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John Adams (October 30, 1735 (O.S. October 19, 1735) - July 4, 1826) was the second president of the United States (1797 - 1801), having earlier served as the first vice president of the United States. An American Founding Father, he was a statesman, diplomat, and a leading advocate of American independence from Great Britain. Well educated, he was an Enlightenment political theorist who promoted republicanism and wrote prolifically about his often seminal ideas, both in published works and in letters to his wife and key adviser Abigail as well as to other Founding Fathers. Adams came to prominence in the early stages of the American Revolution. A lawyer and public figure in Boston, as a delegate from Massachusetts to the Continental Congress, he played a leading role in persuading Congress to declare independence. He assisted Thomas Jefferson in drafting the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and was its primary advocate in the Congress. Later, as a diplomat in Europe, he helped negotiate the eventual peace treaty with Great Britain, and was responsible for obtaining vital governmental loans from Amsterdam bankers. A political theorist and historian, Adams largely wrote the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780, which together with his earlier Thoughts on Government, influenced American political thought. One of his greatest roles was as a judge of character: in 1775, he nominated George Washington to be commander - in - chief, and 25 years later nominated John Marshall to be Chief Justice of the United States. Adams' revolutionary credentials secured him two terms as George Washington's vice president and his own election in 1796 as the second president. During his one term, he encountered ferocious attacks by the Jeffersonian Republicans, as well as the dominant faction in his own Federalist Party led by his bitter enemy Alexander Hamilton. Adams signed the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts, and built up the army and navy especially in the face of an undeclared naval war (called the "Quasi - War") with France, 1798 - 1800. The major accomplishment of his presidency was his peaceful resolution of the conflict in the face of Hamilton's opposition. In 1800, Adams was defeated for re-election by Thomas
Jefferson and retired to Massachusetts. He later resumed
his friendship with Jefferson. He and his wife, Abigail
Adams, founded an accomplished family line of politicians,
diplomats and historians now referred to as the Adams
political family. Adams was the father of John Quincy
Adams, the sixth President of the United States. His
achievements have received greater
recognition in modern times, though his
contributions were not initially as celebrated as those of
other Founders. Adams was the first U.S. president to
reside in the building that eventually became known as the
White House. John Adams, the eldest of three sons, was born on October 30, 1735 (October 19, 1735 Old Style, Julian calendar), in what is now Quincy, Massachusetts (then called the "north precinct" of Braintree, Massachusetts), to John Adams, Sr., and Susanna Boylston Adams. Adams's birthplace is now part of Adams National Historical Park. His father (1691 - 1761) was a fifth generation descendant of Henry Adams, who emigrated from Somerset in England to Massachusetts Bay Colony in about 1638. The elder Adams, the descendant of Puritans, continued in this religious tradition by serving as a Congregationalist deacon; he also farmed and served as a lieutenant in the militia. Further he served as a selectman, or town councilman, and supervised the building and planning of schools and roads. Adams commonly praised his father and indicated that he and his father were very close when he was a child. Susanna Boylston Adams was a member of one of the colony's leading medical families, the Boylstons of Brookline. Though raised in materially modest surroundings, Adams felt acutely that he had a responsibility to live up to his family heritage: he was a direct descendant of the founding generation of Puritans, who came to the American wilderness in the 1630s, established colonial presence in America, and had a profound effect on the culture, laws and traditions of their region. Journalist Richard Brookhiser, drawing on the relevant historiography, has written that these Puritan ancestors of Adams's "believed they lived in the Bible. England under the Stuarts was Egypt; they were Israel fleeing ... to establish a refuge for godliness, a city upon a hill." By the time of John Adams' birth in 1735, Puritan tenets such as predestination were no longer as widely accepted, and many of their stricter practices had mellowed with time, but John Adams "considered them bearers of freedom, a cause that still had a holy urgency." It was a value system he believed in, and a heroic model he wished to live up to. Young Adams went to Harvard College at age sixteen in 1751. His father expected him to become a minister, but Adams had doubts. After graduating in 1755 with an A.B., he taught school for a few years in Worcester, allowing himself time to think about his career choice. After much reflection, he decided to become a lawyer, writing his father that he found among lawyers noble and gallant achievements" but among the clergy, the "pretended sanctity of some absolute dunces." He later became a Unitarian, and dropped belief in predestination, eternal damnation, the divinity of Christ and most other Calvinist beliefs of his Puritan ancestors. Adams then studied law in the office of John Putnam, the leading lawyer in Worcester. In 1758, after earning an A.M. from Harvard, Adams was admitted to the bar. From an early age, he developed the habit of writing descriptions of events and impressions of men which are scattered through his diary. He put the skill to good use as a lawyer, often recording cases he observed so that he could study and reflect upon them. His report of the 1761 argument of James Otis in the Massachusetts Superior Court as to the legality of Writs of Assistance is a good example. Otis's argument inspired Adams with zeal for the cause of the American colonies. On October 25, 1764, five days before his 29th birthday, Adams married Abigail Smith (1744 - 1818), his third cousin and the daughter of a Congregational minister, Rev. William Smith, at Weymouth, Massachusetts. Their children were Abigail (1765 - 1813); future president John Quincy (1767 - 1848); Susanna (1768 - 1770); Charles (1770 - 1800); Thomas Boylston (1772 - 1832); and Elizabeth (1777). Adams was not a popular leader like his second cousin,
Samuel Adams. Instead, his influence emerged through his
work as a constitutional lawyer and his intense analysis
of historical examples, together with his
thorough knowledge of the law and his dedication to the
principles of republicanism. Adams often found his inborn
contentiousness to be a constraint in his political
career. Adams first rose to prominence as an opponent of the Stamp Act 1765, which was imposed by the British Parliament without consulting the American legislatures. Americans protested vehemently that it violated their traditional rights as Englishmen. Popular resistance, he later observed, was sparked by an oft-reprinted sermon of the Boston minister, Jonathan Mayhew, interpreting Romans 13 to elucidate the principle of just insurrection. In 1765, Adams drafted the instructions which were sent by the inhabitants of Braintree to its representatives in the Massachusetts legislature, and which served as a model for other towns to draw up instructions to their representatives. In August 1765, he anonymously contributed four notable articles to the Boston Gazette (republished in The London Chronicle in 1768 as True Sentiments of America, also known as A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law). In the letter he suggested that there was a connection between the Protestant ideas that Adams' Puritan ancestors brought to New England and the ideas behind their resistance to the Stamp Act. In the former he explained that the opposition of the colonies to the Stamp Act was because the Stamp Act deprived the American colonists of two basic rights guaranteed to all Englishmen, and which all free men deserved: rights to be taxed only by consent and to be tried only by a jury of one's peers. The "Braintree Instructions" were a succinct and forthright defense of colonial rights and liberties, while the Dissertation was an essay in political education. 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 1770, a street confrontation resulted in British soldiers killing five civilians in what became known as the Boston Massacre. The soldiers involved were arrested on criminal charges. Not surprisingly, they had trouble finding legal counsel to represent them. Finally, they asked Adams to defend. He accepted, though he feared it would hurt his reputation. In their defense, Adams made his now famous quote regarding making decisions based on the evidence: "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." He also offered a now famous, detailed defense of Blackstone's Ratio:
Six of the soldiers were acquitted. Two who had fired directly into the crowd were charged with murder but were convicted only of manslaughter. Adams was paid eighteen guineas by the British soldiers, or about the cost of a pair of shoes. Despite his previous misgivings, Adams was elected to the Massachusetts General Court (the colonial legislature) in June 1770, while still in preparation for the trial. In
1772, Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson announced
that he and his judges would no longer need their salaries
paid by the Massachusetts legislature, because the Crown
would henceforth assume payment drawn from customs
revenues. Boston radicals protested and asked Adams to
explain their objections. In "Two Replies of the
Massachusetts House of Representatives to Governor
Hutchinson" Adams argued that the colonists had never been
under the sovereignty of Parliament. Their original
charter was with the person of the king and their
allegiance was only to him. If a workable line could not
be drawn between parliamentary sovereignty and the total
independence of the colonies, he continued, the colonies
would have no other choice but to choose independence. In Novanglus; or, A History of the Dispute with America, From Its Origin, in 1754, to the Present Time Adams attacked some essays by Daniel Leonard that defended Hutchinson's arguments for the absolute authority of Parliament over the colonies. In Novanglus Adams gave a point - by - point refutation of Leonard's essays, and then provided one of the most extensive and learned arguments made by the colonists against British imperial policy. It was a systematic attempt by Adams to describe the
origins, nature and jurisdiction of the unwritten British
constitution. Adams used his wide knowledge of English and
colonial legal history to argue that the provincial
legislatures were fully sovereign over their own internal
affairs and that the colonies were connected to Great
Britain only through the King. Massachusetts sent Adams to the first and second Continental Congresses in 1774 and from 1775 to 1777. In June 1775, with a view of promoting union among the colonies, he nominated George Washington of Virginia as commander - in - chief of the army then assembled around Boston. His influence in Congress was great, and almost from the beginning, he sought permanent separation from Britain. Over the next decade, Americans from every state gathered
and deliberated on new governing documents. As radical as
it was to write constitutions (prior tradition suggested
that a society's form of government need not be codified,
nor its organic law written down in a single document),
what was equally radical was the revolutionary nature of
American political thought as the summer of 1776 dawned. Several representatives turned to Adams for advice about framing new governments. To relieve Adams of the burden of repeatedly writing out his thoughts, Richard Henry Lee published one Adams' version, as the pamphlet "Thoughts on Government" (April 1776), which was subsequently influential in the writing of state constitutions. Using the conceptual framework of Republicanism in the United States, the patriots believed it was the corrupt and nefarious aristocrats, in the British Parliament, and their minions stationed in America, who were guilty of the British assault on American liberty. Adams advised that the form of government should be chosen to attain the desired ends, which are the happiness and virtue of the greatest number of people. With this goal in mind, he wrote in "Thoughts on Government",
The treatise also defended bicameralism, for "a single assembly is liable to all the vices, follies, and frailties of an individual." He also suggested that there should be a separation of powers between the executive, the judicial and the legislative branches, and further recommended that if a continental government were to be formed then it "should sacredly be confined" to certain enumerated powers. "Thoughts on Government" was enormously influential and was referenced as an authority in every state - constitution writing hall. On May 10, 1776 Adams seconded Richard Henry Lee's
resolution calling on the colonies to adopt new
(presumably independent) governments. Adams then drafted a
preamble to this resolution which elaborated on it, and
which congress approved on May 15. The full document was,
as Adams put it, "independence itself"
and set the stage for the formal passage of the Declaration of Independence.
Once the combined document passed in May, independence
became inevitable, though it still had to be declared
formally. On June 7, 1776, Adams seconded the resolution of independence
introduced by Richard Henry Lee which stated, "These
colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and
independent states," and championed the resolution until
it was adopted by Congress on July 2, 1776. He was appointed to a committee with Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston and Roger Sherman, to draft the Declaration of Independence, which was to be ready when congress voted on independence. Because the committee left no minutes, there is some uncertainty about how the drafting process proceeded accounts written many years later by Jefferson and Adams, although frequently cited, are contradictory and not entirely reliable. What is certain is that the committee, after discussing the general outline that the document should follow, decided that Jefferson would write the first draft. The committee in general, and Jefferson in particular, thought Adams should write the document, but Adams persuaded the committee to choose Jefferson and promised to consult with Jefferson personally. Although the first draft was written primarily by Jefferson, Adams continued to occupy the foremost place in the debate on its adoption. After editing the document further, congress approved it on July 4. Many years later, Jefferson hailed Adams as "the pillar of [the Declaration's] support on the floor of Congress, its ablest advocate and defender against the multifarious assaults it encountered." After the defeat of the Continental Army at the Battle of Long Island on August 27, 1776, Admiral Richard, Lord Howe requested the Second Continental Congress send representatives in an attempt to negotiate peace. A delegation including Adams and Benjamin Franklin met with Howe on Staten Island on September 11. Both Howe's authority and that of the delegation were limited, and they were unable to find common ground. When Lord Howe unhappily stated he could only view the American delegates as British subjects, Adams replied, "Your lordship may consider me in what light you please, [...] except that of a British subject." Lord Howe then addressed the other delegates, stating, "Mr. Adams appears to be a decided character." Adams learned many years later that his name was on a list of people specifically excluded from Howe's pardon - granting authority. In 1777, Adams began serving as the head of the Board of War and Ordnance, as well as serving on many other important committees. In this capacity, he became a "one man war department" working eighteen hour days and mastering the details of raising, equipping and fielding an army under civilian control. He also authored the "Plan of Treaties," laying out the Congress' requirements for the crucial treaty with France. Congress
twice dispatched Adams to represent the fledgling union in
Europe, first in 1777, and again in 1779. He was
accompanied, on both occasions, by his eldest son, John
Quincy (who was ten years old at the time of the first
voyage). Adams sailed for France aboard the Continental Navy frigate Boston on February 15, 1778. The trip through winter storms was treacherous, with lightning injuring 19 sailors and killing one. Adams' ship was then pursued by but successfully evaded several British frigates in the mid - Atlantic. Toward the coast of Spain, Adams himself took up arms to help capture a heavily armed British merchantman ship, the Martha. Later, a cannon malfunction killed one and injured five more of Adams' crew before the ship finally arrived in France. Adams was in some regards an unlikely choice inasmuch as he did not speak French, the international language of diplomacy at the time. His first stay in Europe, between April 1, 1778, and June 17, 1779, was largely unproductive, and he returned to his home in Braintree in early August 1779. Between September 1 and October 30, 1779, he drafted the Massachusetts Constitution together with Samuel Adams and James Bowdoin. He was selected in September 1779 to return to France and, following the conclusion of the Massachusetts constitutional convention, left on November 14 aboard the French frigate Sensible. On the second trip to Paris, Adams was appointed as Minister Plenipotentiary charged with the mission of negotiating a treaty of peace, amity and commerce with peace commissioners from Britain. The French government, however, did not approve of Adams' appointment and subsequently, on the insistence of the French foreign minister, the Comte de Vergennes, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay and Henry Laurens were appointed to cooperate with Adams, although Jefferson did not go to Europe and Laurens was posted to the Dutch Republic. In the event Jay, Adams and Franklin played the major part in the negotiations. Overruling Franklin and distrustful of Vergennes, Jay and Adams decided not to consult with France. Instead, they dealt directly with the British commissioners. Throughout the negotiations, Adams was especially
determined that the right of the United States to the
fisheries along the Atlantic coast should be recognized.
The American negotiators were able to secure a favorable
treaty, which gave Americans ownership of all lands east
of the Mississippi, except East and West Florida, which
were transferred to Spain. The treaty was signed on
November 30, 1782. After the peace negotiations began, Adams had spent some time as the ambassador in the Dutch Republic, then one of the few other Republics in the world (the Republic of Venice and the Old Swiss Confederacy being the other notable ones). In July 1780, he had been authorized to execute the duties previously assigned to Laurens. With the aid of the Dutch Patriot leader Joan van der Capellen tot den Pol, Adams secured the recognition of the United States as an independent government at The Hague on April 19, 1782. During this visit, he also negotiated a loan of five million guilders financed by Nicolaas van Staphorst and Wilhelm Willink. In October 1782, he negotiated with the Dutch a treaty of amity and commerce, the first such treaty between the United States and a foreign power following the 1778 treaty with France. The house that Adams bought during this stay in The Netherlands became the first American owned embassy on foreign soil anywhere in the world. For two months during 1783, Adams lodged in London with radical publisher John Stockdale. In 1784 and 1785, he was one of the architects of far
going trade relations between the United States and
Prussia. The Prussian ambassador in The Hague, Friedrich
Wilhelm von Thulemeyer, was involved, as were Jefferson
and Franklin, who were in Paris. In 1785, John Adams was appointed the first American minister to the Court of St. James's (ambassador to Great Britain). In his diary he mentions an exchange between himself and another ambassador who asked if he had often been in England and if he had English relations to which Adams explained he had only been to England once for a two month visit back in 1783 and that he had no relations in the country. The ambassador asked "None, how can that be? you are of English extraction?" to which Adams replied "Neither my father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, great grandfather or great grandmother, nor any other relation that I know of, or care a farthing for, has been in England these one hundred and fifty years; so that you see I have not one drop of blood in my veins but what is American". When he was presented to his former sovereign, George III, the King intimated that he was aware of Adams' lack of confidence in the French government. Adams admitted this, stating: "I must avow to your Majesty that I have no attachment but to my own country." Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom referred to this episode on July 7, 1976, at the White House. She said:
While in London, John and Abigail had to suffer the stares and hostility of the Court, and chose to escape it when they could by seeking out Richard Price, minister of Newington Green Unitarian Church and instigator of the Revolution Controversy. Both admired Price very much, and Abigail took to heart the teachings of the man and his protegee Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Adams' home in England, a house off London's Grosvenor Square, still stands and is commemorated by a plaque. He returned to the United States in 1788 to continue his domestic political life. Massachusetts's new
constitution, ratified in 1780 and written
largely by Adams himself, structured its government most
closely on his views of politics and society. It was the
first constitution written by a special committee and
ratified by the people. It was also the first to feature a
bicameral legislature, a clear and distinct executive with
a partial (two - thirds) veto (although he was restrained
by an executive council), and a distinct judicial branch. While in London, Adams published a work entitled A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States (1787). In it he repudiated the views of Turgot and other European writers as to the viciousness of the framework of state governments. Turgot argued that countries that lacked aristocracies needn't have bicameral legislatures. He thought that republican governments feature "all authorities into one center, that of the nation." In the book, Adams suggested that "the rich, the well-born and the able" should be set apart from other men in a senate that would prevent them from dominating the lower house. Wood (2006) has maintained that Adams had become intellectually irrelevant by the time the Federal Constitution was ratified. By then, American political thought, transformed by more than a decade of vigorous and searching debate as well as shaping experiential pressures, had abandoned the classical conception of politics which understood government as a mirror of social estates. Americans' new conception of popular sovereignty now saw the people - at - large as the sole possessors of power in the realm. All agents of the government enjoyed mere portions of the people's power and only for a limited time. Adams had completely missed this concept and revealed his continued attachment to the older version of politics. Yet Wood overlooks Adams' peculiar definition of the term "republic," and his support for a constitution ratified by the people. He also underplays Adams' belief in checks and balances. "Power must be opposed to power, and interest to interest," Adams wrote; this sentiment would later be echoed by James Madison's famous statement that "[a]mbition must be made to counteract ambition" in The Federalist No. 51, in explaining the powers of the branches of the United States federal government under the new Constitution. Adams did as much as anyone to put the idea of "checks and balances" on the intellectual map. Adams' Defence can be read as an articulation of the classical republican theory of mixed government. Adams contended that social classes exist in every political society, and that a good government must accept that reality. For centuries, dating back to Aristotle, a mixed regime balancing monarchy, aristocracy and democracy that is, the king, the nobles and the people was required to preserve order and liberty. Adams never bought a slave and declined on principle to
employ slave labor.
Abigail Adams opposed slavery and employed free blacks in
preference to her father's two domestic slaves. John Adams
spoke out in 1777 against a bill to emancipate slaves in
Massachusetts, saying that the issue was presently too
divisive, and so the legislation should "sleep for a
time." He also was against use of black soldiers in the
Revolution, due to opposition from southerners. Adams
generally tried to keep the issue out of national
politics, because of the anticipated southern response.
Though it is difficult to pinpoint the exact date on which
slavery was abolished in Massachusetts, a common view is
that it was abolished no later than 1780, when it was
forbidden by implication in the Declaration of Rights that
John Adams wrote into the Massachusetts Constitution. While Washington won the presidential election of 1789 with 69 votes in the electoral college, Adams came in second with 34 votes and became Vice President. According to David McCullough, what he really might have wanted was to be the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He presided over the Senate but otherwise played a minor role in the politics of the early 1790s; he was reelected Vice President in 1792. Washington seldom asked Adams for input on policy and legal issues during his tenure as vice president. At the start of Washington's administration, Adams became deeply involved in a month long Senate controversy over the official title of the President. Adams favored grandiose titles such as "His Majesty the President" or "His High Mightiness, the President of the United States and Protector of Their Liberties." The plain "President of the United States" eventually won the debate. The perceived pomposity of his stance, along with his being overweight, led to Adams earning the nickname "His Rotundity." As president of the Senate, Adams cast 29 tie breaking votes a record that only John C. Calhoun came close to tying, with 28. His votes protected the president's sole authority over the removal of appointees and influenced the location of the national capital. On at least one occasion, he persuaded senators to vote against legislation that he opposed, and he frequently lectured the Senate on procedural and policy matters. Adams' political views and his active role in the Senate made him a natural target for critics of the Washington administration. Toward the end of his first term, as a result of a threatened resolution that would have silenced him except for procedural and policy matters, he began to exercise more restraint. When the two political parties formed, he joined the Federalist Party, but never got on well with its dominant leader Alexander Hamilton. Because of Adams' seniority and the need for a northern president, he was elected as the Federalist nominee for president in 1796, over Thomas Jefferson, the leader of the opposition Democratic - Republican Party. His success was due to peace and prosperity; Washington and Hamilton had averted war with Britain with the Jay Treaty of 1795. Adams' two terms as Vice President were frustrating
experiences for a man of his vigor, intellect and vanity.
He complained to his wife Abigail, "My country has in its
wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that
ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination
conceived." The 1796 election was the first contested election under the First Party System. Adams was the presidential candidate of the Federalist Party and Thomas Pinckney, the Governor of South Carolina, was also running as a Federalist (at this point, the vice president was whoever came in second, so no running mates existed in the modern sense). The Federalists wanted Adams as their presidential candidate to crush Thomas Jefferson's bid. Most Federalists would have preferred Hamilton to be a candidate. Although Hamilton and his followers supported Adams, they also held a grudge against him. They did consider him to be the lesser of the two evils. However, they thought Adams lacked the seriousness and popularity that had caused Washington to be successful and feared that Adams was too vain, opinionated, unpredictable and stubborn to follow their directions. Adams' opponents were former Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, who was joined by Senator Aaron Burr of New York on the Democratic - Republican ticket. As was customary, Adams stayed in his home town of Quincy rather than actively campaign for the Presidency. He wanted to stay out of what he called the silly and wicked game. His party, however, campaigned for him, while the Democratic - Republicans campaigned for Jefferson. It was expected that Adams would dominate the votes in
New England, while Jefferson was expected to win in the
Southern states. In the end, Adams won the election by a
narrow margin of 71 electoral votes to 68 for Jefferson
(who became the vice president). As President, Adams followed Washington's lead in making the presidency the example of republican values and stressing civic virtue; he was never implicated in any scandal. Adams continued not just the Washington cabinet but all the major programs of the Washington Administration as well. Adams continued to strengthen the central government, in particular by expanding the navy and army. His economic programs were a continuation of those of Hamilton, who regularly consulted with key cabinet members, especially the powerful Secretary of the Treasury, Oliver Wolcott, Jr. Historians debate his decision to keep the Washington cabinet. Though they were very close to Hamilton, their retention ensured a smoother succession. He remained quite independent of his cabinet throughout his term, often making decisions despite strong opposition from it. It was out of this management style that he avoided war with France, despite a strong desire among his cabinet secretaries for war. The Quasi - War with France resulted in the disentanglement with European affairs that Washington had sought. It also, like other conflicts, had enormous psychological benefits, as America saw itself as holding its own against a European power. Historian George Herring argues that Adams was the most
independent - minded of all the founders.
Though he aligned with the Federalists, he was more his
own party, disagreeing with the Federalists almost as much
as he did the Democratic -
Republican opposition. Though often described as
"prickly", his independence meant that he had a talent for
making good decisions in the face of almost universal
hostility. Indeed, it was Adams' decision to push for
peace with France, rather than to continue hostilities,
that hurt his popularity. Though this
decision played an important role in his reelection
defeat, he was ultimately thrilled with that decision, so
much so that he had it engraved on his tombstone.
Adams spent much of his term at his home in Massachusetts,
ignoring the details of political patronage that were not
ignored by others. Adams' combative spirit did not always
lend itself to presidential decorum, as Adams himself
admitted in his old age: "[As president] I refused to
suffer in silence. I sighed, sobbed, and groaned, and
sometimes screeched and screamed. And I must confess to my
shame and sorrow that I sometimes swore." John Adams said, in a letter to James Lloyd, January 1815, of peace: "I desire no other inscription over my gravestone than: Here lies John Adams, who took upon himself the responsibility of the peace with France in the year 1800." Adams' term was marked by intense disputes over foreign
policy, in particular a desire to stay out of the
expanding conflict in Europe. Britain and France were at
war; Hamilton and the Federalists favored Britain, while
Jefferson and the Democratic - Republicans favored France.
The French wanted Jefferson to be elected president, and
when he wasn't, they became even more belligerent.
When Adams entered office,
he realized that he needed to continue Washington's policy
of staying out of the European war. Indeed, the intense
battle over the Jay Treaty in 1795 permanently polarized
politics up and down the nation, marking the start of the
First Party System.
The French saw America as Britain's junior partner and
began seizing American merchant ships that were trading
with the British. Americans remained pro-French, due to
France's assistance during the Revolutionary War. Because
of this, Americans wouldn't rally behind Adams, nor anyone
else, to stop France. That problem ended with the XYZ Affair, in which the French demanded huge bribes before any discussions could begin. Before this event, Americans mostly supported France, but after the event, most opposed France. The Jeffersonians, who were friends to France, were embarrassed and quickly became the minority as Americans began to demand full scale war. Adams and his advisers knew that America would be unable to win such a conflict, as France at the time was successfully fighting much of Europe. Instead, Adams pursued a strategy whereby American ships would harass French ships in an effort to stop the French assaults on American interests. This was the undeclared naval war between the U.S. and France, called the Quasi - War, which broke out in 1798. There was danger of invasion from the much larger and more powerful French forces, so Adams and the Federalist congress built up the army, bringing back Washington at its head. Washington wanted Hamilton to be his second - in - command and, given Washington's fame, Adams reluctantly gave in. Given Washington's age, as everyone knew, Hamilton was truly in charge. Adams rebuilt the Navy, adding six fast, powerful frigates, most notably the USS Constitution. To pay for the new Army and Navy, Congress imposed new taxes on property: the Direct Tax of 1798. It was the first (and last) such federal tax. Taxpayers were angry, nowhere more so than in southeast Pennsylvania, where the bloodless Fries's Rebellion broke out among rural German speaking farmers who protested what they saw as a threat to their republican liberties and to their churches. Hamilton assumed a high degree of control over the War department, and the rift between Adams and Hamilton's supporters grew wider. They acted as though Hamilton were president by demanding that he control the army. They also refused to recognize the necessity of giving prominent Democratic - Republicans positions in the army, which Adams wanted to do in order to gain Democratic - Republican support. By building a large standing army, Hamilton's supporters raised popular alarms and played into the hands of the Democratic - Republicans. They also alienated Adams and his large personal following. They shortsightedly viewed the Federalist party as their own tool and ignored the need to pull together the entire nation in the face of war with France. Overall, however, due to patriotism and a series of naval victories, the war remained popular and Adams' popularity remained high. Adams knew victory in an all out war against imperial France would be impossible, so despite the threats to his popularity, he sought peace. In February 1799, he stunned the country by sending diplomat William Vans Murray on a peace mission to France. Napoleon, realizing that the conflict was pointless, signaled his readiness for friendly relations. At the Convention of 1800 the Treaty of Alliance of 1778 was superseded and the United States could now be free of foreign entanglements, as Washington advised in his farewell address. He brought in John Marshall as Secretary of State and demobilized the emergency army. Adams avoided war, but deeply split his own party in the process. As he suspected would happen, peace hurt his popularity. Nevertheless, Adams was extremely proud of having kept the nation out of war; later in life he even asked that his tombstone read "Here lies John Adams, who took upon himself the responsibility of Peace with France in the year 1800." Though
the Democratic - Republicans were discredited by the XYZ
Affair, their opposition to the Federalists remained high.
In an environment of war, and with recent memories of the
reign of terror during
the French Revolution, nerves remained explosive.
Democratic - Republicans had supported France, and some
even seemed to want an event similar to the French
Revolution to come to America to overthrow the
Federalists. When Democratic - Republicans in some states
refused to enforce federal laws, and even threatened
possible rebellion, some Federalists threatened to send in
an army and force them to capitulate.
As the paranoia sweeping Europe was bleeding over into
America, calls for secession reached unparalleled heights,
and America seemed ready to rip itself apart. Some of this
was seen by Federalists as having been caused by French
and French sympathizing immigrants. Federalists in
Congress therefore passed the Alien and Sedition Acts,
which were signed by Adams in 1798. There were four separate acts, the Naturalization Act, the Alien Act, the Alien Enemies Act and the Sedition Act. These four acts were passed to cool down the opposition by stopping their most extreme firebrands. The Naturalization Act changed the period of residence required before an immigrant could attain American citizenship to 14 years (naturalized citizens tended to vote for the Democratic - Republicans). The Alien Friends Act and the Alien Enemies Act allowed the president to deport any foreigner he thought dangerous to the country. The Sedition Act made it a crime to publish "false, scandalous and malicious writing" against the government or its officials. Punishments included 2-5 years in prison and fines of up to $5,000. Although Adams had not originated or promoted any of these acts, he nevertheless signed them into law. Those acts, and the high profile prosecution of a number
of newspaper editors and one member of Congress by the
Federalists, became highly controversial. Some historians
have noted that the Alien and Sedition Acts were
relatively rarely enforced, as only 10 convictions under
the Sedition Act have been identified and as Adams never
signed a deportation order, and that the furor over the
Alien and Sedition Acts was mainly stirred up by the
Democratic - Republicans. However, other historians
emphasize that the Acts were highly controversial from the
outset, resulting in many aliens leaving the country
voluntarily, and created an atmosphere where opposing the
Federalists, even on the floor of Congress, could and did
result in prosecution. The election of 1800 became a
bitter and volatile battle, with each side expressing
extraordinary fear of the other party and its policies.
After Democratic - Republicans won in 1800, they used the
acts against Federalists before the acts finally expired. The death of Washington, in 1799, weakened the Federalists, as they lost the one man who symbolized and united the party. In the presidential election of 1800, Adams and his fellow Federalist candidate, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, went against the Republican duo of Jefferson and Burr. Hamilton tried his hardest to sabotage Adams' campaign in the hope of boosting Pinckney's chances of winning the presidency. In the end, Adams lost narrowly to Jefferson by 65 to 73 electoral votes, with New York casting the decisive vote. Adams was defeated because of better organization by the Republicans and Federalist disunity; by the controversy of the Alien and Sedition Acts, the popularity of Jefferson in the south, and the effective politicking of Aaron Burr in New York State, where the legislature (which selected the electoral college) shifted from Federalist to Democratic - Republican on the basis of a few wards in New York City controlled by Burr's machine. Ultimately, however, Jefferson owed his election victory to the South's inflated number of Electors, which counted slaves under the three - fifths compromise. In the closing months of his term Adams became the first president to occupy the new, but unfinished President's Mansion (later known as the White House), beginning November 1, 1800. One of Adams' greatest legacies was his naming of John Marshall as the fourth Chief Justice of the United States to succeed Oliver Ellsworth, who had retired due to ill health. Marshall's long tenure represents the most lasting influence of the Federalists, as Marshall infused the Constitution with a judicious and carefully reasoned nationalistic interpretation and established the Judicial Branch as the equal of the Executive and Legislative branches. The
lame - duck session of Congress enacted the Judiciary Act
of 1801, which created a set of federal appeals courts
between the district courts and the Supreme Court. The
purpose of the statute was twofold first, to remedy the
defects in the federal judicial system inherent in the
Judiciary Act of 1789, and, second, to enable the defeated
Federalists to staff the new judicial offices with loyal
Federalists in the face of the party's defeat in
presidential and congressional elections in 1800. As his
term was expiring, Adams filled the vacancies created by
this statute by appointing a series of judges, whom his
opponents called the "Midnight
Judges" because most of them were formally
appointed days before the presidential term expired. Most
of these judges lost their posts when the Jeffersonian
Republicans enacted the Judiciary Act of 1802, abolishing
the courts created by the Judiciary Act of 1801 and
returning the structure of the federal courts to its
original structure as specified in the 1789 statute. Following his 1800 defeat, Adams retired into private life. Depressed when he left office, he did not attend Jefferson's inauguration, making him one of only four surviving presidents (i.e., those who did not die in office) not to attend his successor's inauguration. Interestingly, one of the other three was his son, John Quincy Adams. Adams' correspondence with Jefferson at the time of the transition suggests that he did not feel the animosity or resentment that later scholars have attributed to him. He left Washington before Jefferson's inauguration as much out of sorrow at the death of his son Charles Adams (due in part to the younger man's alcoholism) and his desire to rejoin his wife Abigail, who had left for Massachusetts months before the inauguration. Adams resumed farming at his home, Peacefield, in the town of Quincy (formerly a part of the town of Braintree, as it was earlier in his life). He began to work on an autobiography (which he never finished), and resumed correspondence with such old friends as Benjamin Waterhouse and Benjamin Rush. He also began a bitter and resentful correspondence with an old family friend, Mercy Otis Warren, protesting how in her 1805 history of the American Revolution she had, in his view, caricatured his political beliefs and misrepresented his services to the country. Primarily, this revolved around a dispute about whether Adams was sufficiently republican in Warren's view, instead of monarchical, and was related to the Federalist / Republican political divide. After Jefferson's retirement from public life in 1809 after two terms as President, Adams became more vocal. For three years he published a stream of letters in the Boston Patriot newspaper, presenting a long and almost line - by - line refutation of an 1800 pamphlet by Hamilton attacking his conduct and character. Though Hamilton had died in 1804 from a mortal wound sustained in his notorious duel with Aaron Burr, Adams felt the need to vindicate his character against the New Yorker's vehement attacks. In
early 1812, Adams reconciled with Jefferson. Their mutual
friend Benjamin Rush, a fellow signer of the Declaration
of Independence who had been corresponding with both,
encouraged each man to reach out to the other. On New
Year's Day 1812, Adams sent a brief, friendly note to
Jefferson to accompany the delivery of "two pieces of
homespun," a two volume collection of lectures on rhetoric
by John Quincy Adams. Jefferson replied immediately with a
warm, friendly letter, and the two men revived their
friendship, which they conducted by mail. The
correspondence that they resumed in 1812 lasted the rest
of their lives, and thereafter has been hailed as one of
their greatest legacies and a monument of American
literature. Sixteen months before John Adams' death, his son, John Quincy Adams, became the sixth President of the United States (1825 - 1829), the only son of a former President to hold the office until George W. Bush in 2001. Adams' daughter Abigail
("Nabby") was married to Representative William
Stephens Smith, but she returned to her parents' home
after the failure of her marriage. She died of breast
cancer in 1813. His son Charles
died as an alcoholic in 1800. Abigail, his wife, died of typhoid on October 28, 1818.
His son Thomas and his family lived with Adams and Louisa
Smith (Abigail's niece by her brother William) to the end
of Adams' life. Less than a month before his death, John Adams issued a statement about the destiny of the United States, which historians such as Joy Hakim have characterized as a "warning" for his fellow citizens. Adams said:
On July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, Adams died at his home in Quincy. Told that it was the Fourth, he answered clearly, "It is a great day. It is a good day." His last words have been reported as "Thomas Jefferson survives" (Jefferson himself, however, had died hours before he did). His death left Charles Carroll of Carrollton as the last surviving signatory of the Declaration of Independence. John Adams died while his son John Quincy Adams was president. His crypt lies at United First
Parish Church (also known as the Church of
the Presidents) in Quincy. Originally, he was buried
in Hancock Cemetery, across the road from the Church.
Until his record was broken by Ronald Reagan in 2001, he
was the nation's longest living President (90 years, 247
days) maintaining that record for 175 years. Throughout his lifetime Adams expressed controversial and shifting views regarding the virtues of monarchical and hereditary political institutions. At times he conveyed substantial support for these approaches, suggesting for example that "hereditary monarchy or aristocracy" are the "only institutions that can possibly preserve the laws and liberties of the people." Yet at other times he distanced himself from such ideas, calling himself "a mortal and irreconcilable enemy to Monarchy" and "no friend to hereditary limited monarchy in America." Such denials did not assuage his critics, and Adams was "dogged" throughout his career with accusations of being a Monarchist. Many of these attacks are considered to have been scurrilous, including suggestions that he was planning to "crown himself king" and "grooming John Quincy as heir to the throne". However, Peter Shaw has argued that:
In apparent contradiction to such notions, Adams claimed in a letter to Thomas Jefferson:
Adams was raised a Congregationalist, since his ancestors were Puritans. According to his biographer David McCullough, "as his family and friends knew, Adams was both a devout Christian, and an independent thinker". In a letter to Benjamin Rush, Adams credited religion with the success of his ancestors since their migration to the New World in the 1630s. Adams was educated at Harvard when the influence of deism was growing there, and sometimes used deistic terms in his speeches and writing. He also believed that regular church service was beneficial to man's moral sense. Everett (1966) concludes that "Adams strove for a religion based on a common sense sort of reasonableness" and maintained that religion must change and evolve toward perfection. Fielding (1940) argues that Adams' beliefs synthesized Puritan, deist, and humanist concepts. Adams at one point said that Christianity had originally been revelatory, but was being misinterpreted and misused in the service of superstition, fraud, and unscrupulous power. Goff (1993) acknowledges Fielding's "persuasive argument that Adams never was a deist because he allowed the suspension of the laws of nature and believed that evil was internal, not the result of external institutions." Frazer (2004) notes that, while Adams shared many
perspectives with deists, "Adams clearly was not a deist.
Deism rejected any and all supernatural activity and
intervention by God; consequently, deists did not believe
in miracles or God's providence.... Adams, however, did
believe in miracles, providence, and, to a certain extent,
the Bible as revelation." Fraser argues that Adams'
"theistic rationalism, like that of the other Founders,
was a sort of middle ground between Protestantism and
deism."
By contrast, David L. Holmes has argued that John Adams,
beginning as a Congregationalist, ended his days as a
Christian Unitarian, accepting central tenets of the
Unitarian creed but also accepting Jesus as the redeemer
of humanity and the biblical account of his miracles as
true. In common with many of his Protestant
contemporaries, Adams criticized the claims to universal
authority made by the Roman Catholic Church.
In 1796, Adams denounced political opponent Thomas Paine's
criticisms of Christianity in his Deist book The Age
of Reason, saying, "The Christian religion is, above
all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in
ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue,
equity and humanity, let the Blackguard Paine say what he
will." The first notable biography of John Adams appeared as the first two volumes of The Works of John Adams, Esq., Second President of the United States, edited by Charles Francis Adams and published between 1850 and 1856 by Charles C. Little and James Brown in Boston. This biography's first seven chapters were the work of John Quincy Adams, but the rest of the biography was the work of Charles Francis Adams. The first modern biography was Honest John Adams, a 1933 biography by the noted French specialist in American history Gilbert Chinard, who came to Adams after writing his acclaimed 1929 biography of Thomas Jefferson. For a generation, Chinard's work was regarded as the best life of Adams, and it is still a key factor in determining the themes of Adams biographical and historical scholarship. Following the opening of the Adams family papers in the 1950s, Page Smith published the first major biography to use these previously inaccessible primary sources; his biography won a 1962 Bancroft Prize but was criticized for its scanting of Adams' intellectual life and its diffuseness. In 1975, Peter Shaw published The Character of John Adams, a thematic biography noted for its graceful prose and its psychological insight into Adams' life. The 1992 character study by Joseph J. Ellis, Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams, was Ellis's first major publishing success and remains one of the most useful and insightful studies of Adams' personality. In 1993, the Revolutionary War historian and biographer John E. Ferling published his acclaimed John Adams, also noted for its psychological sensitivity; many scholars regard it as the best biography to date. In 2001, the popular historian David McCullough published a large biography, also entitled John Adams, that won various awards and general acclaim. McCullough's biography was developed into a 2008 TV miniseries, in which Paul Giamatti portrayed John Adams. Finance writer James Grant published John Adams, Party of One in 2005. |