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John Adams
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.
Order:
2nd President
Term of Office:
March 4, 1797 - March 4, 1801
Followed:
George Washington
Succeeded by:
Thomas Jefferson
Date of Birth
October 30, 1735
Place of Birth:
Quincy, Massachusetts
Date of Death:
July 4, 1826
Place of Death:
Quincy, Massachusetts
First Lady :
Abigail Smith
Occupation:
lawyer
Political Party:
Federalist
Vice President:
Thomas Jefferson
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 constitutionality 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, 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.
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 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 t 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.
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.
In 1796, on the refusal of Washington to accept another election, Adams
was chosen president, defeating Thomas Jefferson; though Alexander Hamilton
and other Federalists had asked that an equal vote should be cast for Adams
and Thomas Pinckney , the other Federalist in the contest, partly in order
that Jefferson, who was elected vice-president, might be excluded altogether,
and partly, it seems, in the hope that Pinckney should in fact receive
more votes than Adams, and thus, in accordance with the system then obtaining,
be elected president, though he was intended for the second place on the
Federalist ticket.
Adams's four years as chief magistrate (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, 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 1797,
he recalled Congress and gave the XYZ
Affair speech relating to relations with France.
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. Jefferson died on the same day. 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.
AUTHORITIES.--C. F. Adams, The Works of John Adams, with Life
(10 vols., Boston, 1850-1856); John and Abigail Adams, Familiar Letters
during thc Revolution (Boston, 1875); J. T. Morse, John Adams (Boston,
1885: later edition, 1899), in the ``American Statesmen Series ; and Mellen
Chamberlain, John Adams, the Statesman of the Revolution; with other
Essays and Addresses (Boston, 1898). (E. CH.)
Supreme Court Appointments
Bushrod Washington - 1799
Alfred Moore - 1800
John Marshall - Chief Justice - 1801
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