John Adams Biography
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John Adams (October 30, 1735 - July 4, 1826) was the first (1789-1797)
Vice President of the United States, and the second (1797-1801)
President of the United States. His son, John Quincy Adams, was
the sixth President of the United States (1825-1829).
Biography
Adams was born on October 30, 1735 in what is now the town of
Quincy, Massachusetts. His father, a farmer, also named John,
was a fourth generation descendant of Henry Adams, who emigrated
from Devon, England, to Massachusetts about 1636; his mother was
Susanna Boylston Adams.
Young Adams graduated from Harvard College in 1755, and for a
time taught school at Worcester and studied law in the office
of Rufus Putnam. In 1758, he was admitted to the bar. From an
early age he developed the habit of writing descriptions of events
and impressions of men. The earliest of these is his report of
the argument of James Otis in the superior court of Massachusetts
as to the legality of Writs of Assistance. This was in 1761, and
the argument inspired him with zeal for the cause of the American
colonies. Years later, when he was an old man, Adams undertook
to write out, at length, his recollections of this scene; it is
instructive to compare the two accounts.
John Adams had none of the qualities of popular leadership which
were so marked a characteristic of his second cousin, Samuel Adams;
it was rather as a constitutional lawyer that he influenced the
course of events. He was impetuous, intense and often vehement,
could be mulishly stubborn, unflinchingly courageous, devoted
with his whole soul to the cause he had espoused; but his vanity,
his pride of opinion and his inborn contentiousness were serious
handicaps to him in his political career. These qualities were
particularly manifested at a later period—as, for example, during
his term as president.
Politics
He first made his influence widely felt and became conspicuous
as a leader of the Massachusetts Whigs during the discussions
with regard to the Stamp Act of 1765. In that year he drafted
the instructions which were sent by the town of Braintree to its
representatives in the Massachusetts legislature, and which served
as a model for other towns in drawing up instructions to their
representatives; in August, 1765 he anonymously contributed four
notable articles to the Boston Gazette (republished separately
in London in 1768 as A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law),
in which he argued that the opposition of the colonies to the
Stamp Act was a part of the never-ending struggle between individualism
and corporate authority; and in December, 1765 he delivered a
speech before the governor and council in which he pronounced
the Stamp Act invalid on the ground that Massachusetts being without
representation in parliament, had not assented to it.
In 1768 Adams moved to Boston. In 1770, two years later, with
that degree of moral courage which was one of his distinguishing
characteristics, he, aided by Josiah Quincy, Jr., defended the
British soldiers who were arrested after the "Boston Massacre,"
charged with causing the death of four persons, inhabitants of
the colony. The trial resulted in an acquittal of the officer
who commanded the detachment, and most of the soldiers; but two
soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter. These claimed benefit
of clergy and were branded in the hand and released. Adams's upright
and patriotic conduct in taking the unpopular side in this case
met with its just reward in the following year, in the shape of
his election to the Massachusetts House of Representatives by
a vote of 418 to 118.
John Adams was a member of the Continental Congress from 1774
to 1778. In June, 1775, with a view to promoting the union of
the colonies, he seconded the nomination of Washington as commander-in-chief
of the army. His influence in congress was great, and almost from
the beginning he was impatient for a separation of the colonies
from Great Britain. On 5 October 1775, Congress created the first
of a series of committees to study naval matters. From that time
onward throughout his career Adams championed the establishment
and strengthening of an American Navy. He was so active and effective
in forwarding the nation's naval interests that he is often called
the father of the United States Navy.
On June 7, 1776 he seconded the famous resolution introduced
by Richard Henry Lee that "these colonies are, and of a right
ought to be, free and independent states," and no man championed
these resolutions (adopted on July 2, 1776) so eloquently and
effectively before the congress. On June 8, 1776 he was appointed
on a committee with Jefferson, Franklin, Livingston and Sherman
to draft a Declaration of Independence; and although that document
was by the request of the committee written by Thomas Jefferson,
it was John Adams who occupied the foremost place in the debate
on its adoption. Before this question had been disposed of, Adams
was placed at the head of the Board of War and Ordinance, and
he also served on many other important committees.
Post-Continental Congress
In 1778 John Adams sailed for France to supersede Silas Deane
in the American commission there. But just as he embarked that
commission concluded the desired treaty of alliance, and soon
after his arrival he advised that the number of commissioners
be reduced to one. His advice was followed and he returned home
in time to be elected a member of the convention which framed
the Massachusetts constitution of 1780, still the organic law
of that commonwealth. With James Bowdoin and Samuel Adams, he
formed a sub-committee which drew up the first draft of that instrument,
and most of it probably came from John Adams's pen.
Before this work had been completed he was again sent to Europe,
having been chosen on September 27, 1779 as minister plenipotentiary
for negotiating a treaty of peace and a treaty of commerce with
Great Britain. Conditions were not then favourable for peace,
however; the French government, moreover, did not approve of the
choice, inasmuch as Adams was not sufficiently pliant and tractable
and was from the first suspicious of Vergennes; and subsequently
Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay and Henry Laurens
were appointed to co-operate with Adams. Jefferson, however, did
not cross the Atlantic, and Laurens took little part in the negotiations.
This left the management of the business to the other three. Jay
and Adams distrusted the good faith of the French government.
Outvoting Franklin, they decided to break their instructions,
which required them to "make the most candid confidential communications
on all subjects to the ministers of our generous ally, the king
of France; to undertake nothing in the negotiations for peace
or truce without their knowledge or concurrence; and ultimately
to govern yourself by their advice and opinion"; and, instead,
they dealt directly with the British commissioners, without consulting
the French ministers.
Throughout the negotiations Adams was especially determined that
the right of the United States to the fisheries along the British-American
coast should be recognized. Political conditions in Great Britain,
at the moment, made the conclusion of peace almost a necessity
with the British ministry, and eventually the American negotiators
were able to secure a peculiarly favourable treaty. This preliminary
treaty was signed on November 30, 1782. Before these negotiations
began, Adams had spent some time in the Netherlands. In July,
1780 he had been authorized to execute the duties previously assigned
to Henry Laurens, and at the Hague was eminently successful, securing
there recognition of the United States as an independent government
(April 19, 1782), and negotiating both a loan and, in October,
1782, a treaty of amity and commerce, the first of such treaties
between the United States and foreign powers after that of February,
1778 with France.
In 1785 John Adams was appointed the first of a long line of
able and distinguished American ministers to the court of St James's.
When he was presented to his former sovereign, George III, the
King intimated that he was aware of Mr Adams's lack of confidence
in the French government. Replying, Mr Adams admitted it, closing
with the outspoken sentiment: "I must avow to your Majesty that
I have no attachment but to my own country" -- a phrase which
must have jarred upon the monarch's sensibilities. While in London
Adams published a work entitled A Defence of the Constitution
of Government of the United States (1787). In this work he ably
combated the views of Turgot and other European writers as to
the viciousness of the framework of the state governments. Unfortunately,
in so doing, he used phrases savouring of aristocracy which offended
many of his countrymen -- as in the sentence in which he suggested
that "the rich, the well-born and the able" should be set apart
from other men in a senate.
Partly for this reason, while Washington had the vote of every
elector in the first presidential election of 1789, Adams received
only thirty-four out of sixty-nine. As this was the second largest
number he was declared vice-president, being inaugurated 9 days
before Washington himself (on April 21, 1789), but he served in
that office (1789- 1797) with a sense of grievance and of suspicion
of many of the leading men. Differences of opinion with regard
to the policies to be pursued by the new government gradually
led to the formation of two well-defined political groups -- the
Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans -- and Adams became
recognized as one of the leaders, second only to Alexander Hamilton,
of the former.
Presidency
In 1796, after Washington refused to seek another term, Adams
was elected president, defeating Thomas Jefferson. Although Alexander
Hamilton and other Federalists had asked that equal votes be cast
in the electoral college for Adams and Thomas Pinckney, the other
Federalist in the contest, at least in part so that Jefferson
would not become vice president, Jefferson in fact came in second
and attained that office. This marked the first time that the
President and Vice-President were members of opposing parties.
The only other time this would happen would be when Abraham Lincoln,
a Republican, nominated Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, for his Vice-President
in 1864.
Adams's four years as president (1797-1801) were marked by a
succession of intrigues which embittered all his later life; they
were marked, also, by events, such as the passage of the Alien
and Sedition Acts, which brought discredit on the Federalist party.
Moreover, factional strife broke out within the party itself;
Adams and Hamilton became alienated, and members of Adams's own
cabinet virtually looked to Hamilton rather than to the president
as their political chief. The United States was, at this time,
drawn into the vortex of European complications (see XYZ Affair),
and Adams, instead of taking advantage of the militant spirit
which was aroused, patriotically devoted himself to securing peace
with France, much against the wishes of Hamilton and of Hamilton's
adherents in the cabinet.
In 1800, Adams was again the Federalist candidate for the presidency,
but the distrust of him in his own party, the popular disapproval
of the Alien and Sedition Acts, and the popularity of his opponent,
Thomas Jefferson, combined to cause his defeat. He then retired
into private life. On July 4, 1826, on the fiftieth anniversary
of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, he died at
Quincy, after uttering the famous last words "Thomas Jefferson
still survives." (Unbeknownst to Adams, Thomas Jefferson had died
a few hours earlier). His crypt lies at United First Parish Church
(http://www.ufpc.org) (also known as the Church of the Presidents)
in Quincy. Until his record was broken by Ronald Reagan in 2001,
he was the nation's longest-living President (90 years, 247 days).Despite
this fact, Adams was a known hypochondriac. He constantly felt
he was coming down with some sort of illness. In 1764 Adams had
married Miss Abigail Smith (1744-1818), the daughter of a Congregational
minister at Weymouth, Massachusetts. She was a woman of much ability,
and her letters, written in an excellent English style, are of
great value to students of the period in which she lived. John
Quincy Adams, who later served as President and in the House of
Representatives, was their eldest son.
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