Adams, John (1735-1826), second president (1797-1801) and firstvice-president (1789-97) of the United States, and leader in themovement for independence. His presidency was marked by rivalrywith fellow-Federalist Alexander Hamilton, controversy overgovernment measures taken to curb political opposition, and acrisis in U.S. relations with France.Adams was born on October 30, 1735, in Braintree (now Quincy),Massachusetts, a town in which Adamses had lived since 1638. Hisfather had married into a wealthy Boston family, the Boylstons,and was thus able to send his son to Harvard College, from whichyoung Adams graduated in 1755. He then selected law and soonfound that in the courtroom his acquired erudition andintellectual precision overcame his natural timidity, and hebecame a powerful speaker and an adroit advocate. At the age of29 Adams married Abigail Smith, a woman who was clearly hisintellectual and psychological equal.The Coming of the RevolutionThe controversy that preceded the American Revolution catapultedAdams into a position of political leadership. His BraintreeInstructions (1765) was a powerful denunciation of the StampAct, and his oddly titled Dissertation on the Canon and FeudalLaw (1765) was a prescient analysis of the emotional andideological demands facing the colonists. Chosen as a lawyer forseveral British soldiers charged with the death of fivecolonists in the Boston Massacre (1770), Adams successfullydefended his clients by justifying their use of force out offear for their lives. In his essays Novanglus (1774-75), hedefended colonial resistance and argued that the British Empirewas in reality a league of nearly autonomous entities; thus, heanticipated 19th-century self-government of British overseaspossessions.In the First and Second Continental Congresses, Adams emerged asa powerful exponent of the historic rights of the English andthe natural rights of humankind. Along with his cousin SamuelAdams, he initiated (1775) the effort to secure the appointmentof George Washington as commander of the new Continental army.Adams served on the committee to draft the Declaration ofIndependence, but when Thomas Jefferson later claimed that Adamshad given him a free hand in composing it, Adams respondedindignantly that the document was "a theatrical show" in which"Jefferson ran away with the stage effect _ and all the glory ofit." Thus began a rivalry that continued for more than a decade.More clearly perhaps than any other leading patriot of his day,Adams expressed the fear that he and his fellow revolutionariesmight fail in summoning forth the virtue and objectivityrequired to avoid loss of nerve and internal factionalism. HisThoughts on Government (1776), in which he elaborated on thesewarnings, became a handbook on the writing of early stateconstitutions and particularly influenced the preparation ofthose documents in Virginia, North Carolina, and Massachusetts.Diplomatic Service and Vice-PresidencyIn 1778 Congress sent Adams and John Jay to join BenjaminFranklin as diplomatic representatives in Europe. Franklinremained the American envoy to France; Adams went to the DutchRepublic and had the responsibility for opening negotiationswith Britain; Jay traveled to Spain. In 1782 and 1783, the threemen together negotiated the Treaty of Paris, ending the 8-yearwar with Great Britain.In 1785 Adams was appointed diplomatic envoy to Great Britain, aposition he held until 1788. His duties in England caused him tomiss the Constitutional Convention and the ratifying debates. Hehad played a crucial role earlier, however, in drafting theMassachusetts Constitution of 1780. While in London he wrote thethree-volume Defence of the Constitutions of Government of theUnited States of America. This work rebutted a French critic ofAmerican politics and reiterated Adams's belief that only formalrestraints on the exercise of power and on the impulses of thepopulace could militate against human evil and societalweaknesses.Because he ran second to Washington in electoral-collegeballoting in both 1788 and 1792, Adams became the nation's firstvice-president. In that capacity, he limited himself topresiding over the Senate.The PresidencyIn 1796 Adams was chosen to succeed Washington as president,winning over Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Pinckney. The threat ofwar with France, along with the resulting passionate debate overforeign policy and the limits of dissent, dominated the politicsof his administration. The war scare was sparked by Americanindignation over French attempts to extort money from U.S.representatives in the so-called XYZ affair. A conflict aroseover the measures to be taken in preparation for possiblehostilities. Adams favored strengthening the navy and buildingcoastal fortifications, but an opposing group led by formersecretary of the treasury Alexander Hamilton persuaded Congressto create a large standing army, with Hamilton himself asinspector general. Because the possibility of a French invasionof the U.S. was remote, the clear implication of this policy wasthe creation of an army the size and strength of which couldintimidate opposition Republican voters.Alien and Sedition ActsThe Hamilton Federalists added substance to those fears bypushing through Congress laws restricting the rights andprivileges of aliens (presumed to be potential Republican votersor, worse yet, French radicals) and punishing as sedition theprinting of false attacks on the dignity or integrity of highgovernment officials. Adams found enough merit in these bills tosign them, and he acquiesced in 14 prosecutions under theSedition Act. The Alien Acts, however, he refused to enforce.One of Adams's most fateful decisions was to retain the cabinethe had inherited from Washington, several members of which werepersonally loyal to Hamilton. Together with Hamilton'ssupporters in Congress, they engineered the creation of the newarmy, which Hamilton in actuality controlled.Agreement with FranceAdams did, however, demonstrate the power of the presidency toconfront challenges to executive leadership. In February 1799,he appointed new peace commissioners to go to France and reopennegotiations. Adams's timing and judgment were acute; the Frenchforeign minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand had sent adistinct diplomatic signal that he wanted peace with the U.S.Thus, when the secretary of state Timothy Pickering, a Hamiltonfollower, tried to sabotage the peace mission, Adams fired him;the two nations quickly came to terms.The peace initiative enabled Adams to dismantle the new army,much to Hamilton's embarrassment. Adams's foreign policy,however, split the Federalist party on the eve of the 1800election and contributed significantly to the election of ThomasJefferson as well as to Republican victories in both houses ofCongress.RetirementAdams lived for a quarter century after he left the presidency,during which time he wrote extensively. His guiding principleswere embodied in a Whig philosophy to which he clung stubbornly.Ill-suited to adapt to the transition to 19th-century romanticculture, he was nevertheless a magnificent exponent of thepessimistic view of human society. He died in Quincy,Massachusetts, on July 4, 1826.Contributed by: Robert M. CalhoonBiographic entry: B1256, B1258"Adams, John," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1993Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1993 Funk & Wagnall'sCorporationJohn Adams entered Harvard in 1751. In 1758 he was admitted tothe bar. In 1774 he was a delegate to the First ContinentalCongress, and in 1775 he was also a delegate to the SecondContinental Congress, at which time he nominated GeorgeWashington as Commander in Chief. He signed the Declaration ofIndependence in 1776. Sailing to France in 1778, he signed theTreaty of Paris in 1783. In 1789 he was elected Vice-Presidentunder George Washington, and was re-elected to that office againin 1792. In 1796 he ran as a Federalist and was elected as the2nd President of the United States. His Vice-President wasThomas Jefferson. His inauguration took place on March 4, 1797at Federal Hall in Philadelphia. He lived to see his son, JohnQuincy Adams, elected as the 6th President of our nation in1825. It is an unusual coincidence that on July 4, 1826, theday John Adams died, Thomas Jefferson also died.per Ances of Pres 2nd US President.
