms as vice president under George Washington from 1789 to 1797, then won the presidency in 1796 as a Federalist. His term, from 1797 to 1801, was dominated by the French Revolutionary Wars and his insistence on American neutrality. He faced fierce criticism from Jeffersonian Republicans and from some Federalists led by Alexander Hamilton. He signed the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts, built up the Army and Navy during an undeclared naval war with France, and became the first president to live in the White House.

After losing the 1800 election to his vice president and former friend Thomas Jefferson, Adams retired to Massachusetts. He later renewed his friendship with Jefferson through a continuing correspondence. A dedicated diarist, he also wrote regularly to contemporaries, including his wife and advisor Abigail Adams. Those habits of record and reflection help explain why his words still hold readers: they show a public man arguing with law, power, ambition, independence, friendship, and his own difficult temper in the first years of the American republic.