John Adams was born on Ocober 30, 1735 in Braintree MA. He was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Prior to his presidency, he was a leader of the American Revolution that achieved independence from Great Britain, and during the war, he served as a diplomat in Europe. He also served as vice president to George Washington from 1789 to 1797. John Adams was a political activist devoted to the right to counsel and the presumption of innocence. Applying this principle, he defended British soldiers against murder charges arising from the Boston Massacre. As a Massachusetts delegate to the Continental Congress, he assisted Jefferson in drafting the Declaration of Independence in 1776. As a diplomat in Europe, he helped negotiate a peace treaty with Great Britain and secured vital governmental loans to support the war of independence. Adams was the primary author of the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780, supported by his essay Thoughts on Government, that had a profound influence on the United States constitution. Recognizing the importance of a powerful military presence, he reinforced the Army and Navy in the undeclared naval war (called the “Quasi-War”) with France. During his term, he became the first president to reside in the White House.
After his bid for reelection in 1802, John Adams lost his support from Jefferson and subsequently retired to Massachusetts. Eventually, he resumed his friendship with Jefferson by initiating a correspondence that lasted fourteen years. Meanwhile, he and his wife generated the Adams political family, a line of politicians, diplomats, and historians, including their son John Quincy Adams, the sixth president, whom many historians regard as the most intelligent of all the U.S. Presidents. John Adams died on July 4, 1826 – the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence – just hours after Jefferson’s death. Adams and his son are the only presidents of the first twelve who never owned slaves. Surveys of historians and scholars have ranked his administration favourably as one of the most effective presidencies in the history of the U.S. government.
Reflecting on the dangers of polarization within government, John Adams once stated, “There is nothing I dread so much as the division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our constitution.”
