John Adams
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| John Adams |
 |
| 2nd President of the United States |
In office
March 4, 1797 – March 4, 1801 |
| Vice President | Thomas Jefferson |
| Preceded by | George Washington |
| Succeeded by | Thomas Jefferson |
| 1st Vice President of the United States |
In office
April 21, 1789* – March 4, 1797 |
| President | George Washington |
| Succeeded by | Thomas Jefferson |
| United States Ambassador to Great Britain |
In office
April 1, 1785 – March 30, 1788 |
| Appointed by | Congress of the Confederation |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Thomas Pinckney |
| United States Ambassador to the Netherlands |
In office
April 19, 1782 – March 30, 1788 |
| Appointed by | Congress of the Confederation |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Charles Dumas (Acting) |
| Delegate from Massachusetts to the Second Continental Congress |
In office
May 10, 1775 – June 27, 1778 |
| Preceded by | None |
| Succeeded by | Samuel Holten |
| Delegate from Massachusetts Bay to the First Continental Congress |
In office
September 5, 1774 – October 26, 1774 |
| Preceded by | None |
| Succeeded by | None |
| Personal details |
| Born | October 30, 1735
Braintree Massachusetts Bay (now Quincy), British America |
| Died | July 4, 1826 (aged 90)
Quincy, Massachusetts, United States |
| Political party | Federalist Party |
| Spouse(s) | Abigail Smith |
| Children | Nabby
John Quincy
Susanna
Charles
Thomas
Elizabeth (Stillborn) |
| Alma mater | Harvard University |
| Profession | Lawyer |
| Religion | Unitarianism |
| Signature |  |
| *Adams' term as Vice President is sometimes listed as starting on either March 4 or April 6. March 4 is the official start of the first vice presidential term. April 6 is the date on which Congress counted the electoral votes and certified a Vice President. April 21 is the date on which Adams began presiding over the U.S. Senate. |
John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the
second President of the United States (1797–1801). Hailing from
New England, Adams, a prominent lawyer and public figure in
Boston, was highly educated and represented
Enlightenment values promoting
republicanism. A
Federalist, he was highly influential and one of the key
Founding Fathers of the United States.
Adams came to prominence in the early stages of the
American Revolution. As a delegate from
Massachusetts to the
Continental Congress, he played a leading role in persuading Congress to declare independence, and assisted
Thomas Jefferson in drafting the
United States Declaration of Independence in 1776. As a representative of Congress in Europe, he was a major negotiator of the eventual
peace treaty with
Great Britain, and chiefly responsible for obtaining important loans from
Amsterdam bankers. A political theorist and historian, Adams largely wrote the
Massachusetts state constitution in 1780, but was in
Europe when the federal Constitution was drafted on similar principles later in the decade. 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 reelection 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.
Early life
John Adams, Jr., the eldest of three sons,
[1] 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.
[2] The location of Adams's birth is now part of
Adams National Historical Park. His father, also named John (1691–1761), was a fifth-generation descendant of Henry Adams, who emigrated from
Braintree, Essex, in England to
Massachusetts Bay Colony in about 1638. His father was a farmer, a
Congregationalist (that is,
Puritan)
deacon, a lieutenant in the militia and a selectman, or town councilman, who supervised schools and roads. His mother, Susanna Boylston Adams,
[3] was a descendant of the Boylstons of Brookline.
Adams was born to a modest family, but he felt acutely the responsibility of living up to his family heritage: the founding generation of Puritans, who came to the American wilderness in the 1630s and established colonial presence in America. The Puritans of the great migration "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."
[4] By the time of John Adams's 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.
[5]
Young Adams went to
Harvard College at age sixteen in 1751.
[6] His father expected him to become a minister, but Adams had doubts. After graduating in 1755, 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 and studied law in the office of John Putnam, a prominent lawyer in Worcester. In 1758, 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 superior court of Massachusetts 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.
[7]
On October 25, 1764, five days before his 29th birthday, Adams married
Abigail Smith (1744–1818), his third cousin
[8] 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 the
stillborn 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,
[9] 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.
Career before the Revolution
Opponent of Stamp Act 1765
Adams first rose to prominence as an opponent of the
Stamp Act of 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.
[10]
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's 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.
[11]
Boston Massacre
In 1770, a street confrontation resulted in
British soldiers killing five civilians in what became known as the
Boston Massacre.
[12] 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."
[13] 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.
[14]
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.
[15]
Dispute concerning Parliament's authority
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.
Continental Congress
Massachusetts sent Adams to the first and second
Continental Congresses in 1774 and from 1775 to 1777.
[16] 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.
On May 15, 1776, the Continental Congress, in response to escalating hostilities which had started thirteen months earlier at the
battles of Lexington and Concord, urged that the colonies begin constructing their own constitutions, a precursor to becoming independent states. The resolution to draft independent constitutions was, as Adams put it, "independence itself."
[17]
Over the next decade, Americans from every state gathered and deliberated on new governing documents. As radical as it was to write constitutions (prior convention suggested that a society's form of government needn't be codified, nor should its organic law be written down in a single document), what was equally radical was the nature of American political thought as the summer of 1776 dawned.
[18]
Thoughts on Government
"The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves."
Several representatives turned to Adams for advice about framing new governments. Adams got tired of repeating the same thing, and published the pamphlet "
Thoughts on Government" (1776),
[20] which was subsequently influential in the writing of state constitutions.
[21] 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.
[22]
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",
There is no good government but what is republican. That the only valuable part of the
British constitution is so; because the very definition of a republic is 'an empire of laws, and not of men.
The treatise also defended
bicameralism, for "
a single assembly is liable to all the vices, follies, and frailties of an individual."
[23] 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.
Trumbull's Declaration of Independence depicts the five-man committee presenting the draft of the Declaration of Independence to Congress. Adams is seen standing in the center with his hand on his hip.
Declaration of Independence
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.
[24]
He was appointed to a
committee with
Thomas Jefferson,
Benjamin Franklin,
Robert R. Livingston and
Roger Sherman, to draft a
Declaration of Independence. Although that document was written primarily by Jefferson, Adams occupied the foremost place in the debate on its adoption. 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."
[25]
After the defeat of the
Continental Army at the
Battle of Long Island on August 27, 1776,
General William Howe requested the Second Continental Congress send representatives
to negotiate peace. A delegation including Adams and
Benjamin Franklin met with Howe on
Staten Island in
New York Harbor on September 11, where Howe demanded the Declaration of Independence be rescinded before any other terms could be discussed. The delegation refused, and hostilities continued. In 1777, Adams resigned his seat on the Massachusetts Superior Court to serve as the head of the
Board of War and Ordnance, as well as many other important committees.
[26]
In Europe
Congress twice dispatched Adams to represent the fledgling union in Europe, first in 1777, and again in 1779. 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 and 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.
[27]
Adams was in some regards an unlikely choice in as much as he did not speak French, the international language of diplomacy at the time.
[28] 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 14th
[29] aboard the French frigate
Sensible.
On the second trip, Adams was appointed as
Minister Plenipotentiary charged with the mission of negotiating a treaty of amity and commerce with Britain. The French government, however, did not approve of Adams's 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.
[30]
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 these 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.
[31] During this visit, he also negotiated a loan of five million guilders financed by
Nicolaas van Staphorst and
Wilhelm Willink.
[32] 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.
[33] For two months during 1783, Adams lodged in London with radical publisher
John Stockdale.
[34]
In 1784 and 1785, he was one of the architects of far-going trade relations between the
US and
Prussia. The Prussian ambassador in The Hague,
Friedrich Wilhelm von Thulemeyer, was involved, as were Jefferson and Franklin, who were in Paris.
[35]
In 1785, John Adams was appointed the first American minister to the
Court of St. James's (ambassador to
Great Britain). When he was presented to his former sovereign,
George III, the King intimated that he was aware of Adams's 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:
John Adams, America's first Ambassador, said to my ancestor, King George III, that it was his desire to help with the restoration of 'the old good nature and the old good humor between our peoples.' That restoration has long been made, and the links of language, tradition, and personal contact have maintained it.[36]
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.
[37]
Adams's 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.
Constitutional ideas
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.
[38] 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).
[39] 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."
[40] 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.
[41] Yet Wood overlooks Adams's peculiar definition of the term "republic," and his support for a constitution ratified by the people.
[42] He also underplays Adams's 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.
[43][44] Adams did as much as anyone to put the idea of "checks and balances" on the intellectual map.
Adams's
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.
[45]
Adams never bought a slave and declined on principle to employ slave labor.
[46] 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."
[47] He also was against use of black soldiers in the Revolution, due to opposition from southerners.
[47] Adams generally tried to keep the issue out of national politics, because of the anticipated southern response.
[47][48] 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.
[49]
Vice Presidency
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 in
1792. Washington seldom asked Adams for input on policy and legal issues during his tenure as vice president.
[50]
In the first year 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" over the simple "President of the United States" that eventually won the debate. The 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.
[51] 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's 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's 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.
[52]
Adams's 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."
[53]
Election of 1796
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.
[54]
Adams's 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).
[55]
Presidency: 1797–1801
President's House,
Philadelphia. The presidential mansion of George Washington before him, Adams occupied this Philadelphia mansion from March 1797 to May 1800.
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. Some historians consider his worst mistake to be keeping the old cabinet, which was controlled by Hamilton, instead of installing his own people, confirming Adams' own admission that he was a poor politician because he "was unpractised in intrigues for power."
[56] Yet, there are those historians who feel that Adams' retention of Washington's cabinet was a statesmanlike step to soothe worries about an orderly succession. As Adams himself explained, "I had then no particular object of any of them."
[57] Adams spent much of his term at his home in Massachusetts, ignoring the details of patronage and communication that were not ignored by his opponents in both parties.
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."
[58]
Adams continued not just the Washington cabinet but all the major programs of the Washington Administration as well. Adams made no major new proposals. His economic programs were thus a continuation of those of Hamilton, who regularly consulted with key cabinet members, especially the powerful Secretary of the Treasury,
Oliver Wolcott, Jr.[59]
Foreign policy
Adams's term (1797–1801) was marked by intense disputes over foreign policy and a limited naval war with France.
Britain and France were at war; Hamilton and the Federalists favored Britain, while Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans favored France.
[60]
When Adams
entered office, he realized that he needed to protect Washington's policy of staying out of the French and British 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, with most elections now contested.
[61]
The French saw America as Britain's junior partner and
began seizing American merchant ships that were trading with the British in what became known as the "
Quasi-War." Neither nation declared war officially, but the risk was high and the Federalists re-armed the nation in preparation for war—and perhaps in preparation for suppressing the anti-war Republicans.
[62]
The humiliation of the
XYZ Affair, in which the French demanded huge bribes (specifically $250,000 to French foreign minister Talleyrand) before any discussions could begin, led to serious threats of full-scale war with France and embarrassed the Jeffersonians, who were friends to France. An undeclared naval war between the U.S. and France, called the
Quasi-War, broke out in 1798, and there was danger of invasion from the much larger and more powerful French forces. The Federalists built up the army, bringing back Washington as its head and Hamilton as its leading force. Adams rebuilt the Navy, adding
six fast, powerful frigates, such as
USS Constitution. To pay for it all, Congress raised taxes.
[63] 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."
[64]
Alien and Sedition Acts
Federalists in Congress passed the
Alien and Sedition Acts, which were signed by Adams in 1798.
[65][66]
There were four separate acts:
- The Naturalization Act, passed on June 18
- The Alien Act, passed on June 24
- The Alien Enemies Act, passed on July 6
- The Sedition Act, passed on July 14
These four acts were passed to suppress Republican opposition. 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
[who?] 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
[who?] 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.
[67]
Army
The Federalist party was deeply divided over the leadership of the Army. Adams was forced to name Washington as commander of the new army, and Washington demanded that Hamilton be his second-in-command. Adams reluctantly gave in.
[68] Major General Hamilton assumed a high degree of control over the War department. The rift between Adams and the High Federalists (as Adams's opponents were called) grew wider. The High Federalists refused to consult Adams over the key legislation of 1798;
[clarification needed] they changed the defense measures which he had called for, demanded that Hamilton control the army, and refused to recognize the necessity of giving key Democratic-Republicans (like
Aaron Burr) senior positions in the army (which Adams wanted to do to gain some Democratic-Republican support). By building a large
standing army the High Federalists 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.
[69]
For long stretches, Adams withdrew to his home in Massachusetts. In February 1799, Adams stunned the country by sending diplomat
William Vans Murray on a peace mission to France.
Napoleon, realizing the animosity of the United States was doing no good, signaled his readiness for friendly relations. The
Treaty of Alliance of 1778 was superseded and the United States could now be free of foreign entanglements, as Washington advised in his own Farewell Letter. Adams avoided war, but deeply split his own party in the process. He brought in
John Marshall as Secretary of State and demobilized the emergency army.
[70]
Fries's Rebellion
To pay for the new Army, 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.
[71]
Reelection campaign 1800
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's campaign in hopes 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 popular disapproval of the Alien and Sedition Acts, the popularity of his opponent, Jefferson, 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.
[72]
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.
[73] Since 1800 was not a leap year, he served one less day in office than all other one-term Presidents.
Midnight Judges
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.
[74] 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. Adams's greatest legacy 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.
[75]
Major presidential actions
Speeches
Inaugural Addresses
State of the Union Address
Administration, Cabinet and Supreme Court Appointments 1797–1801
Post presidency
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. Adams's 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, near the town of Quincy, which had absorbed his birthplace,
Braintree. 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.
[76]
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.
[77]
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.
[78]
John Adams was nearly 89 when, at the request of his son, John Quincy Adams, he posed a final time for
Gilbert Stuart (1823).
Their letters are rich in insight into both the period and the minds of the two Presidents and revolutionary leaders. Their correspondence lasted fourteen years, and consisted of 158 letters.
[78] It was in these years that the two men discussed "natural aristocracy." Jefferson said, "The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of society. May we not even say that the form of government is best which provides most effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government?"
[79] Adams wondered if it ever would be so clear who these people were, "Your distinction between natural and artificial aristocracy does not appear to me well founded. Birth and wealth are conferred on some men as imperiously by nature, as genius, strength, or beauty. . . . When aristocracies are established by human laws and honour, wealth, and power are made hereditary by municipal laws and political institutions, then I acknowledge artificial aristocracy to commence."
[80] It would always be true, Adams argued, that fate would bestow influence on some men for reasons other than true wisdom and virtue. That being the way of nature, he thought such "talents" were natural. A good government, therefore, had to account for that reality.
Sixteen months before John Adams's 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's 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's life.
[76]
Death
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:
My best wishes, in the joys, and festivities, and the solemn services of that day on which will be completed the fiftieth year from its birth, of the independence of the United States: a memorable epoch in the annals of the human race, destined in future history to form the brightest or the blackest page, according to the use or the abuse of those political institutions by which they shall, in time to come, be shaped by the human mind.[81]
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". 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.
[82]
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.
Religious views
Adams was raised a
Congregationalist, becoming a
Unitarian at a time when most of the Congregational churches around Boston were turning to Unitarianism. Adams was educated at Harvard when the influence of
deism was growing there, and used deistic terms in his speeches and writing.
[83] He believed in the essential goodness of the creation, but, being a Unitarian, his beliefs excluded the divinity of Christ. 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.
[84] Fielding (1940) shows that Adams's beliefs synthesized Puritan, deist, and
humanist concepts. Adams thought Christianity had originally been
revelatory, but was being misinterpreted and misused in the service of superstition, fraud, and unscrupulous power.
[85] 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."
[86] 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."
[87] Fraser concludes that Adams's "theistic rationalism, like that of the other Founders, was a sort of middle ground between Protestantism and deism."
[88] 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.
[89]
United First Parish Church
In common with many of his contemporaries, Adams criticized the claims to universal authority made by the Roman Catholic Church.
[90]
In 1796, Adams denounced political opponent
Thomas Paine's criticisms of Christianity in his 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."
[91]
The Unitarian Universalist Historical Society provides information about Adams's religious beliefs.
[92] They quote from his letter to
Benjamin Rush, an early promoter of Universalist thought, "I have attended public worship in all countries and with all sects and believe them all much better than no religion, though I have not thought myself obliged to believe all I heard." The Society also relates how Rush reconciled Adams to his former friend
Thomas Jefferson in 1812, after many bitter political battles. This resulted in correspondence between Adams and Jefferson about many topics, including philosophy and religion. In one of these communications, Adams told Jefferson, "The
Ten Commandments and the
Sermon on the Mount contain my religion." In another letter, Adams reveals his sincere devotion to God, "My Adoration of the Author of the Universe is too profound and too sincere. The Love of God and his Creation; delight, Joy, Tryumph, Exaltation in my own existence, tho' but an Atom, a molecule Organique, in the Universe, are my religion." He continues by revealing his Universalist sympathies, rejection of orthodox Christian dogma, and his personal belief that he was a true Christian for not accepting such dogma, "Howl, Snarl, bite, Ye Calvinistick! Ye Athanasian Divines, if You will. Ye will say, I am no Christian: I say Ye are no Christians: and there the Account is ballanced. Yet I believe all the honest men among you, are Christians in my Sense of the Word." The Society also demonstrates that Adams rejected orthodox Christian doctrines of the trinity, predestination, yet equated human understanding and the human conscience to "celestial communication" or personal revelation from God. It is also shown that Adams held a strong conviction in life after death or otherwise, as he explained, "You might be ashamed of your Maker."
[92]
Ancestry
| [show]Ancestors of John Adams |
Biographies
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[disambiguation needed]. 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's 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's 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's 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 of John Adams that won various awards and general acclaim and was developed into a 2008
TV miniseries). The most recent life, and one of the most thoughtful and accessible biographies of Adams, was
John Adams, Party of One, a 2005 study by
James Grant.
Taken from Wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License.
