John Adams (1735 - 1826) was an American statesman, lawyer and political theorist who served as the first Vice President of the United States and as its second president, from 1797 to 1801. [1] A leading advocate of independence in the Continental Congress, he helped draft the Declaration of Independence, served as a wartime diplomat in Europe and negotiated the Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War. [2] He also wrote the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, the oldest written constitution still in effect. [3]
Early life and legal career
Adams was born on 30 October 1735 in Braintree, Massachusetts, into a family of modest farmers descended from Puritan settlers. He graduated from Harvard College in 1755, taught school briefly, and then trained for the law, building a substantial practice in Boston. In 1764 he married Abigail Smith, whose extensive correspondence with him is a major source for the period. [1]
He came to public notice opposing the Stamp Act of 1765 in writings that argued the colonies could not be taxed without representation. In 1770 he defended the British soldiers charged over the Boston Massacre, securing acquittals for most of them on the principle that the accused were entitled to counsel and a fair trial — an unpopular decision he later regarded as among his best. [2]
Independence
Adams served in the First and Second Continental Congresses, where he became the foremost advocate of separation from Britain. He nominated George Washington to command the Continental Army, sat on the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence, and argued the case for it on the floor of Congress. [1]
In 1780 he drafted the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, whose structure of separated powers and declaration of rights influenced the later federal constitution. [3]
Diplomacy
Sent to Europe as a commissioner, Adams secured recognition and crucial loans from the Dutch Republic, and with Benjamin Franklin and John Jay negotiated the Treaty of Paris of 1783, which recognised American independence. He then served as the first United States minister to the Court of St James's in London. [2]
Vice presidency and presidency
Adams finished second to Washington in the first presidential election and so became vice president, serving two terms in an office he found frustrating while casting a record number of tie-breaking Senate votes. [1]
Elected president in 1796 as a Federalist, he inherited a deteriorating relationship with revolutionary France. The XYZ Affair, in which French agents demanded bribes from American envoys, produced an undeclared naval conflict known as the Quasi-War. Against the wishes of much of his own party, Adams sent a new peace mission and settled the dispute by the Convention of 1800, avoiding a full war but splitting the Federalists. [2]
His administration also enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which restricted immigration and criminalised criticism of the government; their use against opposition newspapers provoked lasting controversy and contributed to his defeat by Thomas Jefferson in the election of 1800. He left office in March 1801 after appointing John Marshall chief justice. [3]
Later life and legacy
Adams retired to Quincy, Massachusetts, and devoted himself to reading and correspondence. A famous exchange of letters with his old rival Jefferson, resumed in 1812 and continuing for fourteen years, ranged over politics, religion and history. Both men died on 4 July 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. [1]
Adams is remembered for the peaceful transfer of power to an opposing party in 1801, for his insistence on the rule of law, and for a body of political writing that shaped American constitutional design. [3] His son John Quincy Adams became the sixth president.
