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John Adams Biography

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Adams, John, 2nd President of the United States; born in Braintree, Mass., Oct. 19, 1735. He was educated at Harvard and adopted the law as a profession. His attention was directed to politics by the question which began to excite the colonies as to the right of the English Parliament to impose taxation upon them, and he took up a position strongly opposed to the claims of the mother country. In 1765 he published in the Boston "Gazette" some essays, which were reprinted in London in 1768, under the title of "A Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law," the subject really treated is which was the government of the colonies and the rights of the colonists, In 1774 he was chosen a delegate from Massachusetts to the 1st Continental Congress. On his return he was appointed a member of the Provincial Congress, which had already begun to take aggressive measures against the home government. In 1775 he again attended the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, in which he set himself in determined opposition to all attempts at reconciliation with the home government, and succeeded in persuading Congress to take means of national defense. To secure the good-will of Virginia he proposed Washington for the command of the army. Next session he was appointed a member of committee on naval affairs and drew up the regulations which still form the basis of the American naval code. At the beginning of 1776 he accepted the post of chief-justice of Massachusetts, but he soon after resigned the appointment. He published at this time "Thoughts on Government, applicable to the Present State of the American Colonies," in which he supported self-government by the different colonies with confederation. He seconded the motion for a declaration of independence proposed by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, and was appointed a member of committee to draw it up, He was a signer of the Declaration. He was also appointed a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations. He was next appointed chairman of the board of war and ordnance, a position which he held for 18 months. Near the end of 1777 he was sent to France on a special mission, and for 10 years he resided abroad as representative of his country in France, Holland, and England. He succeeded in negotiating various loans with Holland, and after taking part in the peace negotiations was appointed, in 1785, the first minister of the United States to the court of St. James. He was recalled in 1788 and elected Vice-President of the republic under Washington. In 1790 he published "Discourses on Davila," in which he opposed the principles of the French revolution. In 1792 he was reelected Vice-President, and at the following election he became President. The country was then divided into two parties, the Federalists, who favored aristocratic and were suspected of monarchic views, and the Republicans. Adams adhered to the former party. Hamilton did his utmost with his own party to prevent the election of Adams, and his term of office proved a stormy one, which broke up and dissolved the Federalist party. His reelection was again opposed by Hamilton, which ended in effecting the return of the Republican candidate Jefferson. Living to a great age he became, as one of the last survivors of the Revolution, a hero to the following generation. In 1820 he became a member of a State convention to revise the constitution of Massachusetts. He died July 4, 1826, on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and on the same day as Jefferson. Adams's works were ably and carefully edited by his grandson Charles Francis Adams.